Page images
PDF
EPUB

towers in sublime excellence. Is it the work of man, lik of its friends and foes, or is it the work of God? Did teach as a mere man, and are these narratives and epist work of the simple fishermen of Galilee and the disciples maliel, or did Christ teach as the divine Son of God, and tles speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost?

ART. VII. THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHY*.

This term is used in this article, to designate a certai of opinions which appear to have recently originated in ny, as the French Philosophy about the time of the Revolution originated in France.

The German Philosophy differs from the French, in t spect, at least, that the French was infidelity, open and a God was ignored, Christ was treated with contempt, and ion was discarded as a worthless delusion, a trammel to and a barrier to human enjoyment.

*Origin and History of the Books of the Bible. Stowe, D. D. Life of Jesus. By Ernest Renan. the same author. American Encyclopædia.

By Prof. The apostl

fferent auspices and grown in a wholly different soil. rench are frank, brisk, lively and impulsive. The Ger mparatively plodding, dreamy and speculative, conve ot only with the Catholic system, but with the Prote: ith. They better knew the value of religion than the Fr new it, in the dawning of their Philosophy-or than now it now, or are likely to know it for half a century me, or at least, as long as the Emperor of the Frenc Le special guardian of the Pope of Rome.

We have said the French Philosophy professed to be Infi n the other hand, the German professes to be Christian, aims to regard religion as indispensable to the true progres ciety, and as an essential element in the happiness of m o its masters teach, as we shall see.

Geo. Wm. Frederic Hegel, Professor of Philosophy at Ber orn Aug. 27, 1770, may be regarded as the father of stem, if it be a system, with which we are dealing. I ue, as his biographers state, that he studied closely the w gs of Kant, even in his schoolboy days, and partially f wed him. Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg, Pruss pril 22, 1724. His philosophical writings were independ d profound. But his mind, from early life, had been grea fluenced by the subtle skepticism of Hume, who was but th en years his senior.

This bird's eye view of the origin of the German Philosoph we have given it correctly, shows us David Hume as its grea andfather, a man who stands, as we suppose no one will que

tion, either at the very head of modern skepticism, or at least second to none of his peers. It shows Kant, also a German Philosopher, to have been its grandsire, concerning whose philosophy perhaps a few words more may not be amiss. When this really profound thinker came upon the stage, he found two popular systems of philosophy-the sensual system of Locke, as it is sometimes called, on the one hand, and the idealism of Leibnitz and other authors of a similar cast, on the other. With both these systems Kant became dissatisfied. They were too dogmatical and uncertain for him; at least so say his admirers. He therefore commenced by raising such inquiries as these: What can I know? What is it that I know originally? And what do I learn by experience? &c. Hume had proved, to the satisfaction of Kant, that our ideas of cause and effect are not derived from experience, but he had settled down upon the opinion that "They are the spurious offspring of the imagination, impregnated by custom." From this opinion Mr. Kant differed, and perceived "The idea of cause and effect is by no means the only one which the mind makes use of with the consciousness of its necessity." Here he diverged from the philosophical opinions of Mr. Hume. He regarded the metaphysical arguments for and against the immortality of the soul, and for and against the eternal duration of the world, as equally balanced. How much more of certainty he gained than he would have done by studying Locke, and adopting his system, may be easily imagined.

And this author is the one who, more than any other, moulded the opinions of Geo. Wm. Fred. Hegel, author of philosophic works, entitled, The difference between the Philosophy of Fichte & Schelling in 1801—and who, in conjunction with the latter, published the critical Journal of Philosophy in 1802, and who published his System of Science in 1807, and who published his Science of Logic in 1812, and who, in the course of the following four years, published the other two volumes which constitute his philosophical System. He afterwards wrote the Encyclopædia of the Philosophical Sciences, and still later his Elements of Right, or the Basis of Natural Law and Political Science.

The works of this author are too voluminous to repay

The other shape,

If shape it may be called, which shape has none,
Distinguishable in member, joint or limb,

Or substance may be called, that shadow seems,
For each seems either; black it stands, as night-
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shakes a dreadful dart, and what seems its head,

The likeness of a kingly crown has on.'"

Ve do not give these words as fully expressive of our C ion of the character of the German Philosophy, but as ion of another, greater and wiser and better man, thou ned in a somewhat different school.

The illustrious author of this Philosophy, who has acquired ld-wide celebrity, had before him the French Philosop parably associated with the French Revolution, and t n of terror-men's heads in hundreds rolling from the gu ne into the basket, gutters running with the blood of pron t citizens, whose only crime was that they dissented, or we pected of dissenting from the predominant party-priso wded with haggard victims, waiting their turn to be tak n their place of incarceration to the place of execution, co nce wholly destroyed, distrust and a sense of peril every ere prevailing, and the infuriated mob shouting the praises erty and Equality, and crying for the blood of all who dare liffer from themselves in opinion. He could not close hi s to the fact that however corrupt and however puerile th nan church had become, and however hideous might be th upant of St. Peter's chair, a corrupted and puerile religion

which still retained in its theory a knowledge and fear of God, was better for the world than open infidelity. Yet the skepticism he had early imbibed from Hume and Kant, clung to him and influenced him, though imperceptibly, in all his researches and labors. Such at least is, to our mind, the only solution of the problematical life and doctrines of this truly great and amiable man.

The only principles in this philosophy with which we wish to deal, the only features indeed in which we have the least possible interest, are those which bear directly on religion. We care but little for the metaphysics of this great author and his deep thinking speculating countrymen. We care still less for their fine spun theories on solids and fluids, rest and motion, growth and decay, congelation and combustion, electricity, light and caloric, inanimate matter, vegetable life or animal life, or the whole range of science, physical and animal. On all other matters let them speculate and discuss; let them talk and write. They will regulate themselves in time, and no fatal blunders will the world make, we trust, in consequence thereof. But it is not so with those notions which pertain to man's duty to his God and his fellow man, or to the faith or unbelief which may affect his eternal future.

The main principle laid down by Hegelian Philosophy, is "The absolute identity of subject and object." This, says Prof. Stowe, is "the great discovery boasted by Hegel and his followers, the great first principle of all truth, the honor of whose development Schelling in vain attempted to dispute with Hegel."

Feuerbach, a doctor of the same school, presents this same principle in its application to Deity thus-" God is only a being of the understanding, a reflected image of the human intellect, projected upon vacancy, not only in his attributes but in his very existence, demonstrable to have no other than this deceitful origination."

Let me for a moment continue the development of this principle which constitutes this wonderful discovery in religion—that the subject and object are identical. Man is the subject, and desiring an object of worship, he projects his own image upon

« PreviousContinue »