In these pages we give to the world the philosophical Lectures which the
late F. V. Schlegel delivered last winter, at Dresden, to a numerous and
distinguished auditory--the last monument of his life and mind. To many
of his personal hearers they will probably be welcome, as enabling them,
in the perusal of what their own ears so lately heard, to realize more
distinctly the matter of the Lectures, and the whole person of the
eminent individual who was so unexpectedly taken away from among them.
But to a still larger circle of the friends and admirers of Schlegel,
this publication will, no doubt, be acceptable, especially since, under
a pervading reference to language, it throws much light and more fully
carries out the views advanced by Schlegel in the Lectures delivered two
years before, at Vienna, on the Philosophy of Life. In this rich and
important fragment, Schlegel’s whole idea of philosophy stands out far
more clear and distinct, though, for its complete elucidation and
exposition, it was his intention, had he been spared, to add at least
one more series of Lectures to the three already given to the world.
The present publication is eminently calculated to show what in these
three connected series of Lectures it was the author’s first object,
both as a thinker and teacher, to accomplish, viz., to convey the living
words of his inmost mind, rich with the fruits of many years’ study and
research, to all who possessed a sensibility or disposition likely to be
roused and animated thereby to pursue or promote some kindred inquiry or
object. It would, therefore, be a proof of grave misconception to make
such requisitions on these Lectures as are incompatible with this end
and with the character which they most covet, of being, in the higher
sense of the term, a living discourse; for, to satisfy such demands was
neither the design or wish of the author. It was not his purpose either
to take some single abstract notion, and by detailed elucidation to make
it clear and obvious, nor to set up some rigorously limited system of
notions, with its definitions and arbitrary terminology, whose great
merit should be made to consist in such regularity of plan and faithful
execution, as should every where command the notice and the wonder of
the reader. In short, it was not his object, in some partial speculation
of the reason, exclusively to set forth a long series of abstract
propositions as a model and precedent for such essays. Those, however,
who, to use Schlegel’s own words, look upon these Lectures as a series
of questions to which their own hearts, silently, indeed, give a
concurrent answer, or find therein the satisfactory solution to many
difficulties suggested by their own reflections on the life and mind of
man, will not be able to get rid of a just and righteous sorrow, to
think that the voice from which they still looked for many such
questionings, and much similar instruction, is suddenly silenced, and
that none remains who, as inheriting the spirit of the departed, or as
his favorite and intelligent scholar, is able to supply what is still
wanting.
With this heavy feeling of sorrow, it seems perhaps inconsistent to
express a passing regret that the author has not been permitted himself
to superintend this edition of his Lectures, and to make those
corrections which here and there might have appeared to him desirable. A
few passages, noticed thus (†) in the text, were marked by Schlegel
himself, either for emendation or enlargement, and the loss of these
corrections we can not but miss and regret.