The History of Philosophy has to represent this science in that form

of time and individualities from which its outward form has resulted.

Such a representation has, however, to shut out from itself the

external history of the time, and to take into account only the general

character of the people and time, and likewise their circumstances as a

whole. But as a matter of fact, the history of Philosophy does present

this character, and that indeed in the highest possible degree;

its connection with it is of the closest kind, and the particular

appearance presented by a philosophy belonging to one special period,

is only a particular aspect or element in the character. Because of

this inward correspondence we have partly to consider more closely

the particular relation borne by a philosophy to its historical

surroundings, and partly, but pre-eminently, what is proper to itself,

from which alone, after separating everything related however closely,

we can fix our standpoint. This connection, which is not merely

external but essential, has thus two sides, which we must consider. The

first is the distinctly historical side, the second is the connection

with other matters—the connection of Philosophy with Religion, for

instance, by which we at once obtain a deeper conception of Philosophy

itself.

1. THE HISTORICAL SIDE OF THIS CONNECTION.

It is usually said that political affairs and such matters as Religion

are to be taken into consideration because they have exercised a great

influence on the Philosophy of the time, and similarly it exerts an

influence upon them. But when people are content with such a category

as “great influence” they place the two in an external relationship,

and start from the point of view that both sides are for themselves

independent. Here, however, we must think of this relationship in

another category, and not according to the influence or effect of one

upon the other. The true category is the unity of all these different

forms, so that it is one Mind which manifests itself in, and impresses

itself upon these different elements.

a. _Outward and historical conditions imposed upon Philosophy._

It must be remarked in the first place, that a certain stage is

requisite in the intellectual culture of a people in order that it

may have a Philosophy at all. Aristotle says, “Man first begins to

philosophize when the necessities of life are supplied” (Metaphysics,

I. 2); because since Philosophy is a free and not self-seeking

activity, cravings of want must have disappeared, a strength, elevation

and inward fortitude of mind must have appeared, passions must be

subdued and consciousness so far advanced, before what is universal

can be thought of. Philosophy may thus be called a kind of luxury,

in so far as luxury signifies those enjoyments and pursuits which do

not belong to external necessity as such. Philosophy in this respect

seems more capable of being dispensed with than anything else; but that

depends on what is called indispensable. From the point of view of

mind, Philosophy may even be said to be that which is most essential.

b. _The commencement in History of an intellectual necessity for

Philosophy._

However much Philosophy, as the thought and conception of the Mind

of a particular time, is _à priori_, it is at the same time just as

really a result, since the thought produced and, indeed, the life and

action are produced to produce themselves. This activity contains the

essential element of a negation, because to produce is also to destroy;

Philosophy in producing itself, has the natural as its starting point

in order to abrogate it again. Philosophy thus makes its appearance

at a time when the Mind of a people has worked its way out of the

indifference and stolidity of the first life of nature, as it has also

done from the standpoint of the emotional, so that the individual aim

has blotted itself out. But as Mind passes on from its natural form,

it also proceeds from its exact code of morals and the robustness of

life to reflection and conception. The result of this is that it lays

hold of and troubles this real, substantial kind of existence, this

morality and faith, and thus the period of destruction commences.

Further progress is then made through the gathering up of thought

within itself. It may be said that Philosophy first commences when a

race for the most part has left its concrete life, when separation and

change of class have begun, and the people approach toward their fall;

when a gulf has arisen between inward strivings and external reality,

and the old forms of Religion, &c., are no longer satisfying; when Mind

manifests indifference to its living existence or rests unsatisfied

therein, and moral life becomes dissolved. Then it is that Mind takes

refuge in the clear space of thought to create for itself a kingdom of

thought in opposition to the world of actuality, and Philosophy is the

reconciliation following upon the destruction of that real world which

thought has begun. When Philosophy with its abstractions paints grey in

grey, the freshness and life of youth has gone, the reconciliation is

not a reconciliation in the actual, but in the ideal world. Thus the

Greek philosophers held themselves far removed from the business of

the State and were called by the people idlers, because they withdrew

themselves within the world of thought.

This holds good throughout all the history of Philosophy. It was so

with Ionic Philosophy in the decline of the Ionic States in Asia Minor.

Socrates and Plato had no more pleasure in the life of the State in

Athens, which was in the course of its decline; Plato tried to bring

about something better with Dionysius. Thus in Athens, with the ruin of

the Athenian people, the period was reached when Philosophy appeared.

In Rome, Philosophy first expanded in the decline of the Republic and

of Roman life proper, under the despotism of the Roman Emperors: a

time of misfortune for the world and of decay in political life, when

earlier religious systems tottered and everything was in the process

of struggle and disintegration. With the decline of the Roman Empire,

which was so great, rich and glorious, and yet inwardly dead, the

height and indeed the zenith of ancient Philosophy is associated

through the Neo-Platonists at Alexandria. It was also in the fifteenth

and sixteenth centuries, when the Teutonic life of the Middle Ages

acquired another form, that Philosophy first became taught, though it

was later on that it attained to independence. Before that, political

life still existed in unity with Religion, or if the State fought

against the Church, the Church still kept the foremost place, but now

the gulf between Church and State came into existence. Philosophy thus

comes in at a certain epoch only in the development of the whole.

c. _Philosophy as the thought of its time._

But men do not at certain epochs, merely philosophize in general,

for there is a definite Philosophy which arises among a people, and

the definite character of the standpoint of thought is the same

character which permeates all the other historical sides of the spirit

of the people, which is most intimately related to them, and which

constitutes their foundation. The particular form of a Philosophy is

thus contemporaneous with a particular constitution of the people

amongst whom it makes its appearance, with their institutions and forms

of government, their morality, their social life and the capabilities,

customs and enjoyments of the same; it is so with their attempts and

achievements in art and science, with their religious, warfares and

external relationships, likewise with the decadence of the States in

which this particular principle and form had maintained its supremacy,

and with the origination and progress of new States in which a higher

principle finds its manifestation and development. Mind in each case

has elaborated and expanded in the whole domain of its manifold nature

the principle of the particular stage of self-consciousness to which

it has attained. Thus the Mind of a people in its richness is an

organization, and, like a Cathedral, is divided into numerous vaults,

passages, pillars and vestibules, all of which have proceeded out of

one whole and are directed to one end. Philosophy is one form of these

many aspects. And which is it? It is the fullest blossom, the Notion

of Mind in its entire form, the consciousness and spiritual essence of

all things, the spirit of the time as spirit present in itself. The

multifarious whole is reflected in it as in the single focus, in the

Notion which knows itself.

The Philosophy which is essential within Christianity could not be

found in Rome, for all the various forms of the whole are only the

expression of one and the same determinate character. Hence political

history, forms of government, art and religion are not related to

Philosophy as its causes, nor, on the other hand, is Philosophy the

ground of their existence—one and all have the same common root, the

spirit of the time. It is one determinate existence, one determinate

character which permeates all sides and manifests itself in politics

and in all else as in different elements; it is a condition which hangs

together in all its parts, and the various parts of which contain

nothing which is really inconsistent, however diverse and accidental

they may appear to be, and however much they may seem to contradict one

another. This particular stage is the product of the one preceding. But

to show how the spirit of a particular time moulds its whole actuality

and destiny in accordance with its principle, to show this whole

edifice in its conception, is far from us—for that would be the object

of the whole philosophic world-history. Those forms alone concern us

which express the principle of the Mind in a spiritual element related

to Philosophy.

This is the position of Philosophy amongst its varying forms, from

which it follows that it is entirely identical with its time. But

if Philosophy does not stand above its time in content, it does so

in form, because, as the thought and knowledge of that which is the

substantial spirit of its time, it makes that spirit its object. In

as far as Philosophy is in the spirit of its time, the latter is its

determined content in the world, although as knowledge, Philosophy is

above it, since it places it in the relation of object. But this is in

form alone, for Philosophy really has no other content. This knowledge

itself undoubtedly is the actuality of Mind, the self-knowledge of Mind

which previously was not present: thus the formal difference is also a

real and actual difference. Through knowledge, Mind makes manifest a

distinction between knowledge and that which is; this knowledge is thus

what produces a new form of development. The new forms at first are

only special modes of knowledge, and it is thus that a new Philosophy

is produced: yet since it already is a wider kind of spirit, it is the

inward birthplace of the spirit which will later arrive at actual form.

We shall deal further with this in the concrete below, and we shall

then see that what the Greek Philosophy was, entered, in the Christian

world, into actuality.

2. SEPARATION OF PHILOSOPHY FROM OTHER ALLIED DEPARTMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE.

The history of the other Sciences, of culture and above all the history

of art and of religion are, partly in regard to the elements contained

in them, and partly to their particular objects, related to the history

of Philosophy. It is through this relationship that the treatment

of the history of Philosophy has been so confused. If it is to

concern itself with the possession of culture generally and then with

scientific culture, and then again with popular myths and the dogmas

contained only in them, and yet farther with the religious reflections

which are already thoughts of a speculative kind, and which make their

appearance in them, no bounds are left to Philosophy at all. This is

so, partly on account of the amount of material itself and the labour

required in working it up and preparing it, and partly because it is in

immediate connection with so much else. But the separation must not be

made arbitrarily or as by chance, but must be derived from fundamental

determinations. If we merely look at the name of Philosophy, all this

matter will pertain to its history.

I shall speak of this material from three points of view, for three

related aspects are to be eliminated and separated from Philosophy. The

first of these is that which is generally considered to be the domain

of science, and in which are found the beginnings of understanding

thought. The second region is that of mythology and religion; the

relation of Philosophy to them seems often to be inimical both in

the time of the Greeks and of the Christians. The third is that of

philosophizing and the metaphysics of the understanding. While we

distinguish what is related to Philosophy, we must also take note of

the elements in this related matter which belong to the Notion of

Philosophy, but which appear to us to be partially separated from it:

and thus we may become acquainted with the Notion of Philosophy.

a. _Relation of Philosophy to Scientific Knowledge._

Knowledge and thought certainly form the element of whatever has to do

with particular sciences as they form the element of Philosophy; but

their subjects are mainly finite subjects and appearance. A collection

of facts known about this content is by its nature excluded from

Philosophy: neither this content nor such a form has anything to do

with it. But even if the sciences are systematic and contain universal

principles and laws from which they proceed, they are still related to

a limited circle of objects. The ultimate principles are assumed as are

the objects themselves; that is, the outward experience or the feelings

of the heart, natural or educated sense of right and duty, constitute

the source from which they are created. Logic and the determinations

and principles of thought in general are in their methods assumed.

The forms of thought or the points of view and principles which hold

good in the sciences and constitute the ultimate support of all their

matter, are not peculiar to them, but are common to the condition

and culture of the time and of the people. This culture consists

mainly in the general ideas and aims, in the whole extent of the

particular intellectual powers dominating consciousness and life. Our

consciousness has these ideas and allows them to be considered ultimate

determinations; it makes use of them as guiding and connecting links,

but does not know them and does not even make them the objects of its

consideration. To give an abstract example, each act of consciousness

has and requires the whole abstract thought-determination of Being.

“The sun is in the heavens, the bunch of grapes is ripe,” and so on

into infinitude. Again, in a higher culture, such relations as those

of cause and effect are involved, as also those of force and its

manifestation. All its knowledge and ideas are permeated and governed

by a metaphysic such as this; it is the net in which all the concrete

matter which occupies mankind in action and in impulses, is grasped.

But this web and its knots in our ordinary consciousness are sunk into

a manifold material, for it contains the objects and interests which we

know and which we have before us. These common threads are not drawn up

and made explicitly the objects of our reflection.

We Germans seldom now count general scientific knowledge as Philosophy.

And yet traces of this are found, as for instance, in the fact that

the philosophic Faculty contains all the Sciences which have not as

their immediate aim the Church and State. In connection with this,

the significance of the name of Philosophy, which is even now an

important matter of discussion in England, comes in question. Natural

Sciences are in England called Philosophy. A “Philosophic Journal”

in England, edited by Thompson, treats of Chemistry, Agriculture,

Manuring, Husbandry, Technology, like Hermbstädt’s Journal, and gives

inventions connected therewith. The English call physical instruments,

such as the barometer and thermometer, philosophical instruments.

Theories too, and especially morality and the moral sciences, which

are derived from the feelings of the human heart or from experience,

are called Philosophy, and finally this is also so with the theories

and principles of Political Economy. And thus at least in England, is

the name of Philosophy respected. Some time ago a banquet took place

under the presidency of Lord Liverpool, at which the minister Canning

was also present. The latter in returning thanks congratulated England

in having philosophic principles of government there brought into

operation. There, at least, Philosophy is no by-word.

In the first beginnings of culture, however, we are more often met by

this admixture of Philosophy and general knowledge. There comes a time

to a nation when mind applies itself to universal objects, when, for

example, in seeking to bring natural things under general modes of

understanding, it tries to learn their causes. Then it is said that a

people begins to philosophize, for this content has thought in common

with Philosophy. At such a time we find deliverances about all the

common events of Nature, as we also find intellectual maxims, moral

sentences, general principles respecting morality, the will, duty,

and the like, and those who expressed them have been called wise men

or philosophers. Thus in the beginnings of Greek Philosophy we find

the seven sages and the Ionic Philosophers. From them a number of

ideas and discoveries are conveyed to us which seem like philosophic

propositions. Thus Thales, amongst others, has explained that the

eclipse of sun and moon is due to the intervention of the moon or

earth. This is called a theorem. Pythagoras found out the principle

of the harmony of sounds. Others have had ideas about the stars: the

heavens were supposed to be composed of perforated metal, by which we

see throughout the empyrean region, the eternal fire which surrounds

the world. Such propositions as products of the understanding, do not

belong to the history of Philosophy, although they imply that the

merely sensuous gaze has been left behind, as also the representation

of those objects by the imagination only. Earth and heaven thus become

unpeopled with gods, because the understanding distinguishes things in

their outward and natural qualities from Mind.

In a later time the epoch of the revival in the sciences is as

noteworthy in this respect. General principles regarding the state,

&c., were given expression to, and in them a philosophic side cannot be

mistaken. To this place the philosophic systems of Hobbes and Descartes

belong: the writings of the latter contain philosophic principles, but

his Philosophy of Nature is quite empirical. Hugo Grotius composed

an international law in which what was historically held by the

people as law, the _consensus gentium_, was a main element. Though,

earlier, medicine was a collection of isolated facts and a theosophic

combination mixed up with astrology, &c. (it is not so long ago since

cures were effected by sacred relics), a mode of regarding nature

came into vogue according to which men went forth to discover the

laws and forces of Nature. The _à priori_ reasoning regarding natural

things, according to the metaphysics of the Scholastic Philosophy or

to Religion, has now been given up. The Philosophy of Newton contains

nothing but Natural Science, that is, the knowledge of the laws,

forces, and general constitution of Nature, derived from observation

and from experience. However much this may seem to be contrary to the

principle of Philosophy, it has in common with it the fact that the

bases of both are universal, and still further that _I_ have made

this experience, that it rests on my consciousness and obtains its

significance through me.

This form is in its general aspect antagonistic to the positive, and

has come forward as particularly opposed to Religion and to that which

is positive in it. If, in the Middle Ages, the Church had its dogmas

as universal truths, man, on the contrary, has now obtained from the

testimony of his “own thought,” feeling and ideas, a mistrust of these.

It is merely to be remarked of this that “my own thought” is in itself

a pleonasm, because each individual must think for himself, and no one

can do so for another. Similarly this principle has turned against the

recognized constitutions and has sought different principles instead,

by them to correct the former. Universal principles of the State have

now been laid down, while earlier, because religion was positive, the

ground of obedience of subjects to princes and of all authority were

also so. Kings, as the anointed of the Lord, in the sense that Jewish

kings were so, derived their power from God, and had to give account to

Him alone, because all authority is given by God. So far theology and

jurisprudence were on the whole fixed and positive sciences, wherever

this positive character might have been derived. Against this external

authority reflection has been brought to bear, and thus, especially

in England, the source of public and civil law became no longer mere

authority derived from God like the Mosaic Law. For the authority of

kings other justification was sought, such as the end implied in the

State, the good of the people. This forms quite another source of

truth, and it is opposed to that which is revealed, given and positive.

This substitution of another ground than that of authority has been

called philosophizing.

The knowledge was then a knowledge of what is finite—the world of

the content of knowledge. Because this content proceeded through

the personal insight of human reason, man has become independent in

his actions. This independence of the Mind is the true moment of

Philosophy, although the Notion of Philosophy through this formal

determination, which limits it to finite objects, has not yet been

exhausted. This independent thought is respected, has been called

human wisdom or worldly wisdom, for it has had what is earthly as its

object, and it took its origin in the world. This was the meaning of

Philosophy, and men did rightly to call it worldly wisdom. Frederick

von Schlegel revived this by-name for Philosophy, and desired to

indicate by it that what concerns higher spheres, such as religion,

must be kept apart; and he had many followers. Philosophy, indeed,

occupies itself with finite things, but, according to Spinoza, as

resting in the divine Idea: it has thus the same end as religion. To

the finite sciences which are now separated also from Philosophy, the

Churches objected that they led men away from God, since they have as

objects only what is finite. This defect in them, conceived of from the

point of view of content, leads us to the second department allied to

Philosophy,—that is, to Religion.

b. _Relation of Philosophy to Religion.

_As the first department of knowledge was related to Philosophy

principally by means of formal and independent knowledge, Religion,

though in its content quite different from this first kind or sphere

of knowledge, is through it related to Philosophy. Its object is not

the earthly and worldly, but the infinite. In the case of art and

still more in that of Religion, Philosophy has in common a content

composed entirely of universal objects; they constitute the mode in

which the highest Idea is existent for the unphilosophical feeling, the

perceiving and imagining consciousness. Inasmuch as in the progress of

culture in time the manifestation of Religion precedes the appearance

of Philosophy, this circumstance must really be taken account of, and

the conditions requisite for beginning the History of Philosophy have

to depend on this, because it has to be shown in how far what pertains

to Religion is to be excluded from it, and that a commencement must not

be made with Religion.

In Religion, races of men have undoubtedly expressed their idea of the

nature of the world, the substance of nature and of intellect and the

relation of man thereto. Absolute Being is here the object of their

consciousness; and as such, is for them pre-eminently the “other,” a

“beyond,” nearer or further off, more or less friendly or frightful

and alarming. In the act and forms of worship this opposition is

removed by man, and he raises himself to the consciousness of unity

with his Being, to the feeling of, or dependence on, the Grace of

God, in that God has reconciled mankind to Himself. In conception,

with the Greeks, for instance, this existence is to man one which is

already in and for itself and friendly, and thus worship is but the

enjoyment of this unity. This existence is now reason which is existent

in and for itself, the universal and concrete substance, the Mind

whose first cause is objective to itself in consciousness; it thus is

a representation of this last in which not only reason in general,

but the universal infinite reason is. We must, therefore, comprehend

Religion, as Philosophy, before everything else, which means to know

and apprehend it in reason; for it is the work of self-revealing reason

and is the highest form of reason. Such ideas as that priests have

framed a people’s Religion in fraud and self-interest are consequently

absurd; to regard Religion as an arbitrary matter or a deception is as

foolish as it is perverted. Priests have often profaned Religion—the

possibility of which is a consequence of the external relations

and temporal existence of Religion. It can thus, in this external

connection, be laid hold of here and there, but because it is Religion,

it is really that which stands firm against finite ends and their

complications and constitutes a region exalted high above them. This

region of Mind is really the Holy place of Truth itself, the Holy place

in which are dissolved the remaining illusions of the sensuous world,

of finite ideas and ends, and of the sphere of opinion and caprice.

Inasmuch as it really is the content of religions, this rational matter

might now seem to be capable of being abstracted and expressed as a

number of historical theorems. Philosophy stands on the same basis

as Religion and has the same object—the universal reason existing

in and for itself; Mind desires to make this object its own, as is

done with Religion in the act and form of worship. But the form, as

it is present in Religion, is different from what is found to be

contained in Philosophy, and on this account a history of Philosophy

is different from a history of Religion. Worship is only the operation

of reflection; Philosophy attempts to bring about the reconciliation

by means of thinking knowledge, because Mind desires to take up its

Being into itself. Philosophy is related in the form of thinking

consciousness to its object; with Religion it is different. But the

distinction between the two should not be conceived of so abstractly as

to make it seem that thought is only in Philosophy and not in Religion.

The latter has likewise ideas and universal thoughts. Because both are

so nearly related, it is an old tradition in the history of Philosophy

to deduce Philosophy from Persian, Indian, or similar philosophy, a

custom which is still partly retained in all histories of Philosophy.

For this reason, too, it is a legend universally believed, that

Pythagoras, for instance, received his Philosophy from India and Egypt;

the fame of the wisdom of these people, which wisdom is understood also

to contain Philosophy, is an old one. The Oriental ideas and religious

worship which prevailed throughout the West up to the time of the Roman

Empire, likewise bear the name of Oriental Philosophy. The Christian

Religion and Philosophy are thought of in the Christian world, as more

definitely divided; in these Eastern days, on the other hand, Religion

and Philosophy are still conceived of as one in so far as that the

content has remained in the form in which it is Philosophy. Considering

the prevalence of these ideas and in order to have a definite limit to

the relations between a history of Philosophy and religious ideas, it

is desirable to note some further considerations as to the form which

separates religious ideas from philosophical theorems.

Religion has not only universal thought as inward content _implicite_

contained in its myths, ideas, imaginations and in its exact and

positive histories, so that we require first of all to dig this

content out of such myths in the form of theorems, but it often has

its content _explicite_ in the form of thought. In the Persian and

Indian Religions very deep, sublime and speculative thoughts are even

expressed. Indeed, in Religion we even meet philosophies directly

expressed, as in the Philosophy of the Fathers. The scholastic

Philosophy really was Theology; there is found in it a union or, if you

will, a mixture of Theology and Philosophy which may very well puzzle

us. The question which confronts us on the one side is, how Philosophy

differs from Theology, as the science of Religion, or from Religion

as consciousness? And then, in how far have we in the history of

Philosophy to take account of what pertains to Religion? For the reply

to this last question three aspects have again to be dealt with; first

of all the mythical and historical aspect of Religion and its relation

to Philosophy; in the second place the theorems and speculative

thoughts directly expressed in Religion; and in the third place we must

speak of Philosophy within Theology.

_α. Difference between Philosophy and Religion._

The consideration of the mythical aspect of Religion or the historical

and positive side generally, is interesting, because from it the

difference in respect of form will show in what this content is

antagonistic to Philosophy. Indeed, taken in its connections, its

difference passes into apparent inconsistency. This diversity is not

only found in our contemplation but forms a very definite element

in history. It is required by Philosophy that it should justify its

beginning and its manner of knowledge, and Philosophy has thus placed

itself in opposition to Religion. On the other hand Philosophy is

combated and condemned by Religion and by the Churches. The Greek

popular religion indeed, proscribed several philosophers; but the

opposition is even more apparent in the Christian Church. The question

is thus not only whether regard is to be paid to Religion in the

history of Philosophy, for it has been the case that Philosophy has

paid attention to Religion, and the latter to the former. Since neither

of the two has allowed the other to rest undisturbed, we are not

permitted to do so either. Of their relations, therefore, we must speak

definitely, openly and honestly—_aborder la question_, as the French

say. We must not hesitate, as if such a discussion were too delicate,

nor try to help ourselves out by beating about the bush; nor must we

seek to find evasions or shifts, so that in the end no one can tell

what we mean. We must not seem to wish to leave Religion alone. This is

nothing else than to appear to wish to conceal the fact that Philosophy

has directed its efforts against Religion. Religion, that is, the

theologians, are indeed the cause of this; they ignore Philosophy, but

only in order that they may not be contradicted in their arbitrary

reasoning.

It may appear as if Religion demanded that man should abstain from

thinking of universal matters and Philosophy because they are merely

worldly wisdom and represent human operations. Human reason is

here opposed to the divine. Men are, indeed, well accustomed to a

distinction between divine teaching and laws and human power and

inventions, such that under the latter everything is comprehended which

in its manifestation proceeds from the consciousness, the intelligence

or the will of mankind; which makes all this opposed to the knowledge

of God and to things rendered divine by divine revelation. But the

depreciation of what is human expressed by this opposition is then

driven further still, inasmuch as while it implies the further view

that man is certainly called upon to admire the wisdom of God in

Nature, and that the grain, the mountains, the cedars of Lebanon in all

their glory, the song of the birds in the bough, the superior skill

and the domestic instincts of animals are all magnified as being the

work of God, it also implies that the wisdom, goodness and justice of

God is, indeed, pointed out in human affairs, but not so much in the

disposition or laws of man or in actions performed voluntarily and in

the ordinary progress of the world, as in human destiny, that is, in

that which is external and even arbitrary in relation to knowledge

and free-will. Thus what is external and accidental is regarded as

emphatically the work of God, and what has its root in will and

conscience, as the work of man. The harmony between outward relations,

circumstances and events and the general aims of man is certainly

something of a higher kind, but this is the case only for the reason

that this harmony is considered with respect to ends which are human

and not natural—such as those present in the life of a sparrow which

finds its food. But if the summit of everything is found in this, that

God rules over Nature, what then is free-will? Does He not rule over

what is spiritual, or rather since He himself is spiritual, in what

is spiritual? and is not the ruler over or in the spiritual region

higher than a ruler over or in Nature? But is that admiration of God as

revealed in natural things as such, in trees and animals as opposed to

what is human, far removed from the religion of the ancient Egyptians,

which derived its knowledge of what is divine from the ibis, or from

cats and dogs? or does it differ from the deplorable condition of the

ancient and the modern Indians, who held and still hold cows and apes

in reverence, and are scrupulously concerned for the maintenance and

nourishment of these animals, while they allow men to suffer hunger;

who would commit a crime by removing the pangs of starvation through

their slaughter or even by partaking of their food?

It seems to be expressed by such a view that human action as regards

Nature is ungodly; that the operations of Nature are divine operations,

but what man produces is ungodly. But the productions of human reason

might, at least, be esteemed as much as Nature. In so doing, however,

we cede less to reason than is permitted to us. If the life and the

action of animals be divine, human action must stand much higher, and

must be worthy to be called divine in an infinitely higher sense. The

preeminence of human thought must forthwith be avowed. Christ says on

this subject (Matt. vi. 26-80), “Behold the fowls of the air,” (in

which we may also include the Ibis and the _Kokilas_,) “are ye not much

better than they? Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field,

which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not

much more clothe you?” The superiority of man, of the image of God, to

animals and plants is indeed implicitly and explicitly established,

but in asking wherein the divine element is to be sought and seen—in

making use of such expressions—none of the superior, but only the

inferior nature, is indicated. Similarly, in regard to the knowledge of

God, it is remarkable that Christ places the knowledge of and faith in

Him not in any admiration of the creatures of nature nor in marvelling

at any so-called dominion, over them, nor in signs and wonders, but in

the witness of the Spirit. Spirit is infinitely high above Nature, in

it the Divine Nature manifests itself more than in Nature.

But the form in which the universal content which is in and for itself,

first belongs to Philosophy is the form of Thought, the form of the

universal itself. In Religion, however, this content is for immediate

and outward perception, and further for idea and sensation through art.

The import is for the sensuous nature; it is the evidence of the Mind

which comprehends that content. To make this clearer, the difference

must be recollected between that which we are and have, and how we know

the same—that is, in what manner we know it and have it as our object.

This distinction is an infinitely important matter, and it alone is

concerned in the culture of races and of individuals. We are men and

have reason; what is human, or above all, what is rational vibrates

within us, both in our feelings, mind and heart and in our subjective

nature generally. It is in this corresponding vibration and in the

corresponding motion effected that a particular content becomes our own

and is like our own. The manifold nature of the determinations which

it contains is concentrated and wrapt up within this inward nature—an

obscure motion of Mind in itself and in universal substantiality. The

content is thus directly identical with the simple abstract certainty

of ourselves and with self-consciousness. But Mind, because it is

Mind, is as truly consciousness. What is confined within itself in its

simplicity must be objective to itself and must come to be known. The

whole difference lies in the manner and method of this objectivity, and

hence in the manner and method of consciousness.

This method and manner extends from the simple expression of the

dulness of mere feeling to the most objective form, to that which is

in and for itself objective, to Thought. The most simple, most formal

objectivity is the expression of a name for that feeling and for the

state of mind according with it, as seen in these words, worship,

prayer, etc. Such expressions as “Let us pray” and “Let us worship”

are simply the recalling of that feeling. But “Let us think about God”

brings with it something more; it expresses the absolutely embracing

content of that substantial feeling, and the object, which differs

from mere sensation as subjective self-conscious activity; or which is

content distinguished from this activity as form. This object, however,

comprehending in itself the whole substantial content, is itself still

undeveloped and entirely undetermined. To develop that content, to

comprehend, express and bring to consciousness its relations, is the

commencement, creation and manifestation of Religion. The form in which

this developed content first possesses objectivity is that of immediate

perception, of sensuous idea or of a more defined idea deduced from

natural, physical or mental manifestations and conditions.

Art brings about this consciousness, in that it gives permanence and

cohesion to the fleeting visible appearance through which objectivity

passes in sensation. The shapeless, sacred stone, the mere place, or

whatever it is to which the desire for objectivity first attaches

itself, receives from art, form, feature, determinate character and

content which can be known and which is now present for consciousness.

Art has thus become the instructress of the people. This was the case

with Homer and Hesiod for instance, who, according to Herodotus (II.

53), “Made the Greeks their Theogony,” because they elevated and

consolidated ideas and traditions in unison with the spirit of the

people, wherever and in whatever confusion they might be found, into

definite images and ideas. This is not the art which merely gives

expression in its own way to the content, already perfectly expressed,

of a Religion which in thought, idea and words has already attained

complete development; that is to say, which puts its matter into stone,

canvas, or words as is done by modern art, which, in dealing either

with religious or with historical objects, takes as its groundwork

ideas and thoughts which are already there. The consciousness of this

Religion is rather the product of thinking imagination, or of thought

which comprehends through the organ of imagination alone and finds

expression in its forms.

If the infinite Thought, the absolute Mind, has revealed and does

reveal itself in true Religion, that in which it reveals itself is the

heart, the representing consciousness and the understanding of what

is finite. Religion is not merely directed to every sort of culture.

“To the poor is the Gospel preached,” but it must as being Religion

expressly directed towards heart and mind, enter into the sphere of

subjectivity and consequently into the region of finite methods of

representation. In the perceiving and, with reference to perceptions,

reflecting consciousness, man possesses for the speculative relations

belonging to the absolute, only finite relations, whether taken in an

exact or in a symbolical sense, to serve him to comprehend and express

those qualities and relationships of the infinite.

In Religion as the earliest and the immediate revelations of God, the

form of representation and of reflecting finite thought cannot be the

only form in which He gives existence to Himself in consciousness, but

it must also appear in this form, for such alone is comprehensible

to religious consciousness. To make this clearer, something must be

said as to what is the meaning of comprehension. On the one hand,

as has been remarked above, there is in it the substantial basis of

content, which, coming to Mind as its absolute Being, affects it in

its innermost, finds an answering chord, and thereby obtains from

it confirmation. This is the first absolute condition necessary to

comprehension; what is not implicitly there cannot come within it or

be for it—that is, a content which is infinite and eternal. For the

substantial as infinite, is just that which has no limitations in that

to which it is related, for else it would be limited and not the true

substantial. And Mind is that alone which is not implicit, which is

finite and external; for what is finite and external is no longer what

is implicit but what is for another, what has entered into a relation.

But, on the other hand, because the true and eternal must be for Mind

become known, that is, enter into finite consciousness, the Mind for

which it is, is finite and the manner of its consciousness consists

in the ideas and forms of finite things and relations. These forms

are familiar and well known to consciousness, the ordinary mode of

finality, which mode it has appropriated to itself, having constituted

it the universal medium of its representation, into which everything

that comes to consciousness must be resolved in order that it may have

and know itself therein.

The assertion of Religion is that the manifestation of Truth which

is revealed to us through it, is one which is given to man from

outside, and on this account it is also asserted that man has humbly

to assent to it, because human reason cannot attain to it by itself.

The assertion of positive Religion is that its truths exist without

having their source known, so that the content as given, is one which

is above and beyond reason. By means of some prophet or other divine

instrument, the truth is made known: just as Ceres and Triptolemus who

introduced agriculture and matrimony, for so doing were honoured by

the Greeks, men have rendered thanks to Moses and to Mahomed. Through

whatever individual the Truth may have been given, the external matter

is historical, and this is indifferent to the absolute content and to

itself, since the person is not the import of the doctrine. But the

Christian Religion has this characteristic that the Person of Christ

in His character of the Son of God, Himself partakes of the nature

of God. If Christ be for Christians only a teacher like Pythagoras,

Socrates or Columbus, there would be here no universal divine content,

no revelation or knowledge imparted about the Nature of God, and it is

regarding this alone that we desire to obtain knowledge.

Whatever stage it may itself have reached, the Truth must undoubtedly

in the first place come to men from without as a present object,

sensuously represented, just as Moses saw God in the fiery bush, and as

the Greek brought the god into conscious being by means of sculpture

or other representations. But there is the further fact, that neither

in Religion nor in Philosophy does this external form remain, nor can

it so remain. A form of the imagination or an historical form, such

as Christ, must for the spirit be spiritual; and thus it ceases to be

an external matter, seeing that the form of externality is dead. We

must know God “in Spirit and in Truth.” He is the absolute and actual

Spirit. The relation borne by the human spirit to this Spirit involves

the following considerations.

When man determines to adopt a Religion he asks himself, “What is the

ground of my faith?” The Christian Religion replies—“The Spirit’s

witness to its content.” Christ reproved the Pharisees for wishing to

see miracles; the Spirit alone comprehends Spirit, the miracle is only

a presentiment of that Spirit; and if the miracle be the suspension

of natural laws, Spirit itself is the real miracle in the operations

of nature. Spirit in itself is merely this comprehension of itself.

There is only one Spirit, the universal divine Spirit. Not that it

is merely everywhere; it is not to be comprehended as what is common

to everything, as an external totality, to be found in many or in

all individuals, which are essentially individuals; but it must be

understood as that which permeates through everything, as the unity

of itself and of a semblance of its “other,” as of the subjective and

particular. As universal, it is object to itself, and thus determined

as a particular, it is this individual: but as universal it reaches

over this its “other,” so that its “other” and itself are comprised in

one. The true universality seems, popularly expressed, to be two—what

is common to the universal itself and to the particular. A division

is formed in the understanding of itself, and the Spirit is the unity

of what is understood and the understanding person. The divine Spirit

which is comprehended, is objective; the subjective Spirit comprehends.

But Spirit is not passive, or else the passivity can be momentary only;

there is one spiritual substantial unity. The subjective Spirit is the

active, but the objective Spirit is itself this activity; the active

subjective Spirit is that which comprehends the divine, and in its

comprehension of it it is itself the divine Spirit. The relation of

Spirit to self alone is the absolute determination; the divine Spirit

lives in its own communion and presence. This comprehension has been

called Faith, but it is not an historical faith; we Lutherans—I am

a Lutheran and will remain the same—have only this original faith.

This unity is not the Substance of Spinoza, but the apprehending

Substance in self-consciousness which makes itself eternal and relates

to universality. The talk about the limitations of human thought is

futile; to know God is the only end of Religion. The testimony of the

Spirit to the content of Religion is itself Religion; it is a testimony

that both bears witness and at the same time is that witness. The

Spirit proves itself, and does so first in the proof; it is only proved

because it proves itself and shows or manifests itself.

It has further to be said, that this testimony, this inward stirring

and self-consciousness, reveals itself, while in the enshrouded

consciousness of devotion it does not arrive at the proper

consciousness of an object, but only at the consciousness of immersion

in absolute Being. This permeating and permeated Spirit now enters

into conception; God goes forth into the “other” and makes Himself

objective. All that pertains to revelation and its reception, and

which comes before us in mythology, here appears; everything which is

historical and which belongs to what is positive has here its proper

place. To speak more definitely, we now have the Christ who came into

the world nearly two thousand years ago. But He says, “I am with you

even unto the ends of the earth; where two or three are gathered

together in My Name, there will I be in the midst.” I shall not be seen

of you in the flesh, but “The Spirit of Truth will guide you into all

Truth.” The external is not the true relation; it will disappear.

The two stages have here been given, the first of which is the stage

of devotion, of worship, such as that reached in partaking of the

Communion. That is the perception of the divine Spirit in the community

in which the present, indwelling, living Christ as self-consciousness

has attained to actuality. The second stage is that of developed

consciousness, when the content becomes the object; here this present,

indwelling Christ retreats two thousand years to a small corner of

Palestine, and is an individual historically manifested far away at

Nazareth or Jerusalem. It is the same thing in the Greek Religion where

the god present in devotion changes into prosaic statues and marble;

or in painting, where this externality is likewise arrived at, when

the god becomes mere canvas or wood. The Supper is, according to the

Lutheran conception, of Faith alone; it is a divine satisfaction,

and is not adored as if it were the Host. Thus a sacred image is no

more to us than is a stone or thing. The second point of view must

indeed be that with which consciousness begins; it must start from the

external comprehension of this form: it must passively accept report

and take it up into memory. But if it remain where it is, that is the

unspiritual point of view; to remain fixed in this second standpoint

in this dead far-away historic distance, is to reject the Spirit. The

sins of him who lies against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven. That

lie is the refusal to be a universal, to be holy, that is to make

Christ become divided, separated, to make Him only another person as

this particular person in Judea; or else to say that He now exists, but

only far away in Heaven, or in some other place, and not in present

actual form amongst His people. The man who speaks of the _merely_

finite, of _merely_ human reason, and of the limits to mere reason,

lies against the Spirit, for the Spirit as infinite and universal, as

self-comprehension, comprehends itself not in a “merely” nor in limits,

nor in the finite as such. It has nothing to do with this, for it

comprehends itself within itself alone, in its infinitude.

If it be said of Philosophy that it makes reality the subject of its

knowledge, the principal point is that the reality should not be one

outside of that of which it is the reality. For example, if from the

real content of a book, I abstract the binding, paper, ink, language,

the many thousand letters that are contained in it, the simple

universal content as reality, is not outside of the book. Similarly

law is not outside of the individual, but it constitutes the true

Being of the individual. The reality of my Mind is thus in my Mind

itself and not outside of it; it is my real Being, my own substance,

without which I am without existence. This reality is, so to speak, the

combustible material which may be kindled and lit up by the universal

reality as such as objective; and only so far as this phosphorus is

in men, is comprehension, the kindling and lighting up, possible.

Feeling, anticipation, knowledge of God, are only thus in men; without

such, the divine Mind would not be the in and for itself Universal.

Reality is itself a real content and not the destitute of content

and undetermined; yet, as the book has other content besides, there

is in the individual mind also a great amount of other matter which

belongs only to the manifestation of this reality, and the individual

surrounded with what is external, must be separated from this

existence. Since reality is itself Spirit and not an abstraction, “God

is not a God for the dead but for the living,” and indeed for living

spirits.

The great Creator was alone

And experienced desire,

Therefore He created Spirits,

Holy mirrors of His holiness.

The noblest Being He found no equal;

From out the bowl of all the spiritual world,

There sparkled up to Him infinitude.

Religion is also the point of view from which this existence is known.

But as regards the different forms of knowledge existing in Religion

and Philosophy, Philosophy appears to be opposed to the conception in

Religion that the universal mind first shows itself as external, in the

objective mode of consciousness. Worship, commencing with the external,

then turns against and abrogates it as has just been said, and thus

Philosophy is justified through the acts and forms of worship, and only

does what they do. Philosophy has to deal with two different objects;

first as in the Religion present in worship, with the substantial

content, the spiritual soul, and secondly with bringing this before

consciousness as object, but in the form of thought. Philosophy

thinks and conceives of that which Religion represents as the object

of consciousness, whether it is as the work of the imagination or as

existent facts in history. The form of the knowledge of the object

is, in religious consciousness, such as pertains to the ordinary

idea, and is thus more or less sensuous in nature. In Philosophy

we do not say that God begot a Son, which is a relation derived

from natural life. Thought, or the substance of such a relation, is

therefore still recognized in Philosophy. Since Philosophy thinks its

object, it has the advantage of uniting the two stages of religious

consciousness—which in Religion are different moments—into one unity

in philosophic thought.

It is these two forms which are different from one another and which,

as opposed, may therefore seem to be mutually conflicting; and it

is natural and it necessarily seems to be the case, that on first

definitely coming to view they are so to speak conscious of their

diversity, and hence at first appear as inimical to one another. The

first stage in the order of manifestation is definite existence, or

a determinate Being-for-self as opposed to the other. The later form

is that Thought embraces itself in the concrete, immerses itself in

itself, and Mind, as such, comes in it to consciousness. In the earlier

stage, Mind is abstract, and in this constraint it knows itself to be

different, and in opposition to the other. When it embraces itself in

the concrete, it is no more simply confined in determinate existence,

only knowing or possessing itself in that diversity, but it is the

Universal which, inasmuch as it determines itself, contains its “other”

within itself. As concrete intelligence, Mind thus comprehends the

substantial in the form which seemed to differ from it, of which it had

only grasped the outward manifestation and had turned away from it; it

recognizes itself in its inward content, and so it for the first time

grasps its object, and deals justice to its opposite.

Generally speaking, the course of this antithesis in history is that

Thought first of all comes forth within Religion, as not free and in

separate manifestations. Secondly, it strengthens itself, feels itself

to be resting upon itself, holds and conducts itself inimically towards

the other form, and does not recognize itself therein. In the third

place, it concludes by acknowledging itself as in this other. Or else

Philosophy has to begin with carrying on its work entirely on its

own account, isolating Thought from all popular beliefs, and taking

for itself quite a different field of operation, a field for which

the world of ordinary ideas lies quite apart, so that the two exist

peacefully side by side, or, to put it better, so that no reflection

on their opposition is arrived at. Just as little did the thought of

reconciling them occur, since in the popular beliefs the same content

appeared as in any external form other than the notion—the thought

that is, of explaining and justifying popular belief, in order thus to

be able again to express the conceptions of free thought in the form of

popular religion.

Thus we see Philosophy first restrained and confined within the range

of the Greek heathen world; then resting upon itself, it goes forth

against popular religion and takes up an unfriendly attitude to it,

until it grasps that religion in its innermost and recognizes itself

therein. Thus the ancient Greek philosophers generally respected the

popular religion, or at least they did not oppose it, or reflect upon

it. Those coming later, including even Xenophanes, handled popular

ideas most severely, and thus many so-called atheists made their

appearance. But as the spheres of popular conception, and abstract

thought stood peacefully side by side, we also find Greek philosophers

of even a later period in development, in whose case speculative

thought and the act of worship, as also the pious invocation upon

and sacrifice to the gods, coexist in good faith, and not in mere

hypocrisy. Socrates was accused of teaching other gods than those

belonging to the popular religion; his _δαιμόνιον_ was indeed opposed

to the principles of Greek morals and religion, but at the same time

he followed quite honestly the usages of his religion, and we know

besides that his last request was to ask his friends to offer a cock to

Æsculapius—a desire quite inconsistent with his conclusions regarding

the existence of God and above all regarding morality. Plato declaimed

against the poets and their gods. It was in a much later time that

the Neo-platonists first recognized in the popular mythology rejected

earlier by the philosophers, the universal content; they transposed

and translated it into what is significant for thought, and thus used

mythology itself as a symbolical imagery for giving expression to their

formulas.

Similarly do we see in the Christian Religion, thought which is not

independent first placing itself in conjunction with the form belonging

to this Religion and acting within it—that is to say, taking the

Religion as its groundwork, and proceeding from the absolute assumption

of the Christian doctrine. We see later on the opposition between

so-called faith and so-called reason; when the wings of thought have

become strengthened, the young eaglet flies away for himself to the sun

of Truth; but like a bird of prey he turns upon Religion and combats

it. Latest of all Philosophy permits full justice to be done to the

content of Religion through the speculative Notion, which is through

Thought itself. For this end the Notion must have grasped itself in the

concrete and penetrated to concrete spirituality. This must be the

standpoint of the Philosophy of the present time; it has begun within

Christianity and can have no other content than the world-spirit. When

that spirit comprehends itself in Philosophy, it also comprehends

itself in that form which formerly was inimical to Philosophy.

Thus Religion has a content in common with Philosophy the forms alone

being different; and the only essential point is that the form of the

Notion should be so far perfected as to be able to grasp the content of

Religion. The Truth is just that which has been called the mysteries

of Religion. These constitute the speculative element in Religion

such as were called by the Neo-platonists _μυεῖν, μυεῖσθαι_ (being

initiated), or being occupied with speculative Notions. By mysteries is

meant, superficially speaking, the secret, what remains such and does

not arrive at being known. But in the Eleusinian mysteries there was

nothing unknown; all Athenians were initiated into them, Socrates alone

shut himself out. Openly to make them known to strangers was the one

thing forbidden, as indeed it was made a crime in the case of certain

people. Such matters however, as being holy, were not to be spoken of.

Herodotus often expressly says (e.g. ii. 45-47) that he would speak

of the Egyptian Divinities and mysteries in as far as it was pious so

to do: he knew more, but it would be impious to speak of them. In the

Christian Religion dogmas are called mysteries. They are that which man

knows about the Nature of God. Neither is there anything mysterious in

this; it is known by all those who are partakers in that Religion, and

these are thus distinguished from the followers of other Religions.

Hence mystery here signifies nothing unknown, since all Christians are

in the secret. Mysteries are in their nature speculative, mysterious

certainly to the understanding, but not to reason; they are rational,

just in the sense of being speculative. The understanding does not

comprehend the speculative which simply is the concrete because it

holds to the differences in their separation; their contradiction

is indeed contained in the mystery, which, however, is likewise the

resolution of the same.

Philosophy, on the contrary, is opposed to the so-called Rationalism

of the new Theology which for ever keeps reason on its lips, but which

is dry understanding only; no reason is recognizable in it as the

moment of independent thought which really is abstract thought and that

alone. When the understanding which does not comprehend the truths of

Religion, calls itself the illuminating reason and plays the lord and

master, it goes astray. Rationalism is opposed to Philosophy in content

and form, for it has made the content empty as it has made the heavens,

and has reduced all that is, to finite relations—in its form it is a

reasoning process which is not free and which has no conceiving power.

The supernatural in Religion is opposed to rationalism, and if indeed

the latter is related in respect of the real content to Philosophy,

yet it differs from it in form, for it has become unspiritual and

wooden, looking for its justification to mere external authority. The

scholastics were not supernaturalists in this sense; they knew the

dogmas of the Church in thought and in conception. If Religion in the

inflexibility of its abstract authority as opposed to thought, declares

of it that “the gates of Hell shall not triumph over it,” the gates of

reason are stronger than the gates of Hell, not to overcome the Church

but to reconcile itself to the Church. Philosophy, as the conceiving

thought of this content, has as regards the idea of Religion, the

advantage of comprehending both sides—it comprehends Religion and

also comprehends both rationalism and supernaturalism and itself

likewise. But this is not the case on the other side. Religion from the

standpoint of idea, comprehends only what stands on the same platform

as itself, and not Philosophy, the Notion, the universal thought

determinations. Often no injustice is done to a Philosophy when its

opposition to Religion has been made matter of reproach; but often,

too, a wrong has been inflicted where this is done from the religious

point of view.

The form of Religion is necessary to Mind as it is in and for

itself; it is the form of truth as it is for all men, and for every

mode of consciousness. This universal mode is first of all for men

in the form of sensuous consciousness, and then, secondly, in the

intermingling of the form of the universal with sensuous manifestation

or reflection—the representing consciousness, the mythical, positive

and historical form, is that pertaining to the understanding. What

is received in evidence of Mind only becomes object to consciousness

when it appears in the form of the understanding, that is to say,

consciousness must first be already acquainted with these forms from

life and from experience. Now, because thinking consciousness is not

the outward universal form for all mankind, the consciousness of the

true, the spiritual and the rational, must have the form of Religion,

and this is the universal justification of this form.

We have here laid down the distinction between Philosophy and Religion,

but taking into account what it is we wish to deal with in the history

of Philosophy, there is something still which must be remarked upon,

and which partly follows from what has been already said. There is

the question still confronting us as to what attitude we must take in

reference to this matter in the history of Philosophy.

_β. The religious element to be excluded from the content of the

History of Philosophy._

_αα_. Mythology first meets us, and it seems as if it might be drawn

within the history of Philosophy. It is indeed a product of the

imagination, but not of caprice, although that also has its place

here. But the main part of mythology is the work of the imaginative

reason, which makes reality its object, but yet has no other means

of so doing, than that of sensuous representation, so that the gods

make their appearance in human guise. Mythology can now be studied for

art, &c. But the thinking mind must seek out the substantial content,

the thought and the theory implicitly contained therein, as reason

is sought in Nature. This mode of treating mythology was that of the

Neo-platonists; in recent times it has for the most part become the

work of my friend Creuzer in symbolism. This method of treatment is

combated and condemned by others. Man, it is said, must set to work

historically alone, and it is not historic when a theory unthought

of by the ancients, is read into a myth, or brought out of it. In

one light, this is quite correct, for it points to a method adopted

by Creuzer, and also by the Alexandrians who acted in a similar way.

In conscious thought the ancients had not such theories before them,

nor did anyone maintain them, yet to say that such content was not

implicitly present, is an absurd contention. As the products of reason,

though not of thinking reason, the religions of the people, as also

the mythologies, however simple and even foolish they may appear,

indubitably contain as genuine works of art, thoughts, universal

determinations and truth, for the instinct of reason is at their basis.

Bound up with this is the fact that since mythology in its expression

takes sensuous forms, much that is contingent and external becomes

intermingled, for the representation of the Notion in sensuous forms

always possesses a certain incongruity, seeing that what is founded on

imagination cannot express the Idea in its real aspect. This sensuous

form produced as it is by an historic or natural method, must be

determined on many sides, and this external determination must, more or

less, be of such a nature as not to express the Idea. It may also be

that many errors are contained in that explanation, particularly when

a single one is brought within our notice; all the customs, actions,

furnishings, vestments, and offerings taken together, may undoubtedly

contain something of the Idea in analogy, but the connection is far

removed, and many contingent circumstances must find their entrance.

But that there is a Reason there, must certainly be recognized, and it

is essential so to comprehend and grasp mythology.

But Mythology must remain excluded from our history of Philosophy.

The reason of this is found in the fact that in Philosophy we have

to do not with theorems generally, or with thoughts which only are

_implicite_ contained in some particular form or other, but with

thoughts which are explicit, and only in so far as they are explicit

and in so far as a content such as that belonging to Religion, has

come to consciousness in the form of Thought. And this is just what

forms the immense distinction which we saw above, between capacity and

actuality. The theorems which are _implicite_ contained within Religion

do not concern us; they must be in the form of thoughts, since Thought

alone is the absolute form of the Idea.

In many mythologies, images are certainly used along with their

significance, or else the images are closely attended by their

interpretation. The ancient Persians worshipped the sun, or fire, as

being the highest existence; the first cause in the Persian Religion

is Zervane Akerene—unlimited time, eternity. This simple eternal

existence possesses according to Diogenes Lærtius (I. 8), “the two

principles Ormuzd (_Ὠρομάσδης_) and Ahriman (_Ἀρειμάνος_), the rulers

over good and evil.” Plutarch in writing on Isis and Osiris (T. II. p.

369, ed. Xyl.) says, “It is not one existence which holds and rules

the whole, but good is mingled with evil; nature as a rule brings

forth nothing pure and simple; it is not one dispenser, who, like a

host, gives out and mixes up the drink from two different barrels. But

through two opposed and inimical principles of which the one impels

towards what is right, and the other in the opposite direction, if not

the whole world, at least this earth is influenced in different ways.

Zoroaster has thus emphatically set up the one principle (Ormuzd) as

being the Light, and the other (Ahriman) as the Darkness. Between the

two (_μέσος δὲ ἀμφοῖν_) is Mithra, hence called by the Persians the

Mediator (_μεσίτης_).” Mithra is then likewise substance, the universal

existence, the sun raised to a totality. It is not the mediator between

Ormuzd and Ahriman by establishing peace and leaving each to remain

as it was; it does not partake of good and evil both, like an unblest

middle thing, but it stands on the side of Ormuzd and strives with him

against the evil. Ahriman is sometimes called the first-born son of the

Light, but Ormuzd only remained within the Light. At the creation of

the visible world, Ormuzd places on the earth in his incomprehensible

kingdom of Light, the firm arches of the heavens which are above yet

surrounded on every side with the first original Light. Midway to the

earth is the high hill Albordi, which reaches into the source of Light.

Ormuzd’s empire of Light extended uninterruptedly over the firm vault

of the heavens and the hill Albordi, and over the earth too, until

the third age was reached. Then Ahriman, whose kingdom of night was

formerly bound beneath the earth, broke in upon Ormuzd’s corporeal

world and ruled in common with him. Now the space between heaven and

earth was divided into light and night. As Ormuzd had formerly only a

spiritual kingdom of light, Ahriman had only one of night, but now that

they were intermingled he placed the terrestrial light thus created in

opposition to the terrestrial night. From this time on, two corporeal

worlds stand opposed, one pure and good, and one impure and evil, and

this opposition permeates all nature. On Albordi, Ormuzd created Mithra

as mediator for the earth. The end of the creation of the bodily world

is none other than to reinstate existence, fallen from its creator,

to make it good again, and thus to make the evil disappear for ever.

The bodily world is the battle-ground between good and evil; but the

battle between light and darkness is not in itself an absolute and

irreconcilable opposition, but one which can be conquered, and in it

Ormuzd, the principle of Light, will be the conqueror.

I would remark of this, that when we consider the elements in these

ideas which bear some further connection with Philosophy, the universal

of that duality with which the Notion is necessarily set forth can

alone be interesting and noteworthy to us; for in it the Notion is just

the immediate opposite of itself, the unity of itself with itself in

the “other:” a simple existence in which absolute opposition appears

as the opposition of existence, and the sublation of that opposition.

Because properly the Light principle is the only existence of both, and

the principle of Darkness is the null and void,—the principle of Light

identifies itself with Mithra, which was before called the highest

existence. The opposition has laid aside the appearance of contingency,

but the spiritual principle is not separate from the physical, because

the good and evil are both determined as Light and Darkness. We thus

here see thought breaking forth from actuality, and yet not such a

separation as only takes place in Religion, when the supersensuous

is itself again represented in a manner sensuous, notionless and

dispersed, for the whole of what is dispersed in sensuous form is

gathered together in the one single opposition, and activity is thus

simply represented. These determinations lie much nearer to Thought;

they are not mere images or symbols, but yet these myths do not concern

Philosophy. In them Thought does not take the first place, for the

myth-form remains predominant. In all religions this oscillation

between form and thought is found, and such a combination still lies

outside Philosophy.

This is also so in the Sanchuniathonic Cosmogony of the Phœnicians.

These fragments, which are found in Eusebius (Præpar. Evang. I. 10),

are taken from the translation of the Sanchuniathon from Phœnician

into Greek made by a Grammarian named Philo from Biblus. Philo

lived in the time of Vespasian and ascribes great antiquity to the

Sanchuniathon. It is there said, “The principles of things are found

in Chaos, in which the elements exist undeveloped and confused, and

in a Spirit of Air. The latter permeated the chaos, and with it

engendered a slimy matter or mud (_ἰλύν_) which contained within it the

living forces and the germs of animals. By mingling this mud with the

component matter of chaos and the resulting fermentation, the elements

separated themselves. The fire elements ascended into the heights and

formed the stars. Through their influence in the air, clouds were

formed and the earth was made fruitful. From the mingling of water

and earth, through the mud converted into putrefying matter, animals

took their origin as imperfect and senseless. These again begot other

animals perfect and endowed with senses. It was the crash of thunder in

a thunder-storm that caused the first animals still sleeping in their

husks to waken up to life.”[7]

The fragments of Berosus of the Chaldeans were collected from Josephus,

Syncellus and Eusebius under the title _Berosi Chaldaica_, by Scaliger,

as an appendix to his work _De emendatione temporum_, and they are

found complete in the Greek Library of Fabricius (T. xiv. pp. 175-211).

Berosus lived in the time of Alexander, is said to have been a Priest

of Bel and to have drawn upon the archives of the temple at Babylon.

He says, “The original god is Bel and the goddess Omoroka (the sea),

but beside them there were yet other gods. Bel divided Omoroka in two,

in order to create from her parts heaven and earth. Hereupon he cut

off his own head and the human race originated from the drops of his

divine blood. After the creation of man, Bel banished the darkness,

divided heaven and earth, and formed the world into its natural shape.

Since certain parts of the earth seemed to him to be insufficiently

populated, he compelled another god to lay hands upon himself, and from

his blood more men and more kinds of animals were created. At first

the men lived a wild and uncultivated life, until a monster” (called

by Berosus, Oannes) “joined them into a state, taught them arts and

sciences, and in a word brought Humanity into existence. The monster

set about this end with the rising of the sun out of the sea, and with

its setting he again hid himself under the waves.”

_ββ_. What belongs to Mythology may in the second place make a pretence

of being a kind of Philosophy. It has produced philosophers who availed

themselves of the mythical form in order to bring their theories and

systems more prominently before the imagination, for they made the

thoughts the content of the myth. But the myth is not a mere cloak

in the ancient myths; it is not merely that the thoughts were there

and were concealed. This may happen in our reflecting times; but the

first poetry does not start from a separation of prose and poetry. If

philosophers used myths, it was usually the case that they had the

thoughts and then sought for images appropriate to them; Plato has

many beautiful myths of this kind. Others likewise have spoken in

myths, as for example, Jacobi, whose Philosophy took the form of the

Christian Religion, through which he gave utterance to matter of a

highly speculative nature. But this form is not suitable to Philosophy.

Thought which has itself as object, must have raised itself to its own

form, to the form of thought. Plato is often esteemed on account of his

myths; he is supposed to have evinced by their means greater genius

than other philosophers were capable of. It is contended here that

the myths of Plato are superior to the abstract form of expression,

and Plato’s method of representation is certainly a wonderful one.

On closer examination we find that it is partly the impossibility of

expressing himself after the manner of pure thought that makes Plato

put his meaning so, and also such methods of expression are only used

by him in introducing a subject. When he comes to the matter in point,

Plato expresses himself otherwise, as we see in the Parmenides, where

simple thought determinations are used without imagery. Externally

these myths may certainly serve when the heights of speculative thought

are left behind, in order to present the matter in an easier form, but

the real value of Plato does not rest in his myths. If thought once

attains power sufficient to give existence to itself within itself

and in its element, the myth becomes a superfluous adornment, by

which Philosophy is not advanced. Men often lay hold of nothing but

these myths. Hence Aristotle has been misunderstood just because he

intersperses similes here and there; the simile can never be entirely

in accord with thought, for it always carries with it something more.

The difficulty of representing thoughts as thoughts always attaches to

the expedient of expression in sensuous form. Thought, too, ought not

to be concealed by means of the myth, for the object of the mythical

is just to give expression to and to reveal thought. The symbol is

undoubtedly insufficient for this expression; thought concealed in

symbols is not yet possessed, for thought is self-revealing, and hence

the myth does not form a medium adequate for its conveyance. Aristotle

(Metaph. III. 4) says, “It is not worth while to treat seriously of

those whose philosophy takes a mythical form.” Such is not the form in

which thought allows itself to be stated, but only is a subordinate

mode.

Connected with this, there is a similar method of representing the

universal content by means of numbers, lines and geometric figures.

These are figurative, but not concretely so, as in the case of myths.

Thus it may be said that eternity is a circle, the snake that bites

its own tail. This is only an image, but Mind does not require such

a symbol. There are people who value such methods of representation,

but these forms do not go far. The most abstract determinations

can indeed be thus expressed, but any further progress brings about

confusion. Just as the freemasons have symbols which are esteemed

for their depth of wisdom—depth as a brook is deep when one cannot

see the bottom—that which is hidden very easily seems to men deep,

or as if depth were concealed beneath. But when it is hidden, it may

possibly prove to be the case that there is nothing behind. This is so

in freemasonry, in which everything is concealed to those outside and

also to many people within, and where nothing remarkable is possessed

in learning or in science, and least of all in Philosophy. Thought is,

on the contrary, simply its manifestation; clearness is its nature and

itself. The act of manifestation is not a condition which may be or

may not be equally, so that thought may remain as thought when it is

not manifested, but its manifestation is itself, its Being. Numbers,

as will be remarked in respect of the Pythagoreans, are unsuitable

mediums for expressing thoughts; thus _μονάς_, _δυάς_, _τριάς_ are,

with Pythagoras, unity, difference, and unity of the unity and of

the difference. The two first of the three are certainly united by

addition; this kind of union is, however, the worst form of unity.

In Religion the three make their appearance in a deeper sense as the

Trinity, and in Philosophy as the Notion, but enumeration forms a

bad method of expression. There is the same objection to it as would

exist to making the mensuration of space the medium for expressing the

absolute. People also quote the Philosophy of the Chinese, of the Foï,

in which it is said that thoughts are represented by numbers. Yet the

Chinese have explained their symbols and hence have made their meaning

evident. Universal simple abstractions have been present to all people

who have arrived at any decree of culture.

_γγ_. We have still to remark in the third place, that Religion, as

such, does not merely form its representations after the manner of

art; and also that Poetry likewise contains actual thoughts. In the

case of the poets whose art has speech as medium, we find all through

deep universal thought regarding reality; these are more explicitly

expressed in the Indian Religion, but with the Indians everything is

mixed up. Hence it is said that such races have also had a Philosophy

proper to themselves; but the universal thoughts of interest in Indian

books limit themselves to what is most abstract, to the idea of rising

up and passing away, and thus of making a perpetual round. The story of

the Phœnix is well known as an example of this; it is one which took

its origin in the East. We are able similarly to find thoughts about

life and death and of the transition of Being into passing away; from

life comes death and from death comes life; even in Being, in what

is positive, the negation is already present. The negative side must

indeed contain within it the positive, for all change, all the process

of life is founded on this. But such reflections only occasionally come

forth; they are not to be taken as being proper philosophic utterances.

For Philosophy is only present when thought, as such, is made the

absolute ground and root of everything else, and in these modes of

representation this is not so.

Philosophy does not reflect on any particular thing or object already

existing as a first substratum; its content is just Thought, universal

thought which must plainly come first of all; to put it otherwise, the

Absolute must in Philosophy be in the form of thought. In the Greek

Religion we find the thought-determination “eternal necessity;” which

means an absolute and clearly universal relation. But such thought has

other subjects besides; it only expresses a relation, the necessity to

be the true and all-embracing Being. Thus neither must we take this

form into our consideration. We might speak in that way of a philosophy

of Euripides, Schiller or Goethe. But all such reflection respecting,

or general modes of representing what is true, the ends of men,

morality and so on, are in part only incidentally set forth, and in

part they have not reached the proper form of thought, which implies

that what is so expressed must be ultimate, thus constituting the

Absolute.

_γ. Particular theories found in Religion._

In conclusion, the philosophy which we find within Religion does not

concern us. We find deep, speculative thoughts regarding the nature

of God not only in the Indian Religions, but also in the Fathers and

the Schoolmen. In the history of dogmatism there is a real interest

in becoming acquainted with these thoughts, but they do not belong

to the history of Philosophy. Nevertheless more notice must be taken

of the Schoolmen than of the Fathers, for they were certainly great

philosophers to whom the culture of Christendom owes much. But their

speculations belong in part to other philosophies such as to that of

Plato, which must in so far be considered for themselves; partly, too,

they emanate from the speculative content of Religion itself which

already exists as independent truth in the doctrine of the Church,

and belongs primarily to faith. Thus such modes of thought rest on an

hypothesis and not on Thought itself; they are not properly speaking

themselves Philosophy or thought which rests on itself, but as ideas

already firmly rooted, they act on its behalf either in refuting

other ideas and conclusions or in philosophically vindicating against

them their own religious teaching. Thought in this manner does not

represent and know itself as the ultimate and absolute culmination of

the content, or as the inwardly self-determining Thought. Hence, too,

when the Fathers, seeing that the content of the Christian Religion can

only be grasped after the speculative form, did, within the teaching

of the Church, produce thoughts of a highly speculative nature, the

ultimate justification of these was not found in Thought as such, but

in the teaching of the Church. Philosophic teaching here finds itself

within a strongly bound system and not as thought which emanates freely

from itself. Thus with the scholastics, too, Thought does not construct

itself out of itself, but depends upon hypotheses; and although it ever

rests more and more upon itself, it never does so in opposition to the

doctrine of the Church. Both must and do agree, since Thought has to

prove from itself what the Church has already verified.

c. _Philosophy proper distinguished from Popular Philosophy._

Of the two departments of knowledge allied to Philosophy we found

that the one, that of the special sciences, could not be called a

philosophy in that it, as independent seeing and thinking immersed in

finite matter, and as the active principle in becoming acquainted with

the finite, was not the content, but simply the formal and subjective

moment. The second sphere, Religion, is deficient in that it only had

the content or the objective moment in common with Philosophy. In it

independent thought was an essential moment, since the subject had

an imaginary or historical form. Philosophy demands the unity and

intermingling of these two points of view; it unites the Sunday of

life when man in humility renounces himself, and the working-day when

he stands up independently, is master of himself and considers his

own interests. A third point of view seems to unite both elements,

and that is popular Philosophy. It deals with universal objects and

philosophizes as to God and the world; and thought is likewise occupied

in learning about these matters. Yet this Philosophy must also be

cast aside. The writings of Cicero may be put under this category;

they contain a kind of philosophy that has its own place and in which

excellent things are said. Cicero formed many experiences both in the

affairs of life and mind, and from them and after observing what takes

place in the world, he deduced the truth. He expresses himself with

culture on the concerns most important to man, and hence his great

popularity. Fanatics and mystics may from another point of view be

reckoned as in this category. They give expression to a deep sense of

devotion, and have had experiences in the higher regions. They are able

to express the highest content, and the result is attractive. We thus

find the brightest gleams of thought in the writings of a Pascal—as we

do in his _Pensées_.

But the drawback that attaches to this Philosophy is that the ultimate

appeal—even in modern times—is made to the fact that men are

constituted such as they are by nature, and with this Cicero is very

free. Here the moral instinct comes into question, only under the

name of feeling; Religion now rests not on what is objective but on

religious feeling, because the immediate consciousness of God by men

is its ultimate ground. Cicero makes copious use of the _consensus

gentium_; in more modern times this appeal has been more or less left

alone, since the individual subject has to rest upon himself. Feeling

is first of all laid hold of, then comes reasoning from what is given,

but in these we can appeal to what is immediate only. Independent

thought is certainly here advanced; the content too, is taken from the

self; but we must just as necessarily exclude this mode of thinking

from Philosophy. For the source from which the content is derived is

of the same description as in the other cases. Nature is the source in

finite sciences, and in Religion it is Spirit; but here the source is

in authority; the content is given and the act of worship removes but

momentarily this externality. The source of popular Philosophy is in

the heart, impulses and capacities, our natural Being, my impression of

what is right and of God; the content is in a form which is of nature

only. I certainly have everything in feeling, but the whole content is

also in Mythology, and yet in neither is it so in veritable form. The

laws and doctrines of Religion are that in which this content always

comes to consciousness in a more definite way, while in feeling there

still is intermingled the arbitrary will of that which is subjective.

3. COMMENCEMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND OF ITS HISTORY.

Now that we have thus defined the Notion of Philosophy to be the

Thought which, as the universal content, is complete Being, it will

be shown in the history of Philosophy how the determinations in this

content make their appearance little by little. At first we only ask

where Philosophy and its History begin.

_a. Freedom of Thought as a first condition._

The general answer is in accordance with what has been said. Philosophy

begins where the universal is comprehended as the all-embracing

existence, or where the existent is laid hold of in a universal form,

and where thinking about thought first commences. Where, then, has

this occurred? Where did it begin? That is a question of history.

Thought must be for itself, must come into existence in its freedom,

liberate itself from nature and come out of its immersion in mere

sense-perception; it must as free, enter within itself and thus arrive

at the consciousness of freedom. Philosophy is properly to be commenced

where the Absolute is no more in the form of ordinary conception, and

free thought not merely thinks the Absolute but grasps its Idea. That

is to say where Thought grasps as Thought, the Being (which may be

Thought itself), which it recognizes as the essence of things, the

absolute totality and the immanent essence of everything, and does so

as an external Being. The simple existence which is not sensuous and

which the Jews thought of as God (for all Religion is thinking), is

thus not a subject to be treated of by Philosophy, but just such a

proposition as that “The existence or principle of things is water,

fire or thought.”

Thought, this universal determination which sets forth itself, is

an abstract determinateness; it is the beginning of Philosophy, but

this beginning is at the same time in history, the concrete form taken

by a people, the principle of which constitutes what we have stated

above. If we say that the consciousness of freedom is connected with

the appearance of Philosophy, this principle must be a fundamental

one with those with whom Philosophy begins; a people having this

consciousness of freedom founds its existence on that principle seeing

that the laws and the whole circumstances of the people are based

only on the Notion that Mind forms of itself, and in the categories

which it has. Connected with this on the practical side, is the fact

that actual freedom develops political freedom, and this only begins

where the individual knows himself as an independent individual to be

universal and real, where his significance is infinite, or where the

subject has attained the consciousness of personality and thus desires

to be esteemed for himself alone. Free, philosophic thought has this

direct connection with practical freedom, that as the former supplies

thought about the absolute, universal and real object, the latter,

because it thinks itself, gives itself the character of universality.

Thinking means the bringing of something into the form of universality;

hence Thought first treats of the universal, or determines what is

objective and individual in the natural things which are present in

sensuous consciousness, as the universal, as an objective Thought. Its

second attribute is that in recognizing and knowing this objective and

infinite universal, I, at the same time, remain confronting it from the

standpoint of objectivity.

On account of this general connection between political freedom and the

freedom of Thought, Philosophy only appears in History where and in as

far as free institutions are formed. Since Mind requires to separate

itself from its natural will and engrossment in matter if it wishes

to enter upon Philosophy, it cannot do so in the form with which the

world-spirit commences and which takes precedence of that separation.

This stage of the unity of Mind with Nature which as immediate is not

the true and perfect state, is mainly found in the Oriental conception

of existence, therefore Philosophy first begins in the Grecian world.

b. _Separation of the East and its Philosophy._

Some explanations have to be given regarding this first form.

Since Mind in it, as consciousness and will, is but desire,

self-consciousness still stands upon its first stage in which the

sphere of its idea and will is finite. As intelligence is thus finite

too, its ends are not yet a universal for themselves; but if a people

makes for what is moral, if laws and justice are possessed, the

character of universality underlies its will. This presupposes a new

power in Mind with which it commences to be free, for the universal

will as the relation of thought to thought or as the universal,

contains a thought which is at home with itself. If a people desire to

be free, they will subordinate their desires to universal laws, while

formerly that which was desired was only a particular. Now finitude

of the will characterizes the orientals, because with them the will

has not yet grasped itself as universal, for thought is not yet free

for itself. Hence there can but be the relation of lord and slave,

and in this despotic sphere fear constitutes the ruling category.

Because the will is not yet free from what is finite, it can therein

be comprehended and the finite can be shown forth as negative. This

sensation of negation, that something cannot last, is just fear as

distinguished from freedom which does not consist in being finite

but in being for itself, and this cannot be laid hold of. Religion

necessarily has this character, since the fear of the Lord is the

essential element beyond which we cannot get. “The fear of the Lord is

the beginning of wisdom” is indeed a true saying; man must begin with

this in order to know the finite ends in their negative character. But

man must also have overcome fear through the relinquishment of finite

ends, and the satisfaction which that Religion affords is confined

to what is finite, seeing that the chief means of reconciliation are

natural forms which are impersonated and held in reverence.

The oriental consciousness raises itself, indeed, above the natural

content to what is infinite; but it only knows itself as accidental

in reference to the power which makes the individual fear. This

subordination may take two forms and must indeed from one extreme pass

to the other. The finite, which is for consciousness, may have the form

of finitude as finite, or it may become the infinite, which is however

an abstraction. The man who lives in fear, and he who rules over

men through fear, both stand upon the same platform; the difference

between them is only in the greater power of will which can go forth to

sacrifice all that is finite for some particular end. The despot brings

about what his caprice directs, including certainly what is good, not

as law, but as arbitrary will: the passive will, like that of slavery,

is converted into the active energy of will, which will, however, is

arbitrary still. In Religion we even find self-immersion in the deepest

sensuality represented as the service of God, and then there follows in

the East a flight to the emptiest abstraction as to what is infinite,

as also the exaltation attained through the renunciation of everything,

and this is specially so amongst the Indians, who torture themselves

and enter into the most profound abstraction. The Indians look straight

before them for ten years at a time, are fed by those around, and are

destitute of other spiritual content than that of knowing what is

abstract, which content therefore is entirely finite. This, then, is

not the soil of freedom.

In the East, Mind indeed begins to dawn, but it is still true of it

that the subject is not presented as a person, but appears in the

objectively substantial, which is represented as partly supersensuous

and partly, and even more, material, as negative and perishing. The

highest point attainable by the individual, the everlasting bliss, is

made an immersion into substance, a vanishing away of consciousness,

and thus of all distinction between substance and individuality—hence

an annihilation. A spiritually dead relation thus comes into existence,

since the highest point there to be reached is insensibility. So

far, however, man has not attained that bliss, but finds himself to

be a single existent individual, distinguished from the universal

substance. He is thus outside the unity, has no significance, and as

being what is accidental and without rights, is finite only; he finds

himself limited through Nature—in caste for instance. The will is

not here the substantial will; it is the arbitrary will given up to

what is outwardly and inwardly contingent, for substance alone is the

affirmative. With it greatness, nobility, or exaltitude of character,

are certainly not excluded, but they are only present as the naturally

determined or the arbitrary will, and not in the objective forms of

morality and law to which all owe respect, which hold good for all, and

in which for that same reason all are recognized. The oriental subject

thus has the advantage of independence, since there is nothing fixed;

however undetermined is the substance of the Easterns, as undetermined,

free and independent may their character be. What for us is justice

and morality is also in their state, but in a substantial, natural,

patriarchal way, and not in subjective freedom. Conscience does not

exist nor does morality. Everything is simply in a state of nature,

which allows the noblest to exist as it does the worst.

The conclusion to be derived from this is that no philosophic knowledge

can be found here. To Philosophy belongs the knowledge of Substance,

the absolute Universal, that whether I think it and develop it or not,

confronts me still as for itself objective; and whether this is to me

substantial or not, still just in that I think it, it is mine, that in

which I possess my distinctive character or am affirmative: thus my

thoughts are not mere subjective determinations or opinions, but, as

being my thoughts, are also thoughts of what is objective, or they are

substantial thoughts. The Eastern form must therefore be excluded from

the History of Philosophy, but still, upon the whole, I will take some

notice of it. I have touched on this elsewhere,[8] for some time ago we

for the first time reached a position to judge of it. Earlier a great

parade was made about the Indian wisdom without any real knowledge of

what it was; now this is for the first time known, and naturally it is

found to be in conformity with the rest.

c. _Beginnings of Philosophy in Greece._

Philosophy proper commences in the West. It is in the West that

this freedom of self-consciousness first comes forth; the natural

consciousness, and likewise Mind disappear into themselves. In the

brightness of the East the individual disappears; the light first

becomes in the West the flash of thought which strikes within itself,

and from thence creates its world out of itself. The blessedness of

the West is thus so determined that in it the subject as such endures

and continues in the substantial; the individual mind grasps its Being

as universal, but universality is just this relation to itself. This

being at home with self, this personality and infinitude of the “I”

constitutes the Being of Mind; it is thus and can be none else. For a

people to know themselves as free, and to be only as universal, is for

them to be; it is the principle of their whole life as regards morality

and all else. To take an example, we only know our real Being in so far

as personal freedom is its first condition, and hence we never can be

slaves. Were the mere arbitrary will of the prince a law, and should

he wish slavery to be introduced, we would have the knowledge that this

could not be. To sleep, to live, to have a certain office, is not our

real Being, and certainly to be no slave is such, for that has come to

mean the being in nature. Thus in the West we are upon the soil of a

veritable Philosophy.

Because in desire I am subject to another, and my Being is in a

particularity, I am, as I exist, unlike myself; for I am “I,” the

universal complete, but hemmed in by passion. This last is self-will

or formal freedom, which has desire as content. Amongst the Greeks we

first find the freedom which is the end of true will, the equitable and

right, in which I am free and universal, and others, too, are free, are

also “I” and like me; where a relationship between free and free is

thus established with its actual laws, determinations of the universal

will, and justly constituted states. Hence it is here that Philosophy

began.

In Greece we first see real freedom flourish, but still in a restricted

form, and with a limitation, since slavery was still existent, and the

states were by its means conditioned. In the following abstractions we

may first of all superficially describe the freedom of the East, of

Greece, and of the Teutonic world. In the East only one individual is

free, the despot; in Greece the few are free; in the Teutonic world

the saying is true that all are free, that is, man is free as man. But

since the one in Eastern countries cannot be free because that would

necessitate the others also being free to him, impulse, self-will, and

formal freedom, can there alone be found. Since in Greece we have to

deal with the particular, the Athenians, and the Spartans, are free

indeed, but not the Messenians or the Helots. The principle of the

“few” has yet to be discovered, and this implies some modifications of

the Greek point of view which we must consider in connection with the

History of Philosophy. To take these into consideration means simply to

proceed to the dividing up of Philosophy.

C

DIVISION, SOURCES, AND METHOD ADOPTED IN TREATING OF THE HISTORY OF

PHILOSOPHY.

1. DIVISION OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

Since we set to work systematically this division must present itself

as necessary. Speaking generally, we have properly only two epochs to

distinguish in the history of Philosophy, as in ancient and modern

art—these are the Greek and the Teutonic. The Teutonic Philosophy

is the Philosophy within Christendom in so far as it belongs to the

Teutonic nations; the Christian-European people, inasmuch as they

belong to the world of science, possess collectively Teutonic culture;

for Italy, Spain, France, England, and the rest, have through the

Teutonic nations, received a new form. The influence of Greece also

reaches into the Roman world, and hence we have to speak of Philosophy

in the territory of the Roman world; but the Romans produced no proper

Philosophy any more than any proper poets. They have only received

from and imitated others, although they have often done this with

intelligence; even their religion is derived from the Greek, and the

special character that it has, makes no approach to Philosophy and Art,

but is unphilosophical and inartistic.

A further description of these two outstanding opposites must be given.

The Greek world developed thought as far as to the Idea; the Christian

Teutonic world, on the contrary, has comprehended Thought as Spirit;

Idea and Spirit are thus the distinguishing features. More particularly

the facts are as follows. Because God, the still undetermined and

immediate Universal, Being, or objective Thought, jealously allowing

nothing to exist beside Him, is the substantial groundwork of all

Philosophy, which never alters, but ever sinks more deeply within

itself, and through the development of determinations manifests itself

and brings to consciousness, we may designate the particular character

of the development in the first period of Philosophy by saying that

this development is a simple process of determinations, figurations,

abstract qualities, issuing from the one ground that potentially

already contains the whole.

The second stage in this universal principle is the gathering up of

the determinations manifested thus, into ideal, concrete unity, in the

mode of subjectivity. The first determinations as immediate, were still

abstractions, but now the Absolute, as the endlessly self-determining

Universal, must furthermore be comprehended as active Thought, and not

as the Universal in this determinate character. Hence it is manifested

as the totality of determinations and as concrete individuality. Thus,

with the _νοῦς_ of Anaxagoras, and still more with Socrates, there

commences a subjective totality in which Thought grasps itself, and

thinking activity is the fundamental principle.

The third stage, then, is that this totality, which is at first

abstract, in that it becomes realized through the active,

determining, distinguishing thought, sets itself forth even in the

separated determinations, which, as ideal, belong to it. Since these

determinations are contained unseparated in the unity, and thus

each in it is also the other, these opposed moments are raised into

totalities. The quite general forms of opposition are the universal

and the particular, or, in another form, Thought as such, external

reality, feeling or perception. The Notion is the identity of universal

and particular; because each of these is thus set forth as concrete in

itself, the universal is in itself at once the unity of universality

and particularity, and the same holds good of particularity. Unity

is thus posited in both forms, and the abstract moments can be made

complete through this unity alone; thus it has come to pass that the

differences themselves are each raised up to a system of totality,

which respectively confront one another as the Philosophy of Stoicism

and of Epicureanism. The whole concrete universal is now Mind; and

the whole concrete individual, Nature. In Stoicism pure Thought

develops into a totality; if we make the other side from Mind—natural

being or feeling—into a totality, Epicureanism is the result. Each

determination is formed into a totality of thought, and, in accordance

with the simple mode which characterizes this sphere, these principles

seem to be for themselves and independent, like two antagonistic

systems of Philosophy. Implicitly both are identical, but they

themselves take up their position as conflicting, and the Idea is also,

as it is apprehended, in a one-sided determinateness.

The higher stage is the union of these differences. This may occur

in annihilation, in scepticism; but the higher point of view is the

affirmative, the Idea in relation to the Notion. If the Notion is,

then, the universal—that which determines itself further within

itself, but yet remains there in its unity and in the ideality and

transparency of its determinations which do not become independent—the

further step is, on the other hand, the reality of the Notion in which

the differences are themselves brought to totalities. Thus the fourth

stage is the union of the Idea, in which all these differences, as

totalities, are yet at the same time blended into one concrete unity of

Notion. This comprehension first takes place without constraint, since

the ideal is itself only apprehended in the element of universality.

The Greek world got as far as this Idea, since they formed an ideal

intellectual world; and this was done by the Alexandrian Philosophy,

in which the Greek Philosophy perfected itself and reached its end.

If we wish to represent this process figuratively, _A._ Thought, is

(_α_) speaking generally abstract, as in universal or absolute space,

by which empty space is often understood; (_β_) then the most simple

space determinations appear, in which we commence with the point in

order that we may arrive at the line and angle; (_γ_) what comes third

is their union into the triangle, that which is indeed concrete, but

which is still retained in this abstract element of surface, and

thus is only the first and still formal totality and limitation which

corresponds to the _νοῦς_. _B._ The next point is, that since we allow

each of the enclosing lines of the triangle to be again surface, each

forms itself into the totality of the triangle and into the whole

figure to which it belongs; that is the realization of the whole in the

sides as we see it in Scepticism or Stoicism. _C._ The last stage of

all is, that these surfaces or sides of the triangle join themselves

into a body or a totality; the body is for the first time the perfect

spacial determination, and that is a reduplication of the triangle.

But in as far as the triangle which forms the basis is outside of the

pyramid, this simile does not hold good.

Grecian Philosophy in the Neo-platonists finds its end in a perfect

kingdom of Thought and of bliss, and in a potentially existent world

of the ideal, which is yet unreal because the whole only exists in the

element of universality. This world still lacks individuality as such,

which is an essential moment in the Notion; actuality demands that in

the identity of both sides of the Idea, the independent totality shall

be also posited as negative. Through this self-existent negation, which

is absolute subjectivity, the Idea is first raised into Mind. Mind is

the subjectivity of self-knowledge; but it is only Mind inasmuch as

it knows what is object to itself, and that is itself, as a totality,

and is for itself a totality. That is to say, the two triangles which

are above and below in the prism must not be two in the sense of being

doubled, but they must be one intermingled unity. Or, in the case of

body, the difference arises between the centre and the peripheral

parts. This opposition of real corporeality and centre as the simple

existence, now makes its appearance, and the totality is the union of

the centre and the substantial—not, however, the simple union, but a

union such that the subjective knows itself as subjective in relation

to the objective and substantial. Hence the Idea is this totality,

and the Idea which knows itself is essentially different from the

substantial; the former manifests itself independently, but in such a

manner that as such it is considered to be for itself substantial. The

subjective Idea is at first only formal, but it is the real possibility

of the substantial and of the potentially universal; its end is to

realize itself and to identify itself with substance. Through this

subjectivity and negative unity, and through this absolute negativity,

the ideal becomes no longer our object merely, but object to itself,

and this principle has taken effect in the world of Christianity. Thus

in the modern point of view the subject is for itself free, man is

free as man, and from this comes the idea that because he is Mind he

has from his very nature the eternal quality of being substantial. God

becomes known as Mind which appears to itself as double, yet removes

the difference that it may in it be for and at home with itself. The

business of the world, taking it as a whole, is to become reconciled

with Mind, recognizing itself therein, and this business is assigned to

the Teutonic world.