Chapter II. — Transition Period D. THE GERMAN
ILLUMINATION.
The Germans were at this time quietly drifting
along in their Leibnitzo-Wolffian philosophy,
in its definitions, axioms and proofs. Then
they were gradually breathed upon by the
spirit of foreign lands, they made acquaintance
with all the developments which there came
to pass, and took very kindly to the empiricism
of Locke; on the other hand they at the same
time laid aside metaphysical investigations,
turned their attention to the question of
how truths can be grasped by the healthy
human understanding, and plunged into the
Aufklärung and into the consideration of
the utility of all things - a point of view
which they adopted from the French. Utility
as the essence of existent things signifies
that they are determined as not being in
themselves, but for another: this is a necessary
moment, but not the only one. The German
Aufklärung warred against ideas, with the
principle of utility as its weapon. Philosophic
investigations on this subject had degenerated
into a feeble popular treatment of it which
was incapable of going deeper; they displayed
a rigid pedantry and an earnestness of the
understanding, but were unspiritual. The
Germans are busy bees who do justice to all
nations, they are old-clothesmen for whom
anything is good enough, and who carry on
their haggling with everyone. Picked up as
it was from foreign nations, all this had
lost the wit and life, the energy and originality
which with the French had made the content
to be lost sight of in the form. The Germans,
who honestly sift a matter to its root, and
who would put rational arguments in the place
of wit and vivacity, since wit and vivacity
really prove nothing, in this way reached
a content which was utterly empty, so much
so that nothing could be more wearisome than
this profound mode of treatment; such was
the case with Eberhard, Tetens, and those
like them.
Others, like Nicolai, Sulzer and their fellows,
were excellent in their speculations on questions
of taste and the liberal sciences; for literature
and art were also to flourish among the Germans.
But with all this they only arrived at a
most trivial treatment of æsthetics - Lessing(1)
called it shallow chatter. As a matter of
fact, indeed, the poems of Gellert, Weisse
and Lessing sank almost, if not quite as
much into the same poetic feebleness. Moreover,
previous to the philosophy of Kant, the general
principle was really the theory of happiness,
which we have already met with in the philosophy
of the Cyrenaics (Vol. I. p. 477), and the
point of view of pleasant or unpleasant sensations
held good among the philosophers of that
time as an ultimate and essential determination.
Of this manner of philosophizing I will quote
an example which Nicolai gives in the account
of a conversation which he had with Mendelssohn:
what is in question is the pleasure in tragic
subjects which is held to be awakened even
by means of the unpleasant emotions depicted
in a tragedy:
HERR MOSES. "The power of having an
inclination for perfections and of shunning
imperfections is a reality. Therefore the
exercise of this power brings a pleasure
with it, which, however, is in nature comparatively
less than the displeasure which arises from
the contemplation of the object.
I. Yet even then, when the violence of passion
causes us unpleasant sensations, the movement
(what else is this movement than the power
of loving perfections, &c.?) which it
brings with it has still delights for us.
It is the strength of the movement which
we enjoy, even in spite of the painful sensations
which oppose what is pleasant in the passion,
and in a short time obtain the victory.
HERR MOSES. In a stage play, on the contrary,
as the imperfect object is absent, pleasure
must gain the upper hand and eclipse the
small degree of displeasure.
I. A passion therefore which is not followed
by these results must be altogether pleasant.
Of this sort are the imitations of the passions
which the tragedy affords."(2)
With such vapid and meaningless drivel they
rambled on. In addition to these, the eternity
of punishment in hell, the salvation of the
heathen, the difference between uprightness
and godliness, were philosophic matters on
which much labour was expended among the
Germans, while the French troubled themselves
little about them. Finite determinations
were made to hold good against the infinite;
against the Trinity it was asserted that
One cannot be Three; against original sin,
that each must bear his own guilt, must have
done his own deeds of himself, and must answer
for them; in the same way against redemption,
that another cannot take upon himself punishment
that is due; against forgiveness of sin,
that what is done cannot be rendered undone;
to sum up generally, the incommensurability
of the human nature with the divine. On the
one side we see healthy human understanding,
experience, facts of consciousness, but on
the other side there was still in vogue the
Wolffian metaphysics of the dry, dead understanding;
thus we see Mendelssohn take his stand by
the healthy human understanding, and make
it his rule.
Some movement was brought into this authority,
which had settled into perfect peace and
security and let no dreams of other matters
cross its path, by the chance dispute of
Mendelssohn with Jacobi, first as to whether
Lessing had been a disciple of Spinoza, and
then regarding the doctrines of Spinoza himself.
On this occasion it came to light how much
Spinoza was really forgotten, and in what
horror Spinozism was held. But while Jacobi
in this way once more unexpectedly brought
to remembrance in connection with Spinozism
a quite different content of philosophy,
faith, i. e., the simply immediate certainty
of external, finite things, as well as of
the divine (which faith in the divine he
called reason) was certainly placed by him,
as an independent thinker, in opposition
to mediating knowledge, which he apprehended
as mere understanding. This continued until
Kant gave a new impulse in Germany to philosophy,
which had died out in the rest of Europe.
As far as the transition to modern German
philosophy is concerned, it is from Hume
and Rousseau, as we have said (pp. 369, 374,
402), that it took its start. Descartes opposes
extension to thought, as what is simply one
with itself. He is charged with dualism,
but, like Spinoza and Leibnitz, he did away
with the independence of the two sides, and
made supreme their unity, God. But, as this
unity, God is first of all only the Third;
and He is further determined in such a way
that no determination pertains to Him. Wolff's
understanding of the finite, his school metaphysics
generally, his science of the understanding,
and his divergence into the observation of
nature, after it has grown strong in its
conformity with law and in its finite knowledge,
turns against the infinite and the concrete
determinations of religion, and comes to
a standstill with abstractions in his theologia
naturalis; for the determinate is his domain.
But from this time an utterly different point
of view is introduced. The infinite is transported
into abstraction or incomprehensibility.
This is an incomprehensible position to adopt.
Nowadays it is looked on as most pious, most
justifiable. But as we see the third, the
unity of difference, defined as something
which cannot be thought or known, this unity
is not one of thought, for it is above all
thought, and God is not simply thought. Nevertheless
this unity is defined as the absolutely concrete,
i. e., as the unity of thought and Being.
Now we have come so far that this unity is
a unity simply in thought, and pertaining
to consciousness, so that the objectivity
of thought - reason - comes forth as One
and All. This is dimly conceived by the French.
Whether the highest Being, this Being divested
of all determination, is elevated above nature,
or whether nature or matter is the highest
unity, there is always present the establishing
of something concrete, which at the same
time belongs to thought. Since the liberty
of man has been set up as an absolutely ultimate
principle, thought itself has been set up
as a principle. The principle of liberty
is not only in thought but the root of thought;
this principle of liberty is also something
in itself concrete, at least in principle
it is implicitly concrete. Thus far have
general culture and philosophic culture advanced.
Since what is knowable has now been placed
entirely within the sphere of consciousness,
and since the liberty of the spirit has been
apprehended as absolute, this may be understood
to mean that knowledge has entered altogether
into the realm of the finite. The standpoint
of the finite was at the same time taken
as ultimate, and God as a Beyond outside
consciousness; duties, rights, knowledge
of nature, are finite. Man has thereby formed
for himself a kingdom of truth, from which
God is excluded; it is the kingdom of finite
truth. The form of finitude may here be termed
the subjective form; liberty, self-consciousness
[Ichheit] of the mind, known as the absolute,
is essentially subjective - in fact it is
the subjectivity of thought. The more the
human reason has grasped itself in itself,
the more has it come down from God and the
more has it increased the field of the finite.
Reason is One and All, which is at the same
time the totality of the finite; reason under
these conditions is finite knowledge and
knowledge of the finite. The question is,
since it is this concrete that is established
(and not metaphysical abstractions), how
it constitutes itself in itself; and then,
how it returns to objectivity, or abrogates
its subjectivity, i. e., how by means of
thought God is to be again brought about,
who at an earlier time and at the beginning
of this period was recognized as alone the
true. This is what we have to consider in
the last period, in dealing with Kant, Fichte,
and Schelling.
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