# The Secret of Hegel/Volume 1/Section 1/Chapter 1

THE
SECRET OF HEGEL.
I.
PROLEGOMENA.—THE STRUGGLE TO HEGEL.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARIES OF THE STRUGGLE TO HEGEL.
One approaches Hegel for the first time—such is the voice of rumour and such the subjects he involves—as one might approach some enchanted palace of the Arabian stories. New powers—imagination is assured (were but the entrance gained)—await one there—secrets—as it were, the ring of Solomon and the pass-keys of the universe. But, very truly, if thus magical is the promise, no less magical is the difficulty; and one wanders round the book—as Aboulfaouaris round the palace—irrito, without success, but not without a sufficiency of vexation. Book—palace—is absolutely inaccessible, for the known can show no bridge to it; or if accessible, then it is absolutely impenetrable, for it begins not, it enters not, what seems the doorway receives but to reject, and every attempt at a window is baffled by a fall.
This is the universal experience; and one is almost justified to add, that—whether in England, or in France, ​or in Germany itself—this, the experience of the beginning, is—all but equally universally—the experience also of the end. And yet how one cloaks the hurt, how one dat verba dolori, how one extenuates defeat—nay rather, perhaps, how one rises in triumph over the worthless, which is, however, only the sour! 'It is but scholasticism,' one is happy enough to see at last; 'or a play upon words;' 'at all events there is no advance in it on Plato,' 'or on Aristotle,' 'or on Plotinus,' 'or on Thomas Aquinas;' 'at least that Being and Nothing "is" the same, is but a bêtise of a good, heavy, innocent Teutschland;' 'and then there cannot be a doubt but everyone must recoil at the reconciliation of contraries,' 'aye, and shudder at Pantheism!' But not thus is it that Hegel will be laid, and not thus is it that—in the end—our own ignorance shall be hailed as knowledge.
But, if it be thus with those who admit defeat—with those, that is, who actually acknowledge their inability to construe (though for the most part, at the same time, with the consistency of an ostrich, they comically assume to confute), it must be confessed that one's satisfaction is not perfect, either, with those who arrogate a victory and display the spoils. 'A victory!' one is apt to mutter, 'yes, a victory of the outside—a victory, as it were, of the table of contents—a victory of these contents themselves, perhaps, but so that it looks like a licking of them all up dry—a victory then which has been, not chemically or vitally, but only mechanically effected; effected in such wise, indeed, that the displayed spoils (the book they write) consist but of a sort of logical Petrefactenkunde, but of a grammatical fluency of mere forms, which, however useful to a professor as a professor, affect others like the nomenclature of Selenography; whose Mare Magnum and Lacus Niger and ​Montes Lucis (if these be the names) are names only—names, that is, of seas and lakes and mountains in the Moon, which can possess correspondent substance, consequently, for him only who reaches it—a consummation plainly that must be renounced by a Selenographer.'
It is in view of this difficulty of Hegel that the chapters bearing in their titles refer to the struggle to Hegel have been, though with considerable hesitation, submitted to the reader. They consist, for the most part, of certain members of a series of notes which, as it were, fell by the way—exclamation is natural to pain—during the writer's own struggle to the Logik and the Encyclopaedie. Originating thus, these notes (though sometimes written as if referring to a reader) brought with them not thought of publication so far as they themselves were concerned; many of them, indeed, were destroyed before any such thought occurred; and as the rest remained, they remain still, for to change them now would be to anachronise and stultify them. Imperfections, then, of all sorts are what is to be looked for in them; but still the hope is entertained that they may assist, or that, should they fail to assist, they may succeed to encourage; for, representing various stages of success, or unsuccess, in the study of Hegel, they may be allowably expected to have peculiar meaning for more than one student, who, finding his own difficulties reflected in what claims to have passed them, may feel himself stimulated afresh to a renewed attempt.
In the circumstances of the case too, I am sure the reader will not deem it unreasonable that he should be warned that the opinions expressed in these notes—both as interimistic and provisional in themselves, and as always referring to another, whether from the point of view of Hegel or from that of his commentator— ​must not be regarded as deliberate products of either, but must be viewed only as a preparatory scaffolding to be afterwards removed.
I shall always recollect the first time I opened the Encyclopædia of Hegel. It was the re-edition by Rosenkranz (Berlin, 1845) of Hegel's own third edition, a compact, substantial, but not bulky volume, ​with clear and well-sized type, that seemed to offer a ready and satisfactory access to the whole of this extraordinary system. Surely, was the thought, there will be no difficulty in making one's way through that! What a promise the very contents seemed to offer, if floating strangely in such an air of novelty! First of all, three grand Parts: the Science of Logic, the Philosophy of Nature, the Philosophy of Spirit! Evidently, something very comprehensive and exhaustive was about to given us! For Logic, Nature, Spirit—which last of course could only refer to intelligence, or to thinking, willing, feeling self-consciousness in general—being all three explained to us, there manifestly could remain nothing else to ask after. Then the Sub-parts! As the Parts were three, so under each of the three the Sub-parts were also three. Under Logic: the doctrine of Being, the doctrine of Essence, the doctrine of the Notion. Under Nature: Mechanik, Physik, Organik. Under Spirit: Subjective Spirit, Objective Spirit, Absolute Spirit. Nor did two trichotomies suffice; there was a third into the Majuscules A, B, C, a fourth into the Miniscules a, b, c, a fifth into the grammata α, β, γ, and lastly the discussion in the body of the work was seen—a sixth trichotomy—to proceed by the numbers 1, 2, 3. The outer look at least was attractive; there was balance, there was symmetry, and the energy of a beginner could at lowest hope that it was in presence, not ​of artifice and formality, but of nature and reality. At all events, be it as it night with the form, the matter was unexceptionable, and promised knowledge of the most complete, interesting, and important nature. For under Logic, there were not only propositions, syllogisms, &c., to be discussed, but all the great questions of Ontology also, as Being, and Existence, and Noumenon, and Phænomenon, and Substance, and Cause and Effect, and Reciprocity, &c. &c. Then the treatment of Nature seemed an extremely full one; for Static, and Dynamic, and Mechanic, and Chemistry (Chemism rather), and Geology, and Botany, and Physiology, and much else, seemed all to have place in it. Lastly, at once how pregnant and how new the matter of the Philosophy of Spirit appeared! Psychology, Morals, Religion, Law, Politics, Society, Art, and Philosophy: these were the subjects discussed, but all in a new order, and under new categories, with strange and new associates at their sides. What was Being-for-self, for example, and what was Phænomenology, and the World of Appearance, and, above all, what was the Absolute Idea?
But let us cease to wonder—let us begin to read.
Well, we have read the Fore-word of Rosenkranz. We have found in it, certainly, a considerable sprinkling of—to us—new words; some of them, too, of endless syllable, Mongolic, merely stuck together on the agglutinative principle, such as Sichinsichselbstreflectiren, (which does not occur here, however), or Ineinandergreifen, (which does); but we have gone through with it—we seem to ourselves to have understood it—there is no hidden difficulty in it, so far as we can judge. Though we have heard in it, too, that there is a split in the school, and that Hegelianism is not in Germany what it was; we have been told as well that this Ency​clopædia is a national treasure, the estimation of which will only grow with time; that other sciences are obliged to conform themselves to the notions it contains, and that it presents a pregnant concentration beside which the Manuels de Philosophie of the French and others are but shallow maundering, empty and antiquated. For our own part, moreover, we have felt ourselves, throughout the reading, in presence of what is evidently both a highly developed, and a wholly new, method of general thought. Altogether the Fore-word of Rosenkranz is a word of encouragement and hope.
We go further now—we enter upon Hegel himself. Alas! Hegel is not Rosenkranz, and the Fore-word—after a thousand efforts, with surprise, with incredulity, with astonishment, with vexation, with gall, with sweat—seems destined for ever to remain the Hind-word also.
Even if a ray of light seem suddenly to leap to you, most probably your position is not one whit the better of it; for the gleam of the beginning proves, for the most part, but a meteor of the marsh; a meteor with express appointment, it may be, even to mislead your vanity into the pitfall of the ridiculous. You shall have advanced, let us assume, for example, to the words: 'The Idea, however, demonstrates itself, as Thought directly identical with itself, and this at the same time as the power to set itself over against itself, in order to be for itself, and in this Other only to be by itself.' You shall have seen into these words, let us say, so far; and you shall have smirkingly pointed them out to friends, and smiled complacently over the hopeless blankness that fell upon their features; but in the smirk, and in the smile, and in the delusion that ​underlies them, you shall have, like Dogberry, to be 'written down an ass' the while. These words but abstractly state the position of Idealism—do they? And so, hugging yourself as on a secret gained, you relax pleasedly into the cloudland of the Vorstellung, to see there, far off across the blue, the whole huge universe iridescently collapse into the crystal of the Idea. You will yet see reason to be ashamed of your cloudland, to be disappointed with your secret, how true soever, and to find in every case that you have not yet accomplished a single step in advance.
The Encyclopædia proves utterly refractory then. With resolute concentration we have set ourselves, again and again, to begin with the beginning, or, more desperately, with the end, perhaps with the middle—now with this section, now with that—in vain! Deliberate effort, desultory dip—'tis all the same thing! We shut the book; we look around for explanation and assistance.
We are in Germany itself at the moment (say); and very naturally, in the first instance, we address ourselves to our own late teacher of the language. 'Other writers,' he replies, 'may be this, may be that; but Hegel!—one has to stop! and think! and think!—Hegel! Ach Gott!' Such a weary look of exhausted effort lengthens the jaw! and it is our last chance of a word with our late teacher; for henceforth he always unaccountably vanishes at the very first glimpse of our person, though caught a mile off!
But here is a friend of ours, an Englishman, of infinite ability, of infinite acquirement, conversant with many languages, but especially conversant with German, for he has held for years a German appointment, and rejoiced for years in a German wife. He will assist ​us. With what a curious smile he looks up, and shakes his head, after having read the two or three first sentences of the first Preface to the Encyclopædia! This Preface is Hegelian iron certainly, and with the tang of Hegelian iron in every word of it; but, looking at it now, it is difficult to understand that it should ever have seemed hard. Nor do I suppose that it really was hard to the friend alluded to. Only the closely wrought concentration must have seemed exceedingly peculiar; and it must have been felt that in such words—common and current as they are—as Inhalt, Vorstellung, Begriff, and even äusserliche Zweckmässigkeit, äusserliche Ordnung, Manier, Uebergänge, Vermittlung, &c., there lay a meaning quite other than the ordinary one; a meaning depending on some general system of thought, and intelligible consequently only to the initiated.
We are driven back on books again then; and we have recourse to the Life of Hegel as written by Rosenkranz. This writer possesses at once a facile and a lucid pen, beneath which, too, there rise up ever and anon the most expressive images, the most picturesque metaphors. Image, metaphor, facility, lucidity, all seem ineffectual, however, the instant they come to be applied to what alone concerns us—the philosophy of Hegel. The perspicuity and transparency which gives light everywhere else, here suddenly—so far as we are concerned—vanishes; and there is an incontinent relapse, on our part, into the ancient gall. Let the reader look, for example, at these, the first two sentences of what appears in the work referred to as a formal statement of the system of Hegel!
'Philosophy was to him the self-cognition of the process of the Absolute, which, as pure Ideality, is not affected by the vicissitude of the quantitative difference ​of the Becoming which attaches to the Finite. The distinction of the Pure Idea, of Nature, and of the Spirit as personification of history, is eliminated in the total totality of the Absolute Spirit that is present in them.
The reader will do well to refer to the original, and to examine from time to time the succeeding page, or page and a half, in test of his own proficiency. Insight into Hegel will have begun, when the passage referred to has become sun-clear. Not more than begun, however, for the glance into the system involved here extends only to the 'totality,' and, compared with a knowledge which were truly knowledge, is altogether inadequate. In the case of Hegel, there is nothing more deceptive than what are called general views. It is extreme injustice to all interests concerned, to sum up his system in a paragraph; and still worse to fancy that it is understood, and finished off, and done with in the single word Pantheism. He who would know Hegel, must know what Hegel himself would call das Einzelne, and even das Einzelne des Einzelnen; that is, he must not content himself with some mere fraudulent or illusory general conception of the whole; but he must know 'the particular,' (strictly, 'the singular'), and 'the particular of the particular.' The System of Hegel is this: not a mere theory or intellectual view, or collection of theories or intellectual views, but an Organon through which—as system of drill, instruction, discipline—passed, the individual soul finds itself on a new elevation, and with new powers. A general view that shall shortly name and give shortly to understand—a single statement that shall explain—this were a demand not one whit more absurd as regards the Principia of Newton than as regards the Logic of Hegel. ​Of the latter, as of the former, he only knows anything who has effected actual permeation. Fancy the smile into which the iron of Hegel broke when the never-doubting M. Cousin requested a succinct statement of The System! 'Monsieur,' said he, 'ces choses ne se disent pas succinctement, surtout en Français!'
The Life of Hegel by Rosenkranz, then, however interesting, however satisfactory otherwise, failed there—at least for us—where only we wished it to succeed. It extended no light for perception of the System. There it was, dark, and impervious—as dark and impervious as the Encylclopaedie itself. The opening sentences of the relative statement and the succeeding passages already referred to were flung, in the wonder they excited, to more than one correspondent, and the 'total Totality' remained an occasion of endless smile.
From all this it was evident, then, that the System of Hegel was something eminently peculiar, and that, if it were to be understood at all, the only course that remained was to take it in its place as part and parcel of what is called German Philosophy in general; and, with that object, to institute, necessarily, a systematic study of the entire subject from the commencement. Now that commencement was Kant; in regard to whom, so far, at least, as Hume and the philosophy of Great Britain generally were concerned, we might assume ourselves to possess what preliminary preparation was specially required. With Kant, then, without carrying the regression further, and with reasonable hope of success, we might begin at once.
The Kritik of Pure Reason was accordingly taken up, and an assiduous study of the same duly set forward. The Introduction and the Aesthetik necessitated, indeed, the closest attention and the most earnest ​thought in consequence of the newness of the matter and the imperfections of the form, but offered on the whole no serious impediment. It was otherwise, however, with the Transcendental Analytik, the burthen of which is the Deduction of the Categories, pronounced by Hegel what is hardest in Kant and, so far as I have evidence, mastered as yet by Hegel alone. Here there was pause; here the eyes wandered; here they looked up in quest of aid from without. The translations that offered themselves to hand were all of them to be regarded but as psychological curiosities; without exception, they seemed to have been executed as it were with the eyes shut, or as if in the dark; and consequently they fell on the eyes of the reader like a very 'blanket of the night,' against the overpowering weight of which no human lid could stir. Reinhold, Schwegler, not were procured, but fell in the way, scarcely with any profit. The former was one of those nervously clear, nervously distinct individuals who blind with excess of light and deafen with excess of accent; while the latter, excellent, admirable, afforded only a summary that was absolutely of no avail to the interest concerned, the Deduction of the Categories. The Frenchman, Saintes, extended a thin varnish of the 'Literature of the Subject;' but, as regarded the main object of a full perception of what that really was that the Kritik of Pure Reason strove to, he was as far from throwing any satisfactory light on Kant, as Véra—of whom one says at the end that, ​in every page, he has said l'idée, l'idée, l'idée, but what else one knows not—was from throwing any light on what one really wanted to know of Hegel. Three Vorträge of Kuno Fishcer, besides that they came years too late, seemed so very light in their tissue that they did not persuade me, as they were meant, to feel any interest in, or make any demand for, the two volumes on Kant which were announced to follow. Haym (Hegel und seine Zeit) was a man of genius, but all his admirable writing, all his brilliantly-pointed expression failed to convince me that there was nothing in Hegel. The prefatory notice to the extracts of Frantz and Hillert, an insignificant pamphlet on Hegel's subjective Logic published by Chapman, Gruppe—'Gegenwart, &c., der Philosoppie,' Fortlage—'die Lücken des Hegelschen Systems' (I suppose I need not mention Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, or Lewes' so-called Biographical History of Philosophy, especially as they are spoken of elsewhere)—these and the other works already named constitute what in my case is the Literature of the subject; and, though very readily allowing each his own peculiar merits—(Schwegler is indispensable)—it is not too much to say that a single satisfactory idea on the main thing wanted by a strug​gling student who would be thorough, is not to be got from the whole of them. He who after such reading supposes himself to possess an adequate conception of Kant and Hegel simply deludes himself. For my part, I have to declare that, so far as it has been given me to see, I have no evidence that any man has thoroughly understood Kant except Hegel, or that this latter himself remains aught else then a problem, whose solution has been arrogated, but never effected.
As regards the greater number of the writers already mentioned, one peculiarity is, that they all tell the same story; the repetition of which, indeed, each of them seems to regard as the word and countersign of his initiation. But, as happens elsewhere, the countersign here also degenerates into a snuffle—a snuffle about Plato this, Aristotle that, till Descartes, followed by Spinoza, Leibnitz, then after Locke, Hume, but Kant, then Fichte, next Schelling, last Hegel—a snuffle (the 'Literature of the subject,' God bless the mark!) so conventional, so stereotyped, that now its slightest echo sets the teeth on edge!
On the whole, the conclusion at this stage was, that, if one really desired to come to any knowledge of Kant and Hegel, or, for that part, of Fichte and Schelling either, it was with Kant and Hegel, with Fichte and Schelling, that one had alone to do. Accordingly, Tennemann, Chalybaeus, Michelet, though heard of, were not consulted. Neither were the Elucidations to Hegel by Rosenkranz enquired for: and the same author's alleged Reformation of the Hegelian Logic, if ever adapted to be of use, came to hand when it was no longer wanted. The pertinent articles in the Conversations Lexicon were too short to be of much service as regards the 'Philosophies' themselves; but ​useful light was obtained here and there on the technical meanings of German philosophical terms.
It was a consolation to learn from another such encyclopædic work, whose name I forget, that Hegel had been a shut book both to Goethe and Schiller, and that, as regards Jean Paul, it was in a manner an expression wrung from him, that Hegel was 'the sublest of all Metaphysical heads, but a very vampire of the living man.' In a like reference, it was not unpleasing to know that the Kritik of Pure Reason had remained opaque to Goethe, and to perceive from the words conveying it, that the claim of the same great man to an understanding of the Kritik of Judgment was perhaps not less susceptible of a negative than of an affirmative. Such evidences of the difficulty, then, were a consolation to the suffering individual student, at the same time that everything seemed to confirm the truth of his conclusion, that, in this case, as in most others, the true policy was to pass by the subordinates and address oneself at once to the principles.
But again, if we may neglect what is named the 'Literature of the subject,' as but a parasitic consequent, serviceable only to 'well-informed' sufficiency that would perorate its stiffest in a drawing-room—a consequent, indeed, which is incidental to every movement—how far, it may be asked, are we justified in assuming this or any movement to lie in its principals alone, and—what is the same thing on another side—how far is it possible to separate the consideration of any such movement from the consideration of its literature? These questions probably enable us to open at best what we would proceed to say. The movement, of which there is question at present, is an intellectual movement of such a nature as is not rare in history. ​The Germans commonly distinguish such movements by the word Gährung, which signifies zymosis, fermentation, ferment. Now, the dramatic zymosis of England, at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, presents a considerable analogy to the philosophical zymosis of Germany at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century; while neither of them, perhaps, can well be surpassed, as an example of the class, by any other which has occurred in history. In both, the same passionate enthusiasm, the same eager baste, the same burning rush, the same swift alternation of io triumphe, the same precipitation and superfetation of production. Man, strung to his utmost, view his utmost; and each new day brings forth its portent; which portent, again, in its place and season, is as temporary centre and feeding fuel to the growing, glowing, and enflaming hubbub.
Germany, for its part, however, was luckily free, as indeed behoved Philosophy, from an element of sense which deformed and disgraced the English ferment. For such pure white flames as Kant and Fichte, the own substance of the spirit was oil enough; the natural speed of their own life sufficed them; they required not, like Marlow, the fierce combustible of wine, as it were to given them edge upon themselves, that so they might eat into themselves, and devour up their own sweetness in an instant's rush. Yet Fichte, absolutely without a fear—absolutely without a misgiving in the intensity of his sincerity, in the intensity of his honesty, in the intensity of his conviction, was as swift and precipitate as even Marlow. Of this, his every act, his every word is proof. He kindles to Kant, he writes his 'Kritik of All Revelation' in four weeks, he ​rushes to Königsberg, he extends to Kant this same 'Kritik' by way of introductory letter. He becomes professor at Jena; his lectures are as inflaming fire, and his works—Wissenschaftslehre, Rechtslehre, Sittenlehre—leap from him like consecutive lightnings. The Journal he edits is, for its plainness of speech, confiscated by the Government: he rises up, he rushes to the front, he defends, he appeals, he listens to no private Hush, man! hold your tongue, we are going to look over it; he will have 'lawful conviction' or 'signal satisfaction.' Submit to be threatened! it is he will threaten, he will quit—quit and take his people with him; he and they will found a university for themselves! So single, so entire in his conviction of his first philosophy, this is no impediment to equal singleness, to equal entirety in his conviction of his second. Then, when the political horizon darkens over his country, he calls his compatriots to arms—calls to them through the very roulades of the French drums, calls to them in the very hearing of the French governor! Nor when, as if in answer to his call, the war arises, does the student slink into his study as if his work were done. No! the word is but exchanged for the deed; and in the doing of the deed, both he and his brave wife fall a sacrifice to their own nobleness! The eagle Fichte! whose flight was arrow-straight, whose speed the lightning's! Or take him in less serious and more amusing circumstances. The enthusiasm in the days of Marlow, the drunkenness of intellection could not be greater than this. Fichte visits Baggesen, whom as yet he has not seen; Baggesen has a child at the point of death, and cannot receive Fichte. They cannot part thus, however; Baggesen comes to Fichte in the stair; and there the two of them, Fichte ​and Beggesen, find Consciousness a subject so interesting, that, in such position, in such circumstances, they remain discussing it an hour and a half, turning away from each other at last, we may suppose,—to strike the stars—sublimi vertice!
It must be admitted, indeed, that the excitement in Germany took on, in some respects, larger proportions than that in England. The numbers of the affected, for example, were much greater in the former country than in the latter. The former country, indeed, would probably count by hundreds as the other by tens. Schulze, Kraus, Maimon, Krug, Kiesewetter, Erhard, Eberhard, Heydenreich, Bouterweck, Bendavid, Fries, Reinhold, Bardili, Beck, Hillsen, Köppen, Suabedissen—these really are but a tithe of the names that turn up in the German fluctuation, and each of them is to be conceived as but a seething froth-point in the immeasurable yeast.
In these zymoses, then, whether in Germany or in England, we may say that those who took part in them were stirred to their very depths; that they stood up, as it were, convulsed; that they emulously agonised themselves mutually, to the production of results, in both countries, on the whole transcendent, almost superhuman. Now, however wide was the seething sea in England, we all know, in these days, that it has subsided round a single, matchless island, Shakspeare, the delight, the glory, the wonder of the world; beside which, it is, on the whole, only by a species of indulgent indifference on our parts that we allow certain virtuosi to point out the existence of some ancillary islets. But just as it is in England as regards the dramatic zymosis, it is, or will be, in Germany as regards the philosophic; only, the latter country, perhaps, will ​distinguish its single island by a double name. We have arrived now at the point where an answer to the questions which we have left a short way behind us is easy, is self-evident. The seething thing, named English Drama, or German Philosophy, is one thing; and the practical outcome of the seething, another. Thus different, each, then, may be considered apart and by itself; and two diverse branches of human industry are seen to become hereby possible. He who shall make it his business to watch the gathering of the materials for the seething—the first bells or bubbles of the same—the further progress, all the consecutive phases as they appear in time—will be the Phaenomenologist or Historian of the Seething. By this historian, plainly, no detail is to be neglected, nor is any name to be omitted.
A very different task, however, is his who would take the other branch, and discuss only the settled outcome of the ferment: and this is the task in regard to German Philosophy which we here, and elsewhere, would desire to assume; a task which is, probably, insusceptible as yet of the form of art—which as yet cannot be effected, as it were, by a picture, by a statue, or even by a homogeneous essay, but which must content itself with what expansion it can receive from the rough and rude manner of one who breaks ground. For us then, with such object, the majority of the names tossed over in the turmoil will have no interest; for us, in short, the principals will suffice. And thus, by another road, we are brought to the same conclusion as before—to neglect, namely, the 'Literature of the subject;' and this, not only so far as it follows, but also so far as—so to speak—it accompanies the ferment. But again the terms principals and outcome are not necessarily coincident. In the ferment of the English Drama, ​Marlow, Ben Jonson, and others may, even beside Shakspeare, be correctly enough named principals; yet it is the last alone whom we properly term outcome. As it is, then, in the English movement, so probably will it be in the German also; and in this light, perhaps, there awaits us a closer circumscription yet than that which we had already reached. In other words, there may be principals here, too, whom, in part or in whole, it is not necessary to regard as outcome.
The reader, indeed, may have already perceived a tendency on our part to talk somewhat exclusively of Kant and Hegel; and may already, perhaps, resent the slight thereby implied to Fichte and Schelling, as to men who have hitherto ranked on the same platform as equals themselves, and no less equals of the others also. No man, for instance, will subordinate Fichte to Schelling; yet, as there has been assigned to Kant the relative place of Socrates, and to Hegel that of Aristotle, so there has always been reserved for Schelling no less proud a place—the place of Plato. It may well be asked, then, why should Fichte and Schelling give way to Hegel? Is it possible to take up the works of either of the former without perpetually coming on Anklänge—on assonances to Hegel for which this latter is the debtor? Do not the sources of the special inspiration of Hegel crop out all through the 'Ideen' and the 'Transcendentale Idealismus'—all through the 'Wissenschaftslehre,' and the 'Rechtslehre,' and the 'Sittenlehre?' Are not the considerations contained in these works the precise material on which Hegel turns? Whence else could there have been extended to him the ruts or the rails whereby his waggon was enabled to roll forward with filling to the inane? In what respect is the single quest of Schelling or of Fichte to be ​distinguished from that of Hegel or of Kant? Is it not true that there is but one quest common to all the four of them? Is not, after all, this quest with each but, in one word, the à priori? Do not they all aim at an à priori deduction of the all of things—a deduction which shall extend to man the pillars of his universe, and the principles as well by which he may find support and guidance in all his ways and wishes? If, then, they are thus successive attempts at the same result, why should they not all of them be equally studied? To this we may answer, that, so far as there is a succession, there is no wish to deny the right of any of them to be studied. We seek a practical concentration only, and, in the interest of that concentration, we would eliminate everything that is extraneous, everything that is superfluous—but nothing more. Now, as regards Kant, there is no room for doubt; his place is fixed, not only by common consent, but by the very nature of the case. It was he who originated the whole movement, and without him not a step in it can be understood. As regards Hegel, not so much to common consent is it that he owes his place, as to the inexorable sentence of History; for there has been no step since his death which is not to be characterised as dissolution and demise. But if Hegel be the historical culmination and end, both Fichte and Schelling must submit to be historical only so far as they lead to him—only so far as they approve themselves in his regard as nexus of mediation to Kant. Now, at a glance, there is much in both of them that is extraneous, and incapable of being regarded as historically connective in any respect. Fichte, for example, had two philosophical epochs; and if both belong to biography, only one belongs to history. The epochs of Schelling were, I suppose, three times more numerous; ​but, of them all, only the second and third are historical; those, namely, which, following the first, the initiatory identification with Fichte, sought to vindicate for Nature an independent place beside the Ego, and resumption for both into an indefinite Absolute. Nay, of the two epochs just named, it is even possible that we ought to strike off the latter; for there are not wanting good reasons to maintain that the work of this epoch—the resumption, namely, of both Nature and the Ego into the Absolute—belongs, not to Schelling, but to Hegel. Some of these reasons we shall see presently. Meantime, we shall assume the philosophical majority of Hegel to commence with the publication of the 'Phaenomenologie des Geistes,' in 1807. On this assumption, the historical works of Fichte are the 'Wissenschaftslehre' in its various forms, the 'Grundlage des Naturrechts,' and the 'System der Sittenlehre;' while the 'Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur,' or his 'Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie,' his 'System des Transcendentalen Idealismus,' and his 'Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie,' shall represent the historical works of Schelling.
It is very probable, however, that even these conclusions will become to the student, as he advances, doubtful. With Fichte and with Schelling, his satisfaction will not always be unmixed; and reasons will begin to show themselves for believing Hegel—though largely their debtor, both for stimulation and suggestion—to have, after all, in the end, dispensed with both, and taken a fresh departure from Kant for himself. In such circumstances, he will incline to think still further concentration both justifiable and feasible. No doubt it is interesting, he will say, to see the consecutive forms which the theme of Kant assumes now in the ​hands of Fichte, and now in the hands of Schelling. No doubt this is not only interesting, but also, for Hegel, extremely adjuvant. Still, if it is true that all culminates in Hegel, and that Hegel himself has made good his attachment to Kant, with practical elimination of all that is intermediate, then, evidently, for him whose object is the outcome only, Fichte and Schelling are no longer indispensably necessary. Then the dissatisfaction with these writers themselves!
As writers—this, at least, is the experience of the present student—Fichte and Schelling were incomparably the most accomplished of all the four, and offered by far the least impediment to the progress of a current intelligence. Schelling, however (his vindication of Nature as in opposition to Fichte, and such like, being neglected), seemed to have little to offer as stepping-stone to Hegel, besides what we may call, perhaps, his Neutrum of Reason—his generalised Universal of Reasons—which neutrum against coalesces in effect with the Absolute Neutrum, which resumes into itself both Nature and the Ego, both objectivity and subjectivity. And even as regards this, probably by far the most important element nameable Schellingian in Hegel, there were considerations which might just reverse the received relation of its origin.
The facts on which the considerations alluded to rest are these:—Hegel, when his time was come and his system—at least in its first form—lay complete in his desk, wrote to Schelling disclosing his intention to enter the career of Letters, or rather Philosophy, and asking his advice as to where to settle. He feared the literary revel and riot of Jena, he said: would not Bamberg, with opportunities to study Roman Catholicism, be a judicious preliminary residence? Hegel ​wrote this letter in November 1800, and his arrival in Jena the following January was the result of the correspondence. Now Schelling, who had but just summed and completed himself—and had but just given himself to the world as summed and completed—in his 'System des Transcendentalen Idealismus,' is found, immediately after his first meetings with Hegel, and with signs of haste and precipitation about him, offering himself to the world again, new summed, new completed—this time, indeed, as he professed, finally summed, finally completed, in what was largely antagonistic of the immediately previous sum—his 'Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie.'
These facts are few, but they probably cover a whole busy beehive of human interests both as regards Schelling and as regards Hegel. Haym, for example, a writer of brilliant genius, whom we have already mentioned, scarcely hesitates to insinuate that this haste of Schelling was probably not unconnected with the new-comer Hegel and the proverbial communicativeness of first meetings. If, then, Hegel, on these occasions communicated anything to Schelling, the burthen of such communication would be most probably the Neutrum; for, while it is the most prominent element in Hegel that can be called Schellingian, it is precisely in the last-named work of Schelling's that it emerges for the first time fully formed and fully overt. In this way, this same neutrum may be viewed as the honorarium or hush-money paid by the Unknown to the Known for the privilege of standing on the latter's shoulders and in the light of the latter's fame. For possibly the application of Hegel to Schelling was not without its calculations. It broke a long silence, and it concerned correspondents very differently placed. ​Hegel was by four years and five months the senior of Schelling: as yet, nevertheless, he had done nothing; he was but an obscure tutor, and his existence was to be wholly ignored. Schelling, on the contrary, though so much his junior, was already an old celebrity, a placed professor, an established author, a philosopher the rival of Fichte, the rival of Kant. To Hegel, unknown, obscure, of no account, nothing, but who would rank precisely among these highest of the high—who would, in fact, as the paper in his desk prophesied to him, be all—the immense advantages that would lie in Schelling's introduction, in Schelling's association of him with himself as philosophical teacher, as literary writer, could not be hid. Why, it would be the saving to him of whole years of labour, perhaps of a whole world of heart-breaks. There is, quite accordingly, a peculiar tone, a peculiar batedness of breath in the letter of Hegel: admiration of Schelling's career, almost amounting to awe, is hinted; he looks to Schelling with full confidence for a recognition of his disinterested labour (the paper in his desk), even though its sphere be lower; before trusting himself to the literary intoxication of Jena, he would like preliminarily to strengthen himself somewhere else, say at Bamberg, &c. &c. It is difficult to avoid distrusting all this, for we feel it is precisely Jena he wants to get at, and we know that he was not slow to come to Jena when Schelling bade him. Then, we seem to see, Bamberg had served its turn; it and its opportunities for the study of Catholicism might now go hang! what was wanted had been got.
In their first meetings at Jena, then, such being the relative positions of the two former fellow-students, Hegel, it may be supposed, would naturally desire to ​conciliate Schelling—would naturally desire indirectly to show him that the advantages of a partnership would not, after all, be so very wholly on one side,—would naturally desire to make him feel that he (Schelling) had not done so ill in giving the stranger the benefit of his introduction and the prestige of his fame. Very probably, then, Hegel would not hesitate, in such circumstances, to show Schelling, if he could, that in his (Schelling's) own doctrines there lay an element which, if developed, would extend to the System the last touch of comprehensiveness, simplicity, and symmetry.
But this Neutrum will be found to be very fairly expressed, and more than once too, in the 'Transcendentale Idealismus!'
An 'absolut Identisches' in which the 'Objective' and 'Subjective' shall coalesce is talked of in various places. We may instance these:—At page 29, we hear of 'ein Absolutes, das von sich selbst die Ursache und die Wirkung—Subject und Object—ist;' at pages iv. and v. of Preface, an 'Allgemeinheit' is talked of, in which 'das Einzelne völlig verschwindet;' again, at page 29, the 'Selbstbewusstseyn' is identified with Nature, and both with the absolute identity of Subjective and Objective; lastly, pp. 4, 5, we have the following: 'Nature reaches the highest goal, to become wholly Object to its own self, only through the highest and last Reflexion, which is nothing else than Man, or, more generally, that which we name Reason, through which (Reflexion) Nature first returns completely into its own self, and whereby it becomes manifest that Nature is originally identical with that which is recognised in us as what is Intelligent and Conscious.'
This would seem to dispose definitively of any pretensions of Hegel. But again, it is a curious thing, ​that, once a doctrine has become historically established, we are often startled by expressions in the works of previous writers which seem accurately to describe it; yet these previous writers shall have no more insight into the doctrine concerned than any Indian in his woods; and we ourselves should have found something quite else in the expressions, had we read them before the doctrine itself was become historically overt. Small individuals there are in the world, however, who ferret out such ex post facto coincidences, to gloat over them in the envy and malice of their own impotence, and to denounce—sententiously vehement, indignantly moral on the strength of their own acuteness and such mere nonsense—some veritable historical founder as but a cheat and a thief and a plagiarist! Now, this might have happened here, and Schelling, for all his expressions in the Transcendental Idealism, might have been quite blind to their real reach till he had had his eyes opened by the communications of Hegel; in which circumstances, too, it would be illnatured to blame him for showing haste to make good his own in the eyes of the public. It is certain that a Universal of Reason lies much more in the way of the notions of Hegel than in that of those of Schelling, who, in the duality of Reality here and Ideality there, seems to leap to a Neutrum which is a Neutrum, which is Zero rather than an Absolute, rather than Reason. Be all this as it may, we are compelled, as it comes to us, to attribute this tenet to Schelling. If Hegel paid it away, and with such motives as we have pictured, he deserved to lose it; and the Hegelian may still take to himself the consolation which lay open to his master—he may sardonically look on at the little use Schelling made of it—at the little use ​Schelling could make of it, as it wanted to him that connection with Kant which enabled Hegel by giving body to the form to realise his System.
For the rest, the balanced magnet of an Absolute that was at once everywhere and nowhere—that was ideality, yet ideality was not reality, and that was again reality, yet reality was not ideality,—then the subordination of all to Art as highest outcome of the Absolute itself—the restlessness and inconstancy of his faith whether as regards others or himself,—his silence during the life of Hegel, his malicious breaking of silence after the death of Hegel, and the little intelligence he seemed to show of the very system he broke silence on,—all this dissatisfied with Schelling, and left an impression as of the too ebullient ardour that o'erleaps itself. Schelling has been said to resemble Coleridge, and not without reason so far as the latter's similarly ebullient youth is concerned. Doubtless, too, some will see in both a like versatility of opinion, and a like unsatisfactoriness of close: but, in these respects, any likeness that can be imputed is not more than skin-deep; and otherwise, surely, not many points of comparison can be offered. Coleridge, with all his logosophy, was no philosopher; and it is difficult to believe even that there is any single philosopher in the world whom he had either thoroughly studied or thoroughly understood. Schelling had both studied and originated Philosophy. Than Coleridge, he was infinitely profounder in acquisition, infinitely profounder in meditation of the same; he was infinitely clearer also, infinitely more vigorous, infinitely richer, and more elastic in the spontaneity of original suggestion and thought.
As for Fichte, having overcome the difficulty of his second proposition, which is that of Entgegensetzung, all seemed easy so far as study was concerned; and undoubtedly there lay in certain of his political findings—in his method of movement by thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and in that his undeniable and most valuable contribution, the Unconditionedness of the notion of the Ego—elements to which Hegel owed much; but—notwithstanding this, and notwithstanding the ​impetuous nobleness of the man, whose unhesitating headlong singleness, if to viewed with Mr. Carlyle as a rock at all, must be viewed as a rock, not at rest, but in motion, irresistible from without, nor yet quite resistible from within,—the general aspect of the system is, on the whole, unsubstantial and unreal; the in and in of the development wearies and awakens doubt, and one finds one's self easily sympathising with the aged and somewhat chagrined Kant, when, in a letter to Tieftrunk, he characterises it as a 'sort of ghost,' a mere 'thought-form,' 'without stuff,' which is incapable of being 'clutched,' and which accordingly 'makes a wonderful impression on the reader.'
On the whole, then,—for us,—but very little material could be pointed to as separating Hegel from Kant; nay, this material itself could be derived quite as well at first hand from the original quarry, as at second hand from the trucks of the quarry-men; and generally, in all respects, it was Hegel who specially continued and developed into full and final form all the issues which Kant had ever properly begun. The true principals, then, were Kant and Hegel; and, they being won, all others might be cheerfully neglected. Neither as regards their difficulty, surely, was there any reason to dread eventual despair, were but the due labour instituted. What they understood, another might understand; and for no other purpose than to be understood, had these their works been written, had these their works been published.
Let us confine ourselves to Kant and Hegel, then; nay, let us confine ourselves in them to those works of theirs which are specially occupied with the express scientific statement of their respective systems. In a word, let us confine ourselves to three works of each: as ​regards Kant, to the 'Kritik of Pure Reason,' 'the Kritik of Practical Reason,' and the 'Kritik of Judgment;' as regards Hegel, to the 'Phaenomenologie des Geistes,' the 'Logik,' and the 'Encyclopaedie.' This, then, is what has been done—indeed, to the production of greater restriction still, from the above enumeration, the 'Phaenomenologie des Geistes' is, on the whole, to be eliminated.
The present work relates to Hegel alone; and the immediately succeeding chapters present a series of notes which, as products of an actual struggle to this author, may prove, perhaps, not unadapted to assist, or at least encourage, others in a like undertaking. As regards Kant, whose study was first accomplished, an analogous expository statement, for which all the materials are collected, and which indeed in part already exists in sketch, will probably follow.
The reader, meantime, is not to suppose that by confining ourselves to Kant and Hegel, we wish it to be inferred that we consider these writers beyond the reach of some of the same objections already stated as regards Fichte and Schelling. The restriction in question is not due to any such motive, but depends only on considerations of what really constitutes the thing called German Philosophy; in regard to which every restriction seemed necessarily a boon, if at once productive of simplification, and not incompatible with a sufficiently full statement of the essential truth of the subject. By such motives is it that we have been actuated: and be it further understood that our present business is not with objections, not with judgment of the systems at all, but only as yet—as if possible—with their statement and exposition.
* ↑ It may be not amiss to remark that, besides this edition, I have seen also Hegel's own first and second editions. That contained in the collected works of Hegel, published by his disciples since his death, I have not seen nor sought to see, deeming it better to restrict myself to Hegel as if I may say so—authenticated by himself, than to trust myself to the equivocal, and, so to speak, contingent notes of students, of which notes, together with the text of Hegel, I understand this edition to consist.—The works which specially underlie the present writing are the Logik, 3 vols., Berlin, 1843; and the Encyclopaedie, Rosenkranz' edition, Berlin, 1845, which repeats unaltered, as I understand it, Hegel's own last or third edition.It may be worth while remarking that it is difficult to understand M. Véra on this matter of editions. In his Introduction à la Philosophie de Hegel, pp. 21, 22, this author enumerates the five various editions of the Encyclopædia correctly enough; but still he seems to have an incorrect conception of the specific nature of each. He tells us, and still, as I believe, with perfect accuracy, that there are 'two Encyclopædias,' 'a big,' and 'a little.' The 'big' he descirbes—and here now the confusion commences—as constituted by adding to the 'little' a certain 'commentary' of Hegel's own. 'This commentary,' he goes on to say, 'is not found in the first edition, which contains only the thesis and the summary demonstration. It was only in his second edition that Hegel believed it right to add it in order to render his thought less abstract and more accessible. It is this latter edition that I call the big Encyclopædia. Placed,' he continues, 'in the choice which we had to make between the "big" and the "little" Encyclopædia, we decided for the latter.' Yet he tells us in a note, 'it is the text of the edition given by Rosenkranz (Berlin, 1843) which we have followed.' That is, M. Véra follows what he calls the big Encyclopædia, when he believes himself to follow the little: for Rosenkranz' edition is a copy, not of Hegel's first, nor of Hegel's second (the 'big' of M. Véra), but of Hegel's third edition, and is thus bigger than the supposed big Encyclopædia itself.—Nor if M. Véra would take the trouble to look at Hegel's own first edition, would he find it altogether without commentary; neither is the addition of commentary, whatever enlargement may present itself in that and every respect, the distinctive feature of the editions which followed. They are successively larger, and decidedly larger, certainly; but Hegel's own smallest contains, in most cases, the first sketch of commentary, quite as much as of text, and his own largest is to be named the little Encyclopædia, when compared with that of the collected works, which, swelled by additions from the Hefte of the students, is, as I understand it, the only big one. Possibly it is of this last edition that M. Véra thinks as Hegel's second; but if so, M. Véra's position were by no means altered for the better—Hegel having had nothing to do with it.
* ↑ Reinhold: Versuch einer neuen Theorie des Menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens.
* ↑ Schwegler: Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss.
* ↑ Saintes: Vie et Philosophie de Kant.
* ↑ Véra: Introduction à la Philosophie de Hegel. It must be understood that these censures come from one whose desire was thoroughly to see into the whole connection and details of the systems in question, and that consequently another who should only aim at a 'general conception' may feel very differently towards some of the works mentioned. Rosenkranz and Sibree, for example, speak alike highly of the work of Véra; and they are both authorities of weight. Rosenkranz, as is well known, is the Hegelianer par excellence. And I have no hesitation in characterising Mr. Sibree's translation of Hegel's Philosophy of History as by far the best contribution to German philosophy that has yet appeared in England. The Philosophy of History is, however, perhaps, the very easiest and most exoteric of all the statements of Hegel; Mr. Sibree trips sometimes on very smooth ground; and when Philosophy Proper enters, the translator is to be found at work pretty much in the dark.
* ↑ In MSS. precedently belonging to those same labours.
* ↑ Coleridge's plagiarism from Schelling, and the maundering cun ning, the ostrich-like devices by which he sought to efface his own footsteps, have been noticed elsewhere (still in MS.) It is in this reference that De Quincey, in that brilliant rant which suited the period, sets the mere 'amusements' of Coleridge's 'magical brain' above what 'any German that ever breathed,' 'Schelling,' 'Jean Paul,' 'could have emulated even in his dreams'! This is exquisite! it is clear to an opium-eater that the business of the superior man is, 'for mere amusement of his activities,' 'to spin from the loom of his own magical brain,' 'gorgeous theories,' 'supported by a pomp and luxury of images, &c.,' and that he is at his strongest in his dreams. It is equally clear to a Hegel that such language is but the language of the Vorstellung, that it is absolutely alien to thought, and that in general it is just as worthless as any dream that was ever dreamed, though all the cavalcades of the universe had pranced, and all the bands of the universe had played through it. Coleridge superior to Schelling! Why, Schelling really effected something—the Natur-Philosophie, the Transcendental-Philosophie—something that has historically functioned, and still historically functions. But what has Coleridge effected? Aught else than fragmentary poetry—Christabel—the Ancient Mariner? Aught else than fragmentary criticism of poetry—chiefly Wordsworth's? Erudition! Desultory dipping and pretentious maundering about the same with an idle parade of some resultant names? Religion! A transient hectic in some half-a-dozen students of theology? Philosophy! Where is it? Mr. John Stuart Mill, if I do not mistake, called Coleridge 'one of those great seminal minds,' and Mr. Buckle believed him, but on what grounds of universal philosophy, or of the philosophies of either Mr. Mill or Mr. Buckle, it is difficult to see. Surely his opinions, on what subject soever—Church, State, Understanding, Imagination, Reason, the Bible, Political Economy, the Middle Ages, Tradition—were not such as either Mr. Mill or Mr. Buckle could approve! It is certainly generous to praise one's direct enemy; but one fears for the consistency of the principles. Rather, on the whole, as regards the entire business, one simply admires!