# Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3/Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph

Excerpted from The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, Volume 3, 1876 ed., page 914-915. (Ferrier's contributions to the Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography were for for the edition published 1857-1863. That this is the subsequent edition of 1876 is evidenced in its mentioning later dates—including that of Ferrier's death in 1864.)
​SCHELLING, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, one of the most celebrated and productive philosophers of Germany, was born at Leonberg in Würtemberg in 1775. He was the son of a country clergyman. Such was the precocity of his genius, that he entered the university of Tübingen in his fifteenth year. Here he formed a close intimacy with Hegel, afterwards his great rival in philosophy (see Hegel), although, in principle, their systems are very much alike. At the age of seventeen, with the view of taking the highest honours in philosophy, he published a Latin dissertation on "The Origin of Evil as laid down in the third chapter of Genesis." He remained at Tübingen until 1795, when he published an inaugural dissertation in theology, entitled "On Marcion the corrector of the Pauline Epistles." He then went to Leipsic, where he resided for a short time as tutor to the Baron von Riedesel. From Leipsic he went to the university of Jena, where he studied medicine and philosophy; the latter under Fichte, the presiding genius of the place—a man whose heroic character raises him as high among the patriots, as his speculative power does among the philosophers of his country. Schelling became Fichte's devoted disciple, and in 1798 he succeeded him as professor of philosophy at Jena. Here he lectured with great applause until 1803, when he was invited to fill the chair of philosophy at Wurzburg. Having been ennobled by the king of Bavaria, he removed to Munich in 1807, and remained there until 1841. During part of this time he discharged the duties of a professor in the university of Munich (founded in 1827), and after Jacobi's death he was appointed president of the Academy of Sciences. He resided for some time at Erlangen, where he delivered a course of lectures. In 1841 he was summoned to the university of Berlin to lecture against Hegelianism, which was then carrying everything before it. If Hegel's reign is over, it cannot be affirmed that Schelling had much share in deposing him. His lectures were generally regarded as a failure. They combined with the obscurity of his earlier writings a higher degree of prolixity and mysticism. Schelling's latter years seem to have been spent in retirement. He died in 1854. No life of him, on any extended scale, has as yet appeared. In his Biographia Literaria (first published in 1817), Coleridge embodied large extracts from the writings of Schelling, without any sufficient acknowledgment.—(See Blackwood's Magazine, March, 1840.) This, however, should be attributed rather to forgetfulness or carelessness, than to wilful plagiarism on the part of the English poet.
Schelling's writings may be classified as belonging to five periods. To the first period, 1795-96, belong—"On the possibility of a Form of Philosophy in general;" "On the Ego as the Principle of Philosophy, or on the unconditioned in human knowledge;" "Explanations of the Idealism involved in the Theory of Knowledge;" "Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism." In these writings he adheres closely to Fichte, who welcomed him as his best expositor. Later in life their relations were less amicable. In the second period, 1797-1801, appeared—"Ideas towards a Philosophy of Nature" (second edition, 1802); "On the World-Soul;" "First Sketch of a System of the Philosophy of Nature;" "Journal of Speculative Physics;" "System of Transcendental Idealism." During both of these periods, he also contributed largely to the Philosophical Journal of Fichte and Niethammer. In the second period he devoted himself more to the study of nature, and less to the exposition of Fichte. The third period, 1801-1803, gave birth to "Exposition of my System of Philosophy;" "Bruno, a dialogue on the divine and natural principle of things;" "Lectures on the Method of Academical Study;" "New Journal of Speculative Physics." In the fourth period, 1804-1809, he published a treatise on "Philosophy and Religion;" "A Statement of the True Relation of the Philosophy of Nature to the Improved Doctrine of Fichte;" "On the Relation of the Real and the Ideal;" "Philosophical Inquiries concerning the Nature of Human Freedom;" "Philosophical Writings," first volume. This latter publication (of 1809) was designed to contain all Schelling's already published works, with the addition, it may be supposed, of many new ones. But it stopped at the first volume, and contains only a portion of the compositions enumerated above. The fifth period extended from 1809 to 1854. During this long period, Schelling's literary activity, which hitherto had been so prolific, was comparatively in abeyance. That his pen was still busy his posthumous works testify; but whether it was that he was discouraged by the reception which his collected writings had met with, or that he had misgivings respecting the validity of his system, or that he was silently labouring to give it greater finish and completeness, his published contributions to science during this period of forty-five years were very small and far between. Of these the most important was a "Critical Preface" to Becker's translation into German of a work by the French philosopher Cousin. From this preface, the following extract on the obscurity of the German philosophers, is curious and memorable. It shows how a man's eyes may be open to faults in others, which he either does not see in himself, or seeing, does not choose or is unable to amend. "The philosophers of Germany," says Schelling, "have been for so long in the habit of philosophizing merely among themselves, that by degrees their thoughts and language have become further and further removed, even in Germany, from the understanding of general readers; and at length the degree of this remoteness from common intelligibility has come almost to be regarded as the measure of philosophic proficiency. Examples of this we hardly require to adduce. As families who abandon the intercourse of their fellow-men, acquire, in addition to other disagreeable peculiarities, certain peculiar modes of expression intelligible only to themselves; so have the German philosophers made themselves remarkable for forms of thought and expression which are unintelligible to all the world besides. The fact of their having been repeatedly nnsuccessful in their attempts to spread the knowledge of the Kantian philosophy beyond Germany—though, indeed, it compelled them to abandon the hope of making themselves understood by the natives of other countries—yet it never led them to conclude that there was anything wrong either with their philosophy itself, or with their method of communicating it. On the contrary, the oftener and the more signally they failed in their endeavours to disseminate the highly-cherished opinions, the stronger did their conviction become that philosophy was something which existed for themselves alone—not considering that to be universally intelligible is the primary aim of every true philosophy—an aim which, though often missed, ought yet never to be lost sight of, and ought to be the ruling and guiding principle of every system. This does not imply that works of speculative thought are chiefly to be weighed in the critic's scales as mere exercises of style; but it does imply that a philosophy whose contents cannot be made intelligible to every well-educated people, and expressed in every cultivated language, cannot be the true and universal philosophy." Such were Schelling's words in 1834, in passing sentence on the speculations generally of his countrymen. Their severity is not greater than their truth. Would that Schelling and his compeers had profited more largely by the advice! Since Schelling's death in 1854 a complete edition of his writings has been published by his son. It is comprised in fourteen volumes, and contains many works now printed for the first time. Of these the principal are "Historico-critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology;" "The Philosophy of Mythology;" "The Philosophy of Revelation." This vast theosophic system fills four large volumes.
In each of the four periods during which Schelling poured forth so many publications, his philosophy assumed a different phasis or aspect. It is not possible, within the limits of this sketch, to give any account of even the simplest of these varying and incomplete manifestations. The last and posthumous form in which the system has appeared, and in which the reflective labours of ​his long life may be supposed to be summed up, is a work so wide in its range, so complicated in its details, and so mystical in its tone, that an intelligible analysis of it is a scarcely practicable achievement. It may be more instructive, as well as more practicable, to confine ourselves to a smaller field—to consider, namely, the main point at issue between Schelling and some of the leading philosophers of this country. Perhaps some light will be thrown on his philosophy, its drift and purpose will perhaps become apparent in our attempt, not indeed to settle, but to adjust the terms of this dispute.
It is admitted on all hands, that truth of one kind or another is the proper aim of philosophy. But there are two kinds of truth: truth as it exists in itself, and truth as it exists in relation to us. The first of these is called technically the unconditioned; the latter the conditioned. According to Schelling, unconditioned truth is the proper object of philosophy. According to his opponents (of whom Sir W. Hamilton may be cited as the most distinguished) conditioned truth is the only proper and possible object of philosophy (see Hamilton's Discussions, art., "The Philosophy of the Unconditioned:" also page 643). Such is the precise and primary point at issue between the two philosophers.
We have now to state and examine the grounds on which each belligerent respectively supports his opinion. Hamilton's opinion is grounded on the assumption that whatever man knows he knows only in relation, that is, only in relation to his own faculties of knowledge. He can, therefore, apprehend only relative or conditioned truth. The unconditioned (truth in itself) is beyond his grasp. But it is plain that this argument proves too much; it proves that the unconditioned truth is equally beyond the grasp of Omniscience; because it is surely manifest that omniscience can know things only in relation to itself; and therefore Omniscience is just as incompetent as man is to apprehend the unconditioned, if this must be apprehended out of all relation to intelligence. If that be the idea of the unconditioned, Schelling's conception of philosophy must be given up, and Hamilton's must be accepted. But the surrender of the one and the acceptance of the other involves the admission that the truth in itself cannot be known even by the Supreme reason. That is the reductio to which Hamilton's argument brings us.
To escape this conclusion, then, we must not understand the unconditioned as that which is exempt from all relation; we must view it as that which stands in some sort of relation to intelligence. Viewing it otherwise, we fall into the absurdity touched upon in the preceding paragraph
If the truth in itself is not to be regarded as that which is placed out of all relation to intellect, it must, no less than the other kind of truth (the conditioned), be regarded as that which stands in some sort of relation to intellect; so that the distinction between truth unconditioned and truth conditioned thus resolves itself into the distinction between truth in relation to intelligence simply (ἅπλως), and truth in relation to our intelligence. And the point of the controversy now comes before us in this shape:—Can man apprehend the truth as it exists in relation to pure intelligence—to intelligence considered simply as such? or can he apprehend the truth only as it exists in relation to his intelligence, considered as a peculiar kind or mode of intellect? Now, although it is not clear that Schelling and his opponents have ever joined issue explicitly on this question, it is undoubtedly the question properly in dispute between them. Schelling argues in favour of the former alternative. He holds that philosophy is the pursuit of truth as it stands related to pure intellect, i.e., to intellect considered universally, and as not modified in any particular way: he holds that man is competent to the attainment of such truth, and that such truth is absolute and unconditioned. The other party (among whom we venture to place Hamilton) maintains that philosophy is the pursuit of truth as it stands related to our minds considered as a particular kind or form of intelligence—that man can attain to no other truth than this, and that this truth is relative and conditioned.
These respective conclusions rest on grounds which have now to be considered as forming the ultimate stage in the adjustment of this controversy. Schelling's ground is that there is a common nature or quality in all intelligence; that man, through his participation in this common nature, is, so far, a pure—that is, a nonparticular or universal intelligence, and hence is, so far, capable of cognizing universal or unconditioned truth. That Schelling has worked out this doctrine explicitly, or even intelligibly, is not to be maintained. But "the intellectual intuition" which he ascribes to man is undoubtedly his expression for the mind considered as a pure intelligence, and as having something in common with all other intelligences, whether actual or possible. The "intellectual intuition" is opposed to the sensational intuition, the latter denoting that part of the mental economy which is more peculiarly man's own, or human. Schelling's opponents, on the other hand, must be prepared to hold and to show that there is no nature common to all intelligence—that the different orders of minds (supposing that there are such) have no point of unity or agreement—that their difference is absolute and complete. This is the only logical ground on which they can deny to the mind of man all cognizance of the unconditioned truth. Such seem to be the grounds on which the famous question respecting the philosophy of the unconditioned has to be debated. We have offered no opinion on the merits of the case. But the victory is Schelling's if he has succeeded in showing, or if it be admitted, that every intelligence has something in common, some point or points of resemblance, with every other intelligence (for that is the fundamental question, the decision of which decides all); while again, his opponents must be pronounced triumphant if they have proved that intelligent natures differ from each other entirely, and have no point or principle in common. On both sides the terms of the dispute, as here adjusted, have been only partially adhered to. Schelling often loses himself in the unintelligible; his opponents have not seen the exact point of the problem: so that the "philosophy of the unconditioned" still calls for a patient and impartial reconsideration.
The philosophical character and influence of Schelling are well summed up by Mr. Morell in the following remarks (see Modern German Philosophy; Manchester papers, 1856):—"The later phases of Schelling's philosophy," says Morell, "are chiefly characterized by unavailing attempts to reconcile the pantheistic standpoint which he first assumed, with the notion of a personal Deity, and with the fundamental dogmas of the catholic faith. In doing this he lost the freshness and charm of his first philosophic principles on the one hand, without solving the problem of religion, or satisfying the practical religious requirements of humanity on the other. He merely glided step by step into a strained, unintelligible mysticism, and, without acknowledging it, became a foe to all purely philosophic speculation, and a tacit abettor of an antique romanticism. The followers of Schelling formed two distinct schools. Those who attached themselves to his Natur-philosophie (such as Oken, Steffens, Cams, and others) have really done good service in spiritualizing the physical philosophy of the age, without running info any censurable extravagance; while those who started from Schelling's later mysticism, such as Schubert, Baader, and others of smaller dimensions still, have done little else than revel in a species of sentimental mysticism, sometimes of more elevated, and at others of a very mean and trifling character. But the influence of Schelling was not confined to Germany. His attempt to unite the process of the physical sciences in one affiliated line with the study of man, both in his individual constitution and historic development, has also had a very considerable result out of his own country. No one, for example, who compares the philosophic method of Schelling with the "Philosophie positive" of Auguste Comte, can have the slightest hesitation as to the source from which the latter virtually sprang. The fundamental idea is, indeed, precisely the same as that of Schelling, with this difference only—that the idealistic language of the German speculator is here translated into the more ordinary language of physical science. That Comte borrowed his views from Schelling we can by no means affirm; but that the whole conception of the affiliation of the sciences, in the order of their relative simplicity, and the expansion of the same law of development so as to include the exposition of human nature and the course of social progress, is all to be found there, no one in the smallest degree acquainted with Schelling's writings can seriously doubt."
In the form of his head and the expression of his countenance Schelling is said to have resembled closely the busts of Socrates, and like him, too, to have been eloquent in conversation.—J. F. F.