_ 1 



8CHLEIDKN 



8CHLEIERMACHER 



1857 to 1888 be lived at Jena a* an honorary 

 and there he died on 6th DecemW 

 IMS. With him the comparative study of the 

 Indo-Germanic language* took a decided step fur 

 ward. In his Kumpfndium dtr vergleichemlen 

 GrammaUk der IndogemuutiteJuH Surdcken ( 1881 ; 

 4th ed. 1878; Eng. trans. 1874-77) be (bowed 

 clearly the relation* of the member* of the (group, 

 not only one to another, '"it of each to the original 

 parent language, which lie made a gallant attempt 

 to reconstruct, ami laid <li>\vn the phonetic las 

 that had governed their res|>ective development-. 

 Schleicher did lirst-rate service also in advancing 

 the scientific study of the Slavonic family ot" 

 ton-lie* mid tlic Lithuanian language ; for instance, 

 in the Iliinil/iurh ilrr WoxtKMI SjiracAe (1857). 

 Further labours were emliodied in Die Sprat-lint 

 Smroftu (1850), l> */>nirke (1860; :.ili 



ed. 1888), Indogennanitchf ChrestamaOue (1860), 

 and LitauitrAf Jftnata <nl I.ieder (1857). Hi- 

 views ax to the study of language, which he wished 

 to treat as a purely natural science, have been 

 li-iily contested by Ma\ Miiller. There U a 

 .,ir liy Lefmann (1N70). 



Srlilridcn. MM mi AS JAKOB, iNitanist. was 

 1-nTi HI llanilxirg. ">ili April 1804, stmlie<l lasv at 

 lli-i.ii-ll.cr;:. practised at Hamburg an advocate, 

 bat in ls.'U went to (iottingcn ami devoted himself 

 to tin 1 sillily <>f physiology ami liotany. In Is.'i'.l 

 he was called to tin- chair of Botany at Jena, and 

 in IH63 at Dorpat. In 1806 lie retired, and died at 

 Frankfort, 23d June 1881. He contributed greatly 

 to establish the cell-tlieorv (see CULL); and of 

 his numerous works, including two collections of 

 poems, books on materialism, the sense of sight, 

 the age of man, a Life of Linmcus, \v. , the most 

 import-nil i- liis < 1 rnmlzuge der icituetuclm ft lichen 

 Botanii :( I H42 43; Kng. trans. Principle* of Scientific 

 Botany, 1849). See BOTANY, Vol. II. p.M& 



"rhlrlrrmarhrr. FKIKDKICII Kitssr DANIEL, 

 the greatest German theologian since Luther, 

 was the founder of that modern theology which 

 eeks to understand Christianity witbont doing 

 despite to the reasonable convict ions of tin- human 

 mind. What marked him out as reformer u.-is 

 first and foremost his mental constitution, in which 

 a profoundly religions temperament was happily 

 Mfiidiil witii iin acute intelligence, ami an unhesi- 

 tating independence of thought and feeling with 

 an exceptional susceptibility to the m..-t various 

 ininroMiions from without. Then he wan fortunate 

 in having bin various gifts developed by the course 

 of hi* education and the experiences of bis life. 



11" was born on the 21st Novcmliur 1768 at 

 Ittc-laii. tli<> son of an army chaplain bdoBldqg to 

 the Itcforiued confe-sinn. The pious atmosphere of 

 his home awakened vivid religious feelings in iln- 

 boy, which attained fuller growth at the Moravian 

 educational instittit- ky and Bar by, where 



be studied from 1783 till 1787.* But deep as was 



... -_ep 



the ini|iremioii made H|HIII him by the g(xlline.ss of 

 amongst tin- hreihren, the narrow and 

 rigid ilogmatii- form of religion as taught by them 



KM) . 



ipren 

 life 



imply inloleralile to the eager mind of 

 Hcbleiermacher, iiln-a.lv leavened by the wisdom 

 of classical antiquity ; and be felt that he could 

 no Ion this faith without n lie against 



n nature There was a painful conllirt of 

 opinion bctweon him anil his rigorously orthodox 

 father ere the son forsook the theological seminary 

 of Uarl.y to study philosophy anil theology at Halle. 

 Of the philosophers it was mainly I'lato, Spino/ji, 

 and Leibnitz, and afterwards also Kant, Fichte, and 

 Hchelling, who made a permanent impression on 

 him and m..nM.-d hin mentnl di'vi-lopment. A 

 po. .PI! iniliii-iicc was also exerted from 1797 on- 

 wards by the intimacy into which, now a preacher 



in Berlin, be was drawn with the devotees, 

 male and female, of Romanticism (q.v.). He 

 thoroughly sympathised with that cnltus of per- 

 sonal feeling* and that contempt for mere intellec- 

 tual AtifkluriiHij which the romanticists carried to 

 an extreme ; but be was saved from falling into the 

 speculative and practical excesses of the ronmnti- 

 cists by the anchor which bis character had found 

 in personal piety, ami liy the scientific prudence 

 and breadth that came of his constant study of 

 philosophy, ancient and modern. To this liist 

 sojourn in Berlin lielong the earliest of those publi- 

 cation* which made Srhleiei macher known to the 

 learned world : the Keden iiber Hfliijitm (1799; 

 new ed. 1879), t be Monologen (1800; 7th cd. 1868), 

 and the ethical work, the Urinidliiin // /./ Krit,/: 

 der bisherigcn f!ittrii/c/irt (1803). In these In- i\ 

 pounded in scientific form that hostility to tlie 

 traditional moral philosophy and the Kantian 

 ethic of the categorical imperative to which he 

 had already ( 1801 ) given audacious expression in 

 the 'Confidential Letters on Schlegcl's l.iicinde,' 

 where he attempted a defence of the notorious 

 romance of bis friend Friedrich Schickel. A more 

 valuable undertaking was the translation of I'lato, 

 which the two friends set about jointly, but which 

 was ultimately carried through in 1804-10 by 

 Sehleiei macher alone. This work, epoch making 

 for the comprehension of Plato's philosophy, was 

 in great part the fmit of the involuntary idleness 

 imposed upon the translator by Na]M>leon, when 

 in IS(Hi IIP closed the university of Halle, at which 

 since 1804 Sehleiei niacber bad been extra ordinary 

 professor. Returning to Berlin, be entered into close 

 relations with Stein and Humboldt. with the philo- 

 sopher Fichte, and with other patriots: and be 

 took an active share in all the efforts which were 

 l>eing made to bring almnt the moral regOMtmtiM 

 and the political restoration ot the (icrman Father- 

 land, especially of Prussia, One scheme with this 

 aim was the establishment of the new Fiederick- 

 William university of Berlin, in which Schleier- 

 inacher took part ; and in the theological faculty of 

 this university he l>ecame professor in 1810. The 

 fame of his academic lectures on all branches of 

 theology and philosophy attracted yearly increasing 

 crowds of enthusiastic students; and as preacher at 

 the l>i' ifiiltnil., il.^l.irrhe be exercised a profound 

 religious influence by his sermons, both on hearers 

 and readers. Equally influential were his labours 

 in the sphere of church politics ; be was the soul of 

 the movement which led to the union in 1817 of the 

 Lutheran and Reformed Churches in Prussia ; and 

 it was not bis fault that his far sighted proposals for 

 the preparation of a new constitution and forms of 

 ritual suited to the want.s of the united church were 

 not adopted. His resolute bearing in these contro- 

 versies was the more to his honour, inasmuch as 

 it made him so unpopular with the government 

 that for years he ran the risk of losing his uni- 

 versity chair. 



Yet all these public labours some of them try- 

 ing and ungrateful could not prevent the inde- 

 lati^able scholar from devoting concentrated energy 

 to the advancement of learning. The outcome of 

 these studies was on the one hand short essays on 

 ethical problems and on points connected with 

 ancient philosophy which were published in the 

 transactions of the Berlin Academy; and on the 

 other the theological works Die Weilmachlafeier 

 ( 1806 ; Eng. trans. Christmas Eve, 1889) ; a critical 

 tn-atiseon the first epistle to Timothy ( 1807); Kvrzt 

 DarsteMung det theologiitchen Stiiditims ( 1811 ) ; and 

 finally bis most important work, Der Chrutliche 

 (Haiibe nock den Grundsatzen der Evangel\chen 

 Kirche im Zutammenhang dargestellt ( 1821 ; 2d 

 oil. 1831 ; 6th ed. 1884). He died 12th Febntary 

 1834 ; and after his death friends published several 



