250 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



35. 



General 

 causes of 

 this move- 

 ment. 



varying political temperament of the German people in 

 the earlier part of the nineteenth century as in the 

 independent rise and development of the creative powers 

 in literature, in poetry, in the fine arts, and in musical 

 composition. 1 We may indeed go a step further, and 

 say that those powers of the human mind which, in 

 Kant's philosophy, were perhaps unduly separated or 

 personified, became actually living forces in the great 

 individuals who form, as it were, the dramatis personce 

 or characters in that great intellectual drama never to 

 be forgotten and never to be acted again which the 



1 The connection of philosophy, 

 even of so abstract a nature as 

 that of Fichte, Schelling, and above 

 all of Hegel, with the literary and 

 poetical atmosphere which prevailed 

 in Germany at the end of the 

 eighteenth and the beginning of 

 the nineteenth century, has been 

 more and more appeciated in recent 

 histories of German philosophy and 

 German literature. The following 

 quotation from a recent thinker, 

 who has done more than any other 

 to make intelligible to the present 

 generation the elevated intellectual 

 character of that bygone age, may 

 serve in lieu of many others : " The 

 generation to which Hegel belonged 

 stood as much under the influence 

 of the idealism of Kant and Fichte 

 as of that of the French Revolution. 

 It was full of the idea of an elevation 

 of humanity and an approaching 

 higher order of society. Fichte 

 was the hero who proclaimed this 

 new era, and his philosophy was 

 devoted to bringing it about. The 

 disciples of Fichte in Jena, in Ber- 

 lin, and in Tiibingen were bound 

 together through these ideas. Hegel, 

 Schelling, Holderlin retained the 

 ideals of their Tubingen years and 

 strengthened each other in them. 

 And as the movement which the 



French Revolution had produced 

 bore a European character, as the 

 writers of the ideological school in 

 France, the defenders of the Re- 

 volution in England and in Ger- 

 many co-operated in this movement, 

 the new ideals maintained them- 

 selves through their energy and 

 their extent, even in opposition to 

 the reaction which spread after the 

 execution of the King and the wars 

 of the Revolution. Hegel, among 

 others, remained steadfast and full 

 of courage. If one examines his 

 [early] theological fragments, one 

 sees them borne up by the spirit of 

 this movement. His deep historical 

 studies do not stand in contra- 

 diction to his endeavours after a 

 more perfect religious spirit and a 

 renovation of society, but rather he 

 brought, much more radically than 

 the average German 'Aufklarung,' 

 Christianity into the flow of his- 

 torical development, in which also 

 this form of the religious spirit 

 must lead to something higher. 

 Taking this development in full 

 earnest, his labour for and his 

 belief in the future received added 

 energy and a more definite aim" 

 (Wilhelm Dilthey, 'Die Jugend- 

 geschichte Hegels '). 



