OF THE GOOD. 



173 



within the established Church of his country. And 

 lastly, he assimilated many of the artistic and poetical 

 conceptions and ideals of the romantic school, going 

 the length even of defending one of their more doubtful 

 productions.^ It is therefore not surprising that in the 

 domain of ethics he developed original ideas : further, 

 that with so many conflicting interests, his thought 

 and his writings should exhibit a dualism similar 

 to that which characterises many of Leibniz's specu- 

 lations. 



As was the case with Fichte, Schleiermacher's philo- 

 sophical views underwent considerable changes in the 



^ The ' Confidential Letters on 

 Fr. Schlegel's Lucinde,' published 

 anonymously, form one of the 

 most extraordinary incidents in 

 literary and philosophical history, 

 and Schleiermacher's biographers 

 have found it difficult to explain 

 how, prompted by a feeling of 

 magnanimity to his much-reviled 

 friend, Schleiermacher could write 

 and publish these Letters. In the 

 novel itself the libertinism which 

 followed in the wake of the French 

 Revolution was combined with the 

 moral laxity which characterised 

 the age of the Italian Renaissance. 

 It treated in an extreme, not to 

 say atrocious manner, of the re- 

 lation of the sexes and of free 

 love, and we are reminded of the 

 somewhat later, but much less 

 otfensive, treatment of this subject 

 in the circle to which Shelley be- 

 longed in England. Dilthey has 

 said all that can be said — not in 

 defence of the novel, which is in- 

 defensible, but in explanation of 

 Schleiermacher's Letters. With 

 many other literary productions of 

 that period it forms a historically 

 interesting episode, testifying to 



the violent ferment which was 

 then working in philosophical, 

 literary, and aesthetic circles in 

 Germany and notably in Berlin. 

 It is well summed up in a letter 

 written by Henrik Stetfens, thirteen 

 years later, to Ludwig Tieck (quoted 

 by Dilthey, loc. cit., p. 509) : " How- 

 ever true it is that the age in 

 which Goethe and Fichte and 

 Schelling and the Schlegels, the 

 Novalis, Ritter, and I myself 

 felt lourselves united, was rich 

 in germs of a manifold nature, 

 there lay nevertheless in the whole 

 something audacious. An intel- 

 lectual Tower of Babel was to be 

 erected which all minds should 

 recognise from afar. But the con- 

 fusion of tongues buried this work 

 of vainglory in its own ruins. Are 

 j'ou the same with whom I dreamt 

 to be at one ? I no more recognise 

 your features, your words are un- 

 intelligible to me. And every one 

 separated into opposite directions 

 — most of them with the insane 

 idea of completing nevertheless 

 the Tower of Babel after his own 

 fashion. " 



