OF THE SPIRIT. 



309 



therefore, neither an extension of ordinary knowledge 

 nor purely ethical precepts or moral commands. Thus 

 Schleiermacher stands between the purely metaphysical 

 treatment of the religious problem by Hegel and the 

 purely ethical by Kant ; having an appreciation for both. 

 This assertion, by Schleiermacher, of the independence 

 of the spiritual life in relation both to the intellectual 

 and the ethical, though forming the ultimate basis of 

 both and reacting on them, led in the sequel of his 

 own speculations, and still more in the further course 

 of nineteenth century thought, to two distinct develop- 

 ments, to two very different conceptions of the religious 

 life and of the solution of the religious problem, of the 

 problem of the spirit. These two independent develop- 28. 

 ments were combined in Schleiermacher's personality, ^na social 



^ ■' conception 



but since his time they have gone far asunder. They °f religion. 

 may, for our present purpose, be defined as the 

 festhetical and the social conception of religion and 

 its importance.-^ 



^ The peculiarity and originality 

 of Schleiermacher's genius can be 

 best grasped by contrasting him 

 with other great thinkers who sur- 

 rounded him. Among these no 

 one played a greater part in bring- 

 ing out Schleiermacher's character- 

 istic conceptions than Fichte, and 

 it is to the latter that we are 

 most indebted for unknowingly 

 stimulating Schleiermacher to the 

 expression of his own views, to the 

 production and publication of some 

 of his most striking earlier writ- 

 ings. The contrast to Fichte is 

 summed up by Dilthey in a quo- 

 tation taken from Schleiermacher's 

 Correspondence (1800) : " Philos- 

 ophy and life are with him [Fichte], 

 as he also theoretically maintains, 



quite separate ; his natural way of 

 thinking has nothing extraordinary, 

 and thus there is wanting in him, 

 so long as he sticks to the ordinary 

 point of view, everything that could 

 make him interesting to me. Be- 

 fore he arrived I had an idea of 

 conversing with him about his phil- 

 osophy and opening out to him my 

 opinion that I could not very well 

 put up with his way of separating 

 the common-sense from the philo- 

 sophical point of view. But I 

 soon pulled in my sails." Dilthey 

 adds that "personal intercourse, 

 conferences over manj' common in- 

 terests, the respective scientific de- 

 velopments, resulted with Sclileier- 

 macher only in an accentuation 

 of this impression" {loc. cit., p. 



