312 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



of the age which formed, starting from Fichte, their 

 original programme. 



In his later activity, both as an eminent preacher in 

 the Established Church of his country and as an ardent 

 promoter of the union of the two Protestant Churches ; ^ 

 in his philosophical and theological works ; and, lastly, 

 in his influential position as an academic teacher, 

 Schleiermacher brought out more clearly the differences 

 which separated him as much from the pantheism of 

 Spinoza as from the subjectivism of the romanticists, 

 and also from the ethical rigorism and formalism of 

 Kant. Apart from the marked originality of his genius 

 and unique personality, it was no doubt the fact that 

 he was a practical teacher and preacher within an ex- 

 isting religious community which gave to his religious 

 and ethical speculations a distinct and well - defined 

 character. For although, as already stated, religion was 

 not, by Schleiermacher, identified with ethics, and could 

 not in his view be built upon a foundation of purely 



1 " On the 27 th September 1817 

 the King explained to the Con- 

 sistories that he would, on the cen- 

 tenary of the Reformation, attend 

 the Communion Service together 

 with the Lutherans, expressed the 

 hope that this would find a response 

 with his subjects, and left it to the 

 wisdom of the clergy, the synods, 

 and the Consistories to find the 

 form for such a union. Schleier- 

 macher was the President of the 

 first United Berlin Synod and the 

 author of the Declaration in which 

 the latter expressed itself to the 

 communities regarding the in- 

 tended common Communion Service 

 oil the occasion of the festival of 

 the Reformation. According to 



this the celebration was to lead 

 to neither liturgical nor dogmatic 

 uniformity. On the 31st of October, 

 in the Church of St Nicholas, sixty- 

 three of the Berlin clergy, all the 

 theological doctors and professors 

 of the University, and many high 

 officials, partook together of the 

 Communion ; before the altar the 

 theological colleagues, Schleier- 

 macher, the Reformed, and Mar- 

 heinecke, the Lutheran, joined 

 hands. And Schleiermacher, in the 

 sequel, conducted also the literary 

 defence of the Union." (Dilthey, 

 Art. Schleiermacher, ' Allgemeine 

 Deutsche Biographic,' vol. xxxi. 

 p. 442.) 



