38 



INTRODUCTION. 



Schleiermacher, university teaching and learning entered 

 on a new era, in which the idea prevailed that com- 

 pleteness, universality, and unity of knowledge could be 

 secured by one and the same arrangement of study. 1 It 

 was the age when philosophy for the last time had got a 

 firm hold of all departments of knowledge, and permeated 

 all scientific pursuits ; 2 when, favoured by political events, 



1 On this subject the literature 

 connected with the foundation of 

 the University of Berlin in the year 

 1809 is of special interest. It was 

 essentially the creation of Wilhelm 

 von Humboldt, though prepared by 

 Wolf and Beyme in 1807. See 

 Seeley, ' Life of Stein,' vol. ii. p. 

 430 sqq. ; Haym, ' Leben W. v. 

 Humboldts,' p. 270 sqq. The foun- 

 dation of this university in the year 

 of Prussia's greatest misery, when 

 the first gleams of liberty in the 

 rising of Spain and the success of 

 Aspern had been extinguished by 

 the defeat of Wagram, the voting 

 of 22,500 per annum for the pur- 

 poses of the new University and 

 the Academy of Science and Arts, 

 when a crushing war-tax hung over 

 the country, when land was depre- 

 ciated, the necessaries of life at 

 famine prices, the currency of the 

 country at a large discount, when 

 every one, from the king to the 

 lowest subject, was forced into sac- 

 rifices and economies of every kind, 

 was an act as heroic as the great 

 deeds on the battle-field, and as far- 

 seeing as the measures of Stein and 

 Scharnhorst. Interesting from our 

 point of view are the ideas of Fichte 

 on university teaching and academic 

 learning, laid down in his 'Dedu- 

 cirter Plan einer zu Berlin zu errich- 

 tendeu hoheren Lehranstalt,' writ- 

 ten at the request of the minister 

 Beyme in 1807. In it a great deal 

 is said about encyclopaedic treat- 

 ment. The question of the position 



of philosophy in the encyclopaedic 

 or academic treatment of knowledge 

 was easily solved in the Kantian 

 school, to which most of the above- 

 mentioned writers belonged. Later 

 on in the school of Schelling it be- 

 came more difficult. It was fre- 

 quently discussed by Schelling him- 

 self, who was one of those that 

 initiated the new era in the Academy 

 of Munich, which was remodelled 

 in the year 1807. See, inter alia, 

 Schilling's essay, " Suggestions con- 

 cerning the Occupation of the Philo- 

 logico - Philosophical Class " of the 

 Academy, and especially the follow- 

 ing remarkable passage (Werke, vol. 

 viii. p. 464) : " If, indeed, Philosophy 

 were denied living contact with real 

 things, if she were obliged to soar 

 in transcendent regions without end 

 and measure, and to rise a hungry 

 guest from the well-appointed table 

 of Nature and Art, of History and 

 Life ; then it would be incompre- 

 hensible how she could still find so 

 much support as to be received in 

 an academy, and it would be much 

 better if we also followed the path 

 of other nations, who have lately 

 said good-bye to all philosophy, and 

 have thrown themselves, with the 

 most glowing ardour, upon the ex- 

 ploration of Nature and Reality in 

 every direction." 



2 The principal representatives of 

 the encyclopedic teaching at the 

 German universities were Eschen- 

 burg, Krug, and Gruber. The 

 latter, in his introduction to the 



