OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 53 



and highest step is the clear and free thinking of the 

 Absolute, the spiritual cult of the Divine, where that 

 becomes intelligible which in the region of art and faith 

 is an object merely of representation or of thought-pre- 

 sentation. Thus the philosophy of Art, or Esthetics, 34. 

 precedes the philosophy of Eeligion, and both lead up to ligion, and 



Philosoph 



Philosophy proper, to the speculative or reasoned thought 



of the human mind in its historical development. senes- 



In all his different works Hegel endeavours to show 

 that philosophy is the highest sphere in the intellectual 

 development of man and mankind. It is, as he says, 

 the veritable Theodicy, as distinguished from Art and 

 Eeligion, both of which lead up to it. Fichte and 

 Schelling had already suggested a similar view, but it 

 slipped, as it were, from their grasp. With Hegel it was 

 the highest and deepest conviction, which he was never 

 tired of expressing and illustrating from the many points 

 of view which he successively and systematically took 

 up. In the special department with which we are now 



in Germany or elsewhere, has '. find satisfaction. I believe it also 



been nothing more nor less than to be true that a very large class of 



an attempt to work out the pro- cultured persons in Germany find, 



gramme of Hegel's philosophy. It i or think they find, the satisfaction 



is interesting to note that when j of their somewhat unclarified re- 



the last stage in what Hegel called ' ligious demands in the creations of 



"the movement of the Absolute their great musical composers, from 



Mind," the ascent from the vaguer, Bach through Haydn and Beethoven 



or what was termed the mystical, j to Wagner and Brahms ; listening 



stage of religious thought, into the to their creations is indeed to them 



clear daylight and definiteness of what Hegel termed "Divine Wor- 



philosophic thought was, at least ship." See, for example, the strik- 



in Germany, found to be impossible, ing passage in the ' Reminiscences 



one school of thinkers (of which 

 Albert Lange may be considered 

 the representative) fell back upon 

 Art and the Ideal as the region in 

 which the spiritual and emotional 

 demands of the human soul should 



of Carl Schurz ' (vol. ii. p. 60), in 

 which he describes the impression 

 which the first performance of 

 Wagner's " Parsifal " made upon 

 him and others. 



