300 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



25. 



Hamann 

 and Herder. 



An opposition somewhat akin to that of Jacobi was 



ripens, and the tree grows up 

 and blossoms " (quoted by Biels- 

 chowsky, 'Life of Goethe,' 7th 

 German edition, 1905, vol. i. p. 6). 

 The estrangement between the two 

 friends began with Goethe's dis- 

 approval of Jacobi's exposition and 

 interpretation of Spinoza's doctrine, 

 which represented the latter as 

 atheism, whereas Goethe con- 

 sidered him a most godly (theis- 

 simus) thinker, and became still 

 more pronounced when Jacobi 

 published in 1811 his tract, 

 ' Von den Gottlichen Dingen uud 

 ihrer Offenbarung,' which also 

 brought as its consequence his 

 complete rupture with Schel- 

 ling. The opposite development is 

 represented in the relations of 

 Hegel to Jacobi, and it is interest- 

 ing to see how the divergence of 

 their opinions grew less in the 

 course of time and led to personal 

 esteem and appreciation. In one 

 of his earliest essays (1802, re- 

 printed ' Werke,' vol. i. p. 1 ), 

 contributed to the ' Critical 

 Journal,' which he edited together 

 with Schelling, Hegel reviewed the 

 different philosophies which had 

 sprung up as continuations, modi- 

 fications, or corrections of the 

 Kantian philosophy, and among 

 these he deals also with Jacobi's 

 polemics, in which the latter de- 

 veloped his Olaubensphilosophie and 

 represented Spinozism as the mis- 

 leading principle in Fichte's phil- 

 osophy which necessarily would 

 lead to atheism. To Jacobi's repre- 

 sentation of Fichte's philosophy as 

 the necessary outcome of the 

 Kantian position Hegel strongly 

 objects, notably also to that of both 

 Spinoza and Kant, and classes him 

 somewhat contemptuously with 

 other thinkers of the period, includ- 

 ing Schleiermacher, as representing 

 the subjective philosophy of feeling 

 and reflection to which the real 



philosophy, represented by Schel- 

 ling and himself, forms a contrast. 

 In the sequel, however, and after 

 Hegel had become personally 

 acquainted with Jacobi at Heidel- 

 berg, he considerably modified his 

 opinion of Jacobi's teaching. To 

 this maturer estimate he gave ex- 

 pression in his reviews of Jacobi's 

 'Collected Works' (1816-1817, re- 

 printed in vols. xvi. and xvii. of 

 the 'Werke'), representing the 

 same as an important phase in the 

 development of idealism, maintain- 

 ing also that, inspired by the funda- 

 mental truth of Spinozism, Jacobi 

 had paved the way for a speculative 

 development of the philosophy of 

 the Absolute, though remaining 

 himself in the position of simply 

 asserting, without logically sub- 

 stantiating, the conviction that 

 the Absolute is Spirit. At that 

 time the divergence between 

 Schelling and Hegel had become 

 quite apparent, and the fact that 

 Schelling himself had very severely 

 and unjustly attacked Jacobi in a 

 reviewof the latest work of the latter 

 may have induced Hegel to state em- 

 phatically that Jacobi represented 

 an important though only an inter- 

 mediate phase in recent philosophy. 

 Also in the latest (1825-1826) 

 manuscript of his lectures on the 

 'History of Philosophy,' published 

 posthumously ('Werke,' vol. xv. p. 

 608), Hegel inserted a special 

 paragraph about Jacobi, whom he 

 no longer throws together with 

 those other thinkers (Krug, Fries, 

 &c.), whom he persists in treating 

 with scant respect. These critical 

 notices by Hegel, written at a time 

 when his own system was matured, 

 are of great importance, as also i^ 

 the review of Hamann 's works 

 (1828, 'Werke,' vol. xvii. p. 38). 

 Hegel shows towards these two re- 

 markable and inasmuch as they 

 both stood outside the systematic 



