Schleiermacher, Personal and Speculative

Front matter

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.

Preface

SCHLEIERMACHER'S name is one of the greatest in the history of modern thought. He was distinguished as a theologian, a preacher, a philosopher, a moralist, and a statesman. No field of speculation, or of activity, was alien to him. He was a many-sided ethical genius, excelling not in one sphere, but in many spheres.

Yet, significant and far reaching as his influence is, he is to English speaking peoples little more than a name. This is, no doubt, in great measure due to the obscurity of his style, and to the fact that his principal works can only be read in German.

The present Study was originally intended for Professor Knight's Philosophical Classics. When it was nearly completed, I was laid aside for months by a serious illness ; and, in the interval, the publishers decided to discontinue the series. On recently taking up the discarded task, I was encouraged to believe it might be of interest as

IO PREFACE.

throwing light on some aspects of the life and the teaching of the man. It is with that hope that I now venture to make it public.

The biographical sketch is chiefly based on Schleiermacher's Letters, and on every reference, of a contemporary kind, that helped to a better knowledge of the unique and complex personality.. I have, of course, consulted all the lives, reminiscences, funeral orations, and celebrations that have been written in Germany — especially the elaborate lives by Dilthey and Schenkel.

In the exposition of the philosophical and ethical views, which is derived directly from his published writings, I have sought, as far as possible, without comparison or criticism, to allow Schleier-i macher speak for himself. For those who have not time to wade through the ponderous volumes in which his speculations are contained, this plan has at least the merit of presenting an outline of what he really thought and taught.

It was my intention to have added a section on Schleiermacher's theology ; but the limits of the present work rendered that impossible. Nor is this, perhaps, much to be regretted, as most that is of permanent value in his Glaubenslehre has been incorporated in the leading theological systems

PREFACE. 1 1

that have since appeared through the inspiration of his thinking.

My thanks are particularly due to the Principal and Senate of the Glasgow University for putting at my disposal their magnificent library; to Mr. George Reimer, Berlin, for the gift of several interesting and rare booklets and pamphlets ; to the Rev. W. M. Metcalfe, D.D., Paisley, who kindly read and corrected all the proofs of the biographical part ; and to Professor Hastie, Glasgow, who verified my translations in the chapters on Will and Feeling, and made a few suggestions. I am also deeply indebted to my brother — the Rev. W. M. Munro, Vicar of All Saints,- Newport, Monmouth — for his unfailing help and encouragement.

The portrait is from AndorPs engraving of the bust of Schleiermacher by the celebrated sculptor Rauch. It was printed for me by Reimer, Berlin.

Old Kilpatrick,

LITERATURE

Schleiermacher's works are published by Reimer, of Berlin, in 30 volumes. The lives and appreciations are numerous. A few of the more important need only be mentioned. Avs Schleierniacher 's Leben in Briefen, by W. Dilthey, 4 volumes (partly translated by Frederica Rowan); Schleiermacher's Briefwechsel, mit einer biographischen Vorrede, by W. Gass ; Leben Schleierniacher^ by W. Dilthey — a valuable study of the man in his intellectual development and relation to the thought of his time — (only one volume of this great work has as yet appeared); and Friederich Schleierniacher y by D. Schenkei — the best complete monograph on the subject. The appreciations of Auberlen, Liicke, and Twesten are interesting. R. Haym's colossal work, Die romantische Schule : ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des deutschen Geistes, must not be omitted by any one who would fully understand the romantic period in Schleiermacher's life. Mrs. A. Sidgwick's Caroline Schlegel and Her Friends gives a good account of the men and the women who acted a part in that curious phase of German thought and upheaval. The expositions and critiques of Schleiermacher's speculative views are many and wearisome. The works of Bender, Vorlander, Weissenborn, and Schaller give the most comprehensive statement of the

14 LITERATURE.

philosophical, ethical, and theological positions. Very suggestive too, in this connection, are the contributions of Sigwart (fahrbuch fur deutsche Theologie, bk. ii.); Fischer (Studien und Kritiken, 1848); D. F. Strauss in his Charakteristiken und Kritiken; R. A. Vaughan (Essays and Remains, vol. I.); J. D. Morell (Philosophy of Religion); Alb. Ritschl's Schl.'s Reden u. Nachwirkungen, etc. 1874 ; and Lipsius, on the Reden, in Jahrbuch f prot Theologie, 1875. More recent discussions are those by Otto Pfleiderer, Philosophy 0/ Religion, vol. L, The Development of Theology in Germany, pp. 44-56 and 103-130; O. Ritschl, Studien ueber SchL (in Stndien u. Kritiken, 1888) ; Lichtenberger, History of German Theology, pp. 46 165, translated, with a Preface, by Professor Hastie '; and the Rev. John Oman's translation of the Reden, with Introduction, 1893. A selection of Schleiennacher's sermons was done into English, in 1890, by Mrs. Mary F. Wilson ; and in the same year Dr. Hastie's English edition of the Christmas Festival appeared.

Contents

PART L-PERSONAL CAREER

I. Introductory 17

II. Early Days 21

I. Introductory

The most brilliant period in the intellectual history of Germany is that embraced by the latter half of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth century. The national mind, after having practically slept since it was rudely disturbed by the Reformation, then suddenly awoke, and set itself to complete the task which it had undertaken, but had left unfinished, three hundred years before. By a mighty effort it tried to throw off the old bondage and narrowing influences of the Middle Ages ; and it essayed to set out, free and unfettered, in search of truth and reality. In philosophy, poetry, literature, and art it put forth its best strength, and attained the highest altitude it had yet reached. Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer ; Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, Herder ; Schiller, Goethe ; Tieck, Novalis, Richter, and Schlegel, are all the products of this activity, the voices that give expression to the thought and the aspiration of the new era.

Yet significant and comprehensive as was this movement, it was a movement on almost purely 17 2 intellectual and humanitarian lines. It glorified the individual and the race. It was a magnificent representation of culture and morality as the only adequate regenerators of the world. Religion, the real essence and inspiration of life — that which emancipates the soul from the trammels of the temporal and makes it one with the Eternal — it all but ignored. At the time there were, no doubt, in Germany respectable enough representatives of Christianity ; but, with the exception of Klopstock, they stood outside the new movement, and could not claim intellectual kinship with its great master spirits. They consequently found it impossible either to retain their hold on the minds of men, or to win fresh acceptance for the old, traditional view.

It was when these influences had attained their limit — when the mental activity of the age had reached its highest level, and when religion was at its lowest — that Schleiermacher appeared. Equal in intellect and acquirement with the greatest thinkers of his generation, he at once took his rightful place among them. He was not simply a theologian whose widest outlook never extended beyond the range of religious thought : there was scarcely any department of knowledge represented by the modern scientific tendency with which he was not acquainted, and which his wonderfully active and creative spirit did not enrich. His labours in Philosophy, Ethics, ^Esthetics, History

INTRODUCTORY. 1 9

of Philology and Literature, have a permanent value, and cannot be neglected by the student of these sciences.

But, while Schleiermacher stood in the current of all the chief movements of his time, it was principally in the religious sphere that he influenced his age, and is an influence still. Identifying himself neither with the negative rationalistic school nor with the traditional orthodox party, he claimed for religion, at a time when it was fashionable to disparage it, an eternal place in the progress of humanity. The claim, backed as it was by wide knowledge of theology, philosophy, and the scientific method, received more than a respectful recognition. Christianity, from his view-point, became once more a mighty spiritual potency. Like a second Luther, by his unaided individuality, he called his generation back to religion, and showed that true culture and the perfect humanity are to be found in Christ and His kingdom alone.

This constituted the real significance of Schleiermacher for his own age. He showed not only the reasonableness but the necessity of religion ; and he led men from the barren fields of intellectualism to the consideration of the emotional and the spiritual in the human soul.

He was not, in the ordinary sense of the term, the founder of a theological school : he was rather the instigator of a new tendency. From him started that impulse which produced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries what is most memorable in the theology not of Germany only, but of Great Britain and America. Neander, Nitsch, Twesten, Ullmann, Julius Miiller, Dorner, Tholuck, Rothe, Martensen, Schweitezer, Usteri, Erskine of Linlathen, Maurice, Hare, Tulloch, Mansel, F. W. Robertson, Bushnell, and Henry Drummond, are, among others, some of the great souls that were more or less moulded by his creative spirit. Even Baur and Strauss, Hofmann and Kliefoth, far as they diverged in thought from Schleiermacher, came under the spell of his all-dominating genius, and received an abiding inspiration. He may indeed be said to have done for theology what Kant did for philosophy ; and no one can claim to know the trend of modern theological thought who is not acquainted with the scope and influence of his speculative system.

II. Early Days

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was born at Breslau on the 21st November, 1768. His father, Gottlieb Schleiermacher, a chaplain in the Prussian army, seems to have been a man of some culture and force of character. He was the son of the famous preacher and enthusiast whom Jung Stilling delineates in his Theobald as " Pastor Darius." In early life Gottlieb came under the influence of the fanatical movement with which his father was for a time so intimately associated ; but the impression which it made upon him was neither deep nor lasting. His mind was of the strong, vigorous order ; and it had an affinity for the philosophical and the scientific rather than for the fanciful and the imaginative. When he therefore broke away from the fanaticism of his youthful surroundings, he became a thorough-going sceptic ; and, for twelve years, drifted sadly enough on the lonely sea of doubt. At length, after many wanderings, he found a solution of his difficulties and rest for his soul in the old evangelical faith which he had so long and persistently despised.

Schleiermacher's mother was also descended from an ecclesiastical family. Her father was chaplain in ordinary to the King ; her brother was a theological professor at Halle ; and many of her near relatives, particularly Spalding and Sack, occupied the highest positions in the ministry of the Reformed Church. From the little that is known of her she appears to have been a singularly pious, shrewd, and intelligent woman. Her chief sphere she found in the home, and the work she liked the best was the service of maternal love — the blessed ministry of shaping young souls for the present life and the life that is to be. During the frequent absence of her husband on official duty, she superintended with much wisdom and tact the early training of her children. From the first she formed a high estimate of the intellectual and spiritual endowments of Friedrich, her first born. Though never physically strong, he was a bright spirited boy, quick in perception and amiable in disposition. " The dear child " — so she writes to her brother — " gives us much joy and great hope. He has a most tender heart and a good head." "If Fritz goes on as he does he will become quite a proficient in languages. His masters are perfectly charmed with him. He is already in the third form ; and although he is the smallest boy in the school he stands first in all his classes." This rapid progress at school gained for him the reputation of cleverness, and had the

EARLY DAYS. 23

unfortunate effect of making him conceited, proud, and intolerant. His mother tried hard to repress these manifestations of feeling and temperament ; but a curious experience which the child then had did more to bring this about than all her remonstrances. The young scholar could translate a Latin author tolerably well, yet he knew so little of the sense that he failed to form a clear conception of what he read. This consciousness, which he did not notice as characterizing his comrades, humiliated him greatly. It even made him entertain doubts as to his much Vaunted superiority of faculties ; and he lived in constant dread lest others should make the same unexpected discovery.

When he was ten years of age his parents left Breslau, and took up their abode in the country. For the constitutionally delicate boy this was a pleasant and helpful change. Hitherto his little world had principally been the world of books : now, for the first time, he was brought face to face with nature. Soon he became, if not its student and slave, at least its wayward and wondering child. Former studies grew distasteful, or were discarded ; and he had no thought or attention for anything but the ever varying beauty, the freshness and the activity of rural life. These were happy, peaceful days ; and if they did not add much to the sum of his theoretical knowledge, they had a good deal to show in the way of strong animal spirits, and such multifarious stores of

24 SCHLE1ERMACHER.

practical information as residence in the country can alone bestow.

After two years of this free arcadian life, Friedrich was sent to a boarding school in Pless, in Upper Silesia, where he resumed his studies with much diligence. It was here, under a disciple of Ernesti, that his love for the classical languages and literature was first called forth. But with this widening of his intellectual horizon there came a peculiar kind of scepticism which troubled his young spirit. The more he studied the famous masterpieces of Greek and Roman thought, the more he doubted their genuineness. Fear of ridicule kept the solitary, sensitive student silent ; yet such was his passion for truth that it was not until after knowledge and riper investigation had shown him the utter groundlessness of his doubts that he was perfectly satisfied.

There is also evidence that at this early stage he was no stranger to the pain and harassment of religious doubt. The doctrine of eternal punishment and reward, and the question as to the relation existing between the sufferings of Christ and the guilt of men, especially disturbed his youthful fancy. The insolubilities which these problems raised bewildered and frightened him, and they brought many a sleepless night of misery. Even as volcanoes, on the eve of eruption, give premonitory signs of the terrible powers stirring far down within their mysterious recesses, so these early

EARLY DAYS. 25

movements of Schleiermacher's mind may be taken as indications of the hidden underlying forces of his soul, and of that complete intellectual upheaval that was silently preparing in its inmost depths.

III. Moravian Influence

The Moravian Church, established by Count von Zinzendorf in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, though historically a resuscitation of the old "community of the Bohemian Brethren, was in reality a new fraternity. Its aim was to unite in holy fellowship all who loved the Saviour, and to constitute a visible Kingdom of God on earth. In its initial efforts after this high ideal the brotherhood was guilty of many fanatical extravagances, but latterly it became one of the purest and most unselfish agencies for maintaining and propagating the Christian faith. At a time when rationalism was supreme in Europe the society never wavered in loyalty to Christ ; and it was the first, in the Protestant world, to undertake distinctly missionary work in behalf of the heathen. It was also distinguished, not only on the Continent, but in Britain and in America, for its religious activity and educational organizations. Indeed, among the many spiritual enterprises of the eighteenth century, this of the Moravian Brotherhood will always maintain, botfy as to importance and significance* one of the foremost places. 26

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 2J

It was in 1783 that Schleiermacher became acquainted with this community. In the spring of that year, he and his sister Charlotte were sent to the principal Moravian school at Niesky, in Upper Lausatia. Though the instruction imparted was not the best possible, it was the best that he had yet received. Especially was he indebted to Hilmer, one of the teachers, whose lectures on history appealed to his intellect and enlarged his view ; and whose method of teaching Latin was at once so simple and philosophical that he acquired a fresh taste not only for that language but for the study of other languages as well.

Another who greatly influenced him at this time, was his school-fellow, Albertini, afterwards bishop of the Brotherhood. This rare and beautiful soul had much that was akin to Schleiermacher, and became "the confidant of his heart and the companion of his intellect/' The two were inseparable. To the rest of the scholars they were known as Orestes and Pylades. They felt and thought and studied in common. Their literary undertakings were stupendous. Equipped with nothing but a dictionary and a grammar, they read through the works of Homer, Hesiod, Theocritus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Pindar. Then, by way of variety, and equally ill-furnished for the attempt, they tried to find their way through the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. It was a difficult task, but they held manfully on till they came to the obscurities of Ezekiel ; and then they stuck.

It is easy to smile at these "colossal and adventuresome " efforts. Yet they were called forth by something more than mere love of learning or sense of novelty : they were the strivings of restless spirits in search of that peace which they failed to find in religion, as they knew it. This is the explanation which Schleiermacher himself gives. " We were," he says, speaking of Albertini and himself, "still striving in vain after supernatural feelings and for what, in the phraseology of the Brotherhood, was called intercourse with Jesus. The most violent strainings of our fancy were fruitless, and the spontaneous exercise of the same proved equally futile. Up till now we had sought consolation in Greek poetry, and that was a glorious solamen" A glorious solamen, a blessed anodyne, it might for the moment be ; nevertheless, in the more serious moods of each it proved an empty husk which but mocked the hunger of their souls.

In 1785, a new career awaited both Schleiermacher and his companion : the two were transferred to the seminary at Barby, which was really the theological college of the Brotherhood. They entered upon their course with large expectations. Hitherto they had been trying to find their pathway through the thickets and jungles of knowledge : now they hoped to discover light and guidance.

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 29

But in this they were once more disappointed. The teaching at Barby was the narrowest and most antiquated possible. It traversed, with saintly indifference, the well-beaten track of formulas and sentiments, as if it could afford to ignore the investigations and discoveries of modern philosophy and theology. The scientific spirit, which was then everywhere beginning to stir, it not only did not cultivate ; it banned it as an evil to be abhorred. Equally ignorant, too, was it of the new culture — the poetry, literature, art, and romance of the time — and its far-reaching moral and social significance.

If ever there was a safeguard against the rebel tendencies of the age, surely it was to be found within the pious and well-hedged enclosure of the Moravian Theological Hall. Yet the very narrowness of this institution — which was its glory — brought about the result that it most wished to avoid. Echoes from the great world of thought reached even as far as the Moravian solitudes. The eager youths, who had ears to hear, at first listened in wonderment ; but the wonder soon gave place to the murmurings and the language of revolt. Why was the tree of knowledge so sternly prohibited ? Was it that our masters were afraid to make known the results of modern research lest perchance they should approve themselves to our intellect ; or lest, mayhap, they should not be able to refute them ?

Among those who thus felt and reasoned was young Schleiermacher. He had been reading in secret some of the modern reviews, and he had managed, by means of forbidden correspondence, to become the happy possessor of Wieland's Poems and Goethe's Werther. These new voices awoke in him the old spirit of doubt. There was no solamen for him now in mere mental activity : the whole fabric of his faith had become disintegrated, and was ready to fall into pieces. He could no longer believe or accept the essential doctrines of the Moravian Church. Amidst the darkness of his outlook, only one course seemed clear ; he must forsake the community, in whose bosom he had spent so many happy and blessed days.

In the season of his early difficulties he could always go to his mother, assured as he did that he should obtain both sympathy and help. No one could read his soul as she could, and no one had such influence over him. But, alas I she had been dead for more than three years ; and the perplexed student must, for the first time, open his mind and heart to his father. It was a trying task ; yet very deliberately he went through with it. In a most touching letter, in which he describes the history of his changed attitude towards the faith, he states his opinions in a way that could not be mistaken. " I cannot believe," so he writes, " that He who only called Himself the Son of Man was the eternal, true God. I cannot believe that His

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 3 1

death was a substitutionary atonement, because He never Himself expressly said so, and because I cannot believe that it was necessary. For it is impossible that God, who has evidently created men not for perfection, but for the pursuit of it, can eternally punish them because they have not completely attained unto perfection." This confession, which denies the central doctrines of the orthodox position, is followed by an earnest request that his father would endeavour to enter into his feelings and help him. Although his present career was hopelessly arrested, all was not lost ; there might still be some sphere for him outside the bounds of the community. The scholastic profession was always open to him. But, above all, he had an intense desire to go to the University at Halle. He was not without hope that in that centre of free thought and opinion, he might find the peace and expansion of soul for which he had so long yearned. 4< Should your circumstances at all allow it, I trust you will permit me to go to Halle, even should it be only for two years. You will at once see that my success in life depends on this."

It was with a heavy heart that he sent away this remarkable letter. After some weeks had passed, during which his distress and tension of mind became so unbearable that he wrote a second time, the longed-for answer came. Though granting permission to study at Halle, the reply was otherwise more severe than his worst fears had pictured. " O thou foolish son," it goes on to say, " who hath bewitched thee that thou dost not obey the truth ; before whose eyes Jesus Christ was pourtrayed, and who is now crucified by thee. You were running well, who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth. Such persuasion is not from Him who has called you ; but a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. The same corruption of your heart, which four years ago made you fear that on account of it you would be entirely lost in the world, and which then drove you into the congregation of the Brotherhood, you have, alas ! fostered only too well. It has now leavened your whole being, and driven you out of the congregation. O, my son, my son, how deeply do you afflict me ! What sighs do you call forth from my soul ! And, if the departed know anything of our state, O, what a cruel disturber of the peace of your blessed mother you must be, when even your step-mother, who is a stranger to you, weeps, along with me, over you. Go forth then into the world, whose honour you are seeking . . . And now, my son, whom I press with tears to my anguished heart, alas ! with heartrending grief, I discard thee — and discard thee I must, because thou worshippest no longer the God of thy father, thou kneelest no longer before the same altar with him. Yet, once more, before we part, O, tell me, I beseech you, what has the poor, meek, and humble-

MORAVIAN INFLUENCE. 33

hearted Jesus done to thee that thou renouncest His Divine comfort and peace."

In such terms did the father, who had himself at one time been in doubt, write to his son when he was passing through the gehenna of spiritual conflict. That these passionate expostulations and outcries of disappointment did no good — that they chafed and wounded, rather than convinced or strengthened — can readily be imagined. Never* theless, it says much alike for the father and the son that this controversy, bitter and painful while it lasted, was soon forgotten, and that the two were ever after united in the closest and most loving fellowship.

And so, after a long, weary struggle, which strained to the utmost his love for truth and his affection for his kindred, the gates of Barby were at length shut behind him. As an eagle, that has long in vain beaten its wings against the iron bars of its cage, glories in the boundless freedom of heaven, so he gloried when his bonds were cast aside, and the pure air of liberty refreshed his drooping soul.

But never, then nor afterwards, did he forget the infinite debt that he owed to the Moravian Brotherhood. He had, it is true, outgrown their formulas and their methods of thought — they were to him as things lifeless and dead — yet the influence of their simple piety and their noble ideals remained with him strong and active to the last.

It was here that his early love for the Saviour, and his deep religious feelings, were first called into existence. " Piety," he says, speaking of his Moravian training, " was the maternal bosom in whose sacred obscurity my young life was nurtured and prepared for the world, as yet closed to it. In this sphere my spirit breathed long before it found its peculiar place in science and in the experience of life. It helped me when I began to sift the ancestral faith, and to separate thoughts and feelings from the rubbish heap of antiquity. It remained with me, even when the God and the immortality of childhood's days had vanished before the doubting eye. It led me unintentionally into practical life. It showed me how I ought to regard myself, with my talents and defects, as sacred in my undivided existence. Through it, too, have I entered into the knowledge of friendship and of love." (Reden iiber die Religion^ 4 th Ed., p. 10.)

In a similar strain did he write years afterwards from Barby, the scene of his youthful struggles, and which he liked to revisit in times of intellectual weariness and troubled outlook : — " There is no place which revives, as this does, the living recollection of the entire movement of my mind from the first awaking to better things up to the point where I now stand. It was here that the consciousness of the relation of man to a higher world was first stirred within me. ... It was here that