Of Hegel, the successor in thought of Schelling, there is no call here to speak at all. His speculation, though influential in America, as influential as that of either of his predecessors, was scarcely known thirty-five years ago, and if it had been, would have possessed little charm for idealists of the New England stamp. That system has borne fruits of a very different quality, being adopted largely by churchmen, whom it has justified and fortified in their ecclesiastical forms, doctrinal and sacramental, and by teachers of moderately progressive tendencies. The duty of unfolding his ideas has devolved upon students of German, as no other language has given them anything like adequate expression. Hegel, too, was more formidable than Schelling; the latter was brilliant, dashing, imaginative, glowing; his ideas shone in the air, and were caught with little toil by enthusiastic minds. To comprehend or even to apprehend Hegel requires more philosophical culture than was found in New England half a century ago, more than is by any means common to-day. Modern speculative philosophy is, as a rule, Hegelian. Its spirit is conservative, and it scarcely at all lends countenance to movements so revolutionary as those that shook New England.
Long before the time we are dealing with—as early as 1824—the philosophy of Hegel had struck hands with church and state in Prussia; Hegel was at once prophet, priest, and prince. In the fulness of his powers, ripe in ability and in fame, he sat in the chair that Fichte had occupied, and gave laws to the intellectual world. He would "teach philosophy to talk German, as Luther had taught the Bible to do." A crowd of enthusiasts thronged about him. The scientific and literary celebrities of Berlin sat at his feet; state officials attended his lectures and professed themselves his disciples. The government provided liberally for his salary, and paid the travelling expenses of this great ambassador of the mind. The old story of disciple become master was told again. The philosopher was the friend of those that befriended him; the servant, some say, of those that lavished on him honors. Then the new philosophy that was to reconstruct the mental world learned to accept the actual world as it existed, and lent its powerful aid to the order of things it promised to reconstruct. Throwing out the aphorism, "The rational is the actual, the actual is the rational," Hegel declared that natural right, morality, and even religion are properly subordinated to authority. The despotic Prussian system welcomed the great philosopher as its defender. The Prussian Government was not tardy in showing appreciation of its advocate's eminent services.
The church, taking the hint, put in its claim to patronage. It needed protection against the rationalism that was coming up; and such protection the majesty of Hegel vouchsafed to offer. Faith and philosophy formed a new alliance. Orthodox professors gave in their loyalty to the man who taught that "God was in process of becoming," and the man who taught that "God was in process of becoming" welcomed the orthodox professors to the circle of his disciples. He was more orthodox than the orthodox; he gave the theologians new explanations of their own dogmas, and supplied them with arguments against their own foes. Trinity, incarnation, atonement, redemption, were all interpreted and justified, to the complete satisfaction of the ecclesiastical powers.
This being the influence of the master, and of philosophy as he explained it, the formation of a new school by the earnest, liberal men who drew very different conclusions from the master's first principles, was to be expected. But the "New Hegelians," as they were called, became disbelievers in religion and in spiritual things altogether, and either lapsed, like Strauss, into intellectual scepticism, or, like Feuerbach, became aggressive materialists. The ideal elements in Hegel's system were appropriated by Christianity, and were employed against liberty and progress. Spiritualists, whether in the old world or the new, had little interest in a philosophy that so readily favored two opposite tendencies, both of which they abhorred. To them the spiritual philosophy was represented by Hegel's predecessors. The disciples of sentiment accepted Jacobi; the loyalists of conscience followed Fichte; the severe metaphysicians, of whom there were a few, adhered to Kant; the soaring speculators and imaginative theosophists spread their "sheeny vans," and soared into the regions of the absolute with Schelling. The idealists of New England were largest debtors to Jacobi and Fichte.
III.
TRANSCENDENTALISM IN THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE.
One of the earliest students of the German language in Boston was Dr. N. L. Frothingham, Unitarian minister of the First Church. Among the professional books that interested him was one by Herder, "Letters to a Young Theologian," chapters from which he translated for the "Christian Disciple," the precursor of the "Christian Examiner." Of Herder, George Bancroft wrote an account in the "North American Review," and George Ripley in the "Christian Examiner." The second number of "The Dial" contains a letter from Mr. Ripley to a theological student, in which this particular book of Herder is warmly commended, as being worth the trouble of learning German to read. The volume was remarkable for earnest enlightenment, its discernment of the spirit beneath the letter, its generous interpretations, and its suggestions of a better future for the philosophy of religion. Herder was one of the illuminated minds; though not professedly a disciple, he had felt the influence of Kant, and was cordially in sympathy with the men who were trying to break the spell of form and tradition. With Lessing more especially, Herder's "Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," of which a translation by Dr. James Marsh was published in 1833, found its way to New England, and helped to confirm the disposition to seek the springs of inspiration in the human mind, whence all poetry proceeded. The writer of the book, by applying to Hebrew poetry the rules of critical appreciation by which all poetic creations are judged, abolished so far the distinction between sacred and secular, and transferred to the credit of human genius the products commonly ascribed to divine. In the persons of the great bards of Israel all bards were glorified; the soul's creative power was recognized, and with it the heart of the transcendental faith.
The influence of Schleiermacher was even more distinct than that of Herder. One book of his, in particular, made a deep impression—the "Reden über Religion," published in 1799. The book is thus described by Mr. George Ripley, in a controversial letter to Mr. Andrews Norton, who had assailed Schleiermacher as an atheist. "The 'Discourses on Religion' were not intended to present a system of theology. They are highly rhetorical in manner, filled with bursts of impassioned eloquence, always intense, and sometimes extravagant; addressed to the feelings, not to speculation; and expressly disclaiming all pretensions to an exposition of doctrine. They were published at a time when hostility to religion, and especially to Christianity as a divine revelation, was deemed a proof of talent and refinement. The influence of the church was nearly exhausted; the highest efforts of thought were of a destructive character; a frivolous spirit pervaded society; religion was deprived of its supremacy; and a 'starveling theology' was exalted in place of the living word. Schleiermacher could not contemplate the wretched meagreness and degradation of his age without being moved as by 'a heavenly impulse.' His spirit was stirred within him as he saw men turning from the true God to base idols. He felt himself impelled to go forth with the power of a fresh and youthful enthusiasm, for the restoration of religion; to present it in its most sublime aspect, free from its perversions,