The Riddle of Man
German Idealism's Picture of the World
GA 20
German Idealism as the Beholding of Thoughts: Hegel
[ 1 ] Through Hegel, the “I think, therefore I am” seems to spring up again in the evolution of German world views like a seed, fallen into the earth, arises as a wide-branching tree. For, what this thinker created as a world view is a comprehensive thought-painting or, so to speak, a many-membered thought-body, consisting of numerous single thoughts that mutually carry, support, move, enliven, and illuminate one another. What is meant here by thoughts does not stem from the sense impressions of the outer world, nor even from the everyday experiences of human feeling life (Gemüt); what is meant is thoughts that reveal themselves in the soul when the soul lifts itself out of its sense impressions and out of the experiences of its feeling life and makes itself into an onlooker of the process by which a thought, free of everything of a non-thought nature, unfolds into further and ever further thoughts. When the soul allows this process to occur within itself, it is then supposedly lifted out of its usual being and interwoven with its activity into the spiritually supersensible world order. Then it is not the soul that thinks; the world-all thinks within the soul; the soul becomes a participant in a happening outside man into which man is merely interwoven; and in this way the soul experiences within itself what works and weaves in the depths of the world.
[ 2 ] Looking at this more closely, one can see that Hegel seeks his world view from a completely different viewpoint than from Descartes's “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes wants to draw certainty about the existence of the soul from the soul's thinking. With Hegel it is a matter of saying nothing at first about the thinking of the individual human soul. but of shaping the life of this soul in such a way that its thinking becomes a revelation of world thinking. Then. Hegel believes, what lives as thought in all world existence will reveal itself; and the individual soul finds itself as a part in this thought-weaving of the world. From this point of view the soul must say: The highest and deepest thing that is and lives in the world is the creative reigning of thoughts, and I find myself as one of the ways this reigning element reveals itself.
[ 3 ] In this turn away from the individual thoughts of the soul and toward world thoughts above and beyond the soul. there lies the significant difference between Hegel and Descartes; Hegel made this turn; Descartes did not.
[ 4 ] If Hegel did in fact remain in the region of thoughts and found himself therefore to be in opposition to Fichte and Schelling, he did so only because he believed he felt, in thoughts themselves, the inner power needed to penetrate into the supersensible realm. Hegel was an enthusiast with respect to the experience man can have when he gives himself over entirely to the primal power of thoughts. In the light of a thought raised to an idea, the soul, for him, extricates itself from its connection with the sense world. One can feel the power lying in this enthusiasm of Hegel when one encounters in his writings—in which for many people there reigns such a repellent, knotty, yes, it seems, horribly abstract language-passages that often show so beautifully the heart's tones he can find for what he experiences with his “abstractions.” Just such a passage, for example, stands at the end of his Phenomenology. There he calls the knowing that the soul experiences when it lets world ideas hold sway within it “absolute knowing.” And at the end of this book he looks back upon those spirits who have striven for the goal of “absolute knowing” in the course of mankind's evolution. Looking back from his era, he finds the following words to say about these spirits: “The goal—absolute knowing, or the spirit knowing itself as spirit—has as its path the memory of spirits, as they are in themselves and as they accomplish the organization of their kingdom. Their preservation of their free existence, on the one hand, appearing in the form of chance happening, is history; but their preservation of their comprehended organization, on the other hand, is the science of manifest knowing; both together—comprehended history—constitute the memory and the Golgotha (Schädelstätte) of the absolute spirit, the reality, truth, and certainty of its throne, without which the absolute spirit would be lifeless and alone; only—
From the cup of this realm of spirits
Foams for it its infinitude:”
[ 5 ] This inwardly powerful element of a thought-life that wants to overcome itself within itself in order to lift itself into a realm where it is no longer living in itself but where the infinite thought, the eternal idea, is living in it: that is the essential element in Hegel's seeking. Through this, higher striving in knowledge receives a far-reaching character with him that wants to guide toward one goal directions in this striving that are often separated and therefore proceeding one-sidedly. In Hegel one can find a pure thinker who wants to approach the solution to the riddle of the world only through a human reason free of mysticism. One can speak of ice-cold abstract thoughts by which alone he wants to comprehend the world. Thus one will be able to see in him the dry, mathematically inclined man of intellect. But where does living in the ideas of one's reason lead him? It leads him to the surrender of the human soul to the supersensible world powers holding sway in the soul. Living in these ideas becomes a true mystical experience. And it is absolutely not nonsensical to recognize mysticism in Hegel's world view. One must only have a sense for the fact that what they mystic expresses can be experienced in Hegel's works in connection with the ideas of one's reason. It is a mysticism that removes the personal element—which for the mystic of feeling is the main thing, and the only thing he wants to speak about—as in fact a personal matter for the soul itself, and that expresses only that to which mysticism can lift itself when it struggles up out of personal soul darkness into the radiant clarity of the world of ideas.
[ 6 ] Hegel's world view has its place in the course of mankind's spiritual evolution through the fact that in it the radiant power of thoughts lifts itself up out of the mystical depths of the soul, and through the fact that in Hegel's seeking, mystical power wants to reveal itself with the power of the light of thought. And this is also how he sees his place in the course of this evolution. Therefore he looked back upon Jakob Böhme in the way expressed in these words (to be found in his History of Philosophy): “This Jakob Böhme, long forgotten and decried as a pietistic visionary, has regained his rightful esteem only in recent times; Leibniz revered him. His public has been greatly reduced by the Age of Enlightenment; in recent times his profundity has been recognized again. ... To declare him a visionary means nothing. For if one wants to, one can call every philosopher so, even Epicurus and Bacon. ... But as to the high esteem to which Böhme has been raised, he owes this particularly to the form of his contemplation and feeling; for, contemplation and inner feeling ... and the pictorial nature of one's thoughts the allegories and so on—are partly considered to be the essential form of philosophy. But it is only the concept, thinking, in which philosophy can have its truth, in which the absolute can be expressed and also is as it is in and for itself.” And Hegel finds these further words for Böhme: “Jakob Böhme is the first German philosopher; the content of his philosophizing is truly German. What distinguishes Böhme and makes him remarkable is ... that he set the intellectual world into his own inner life (Gemüt), and within his own consciousness of himself he beheld, knew, and felt everything that used to be in the beyond. This general idea of Böhme proves on the one hand to be profound and basic; on the other hand, however, he does not achieve clarity and order in all his need and struggle for definition and discrimination in developing his divine views about the universe.”
Such words are spoken by Hegel, after all, only from the feeling: In the simple heart of Jakob Böhme there lived the deepest impulse of the human soul to sink itself with its own experience into world experience—the true mystical impulse—but the pictorial view, the parable, the symbol must lift themselves to the light of clear ideas in order to attain what they want. In Hegel's world view Jakob Böhme's world pictures are meant to arise again as ideas of human reason. Thus the enthusiast of thoughts, Hegel, stands beside the deep mystic, Jakob Böhme, within the evolution of German idealism. Hegel saw in Böhme's philosophizing something truly German, and Karl Rosenkranz, the biographer and independent student of Hegel, wrote a book, Hegel as the German National Philosopher, for the celebration of Hegel's hundredth birthday in 1870, in which these words occur: “One can assert that Hegel's system of thought is the most national one in Germany, and that after the earlier dominion of the Kantian and Schellingtan systems, none has reached so deeply into the national movement, into the furthering of German intelligence, into the elucidation of public opinion, into the encouraging of the will ... as that of Hegel.”
[ 7 ] With such words Karl Rosenkranz does in fact, to a high degree, speak the truth about a phenomenon of German spiritual life, even though, on the other hand, Hegel's striving had already encountered the most bitter and scornful opposition in the decades before these words were written—an opposition whose beginnings were described in significant words by Rosenkranz himself soon after Hegel's death: “When I consider the fury with which Hegelian philosophy was attacked, I am surprised that Hegel's expression, that ‘the idea in its movement is a circle of circles,’ has not moved people to call his philosophy Dante's funnel into hell, which narrows toward the end and finally brings one up against Satan incarnate” (Rosenkrantz: From My Notebook. Leipzig 1854).
[ 8 ] There can be very different viewpoints from which a person seeks to describe the impression he gains of a thinker personality like Hegel. In another place (in his book Riddles of Philosophy) the present author attempted to show the view one can attain about Hegel when one fixes one's eye on his work as a stage in the philosophical evolution of mankind. Here this author would like to speak only of what comes to expression through Hegel as one of the strengths of German idealism in world views. This is trust in the carrying power of thinking. Every page in Hegel's works strengthens this trust which finally culminates in the conviction: When the human being fully understands what he has in his thinking, then he also knows that he can attain entry into a supersensible spiritual world. Through Hegel, German idealism has accomplished the affirmation of the supersensible nature of thinking. And one can have the feeling that Hegel's strengths, and also his weaknesses, are connected with the fact that one time in the course of the world a personality had to stand there for whom all life and work are ensouled by this affirmation. Then one sees in Hegel's world view a source from which to draw what can be gained from this affirmation in the way of strength for life, without perhaps accepting the content of the Hegelian world view in anyone point.
[ 9 ] If one relates in such a way to this thinker personality, one can receive a stimulus from him, and along with it the stimulus of one strong element of German idealism; and from this stimulus one can gain the strength to form a completely different picture of the world than that painted by Hegel himself. As strange as it may sound: Hegel is perhaps best understood when one directs the power of cognitive striving that held sway in him onto paths that he himself never took at all.
Hegel felt the supersensible nature of thinking with all the power available to man in this direction. But he had to expend so much human strength in conducting this feeling through a complete thinking process for once, that he was not able himself to lead the supersensible nature of thinking up into supersensible realms. The exemplary psychologist, Franz Brentano expresses in his Psychology how modern psychology does indeed investigate the ordinary life of the soul in a strictly scientific way, but, in these investigations, has lost all perspective into the great questions of soul existence. He says: “The laws of mental association, of the development of convictions and opinions, and of the germinating of pleasure and love, all these would be anything but a true compensation for not gaining certainty about the hopes of a Plato and Aristotle for the continued existence of our better part after the dissolution of the body ... if the modern way of thinking really did signify the elimination of the question of immortality, then this elimination would have to be called an extremely portentious one for psychology:” Now one can say that in many people's view not only the scientific approach of psychology but the scientific approach altogether seems to signify the elimination of such questions. Over Hegel's world view there seems to hover like an evil fate the fact that, with its affirmation of the supersensible nature of the thought-world, his world view has walled off the entrance into a real world of supersensible facts and beings. [ 10 ] In someone who is a student of Hegel in the sense Karl Rosenkranz is, for example, this fate seems to work on. Rosenkranz wrote a psychology (Psychology or Science of the Subjective Spirit, 1837; third edition, 1863). There, in the chapter on “Old Age,” one can read (p. 119): “Psychology touches here on the question of immortality, a favorite theme of lay philosophers—often with the preconceived intention of guaranteeing a reunion after death, as one usually expresses it. If the spirit, as a self-conscious idea-entity, is qualitatively different from its organism, then the possibility of immortality makes sense. But as to the how of actual immortality, we are unable to gain the slightest inkling with any objective value. We can see that if we continue to exist as individualities, our being is still unable to change, after all, with respect to having to live within the true, good, and beautiful; but the modality of an existence separated from our organism is a riddle for us. Why should we not then acknowledge here the limits of our knowing? Why should we either flatly deny the possibility of immortality or offer for speculation fantastic dreams of a soul sleep, of a soul body, and of other such dogmas? Where true knowing ceases, faith enters; and we must leave it up to faith to depict a not impossible hereafter.” Rosenkranz airs an opinion like this within a psychology completely permeated with the conviction of having a knowledge about what the supersensible world-thought brings to earthly reality within the being of the human soul. This is a science—wishing to weave entirely within the supersensible—that comes to an immediate halt when it notices the threshold to the supersensible world. One can deal with this phenomenon only if one feels in it something of the destiny that is cast over man's striving in knowledge—and that seems so inextricably interwoven with Hegel's world view—through the fact that, by focussing with all its strength upon the supersensible nature of thinking, and, in order to achieve maximum effect with this focus, his world view loses the possibility of a different focus upon the supersensible.
[ 11 ] Hegel at first seeks to find the circumference of all the supersensible thoughts that arise in the human soul when the soul lifts itself up out of all observation of nature and all earthly soul life. He presents this content as his Logic. But this logic contains not one single thought leading out of the region encompassed by nature and earthly soul life.
Then Hegel seeks further to present all those thoughts which, as supersensible beings, underlie nature. Nature becomes for him the revelation of a supersensible thought-world that hides its thought-being within nature and presents itself as the opposite of itself, as something of a non-thought kind. But here also there are no thoughts that non-thought kind. But here also there are no thoughts that I do not express themselves within the circumference of the sense world.
In his philosophy of the spirit, Hegel depicts how world I ideas are holding sway in the individual human soul, in associations of human souls (peoples, states), in the historical evolution of mankind, in art, religion, and philosophy. Everywhere in his philosophy is also the view that the supersensible thought-world absolutely expresses itself within the soul element as this stands with its being and working within the sense world, and that therefore everything present in the sense realm is of a spiritual nature with respect to its true being. Nowhere, however, is there a start in the direction of penetrating with knowledge into a supersensible region for which no configuration in the sense realm is present.
[ 12 ] One can acknowledge all this to oneself and yet not seek to judge the expression of German idealism in Hegel's world view negatively just because Hegel, in spite of his supersensible idealism, remained stuck in observation of the sense world. One can arrive at a positive judgment and can find the essential thing about this world view to lie in the fact that it contains the affirmation: Whoever observes in its true form the world spread out before our senses recognizes that it is in reality a spiritual world. And German idealism has expressed through Hegel this affirmation of the spiritual nature of the sense-perceptible.
[ 13 ] Otto Willmann has written an excellent book dealing with The History of Idealism. With a far-reaching knowledge of his field, he points out the weaknesses and one-sidednesses that have come into the evolution of world views in the nineteenth century through the continuing effects of the Kantian formulation of questions and direction in thought. The depictions I gave in this present book sought within the life of the world views of the nineteenth century to find those impulses and streams through which thinkers have freed themselves from Kant's formulation of questions and direction in thought, and through which they have taken paths to which precisely they could do justice who judge the matter according to just such a far-reaching view as that underlying Willmann's book. Many views that wish to attach themselves to Kant in modern times, without sufficient insight into the preceding evolution of world views, revert in fact to views characterized correctly in the following words by Willmann to the effect “that according to Aristotle our knowledge begins with the things of the world and on the basis of sense perceptions only then forms the concept ... that this forming of concepts occurs through a creative act, in which the human spirit grasps the thought-element within the things ... One still always has to indicate to certain sense-bound and banal people that perceiving can never enhance itself to the point of being able to think, that sensations and feelings cannot bunch together into concepts, and that, on the contrary, perceiving and sensing must themselves be constituted by something, and constituted, in fact, on the basis of the thoughts existing in the things; ... only thoughts can grant us any necessitated and universal knowledge.” Someone who thinks in this way—if he frees himself from certain misapprehensions holding sway, understandably, among the adherents of Willmann's kind of thinking—can speak with comprehension and appreciation, even from Willmann's standpoint, of Schelling's and Hegel's direction in thought and of much that, like them, rums away from “sense-bound banality.” A time will also come when Willmann's kind of thinking will be judged with less bias in this direction than is now the case. This kind of thinking will then be just as correct in its appreciation of what, in the evolution of modern world views, has broken free of “sense-bound banality” as it is correct now in condemning views that have fallen prey to this and many other “banalities.”!
Der deutsche Idealismus als Gedankenanschauung: Hegel
[ 1 ] Durch Hegel scheint in der deutschen Weltanschauungsentwickelung das «Ich denke, also bin ich» so wieder aufzuleben, wie ein Samenkorn, das in die Erde fällt, als allseitig entfalteter Baum ersteht. Denn was dieser Denker als Weltanschauung geschaffen hat, ist ein umfassendes Gedankengemälde oder gewissermaßen ein vielgliedriger Gedankenleib, der aus zahlreichen Einzelgedanken besteht, die gegenseitig sich tragen, stützen, bewegen, beleben, erleuchten. Und diese Gedanken sollen solche sein, die nicht aus den Sinneneindrücken der Außenwelt, auch nicht aus den täglichen Erlebnissen des menschlichen Gemütes stammen; sie sollen in der Seele sich offenbaren, wenn diese aus den Sinneseindrücken und Gemütserlebnissen sich heraushebt und sich zum Zuschauer des Vorgangs macht, durch den der von allem Nichtgedanklichen freie Gedanke sich zu weiteren und immer weiteren Gedanken entfaltet. Wenn die Seele diesen Vorgang in sich geschehen läßt, soll sie ihres gewöhnlichen Wesens enthoben und mit ihrem Tun in die geistig-übersinnliche Weltordnung einverwoben sein. Nicht sie denkt dann; das Weltall denkt sich in ihr; sie wird der Teilnehmer eines außermenschlichen Geschehens, in das der Mensch bloß eingesponnen ist; und sie erlebt auf diese Art in sich, was in den Tiefen der Welt wirkt und webt.
[ 2 ] Bei näherem Zusehen zeigt sich, wie bei Hegel die Weltanschauung von einem völlig anderen Gesichtspunkte aus gesucht wird als durch das Descartessche «Ich denke, also bin ich». Descartes will die Gewißheit des Seelen-Seins aus dem Denken der Seele herausholen. Bei Hegel handelt es sich darum, von dem Denken der einzelnen menschlichen Seele zunächst ganz zu schweigen, und das Leben dieser Seele so zu gestalten, daß deren Denken eine Offenbarung des Weltendenkens wird. Dann, meint Hegel, offenbart sich, was als Gedanke in allem Weltendasein lebt; und die einzelne Seele findet sich als Glied im Gedankenweben der Welt. Die Seele muß von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus sagen: Das Höchste und Tiefste, was in der Welt west und lebt, ist schaffendes Gedankenwalten, und ich finde mich als eine der Offenbarungsweisen dieses Waltens.
[ 3 ] In der Wendung vom einzelnen Seelengedanken zum überseelischen Weltgedanken liegt der bedeutungsvolle Unterschied zwischen Hegel und Descartes. Hegel hat diese Wendung vollzogen, Descartes nicht. - Und dieser Unterschied bewirkt einen anderen, der sich auf die Ausbildung der Weltanschauungen der beiden Geister bezieht. Descartes sucht Gewißheit für die Gedanken, die der Mensch sich von der Welt bildet in dem Leben, in dem er mit seinen Sinnen und seiner Seele drinnen steht. Hegel sucht in dem Felde dieser Gedanken zunächst nicht, er sucht nach einer Gestalt des Gedankenlebens, das über diesem Felde liegt.
[ 4 ] Ist so Hegel wohl im Gebiete des Gedankens stehengeblieben und befindet er sich dadurch in Gegensatz zu Fichte und Schelling, so tat er dies nur, weil er im Gedanken selbst die innere Kraft zu fühlen meinte, um in die übersinnlichen Reiche einzudringen. Hegel war Enthusiast gegenüber dem Erleben, das der Mensch haben kann, wenn er sich ganz der Urkraft des Gedankens hingibt. In dem Lichte des zur Idee erhobenen Gedankens entwindet sich für ihn die Seele ihres Zusammenhanges mit der Sinnenwelt. Man kann die Kraft, die in diesem Enthusiasmus Hegels liegt, empfinden, wenn man in seinen Schriften, in denen eine für viele so zurückstoßende, knorrige, ja scheinbar gräßlich abstrakte Sprache waltet, auf Stellen stößt, in denen sich oft so schön zeigt, welche Herzenstöne er finden kann für das, was er mit seinen «Abstraktionen» erlebt. Eine solche Stelle steht zum Beispiel am Schlusse seiner «Phänomenologie». Er nennt da das Wissen, das die Seele erlebt, wenn sie die Weltideen in sich walten läßt, das «absolute Wissen». Und er blickt am Schlusse dieses Werkes zurück auf die Geister, die im Entwickelungsgange der Menschheit dem Ziele dieses «absoluten Wissens» zugestrebt haben. Von seiner Zeit aus schauend, findet er diesen Geistern gegenüber die Worte: «Das Ziel, das absolute Wissen, oder der sich als Geist wissende Geist hat zu seinem Wege die Erinnerung der Geister, wie sie an ihnen selbst sind und die Organisation ihres Reichs vollbringen. Ihre Aufbewahrung nach der Seite ihres freien in der Form der Zufälligkeit erscheinenden Daseins ist die Geschichte, nach der Seite ihrer begriffenen Organisation aber die Wissenschaft des erscheinenden Wissens; beide zusammen, die begriffne Geschichte, bilden die Erinnerung und die Schädelstätte des absoluten Geistes, die Wirklichkeit, Wahrheit und Gewißheit seines Thrones, ohne den er das leblose Einsame wäre; nur aus dem Kelche dieses Geisterreiches schäumt ihm seine Unendlichkeit.»
[ 5 ] Dieses innerlich Kraftvolle des Gedankenlebens, das sich in sich selbst überwinden will, um in ein Reich sich zu erheben, in dem es nicht mehr selbst, sondern der unendliche Gedanke, die ewige Idee in ihm lebt, ist das Wesentliche in Hegels Suchen. Dadurch erhält bei ihm das höhere menschliche Erkenntnisstreben einen umfassenden Charakter, welcher Richtungen dieses Strebens, die oft getrennt und dadurch einseitig verlaufen, zu einem Ziele führen will. Man kann in Hegel einen reinen Denker finden, der nur durch die mystikfreie Vernunft an die Lösung der Welträtsel herantreten will. Von eisigen, abstrakten Gedanken, durch die er allein die Welt begreifen will, kann man sprechen. So wird man in ihm den trockenen, mathematisch gearteten Verstandesmenschen sehen können. - Aber wozu wird bei ihm das Leben in den Ideen der Vernunft? Zum Hingeben der Menschenseele an die in ihr waltenden übersinnlichen Weltenkräfte. Es wird zum wahren mystischen Erleben. Und es ist durchaus nicht widersinnig, in Hegels Weltanschauung Mystik zu erkennen. Man muß nur einen Sinn dafür haben, daß in Hegels Werken das an den Vernunftideen erlebt werden kann, was der Mystiker ausspricht. Es ist eine Mystik, die das Persönliche, das dem Gefühlsmystiker die Hauptsache ist und von dem er allein reden will, eben als eine persönliche Angelegenheit der Seele in sich abmacht und nur das ausspricht, wozu sich die Mystik erheben kann, wenn sie aus dem persönlichen Seelendunkel sich in die lichte Klarheit der Ideenwelt hinaufringt.
[ 6] Hegels Weltanschauung hat ihre Stellung im geistigen Entwickelungsgange der Menschheit dadurch, daß sich in ihr die lichte Kraft des Gedankens aus den mystischen Tiefen der Seele heraufhebt, daß in seinem Suchen sich mystische Kraft mit gedanklicher Lichtmacht offenbaren will. Und so findet er sich auch selbst in diesem Entwickelungsgange drinnen stehend. Deshalb blickte er auf Jakob Böhme so zurück, wie es in seinen (in seiner «Geschichte der Philosophie» befindlichen) Worten ausgesprochen ist: «Dieser Jakob Böhme, lange vergessen und als ein pietistischer Schwärmer verschrien, ist erst in neueren Zeiten wieder zu Ehren gekommen, Leibniz ehrte ihn. Durch die Aufklärung ist sein Publikum sehr beschränkt worden; in neueren Zeiten ist seine Tiefe wieder anerkannt worden ... Ihn als Schwärmer zu qualifizieren, heißt weiter nichts. Denn wenn man will, kann man jeden Philosophen so qualifizieren, selbst den Epikur und Bacon. ... Was aber die hohen Ehren betrifft, zu denen Böhme erhoben worden, so dankt er diese besonders seiner Form der Anschauung und des Gefühls; denn Anschauung und inneres Fühlen... und die Bildlichkeit der Gedanken, die Allegorien und dergleichen werden zum Teil für die wesentliche Form der Philosophie gehalten. Aber es ist nur der Begriff, das Denken, worin die Philosophie ihre Wahrheit haben, worin das Absolute ausgesprochen werden kann, und auch ist, wie es an sich ist.» Und weiter findet Hegel für Böhme die Sätze: «Jakob Böhme ist der erste deutsche Philosoph; der Inhalt seines Philosophierens ist echt deutsch. Was Böhme auszeichnet und merkwürdig macht, ist, ... die Intellektualwelt in das eigene Gemüt hereinzulegen, und in seinem Selbstbewußtsein alles anzuschauen und zu wissen und zu fühlen, was sonst jenseits war. Die allgemeine Idee Böhmes zeigt sich einerseits tief und gründlich; er kommt anderseits aber, bei allem Bedürfnis und Ringen nach Bestimmung und Unterscheidung in der Entwickelung seiner göttlichen Anschauungen des Universums, nicht zur Klarheit und Ordnung.» Solche Worte sind von Hegel doch nur aus dem Gefühle heraus gesprochen: In dem einfachen Gemüte Jakob Böhmes lebt der tiefste Drang der Menschenseele, mit dem eigenen Erleben sich in das Welterleben zu versenken - der wahre mystische Drang -; aber die bildliche Anschauung, das Gleichnis, das Symbol müssen sich zum Lichte der klaren Idee erheben, um zu erreichen, was sie wollen. Als Vernunftideen sollen in Hegels Weltanschauung die Jakob Böhmeschen Weltenbilder wiedererstehen. So steht der Enthusiast des Gedankens, Hegel, neben dem tiefen Mystiker Jakob Böhme innerhalb der Entwickelung des deutschen Idealismus. Hegel sah in Böhmes Philosophieren etwas «echt Deutsches», und Karl Rosenkranz, der Biograph und selbständige Schüler Hegels, schrieb zur hundertjährigen Geburtstagsfeier Hegels 1870 ein Buch «Hegel als deutscher Nationalphilosoph», in dem die Worte stehen: «Man kann behaupten, daß das System Hegels das nationalste in Deutschland ist, und daß, nach der früheren Herrschaft des Kantschen und Schellingschen, keines so tief in die nationale Bewegung, in die Förderung der deutschen Intelligenz, in die Klärung der öffentlichen Meinung, in die Ermutigung des Willens... eingegriffen hat als das Hegelsche.»
[ 7 ] Mit solchen Worten spricht Karl Rosenkranz doch im hohen Grade die Wahrheit über eine Erscheinung des deutschen Geisteslebens aus, wenn auch anderseits Hegels Streben schon in den Jahrzehnten, bevor diese Worte geschrieben sind, bitterste und hohnerfüllte Gegnerschaft gefunden hat, eine Gegnerschaft, deren Anfangsentwickelung bald nach Hegels Tode Rosenkranz selbst mit den bedeutsamen Sätzen gekennzeichnet hat: «Wenn ich die Wut betrachte, mit welcher man die Hegelsche Philosophie verfolgt, so wundere ich mich, daß Hegels Ausdruck: die Idee in ihrer Bewegung sei ein Kreis von Kreisen, noch nicht Veranlassung gegeben hat, sie als den Danteschen Höllentrichter zu zeichnen, der, unten sich verengend, endlich auf den leibhaften Satan stoßen läßt.» (Rosenkranz: Aus meinem Tagebuch. Leipzig 1854. S.42.)
[ 8 ] Es kann sehr verschiedene Gesichtspunkte geben, von denen aus man den Eindruck zu schildern versucht, den man von einer Denkerpersönlichkeit, wie Hegel eine ist, gewinnt. An anderer Stelle (in seinem Buche «Die Rätsel der Philosophie») hat der Verfasser dieser Schrift darzustellen versucht, welche Anschauung man über Hegel gewinnen könne, wenn man sein Werk als eine Stufe der philosophischen Entwickelung der Menschheit ins Auge faßt. Hier möchte er nur von dem sprechen, was durch Hegel als eine der Kräfte des deutschen Idealismus in der Weltanschauung zum Ausdrucke kommt. Es ist dies das Vertrauen in die tragende Macht des Denkens. Jede Seite in Hegels Werken ist eine Bekräftigung dieses Vertrauens, das zuletzt in der Überzeugung gipfelt: Wenn der Mensch völlig versteht, was er in seinem Denken hat, so weiß er auch, daß er den Zugang zu einer übersinnlich-geistigen Welt gewinnen kann. Der deutsche Idealismus hat durch Hegel das Bekenntnis zu der übersinnlichen Wesenheit des Denkens abgelegt. Und man kann die Empfindung haben, Hegels Stärken und auch seine Schwächen hängen mit der Tatsache zusammen, daß im Weltenlaufe einmal eine Persönlichkeit dastehen mußte, bei der alles Leben und Wirken von diesem Bekenntnis durchseelt ist. Dann sieht man in Hegels Weltanschauung einen Quell, aus dem man schöpfen kann, was an Lebenskraft mit diesem Bekenntnis zu gewinnen ist, ohne vielleicht in irgendeinem Punkte den Inhalt der Hegelschen Weltanschauung für sich anzunehmen.
[ 9 ] Stellt man sich so zu dieser Denkerpersönlichkeit, so kann man deren Anregung, und damit die Anregung einer Kraft des deutschen Idealismus empfangen, und mit dieser Anregung die Bestärkung zu einem ganz anderen Weltbilde gewinnen, als das durch Hegel gemalte ist. So sonderbar es klingt: Man versteht vielleicht Hegel am besten, wenn man die in ihm waltende Kraft des Erkenntnisstrebens in Bahnen leitet, die er gar nicht selbst gegangen ist. - Er hat die übersinnliche Natur des Denkens mit aller nach dieser Richtung dem Menschen zur Verfügung stehenden Kraft empfunden. Aber er hat viel Menschenkraft aufwenden müssen, um diese Empfindung einmal durch ein volles Denkerwirken hindurchzutragen, so daß er die übersinnliche Natur des Denkens nicht selbst hatte in übersinnliche Gebiete hinaufführen können. Der treffliche Seelenforscher Franz Brentano spricht in seiner «Psychologie» aus, wie die neuere Seelenkunde wohl in streng wissenschaftlicher Art das gewöhnliche Leben der Seele erforscht, wie dieser Forschung aber der Ausblick in die großen Fragen des Seelendaseins verlorengegangen ist. «Für die Hoffnungen eines Platon und Aristoteles - sagt Brentano - über das Fortleben unseres besseren Teiles nach der Auflösung des Leibes Sicherheit zu gewinnen, würden dagegen die Gesetze der Assoziation von Vorstellungen, der Entwickelung von Überzeugungen und Meinungen und des Keimens von Lust und Liebe alles andere, nur nicht eine wahre Entschädigung sein... und wenn wirklich »die neuere Denkungsart« den Ausschluß der Frage nach der Unsterblichkeit besagte, so wäre er für die Psychologie ein überaus bedeutender zu nennen.» Nun, man kann sagen, daß nach Ansicht vieler nicht nur die Wissenschaftlichkeit der Seelenkunde, sondern Wissenschaftlichkeit überhaupt den Ausschluß solcher Fragen zu besagen scheint. Und über Hegels Weltanschauung scheint es wie ein Verhängnis zu schweben, daß sie mit dem Bekenntnis zu der übersinnlichen Natur der Gedankenwelt sich den Zugang in eine wirkliche Welt übersinnlicher Tatsachen und Wesenheiten vermauert hat.
[ 10 ] Und wer in dem Sinne Schüler Hegels ist, wie etwa Karl Rosenkranz, in dem scheint dieses Verhängnis weiter zu wirken. Rosenkranz hat eine «Seelenkunde» geschrieben. (Psychologie oder Wissenschaft vom subjektiven Geist, von K. Rosenkranz. 1837, 3. Aufl. Königsberg 1863.) Darin ist in dem Kapitel «Das Greisenalter» zu lesen (S.119): «Die Psychologie berührt hier die Frage nach der Unsterblichkeit, ein Lieblingsthema für die Laienphilosophie, oft mit einer vorgefaßten Tendenz, ein Wiedersehen nach dem Tode, wie man sich auszudrücken pflegt, zu verbürgen. Ist der Geist als selbstbewußte Idealität qualitativ von seinem Organismus unterschieden, so leuchtet die Möglichkeit der Unsterblichkeit ein. Über das Wie ihrer Wirklichkeit vermögen wir aber nicht die geringste Vorstellung zu haben, die einen objektiven Wert anzusprechen vermöchte. Wir können einsehen, daß, wenn wir als Individualitäten fortexistieren, doch unser Wesen sich nicht zu ändern vermöge, nämlich im Wahren, Guten und Schönen leben zu müssen, allein die Modalität eines von unserem Organismus getrennten Daseins ist ein Rätsel für uns. Warum sollen wir denn hier die Grenze unseres Wissens nicht eingestehen? Warum sollen wir entweder die Möglichkeit der Unsterblichkeit geradezu leugnen, oder warum sollen wir phantastische Träumereien von einem Seelenschlaf, von einem Seelenleibe und ähnlichen Dogmen für Spekulation ausgeben? Wo hier das wirkliche Wissen aufhört, da tritt der Glaube ein, dem es überlassen bleiben muß, wie er sich ein nicht unmögliches Jenseits ausmalt. »Solche Meinung offenbart Rosenkranz in einer Seelenkunde, die ganz von der Überzeugung durchdrungen ist, ein Wissen von dem zu haben, was der übersinnliche Weltengedanke in dem Wesen der menschlichen Seele zur irdischen Wirklichkeit macht. Eine ganz im Übersinnlichen weben wollende Wissenschaft, die sofort Halt macht, wo sie die Schwelle zur übersinnlichen Welt bemerkt. Man wird dieser Erscheinung nur gerecht, wenn man in ihr etwas von dem Schicksal empfindet, das über das menschliche Erkenntnisstreben ausgegossen ist, und das in Hegels Weltanschauung so verwoben erscheint, daß sie mit aller Kraft auf die übersinnliche Natur des Denkens eingestellt ist, und um in dieser Einstellung groß zu wirken, die Möglichkeit einer anderen Einstellung für das Übersinnliche verliert.
[ 11 ] Hegel sucht zuerst den Umkreis all der übersinnlichen Gedanken, die in der Menschenseele aufleben, wenn diese sich über alle Naturanschauung und alles irdische Seelenleben hinaushebt. Diesen Umkreis stellt er als seine «Logik» dar. Doch enthält diese Logik keinen einzigen Gedanken, der über das Gebiet hinausführte, das von der Natur und dem irdischen Seelenleben umschlossen wird. - Weiter sucht Hegel alle Gedanken darzustellen, die als übersinnliche Wesenheiten der Natur zugrunde liegen. Ihm wird da die Natur zur Offenbarung einer übersinnlichen Gedankenwelt, die in der Natur ihre Gedankenwesenheit verbirgt und sich als Ungedankliches, als das Gegenbild von sich selbst darstellt. Aber auch da finden sich keine Gedanken, die nicht im Umkreis der Sinneswelt sich auslebten. - In der Geistphilosophie stellt Hegel das Walten der Weltideen in der einzelnen Menschenseele, in den Verbänden von Menschenseelen (in Völkern, Staaten), in der geschichtlichen Entwickelung der Menschheit, in Kunst, Religion und Philosophie dar. Überall auch da die Anschauung, daß in dem Seelischen, wie es mit seinem Wesen und Wirken in der Sinneswelt steht, durchaus die übersinnliche Gedankenwelt sich auslebt, daß also alles im Sinnlichen Vorhandene seiner wahren Wesenheit nach geistiger Art ist. Nirgend aber der Anlauf, mit der Erkenntnis in ein übersinnliches Gebiet zu dringen, für das keine Ausgestaltung im Sinnesreich vorhanden ist.
[ 12 ] Man kann sich alles dieses gestehen, und doch den Ausdruck des deutschen Idealismus durch Hegels Weltanschauung nicht in dem Urteil der Verneinung suchen, daß Hegel trotz seines übersinnlichen Idealismus in der Betrachtung der Sinneswelt stecken geblieben ist. Man kann zu einem Urteil der Bejahung kommen und das Wesentliche dieser Weltanschauung in der Tatsache finden, daß hier das Bekenntnis vorliegt: Wer die vor den Sinnen sich ausbreitende Welt in ihrer wahren Gestalt erschaut, der erkennt, daß sie in Wirklichkeit eine Geistwelt ist*. Und dieses Bekenntnis zur Geistnatur des Sinnlichen hat der deutsche Idealismus durch Hegel ausgesprochen.
[ 13 ] In einem hervorragenden Buche hat Otto Willmann die «Geschichte des Idealismus» behandelt. Er weist mit umfassender Sachkenntnis auf die Schwächen und Einseitigkeiten, welche in die Weltanschauungsentwickelung des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts durch die fortwirkenden Kantschen Fragestellungen und Denkrichtungen gekommen sind. Die in dieser meiner Schrift gegebene Darstellung hat im Weltanschauungsleben des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts diejenigen Triebe und Strömungen aufgesucht, durch welche sich die Denker von jenen Fragestellungen und Denkrichtungen freigemacht haben. Durch welche sie Wege beschritten haben, denen gerade diejenigen gerecht werden könnten, welche aus einer solch umfassenden Anschauung heraus urteilen, wie sie dem Buche Willmanns zugrunde liegt. Manches, was in der neueren Zeit an Kant anknüpfen will, ohne genügende Einsicht in die vorhergehende Weltanschauungsentwickelung, fällt in der Tat in Ansichten zurück, die von Willmann mit Recht in den folgenden Worten charakterisiert werden: daß «nach Aristoteles unsere Erkenntnis von den Dingen anhebe und auf Grund der Sinneswahrnehmungen erst den Begriff bilde ... daß diese Begriffsbildung durch einen schöpferischen Akt geschehe, in dem der Geist das Gedankliche in den Dingen ergreift ... Die sensualistische Plattheit muß noch immer darauf hingewiesen werden, daß das Wahrnehmen sich nicht zum Denken steigern kann, die Empfindungen sich nicht zum Begriff zusammenzuballen vermögen, daß diese vielmehr konstituiert werden müssen, und zwar auf Grund des Gedankens in den Dingen ... der uns allein notwendige und allgemeine Erkenntnis zu geben vermag » (Willmann, Geschichte des Idealismus II, 449). Wer so denkt, kann zu Schellings, zu Hegels Denkrichtung und zu manchem, was gleich ihnen sich abwendet von der «sensualistischen Plattheit», auch vom Standpunkte Willmanns aus verständnisvoll anerkennend sprechen, wenn er sich von gewissen Mißverständnissen freimacht, die bei den Bekennern der Willmannschen Denkungsart - in begreiflicher Weise - herrschen. Auch die Zeit wird noch kommen, in der diese Denkungsart nach dieser Richtung hin unbefangener urteilen wird, als dies jetzt der Fall ist. Sie wird dann ebenso recht haben mit ihrer Anerkennung desjenigen, was sich in der neueren Weltanschauungsentwickelung der «sensualistischen Plattheits entrungen bat, wie sie jetzt recht hat mit der Verurteilung dessen, was dieser und mancher anderen «Plattheit» verfallen ist.
German idealism as a view of thought: Hegel
[ 1 ] Through Hegel, the "I think, therefore I am" seems to come to life again in the development of the German worldview, just as a seed that falls into the earth emerges as an all-round developed tree. For what this thinker has created as a world-view is a comprehensive thought-painting or, as it were, a multi-layered body of thought, which consists of numerous individual thoughts that support, sustain, move, enliven and illuminate each other. And these thoughts should be those that do not come from the sensory impressions of the outside world, nor from the daily experiences of the human mind; they should reveal themselves in the soul when it lifts itself out of the sensory impressions and experiences of the mind and makes itself a spectator of the process through which the thought, free of all non-thought, unfolds into further and ever further thoughts. When the soul allows this process to take place within itself, it is said to be freed from its ordinary being and to be interwoven with its actions into the spiritual and supersensible world order. It does not then think; the universe thinks itself in it; it becomes a participant in an extra-human event in which the human being is merely woven; and in this way it experiences within itself what works and weaves in the depths of the world.
[ 2 ] On closer inspection, it becomes clear that Hegel's worldview is sought from a completely different point of view than Descartes' "I think, therefore I am". Descartes wants to extract the certainty of the soul's being from the thinking of the soul. In Hegel's case, it is a matter of initially leaving the thinking of the individual human soul entirely aside and shaping the life of this soul in such a way that its thinking becomes a revelation of the thinking of the world. Then, according to Hegel, what lives as thought in all world existence is revealed; and the individual soul finds itself as a link in the world's web of thought. From this point of view, the soul must say: The highest and deepest thing that exists and lives in the world is creative thought, and I find myself as one of the manifestations of this activity.
[ 3 ] The significant difference between Hegel and Descartes lies in the turn from the individual thought of the soul to the supersoul thought of the world. Hegel made this turn, Descartes did not. - And this difference brings about another, which relates to the formation of the worldviews of the two minds. Descartes seeks certainty for the thoughts that man forms of the world in the life in which he stands with his senses and his soul. Hegel searches in the field of these thoughts initially not, he searches for a form of the life of thought that lies above this field.
[ 4 ] If Hegel thus remained in the realm of thought and thus found himself in opposition to Fichte and Schelling, he did so only because he thought he felt the inner power in thought itself to penetrate the supersensible realms. Hegel was enthusiastic about the experience that man can have when he surrenders completely to the primal power of thought. In the light of thought elevated to an idea, for him the soul escapes its connection with the world of the senses. One can sense the power that lies in this enthusiasm of Hegel's when one comes across passages in his writings, in which a language so repulsive, gnarled, even seemingly horribly abstract for many prevails, in which it often shows so beautifully what heartfelt tones he can find for what he experiences with his "abstractions". One such passage, for example, can be found at the end of his "Phenomenology". There he calls the knowledge that the soul experiences when it lets the world ideas rule within itself "absolute knowledge". And at the end of this work he looks back at the spirits who have striven towards the goal of this "absolute knowledge" in the course of humanity's development. Looking at these spirits from his own time, he finds the words: "The goal, the absolute knowledge, or the spirit knowing itself as spirit, has for its path the memory of the spirits as they are in themselves and accomplish the organization of their realm. Their repository on the side of their free existence appearing in the form of contingency is history, but on the side of their conceived organization is the science of appearing knowledge; both together, the conceived history, form the memory and the skull of the absolute spirit, the reality, truth and certainty of its throne, without which it would be the lifeless solitary; only from the chalice of this spirit realm does its infinity foam."
[ 5 ] This inner strength of the life of thought, which wants to overcome itself in order to rise into a realm in which it no longer lives itself, but rather the infinite thought, the eternal idea within it, is the essence of Hegel's quest. This gives the higher human striving for knowledge a comprehensive character, which wants to lead directions of this striving, which often run separately and thus one-sidedly, to one goal. One can find in Hegel a pure thinker who only wants to approach the solution of the world's riddles through mysticism-free reason. One can speak of icy, abstract thoughts through which alone he wants to understand the world. Thus one can see in him the dry, mathematical man of reason. - But what is his life in the ideas of reason for? To surrender the human soul to the supersensible forces of the world that rule within it. It becomes a true mystical experience. And it is not at all absurd to recognize mysticism in Hegel's world view. One only has to have a sense for the fact that in Hegel's works what the mystic expresses can be experienced in the ideas of reason. It is a mysticism that defines the personal, which is the main thing for the emotional mystic and of which alone he wants to speak, precisely as a personal matter of the soul within itself and only expresses that to which mysticism can rise when it struggles up from the personal darkness of the soul into the light clarity of the world of ideas.
[ 6] Hegel's worldview has its position in the spiritual development of humanity in that in it the light power of thought rises from the mystical depths of the soul, that in his search mystical power wants to reveal itself with intellectual light power. And so he also finds himself standing within this process of development. This is why he looked back on Jakob Boehme as expressed in his words (found in his "History of Philosophy"): "This Jakob Boehme, long forgotten and decried as a pietistic enthusiast, has only come to honor again in more recent times; Leibniz honored him. Through the Enlightenment his audience was very limited; in more recent times his profundity has been recognized again ... To qualify him as an enthusiast means nothing more. For if one wishes, one can qualify any philosopher in this way, even Epicurus and Bacon. ... But as for the high honors to which Boehme has been raised, he owes them especially to his form of perception and feeling; for perception and inner feeling ... and the imagery of thought, allegories and the like are sometimes regarded as the essential form of philosophy. But it is only the concept, thinking, in which philosophy has its truth, in which the absolute can be expressed, and also is as it is in itself." And Hegel goes on to find the following sentences for Böhme: "Jakob Böhme is the first German philosopher; the content of his philosophizing is genuinely German. What distinguishes Böhme and makes him remarkable is ... to put the intellectual world into his own mind, and in his self-consciousness to look at and know and feel everything that was otherwise beyond. On the one hand, Böhme's general idea shows itself to be profound and thorough; on the other hand, however, for all his need and struggle for determination and differentiation in the development of his divine views of the universe, he does not arrive at clarity and order." Such words are spoken by Hegel only out of feeling: In the simple mind of Jakob Böhme lives the deepest urge of the human soul to immerse itself in the experience of the world with its own experience - the true mystical urge; but the figurative view, the parable, the symbol must rise to the light of the clear idea in order to achieve what they want. Jakob Böhme's images of the world are to be resurrected as ideas of reason in Hegel's world view. Thus Hegel, the enthusiast of thought, stands alongside the profound mystic Jakob Böhme within the development of German idealism. Hegel saw something "genuinely German" in Böhme's philosophizing, and Karl Rosenkranz, the biographer and independent student of Hegel, wrote a book on the centenary of Hegel's birth in 1870 entitled "Hegel as a German National Philosopher", in which he wrote: "One can claim that Hegel's system is the most national in Germany, and that, after the earlier dominance of Kant's and Schelling's, none is so deeply involved in the national movement, in the promotion of the German intelligentsia, in the clarification of public opinion, in the encouragement of the will. .. than Hegel's."
[ 7 ] With such words, Karl Rosenkranz speaks the truth to a high degree about a phenomenon of German intellectual life, even if, on the other hand, Hegel's striving had already met with the most bitter and hollow-filled opposition in the decades before these words were written, an opposition whose initial development soon after Hegel's death Rosenkranz himself characterized with the significant sentences: "When I consider the fury with which Hegelian philosophy is persecuted, I am surprised that Hegel's expression: the idea in its movement is a circle of circles, has not yet given occasion to draw it as the Dantean funnel of hell, which, narrowing at the bottom, finally lets us come upon Satan incarnate. " (Rosenkranz: From my diary. Leipzig 1854. p.42.)
[ 8 ] There can be very different points of view from which one tries to describe the impression one gains of a thinker personality such as Hegel. Elsewhere (in his book "The Riddles of Philosophy"), the author of this essay has attempted to describe the view one can gain of Hegel if one considers his work as a stage in the philosophical development of humanity. Here he wishes to speak only of what is expressed through Hegel as one of the forces of German idealism in the world view. This is the trust in the sustaining power of thought. Every page in Hegel's works is an affirmation of this confidence, which ultimately culminates in the conviction: If man fully understands what he has in his thinking, he also knows that he can gain access to a supersensible-spiritual world. Through Hegel, German idealism made a commitment to the supersensible nature of thought. And one can have the feeling that Hegel's strengths and also his weaknesses are connected with the fact that in the course of the world there once had to be a personality in whom all life and work is permeated by this confession. Then one sees in Hegel's world view a source from which one can draw what vitality can be gained with this confession, without perhaps accepting the content of Hegel's world view for oneself in any point.
[ 9 ] If one stands by this thinker personality in this way, one can receive his stimulation, and thus the stimulation of a force of German idealism, and with this stimulation gain the reinforcement for a completely different world view than the one painted by Hegel. Strange as it may sound, Hegel is perhaps best understood when the force of cognitive striving in him is guided along paths that he himself did not follow. - He perceived the supersensible nature of thought with all the power available to man in this direction. But he had to expend much human strength to carry this perception through a full thinking activity, so that he could not have led the supersensible nature of thinking up into supersensible realms himself. The excellent soul researcher Franz Brentano expresses in his "Psychology" how the newer science of the soul investigates the ordinary life of the soul in a strictly scientific manner, but how this research has lost its view of the great questions of the soul's existence. "For the hopes of Plato and Aristotle - says Brentano - to gain certainty about the survival of our better part after the dissolution of the body, the laws of the association of ideas, the development of convictions and opinions and the germination of desire and love would be anything but a true compensation... and if "the newer way of thinking" really meant the exclusion of the question of immortality, it would be a very important one for psychology." Well, one can say that, in the opinion of many, not only the scientific nature of psychology, but scientificity in general seems to imply the exclusion of such questions. And it seems to hover over Hegel's worldview like a doom that, by professing the supersensible nature of the world of thought, it has walled off access to a real world of supersensible facts and entities.
[ 10 ] And anyone who is a disciple of Hegel in this sense, such as Karl Rosenkranz, seems to continue to be affected by this fate. Rosenkranz has written a "science of the soul". (Psychology or Science of the Subjective Mind, by K. Rosenkranz. 1837, 3rd ed. Königsberg 1863.) In the chapter "Old age" we read (p.119): "Psychology here touches on the question of immortality, a favorite topic for lay philosophy, often with a preconceived tendency to vouch for a reunion after death, as one is wont to express it. If the spirit as a self-conscious ideality is qualitatively distinct from its organism, then the possibility of immortality is obvious. However, we cannot have the slightest idea of how it is realized, which would be able to address an objective value. We can realize that, if we continue to exist as individualities, our essence cannot change, namely that we must live in the true, the good and the beautiful, but the modality of an existence separate from our organism is a mystery to us. Why should we not admit the limit of our knowledge here? Why should we either downright deny the possibility of immortality, or why should we pass off fanciful dreams of a soul sleep, a soul life and similar dogmas as speculation? Where real knowledge ends here, faith enters, which must be left to imagine a not impossible hereafter. "Rosenkranz reveals such an opinion in a science of the soul that is completely imbued with the conviction of having knowledge of what the supersensible world thought in the essence of the human soul makes into earthly reality. A science that wants to weave completely in the supersensible, which stops immediately where it notices the threshold to the supersensible world. One can only do justice to this phenomenon if one senses in it something of the fate that is poured out over the human striving for knowledge, and which appears so interwoven in Hegel's world view that it is attuned with all its power to the supersensible nature of thought, and in order to have a great effect in this attitude, loses the possibility of another attitude for the supersensible.
[ 11 ] Hegel first of all searches for the sphere of all the supersensible thoughts that arise in the human soul when it rises above all views of nature and all earthly soul life. He presents this circle as his "logic". However, this logic does not contain a single thought that leads beyond the area enclosed by nature and the earthly life of the soul. - Furthermore, Hegel seeks to represent all thoughts that underlie nature as supersensible entities. For him, nature becomes the revelation of a supersensible world of thought that conceals its thought entity in nature and presents itself as something unthought, as the counter-image of itself. But even here there are no thoughts that are not lived out in the environment of the sensory world. - In the philosophy of mind, Hegel presents the reign of world ideas in the individual human soul, in the associations of human souls (in peoples, states), in the historical development of humanity, in art, religion and philosophy. Everywhere, too, there is the view that in the soul, as it stands with its being and working in the sense world, the supersensible world of thought is definitely lived out, that therefore everything existing in the sensible is spiritual in its true essence. Nowhere, however, is there an attempt to penetrate with knowledge into a supersensible realm for which there is no form in the sensory realm.
[ 12 ] One can admit all this to oneself and yet not seek the expression of German idealism through Hegel's worldview in the judgment of denial that Hegel, despite his supersensible idealism, has remained stuck in the contemplation of the sensory world. One can arrive at a judgment of affirmation and find the essence of this worldview in the fact that the confession is present here: Whoever sees the world spread out before the senses in its true form recognizes that it is in reality a spirit world*. And this confession of the spiritual nature of the sensible was expressed by German idealism through Hegel.
[ 13 ] In an excellent book, Otto Willmann has dealt with the "History of Idealism". He points out with comprehensive expertise the weaknesses and one-sidednesses which have come into the development of the world view of the nineteenth century through the continuing influence of Kantian questions and schools of thought. The account given in this paper has sought out those impulses and currents in the worldview of the nineteenth century through which thinkers freed themselves from those questions and schools of thought. Through which they have trodden paths that those who judge from such a comprehensive view as that on which Willmann's book is based could do justice to. Much of what in more recent times seeks to tie in with Kant, without sufficient insight into the preceding development of the world view, in fact falls back into views that are rightly characterized by Willmann in the following words: that "according to Aristotle, our knowledge of things begins and first forms the concept on the basis of sense perceptions ... that this formation of concepts occurs through a creative act in which the mind grasps the conceptual in things ... The sensualist platitude must still be pointed out that perception cannot rise to thinking, that sensations are not able to aggregate themselves into a concept, that these must rather be constituted on the basis of the thought in things ... which alone is able to give us necessary and general knowledge" (Willmann, Geschichte des Idealismus II, 449). Anyone who thinks in this way can also speak with understanding and approval of Schelling's and Hegel's way of thinking, and of many things that, like them, turn away from "sensualistic platitude", from Willmann's point of view, if he frees himself from certain misunderstandings that - understandably - prevail among the advocates of Willmann's way of thinking. The time will also come when this way of thinking will judge more impartially in this direction than is the case now. It will then be just as right in its recognition of that which, in the more recent development of the world view, has been wrested from "sensualistic platitude" as it is now in its condemnation of that which has fallen prey to this and many other "platitudes".