Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

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Born at Copenhagen, May 5, 1818, died the same place, November 11, 1855, having never left his native city for more than a few days at a time, excepting once when he went to Germany to study Schelling's philosophy.

He was the most original thinker and theological philosopher the North ever produced.

His fame has been steadily growing since his death, and he bids fair to become the leading religio-philosophical light of Germany.

He studied theology and philosophy in Copenhagen, 1827 to 1832, traveled 1834 to 1836, began to lecture on philosophy in the University of Copenhagen in 1838, was appointed Professor of Theology in 1840, and became Bishop of Zealand, that is, Primate of the Danish Church in 1854.

He grew up and developed in close contact with and yet entirely independent of the various movements in the Danish Church and their representatives, Minster, Clausen, Grundtvig, etc.

And though he never became a leader himself of any party, he brought into the Danish Church a strong but thoroughly digested influence from Hegel and Schelling on the one side and Father Bader and the mystics on the other, which leavened its whole life.

His first lectures in the University created great enthusiasm, the natural result of the novelty of his standpoint and the charm of his talent.

Defect certainly demands some explanation, and it is to be found in the circumstances under which the last part of the treatise was written.

In a letter to Schelling, in which Hegel promises to send him a copy of the book, Hegel asks indulgence for the unsatisfactory character of the last parts of the work and says, as if by way of explanation, that the composition of the book was concluded at midnight before the Battle of Jena.

This sounds a little hollow and melodramatic, for one naturally asks what the roar of Napoleon's cannons had to do with the philosophical delineation of the absolute.

The absolute, as well as his expositor, could surely afford to wait until the smoke of such temporalities had cleared.

There was nothing novel in such a method.

It has been used with success by Aristotle and in modern philosophy by Leibniz.

The application of it for the construction of a system of experience has been suggested, even attempted by Schelling in his Transcendental Idealism, 1800, where he sought to exhibit all parts of philosophy in a continuous succession of stages, or epochs in the history of self-consciousness.

What was new in Hegel's use of the method was due to the clearness of his conception of what he meant by development and the rigorous, inflexible persistence with which he sought to work it out.

As to Fichte, the present writer feels that no language of his could so worthily express the deep and earnest admiration which the character and doctrines of that great man must command from every sincere and upright mind as the eloquent words of mr carlyle when speaking of the critical philosophy generally in his celebrated article on the state of german literature let the reader believe us The critical philosophers, whatever they may be, are no mystics and have no fellowship with mystics.

What a mystic is, we have said above, but Kant, Fichte, and Schelling are men of cool judgment and determinate energetic character, men of science and profound and universal investigation.

Nowhere does the world, in all its bearings, spiritual or material, theoretical or practical, lie pictured in clearer or truer colours than in such heads as these.

We have heard Kant estimated as a spiritual brother of Balmy.

As justly might we take Sir Isaac Newton for a spiritual brother of Count Swedenborg, and Laplace's Mechanism of the Heavens for a peristyle to the vision of the New Jerusalem.

That this is no extravagant comparison, we appeal to any man acquainted with any single volume of Kant's writings.

Neither, though Schelling's system differs still more widely from ours, can we reckon Schelling a mystic.

He is a man evidently of deep insight into individual things, speaks wisely, and reasons with the nicest accuracy on all matters where we understand his data.

In order to make clear the character of this further discussion when it is out of our ken, I will set before you two quotations.

One is from Schelling, and I extract the quotation from the work of the Russian philosopher Lossky, which has recently been so excellently translated into English.

Footnote.

The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge by N. O. Lossky, translated by Mrs. Duddington, Macmillan & Co., 1919.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Kierkegaard, Soren Aaby, by C.H.A. Jerregord.

Born at Copenhagen, May 5, 1818, died the same place, November 11, 1855, having never left his native city for more than a few days at a time, excepting once when he went to Germany to study Schelling's philosophy.

He was the most original thinker and theological philosopher the North ever produced.

His fame has been steadily growing since his death, and he bids fair to become the leading religio-philosophical light of Germany.

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For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Hans Lassen Martensen Licentiate Theology, Copenhagen 1837 Doctor of Divinity, Kiel 1840 Lutheran Bishop Born at Flensburg in the Duchy of Schleswig, August 19, 1808 Died in Copenhagen, February 3, 1884 He studied theology and philosophy in Copenhagen, 1827 to 1832 Traveled 1834 to 1836 Began to lecture on philosophy in the University of Copenhagen in 1838 Was appointed Professor of Theology in 1840 and became Bishop of Zealand, that is, Primate of the Danish Church in 1854 He grew up and developed in close contact with and yet entirely independent of the various movements in the Danish Church and their representatives, Minster, Clausen, Grundtvig, etc.

And though he never became a leader himself of any party, he brought into the Danish Church a strong but thoroughly digested influence from Hegel and Schelling on the one side and Father Bader and the mystics on the other, which leavened its whole life.

His first lectures in the University created great enthusiasm, the natural result of the novelty of his standpoint and the charm of his talent.