BOOKS.
THE LIFE OF SOHLEIERHACHER.* THE work now before us is not in our opinion, quite adequately characterized by the title which it bears. • It certainly contains an autobiographical sketch, but that sketch consists of less than eighteen pages. The collection of letters, too-460 in number— comprised in the two volumes which form the work, does not, it is admitted, include such as have a more particular interest for the general public. Addressed to intimate friends, the Letters now published, or at least now translated, chiefly serve to illustrate the mental development of one period of Schleiermacher's existence, and to gratify those "who are desirous of knowing him as he sp- ared in the most delicate relations of domestic life." Thus a full length portrait of Schleiermacher is not to be found in this work. Something no doubt of his clear, calm, affectionate nature may be conveyed in this partial report of the man ; but those who have not already studied his character and literary position will, we think, derive little aid from these Letters towards the satisfac- tory comprehension of them. What was his theory of life, what his relations to his age, what his theological doctrine, what his religious philosophy, are questions that, so far as this book is con- cerned, will receive but an incomplete answer. The work evi- dently was not intended to be a finished biography of Schleier- macher. It is a collection of domestic letters, with notices of his life by the editors, connecting the various epochs of which it is made up. As such it will be read with interest by those admirers of the eloquent theologian who are already acquainted with his chief literary productions, and can fill in the unfinished outline for themselves. In addition to the broken editorial narrative, we find interspersed from time to time in the pages of this correspon- dence, annotations, mostly biographical, of varying length, by the fair translator, who also contributes a brief but valuable introduc- tion. Miss Rowan's version of these domestic letters, which, how- ever, we are unable to compare with the original, is lucid, idio- matic, and agreeable. Had we the German before us, we have little doubt that our impression of the masterly execution of the translation would be amply corroborated.
The Letters are distributed into four sections :-1. From the early life of Schleiermacher to the death of his father, 1794; 2. From that event till his professional appointment in the Univer- sity of Halle, 1804 ; 3. From the period of this appointment till that of his marriage, 1809; and 4. From his marriage till within a short time of his death on 12th February, 1834. Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher was born in Breslau, 21st November, 1768. His father was a clergyman of the Re- formed Church ; his mother the youngest daughter of Stuben- much, Chaplain in Ordinary to the King. At five years old the boy attended the " Friedrich's school," where, at first, his rapid but superficial progress made him proud and conceited. From his twelfth to his fourteenth year he was at a boarding-school at Pless, in Upper Silesia. There his master's enthusiasm for the classical languages stimulated his own mental activity. But a curious scepticism perplexed him. He conceived that all the ancient literature was supposititious. Unacquainted with the proofs of the genuineness of the authors of antiquity, and feeling that all which he knew about them was disjointed and unreal, he entertained serious doubts as to the existence of a Greek and Roman foreworld, its poets, and historians. These doubts, how- ever, he wisely kept to himself ; patiently awaiting the period of independent solution.
At Niesky, in Upper Lusatia, is an educational establishment of the United Brethren or Moravians. Favourably impressed with the innocence and piety of their institution, his parents de- termined to place two of their sons there ; one of whom was our hero, Friedrich. While awaiting the consent of the Directory at Gnadenfrei, the germs of a religious imaginativeness were laid in the mind of the young boy, which, had he been of a more ardent temperament, might, he tells us, have made him a visionary. He had previously sustained various mental conflicts. " The doc- trine of eternal punishment and reward," he continues, " had already exercised a disturbing power over my childish imagina- tion, and in my eleventh year I spent several sleepless nights, in consequence of not being able to come to a satisfactory conclusion concerning the mutual relation between the sufferings of Christ and the punishment for which these sufferings were a substitute." In this state of mind young Schleiermacher entered the college at Niesky in 1783. Two years after he was removed to the semi- nary at Barby, which is " in fact the University of the Brother- hood." At both these places he made rapid and undoubted pro- gress. In Von Albertini, afterwards bishop of the community, he found an affectionate and intellectual companion. A common study served to cement the friendship of the two boys ; they de- voured with avidity Homer, Theocritus, Sophocles, and other Greek poets. This happiness, however, was occasionally dis- turbed by an access of serious reflection. The students heard much of the necessity of "intercourse with Jesus." In vain they strove for the " supernatural experiences" of the Brethren. " The most violent tension of their imagination remained fruitless." Yet they were dissatisfied. Greek poetry ceased to be the glorious solace it once had been. A crisis was at hand. The spirit of investigation was awakened. At length Friedrich per- ceived the discord between his own convictions and the views of • The Life of Schieiermacher, as unfolded iu his Autobiography and Letters. Translated from the German. By Frederica Rowan. Two volumes, with a Por- trait. Published by Smith, Elder, & Co.
the fraternity, and decided that he could "no longer con- scientiously remain a member of the congregation." In a letter addressed to his father, remarkable for its candour and filial con- sideration, he communicates his religious doubts. The elder Schleiermacher subsequently confesses that he had, in the ca- pacity of preacher, during twelve years at least, taught with a moral application, certain leading dogmas of Christianity, al- though " a real unbeliever." In the same letter in which this confession occurs, while he almost seems to recommend his example to his son, he at the same time gives him the unexceptionable, if impracticable, advice " to take no side whatever, not even that of the orthodox, but search for and honour truth wherever you find it." The reply, however, which the frank and affectionate communication of the son first elicited, was not such as would have been anticipated from this avowal. In it he attributes " the state of delusion" into which he pronounces Friedrich to be " plunged" to the " wickedness of his heart," and discards him " as no longer worshipping the God of his fathers." Probably he scarcely weighed the full meaning of these words. At any rate the correspondence between the father and the son continues till it bears no trace of any painful impression.
With the consent of his father, Schleiermacher left Barby and studied for two years at the University of Halle. A third year was spent with his uncle Stubenranoh, who had previously be- friended him, and to whom he acknowledges his weighty obliga- tions. Having passed an examination in the summer of 1790, he accepted the situation of tutor in the family of Count Dohna of Schlobitten, in the province of Prussia. In this house he " spent three years on the whole very happily." In the autumn of 1793 he became a member of the seminary for college teachers in Berlin, which, together with another appointment, he exchanged for the office of a Christian minister at the end of half a year. How Schleiermacher vanquished his religious doubts, or what was the precise nature of his theological philosophy, we are not able to discover. In his sermons he is said to have addressed the in- tellect rather than the feelings, and he and his followers were known as " Denkglaiibigen," a designation intended to distin- guish them from the mystical pietists. Yet in the epistolary reply to Jacobi (ccccxii.), who had declared himself "a thorough heathen as to the understanding, but in point of feeling entirely a Christian," Schleiermacher maintains that his Christian feel- ing is conscious of a divine spirit indwelling in him, which is distinct from his reason ; and moreover determines that, when " his Christian feeling becomes conscious of a Son of God who differs from us in another way than merely being better than the best of us, he will never cease to search for the genesis of this Son of God in the deepest depths of nature." If this be not mysticism it would be difficult to say what is. Jacobi, the foundation of whose philosophy was belief in a personal God, had contended that there is no third alternative between deification of nature and anthropomorphism. Schleiermacher replies that both are equally deifications, and that this view forms a third alternative : that we can no more conceive of God as a person than as natura na- turans ; that while in the domain of religion anthropomorphism is unavoidable, in that of speculation one expression is as good and as imperfect as another ; that we " cannot form any real con- ception of the highest Being, but that philosophy properly con- sists in the perception that this inexpressible reality of the High- est Being underlies all our thinking and all our feeling." He concludes this letter by saying that understanding and feeling, in him also, remain distinct, but they touch each other and form a galvanic pile.
Those who are desirous of learning the exact nature of Schleier- macher's theology must consult his " Discourses on Religion " and his " Christian Faith." The former was published in 1799, and is called by J. P. Richter " an inspired and inspiring work, a simple and beautiful temple, whose contents are a true God's ser- vice." The latter work was first published at Berlin in 1821-22.
Belonging, we are told, neither to the modern Pietists nor to the Rationalists, Schleiermacher regarded the Bible, on the one hand, as the Book of Books ; but, on the other hand, he rejected the doctrine of a plenary inspiration. The extent to which this rejection was carried is evinced in the critical essay on the Gospel of St. Luke, published in 1817, and in 1825 translated into Eng- lish ; we believe, by one who is now a distinguished occupant of our Episcopal Bench. In this work, to give but one instance of the author's departure from orthodox belief, he asserts that the earlier portions of St. Luke's and St. Matthew's Gospels present two parallel successions of narrative, not, however, " supplemen- tally parallel, but so that the corresponding members of the two successions entirely exclude each other."
Schleiermacher remained at Landsberg till 1796. We then follow him to Berlin, where he held a chaplaincy to a charitable institution, and whence he was self-exiled to Stolpe in 1802, when he became Court preacher. This voluntary banishment was the consequence of an attachment to Eleonore Grunow, the wife of a clergyman at Berlin, whose relations with her husband "were such that, according to Schleiermacher, the connexion could not be deemed a true marriage." Regarding the outward union as decidedly, immoral, and the dissolution of the marriage bond as a positive duty, he determined to await at Stolpe the hour of the lady's conjugal liberation. Eleonore, however, was unable to assent to these views ; and finally determined to renounce Schleier- macher, which she did in the autumn of 180.5. Fourteen years after he met Madame Grunow at a large party, went up to her, and holding out his hand to her said, " Dear Eleonore, God has dealt kindly with us both." In earlier life, his translator informs us that he was too muoh imbued with the social opinions of the age to think it necessary to subdue his passion, but that at a later period be would have regarded it as unholy. At Stolpe, Schleiermacher wrote his " Critical Inquiry into all existing Systems of Ethics," and completed his translation of the first volume of Plato. His version of the works of the Greek phi- losopher remain unfinished. Three volumes, however, attest the zeal, accuracy, and classical accomplishment of the author. Some of Schleiermacher's expositions of Plato's Dialogues have been translated into English. Opinion varies as to their merits. If we may trust our memory for the impression which they made on us, when we read them many years ago, we should he inclined to agree in part with Richter, who seems to have been little satisfied with the "learned acumen" of the critic, preferring to it " Ja- cobi's or Herder's soaring flight of soul." In 1802, Schleier- macher was appointed professor of theology and philosophy in the university of Halle. After the catastrophe of 1806, when Halle became a portion of the new kingdom of Westphalia, Schleiermacher went back to Berlin. At Berlin he delivered public lectures ; always maintaining a fearless and patriotic atti- tude. In 1809 he was appointed preacher at Trinity Church, and the year after professor of theology in the reconstituted univer- sity of the Prussian capital. Here, too, he took an active part in the business of the ministry of public instruction. In May, 1809, he married Henriette, the widow of his friend, Von Willich. At the time of her husband's death, 1807, she was but eighteen years of age. She had two children, a son and a daughter, with whom she resided in the island of Rugen, where Schleiermacher engaged himself to her. Their " love letters" form an interesting portion of the correspondence now given to the world. From the time of his marriage until his death he re- mained permanently at Berlin, occupied with the labours of the pulpit, the professional chair, the academy of sciences, his lite- rary enterprises and public offices. Here he became the centre of a most happy and exemplary domestic life, as well as the object of a devoted affection to many who formed his ever-widening social circle. He died in 1834 of inflammation of the lungs, calm, col- lected, and " with a look full of love."
Schleiermacher was a man of large social sympathies. He numbered among his friends many of the notabilities of the day, particularly Frederic Schlegel, from whom however " inner divergencies " in some degree afterwards separated him. Schleiermacher was attracted, it is said, by affectional no less than intellectual affinities ; so that men of fine moral disposition, even if not remarkable for mental endowments, readily engaged his attention. A quiet self-confidence, an "unalterable com- posure " with a deep but not vehement love, seem to have been his predominant qualities. As a religious teacher, his influence was incalculable. He was noted for his " constant application of the deepest Christian ideas to practical life and to the actual con- dition of the Church, of family life and of the Fatherland." His " disCourse proceeded in an uninterrupted stream, and every word was from the times and for the times." He is described as physically small and insignificant, with a countenance beaming with intellect, and his clear, sonorous, penetrating voice ringing through the overflowing church. William Humboldt classes him with those men whose speaking exceeds their writings in power. i
His strength, he tells us, lay in the character of his words. " It would be wrong to call it rhetoric, for it was so entirely free from art. It was the persuasive, penetrative, kindling effusion of a feeling which seemed not so much to be enlightened by one of the rarest intellects as to move side by side with it in perfect unison." With such a mighty gift of speech, we do not wonder that Schleiermacher exerted an influence, as a kind of prophetic man, over children, students, and persons of the highest culture ; so that, when he was borne to his eternal rest, he was followed by " a train of mourners on foot extending upwards of a mile in length, succeeded by one hundred mourning coaches, headed by the equipages of the King and the Crown Prince," the whole forming a funeral procession in " the streets of Berlin, the like of which that capital had rarely before witnessed ! "
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