HEGEL'S

DEVELOPMENT
Toward the Sunlight
rTTo-r8or

Br
H. S. HARRIS

' lq35 Han

OXFORD
r972

AT THE CLARENDON

PRESS

:iffi

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REASON AND FREEDOM

49

ere not neoessary for the reopcning of the temple gates. to cplendour and the mord gubetance (Ens\ of that ideal human life everywhere where men cleave firmly to the ifit of the free truth 'old covcnant' between Hegel and H0lderlin: 'For ordaing alone to live, peece with the etanrte lSatnngj thoughtr and feelings, never to conclude' (lines dispose of all ttre Peperzak serms to me to be right,therefore, by saying that ruppoecdly 'pantheistic' implications of the of the free heart'.! Hegel identifieg God with'the human and the mystic The Goddegs here ig the great Earth union of his finite life union the worshipper experienceo is But that is all a figure for with the infinite life of nature ag a us aB plainly as he could what the Phottarie, Hegel has already st the beginning of Tlu Life ot the Godhead ig for a rational adopts that essay the moet flatfootedly He deliberately tenr. prosaic style that he can avoiding both the subtleties of him by the Fichte-Schelling theory the intellect, repreeented

APPENDIX
THE 'BARLrBsr sYsrEM-PRoGRAMME oF
CERMAN IDEALISM'
According to Miss Schiiler's ordering of the surviyrng manuscriptsthe

last theoretical essay that Hegel wrote at Bernc wes ttre so-celled a long 'earliegt system-Progott*. of-Gerrran idealism'.t It was for letter that ie now lost),

Schelling.,-or. by d;; ;;Jtrily tr.ta-Ort this essay was writt$ bI (preeumably in a S"tdfi"t *a HOfaer[n together,-and sent to ]Iegel in part'

*[o copied it out, either wholly or interesting. becauge he found it I suppose that the missing itttgt Tiglt Tn uP.-or S::,1gtS of the esssy winen iq th" hand of Scbelling-or H0lderlin

t+ *"*"hpt misht be'found. But u;til eomething of this sott occu6 I think it can il;';h; ;il rtt hlpotheses about llegel's copying thefngment that ri*l
YT

of the Absolute Ego,, eppeal strongly to i

mirunderstanding plainly that no li

the ambiguitieg of metaphor which but are the comrnonest source of

ordinary men. But what ig there gaid so man of good will can misundergtand it, is of its moving power. The imagination and the tplo laao heert go emPtt . We can see from the poem that Hegelbelieved; of free reason could be brought to life. One is left" irst how soon the parallel between the mysteries of the miracle of Easter struck him. That parallel, surely, ; 'required key to the problem of how to apply his second Christianity in e conl,tt' tioe wayl
PcpcrzaL,

we sctually have fro;D another author are grftuitous.l It is not -even Schiilerno.orrty lo depart from the chronology proposed Uy insist ab8olulely cannot we shorlone fairly a is tbe fragment Uut of influencc suppooed for the toas@unt wish who schoh; that thoae Hdlderlin upon it by transferring it from l7e6 to. t797 are wong. Th; irriti p"ogi"ptr of, eine- Ertih begins with the words 'From Nature I come to tL uorh of man'.It was fresumably this sentence th$ suggested the title 'syatem-prograrnne'. But the grwious two P-aT' and of rational faith in St"phr are part of a theory 6f pi."tiol reason, of the Lind thrt natur.e' of the Kantian Eense, oot oi a 'philosophy one immediately remhd fhey begin'writing. to tttottly S.t tffing was of Hegeib rernark to S.n.Ui-ng in lguary- tipSlot'if"he had time' hc

p, tzf,.

Wc,hrve hcrc anothcr r,eason for thc cancellotion of linee lo-8 in Elctub: lf, philboophical ure of the term 'ego' ws8 too recherch6 for Thc Lite of Jctu, th.n thc line 'was mein ich nanntc gchwindet' could hardly be allowed to gtsnd

would try to 8ee how far oni could qg_!4 from the ficld of monl thst of 'physical theology'. What he.war-pro?osr.ng p do et in "fogyio the ouir"t of the p&it manuscript wes not quite !ret' for he docs no3 begi" here from'a moral faith in-the cxisrcnce of God but from the

in a pocnr.

I c*u EtLih, Doh,, p. 2rf2,t, (Ttre recdcr rhould noto thst Hofrneigter h'' For a lctter-perfcct tif*iii-nUid out Ue'rtUreviations ir thc urenurcrip; '^ ' ,*"r"iipri"n see F.rhmans, i. 6917r\, I Thb view has been argued very cogently by O# Ptggelcr-('H3fcJ, drr Verfasser d6 iltcsten Spimptogr;-; a33 aiutcncn leeliubur'; Hcgcl' sta;^,-siil"et ; a;gdi :,i,-g{l turtil I read Poggpler'r articlc I had not tr""gtdoi*"r*tl"i;h;litd";iiorHegpl'Thtuthcwbolcofrnyrccorrtruc' to it. Tbc tm -"f Hegcl'r ea*f ae"etof^uot was compJctcd witho$ tcfottncc fest tbat thc fraguJnt ai htH* fie neatly'in-to itr placc in my eccorrnt irl t* tf,o ot*ti.l soundncu both of my vicwr and of POggplc'/r hopc-<n "tnt-*a if thc micsing letter or rough draft wcrp to ium-gp aod thcrccpticr thceig. But
werc to bc vinddtcd, ioitri"g in rny-gpncrEl sccount of Hcgcl'r devclopmcot would bc afiested in the elightcst.

*rb
i
f
li
j: t"
A.

BERNE t793-1796

i
,,i

tn examplc' of the hew moral meaphysics; he has not produced the 'completc system of dl ldeas, or, what is the same thing, the system of all practicrl pgatulatcr'.r Thig is what the new Ethics-the metaphysicd tctemcnt of the ncw age, as the Ethics of spinoza was that of the-older ono-will provide. a whole world comes into being out of nothing along with
sclf-conscioue freedom; and this is the only 'creation oui of nothing' that ig really conccivable. Thus frr we are promised only a rational reinterpretation of a traditional theological dogma. But now Hegel tells us irow he proposca to rnake the transition from Ethihotheologie to Phyihotheologic. He will 'give wings' to Physics and endow iiwith the freedo--or the new creetivc spirit by starting from the right question: 'How mugt a world be conetitnted for a moral being?' This moral salvation of Physico ir r guriousproject, and we might be pardoned for wanting to befieve thrt it was Schelling's, not f.Iegel's, if we did not know ihat Hegel hd conceivcd it when he first began to study Fichte. He probably made a ggriouo atte{npt to carry it out in the 'system' manuscript of rEoo. until then he seerns to have been preociupied with the problem of applyrng his new Ethics to 'the work of e The 'Idee der Menschheit', says Hegel, cannot provide ue with en Idea of the 'State' because the 'state' ie something mechanical and, Mcwchheit ie a living organic ideal. There cannot be an ldee of the' macline at all because only an objective (Geganstand) of freedom can bc uL fdce. So we must 'go beyond the Statei which can only treat free Ten as cogs. In dealing with this topic Hegel promises that he will '!.y dglo the principles for a History bf Mankind and strip to the shin the whole wretched human structure lMmschmwrkfof State, constitution, government, code of law'.

concerned with ethical theory. 'Kant with hig pair of practical postulates has only given

ideal of the free self-conscious Ego-'the Vorstellung of myself as rn absolutely free being'. This, not the existence of God, is now for him the firgt premiss (asu ldee) of metaphysics; and since the first complac scntsnce of the fragment that we have roundly asserts that 'the whole of metaphysics falls for the future in the area of moral philosophy' I do not ace how we can escape the conclusion that, in spite of the topical division betwecn 'nature' and 'the work of man', thi whole essay wrr

REASON AND zsr This.proposed treatment of human politics and its history is the most gurprising novelry in einc Ethih. For ihie is the firgt time as far as we thry r-Ieg9l has ever written as if he might bc prepared to give up Ilo*' nrs_essentially Hellenic conception of the political comrnunity as a selfsufficient-and hence necesrshly an ethical--<ommuniry. de gaw him Tmg to grips with the mechanical-instrumentd theory or tne State for i the fust time in Mendelssohn, and we know why hc was rcady enough to make use of it. He could see how neatly it applied to modern socief, rnd how it could be appealed to in deflnce bf euch liberal values freedom of conscience.-But he has never before accepted it as a com-l plete account of the political community, which is wilat he appears toi

FREEDOM

man'.

inconsistency can be made to look quite gla.ring. The stood in the forefront of Hegel'a mina froi 1795 onwards wag that of the relation between State and church. 'To -"Li gbjective religion oubjective, must be the great concern of the State, its rnstitutions must be concorlant with freedom of conscience . . .', he in his plan of qg+i and he recognized then that this invotved Yo!. aistinguishing between the legal system of the Sate and the moral life of itg citizens.I But then the 'Positivity' essay provided good grounds for thinking of the political community, rathir it"o tt. titigioir community,_ as the guardian of moral fretdom. orly the sad can be a Pfoper focus of authoriry, and only the enlightened State can keep the churches from setting themselves ,rp autliorities. So it is no trbtir" to find that some years later, in his cornrnentary on Kant'g Rechtsfehre, II"g-:t maintainedthat'the principle of the stte is a perfect whole'. If this w.as his position in August i795 and August r79a'why should he nave said, in August 1796 or shortly thereafter, that 'die Idee der Menschheit . . . keine IdeL vom Staat gibt't The problem ie less serious thanit looks, however. All that we have to _ do is to find a plausible reason why Hegei should momentarily and for I rus present purpose have accepted the 'machine Statc' as the State I ry et.implicitu. And such a reason is not far to geek. For we know th"t j the 'machine State' which he attacks in the German Constitution manuscripts is the State of Fichte in theory and of prussia in practice.' Fichte'e Grwdlagc da Natunechts appearid at &ster t7g6,2 ir Hegel

l#x, ;:;il$ 3:T*'d:ffit'#:l#,we. This-seeming

Politi4 problem that

sha'

see, in

"iv

or

tr"i

l(ant cnuneratcs his practical postulates dlfrerently in difierent placec; but clear that in his canonical doctrine, eo to epeak, th"tu are three',poanriater 9f pr,rc p-racticat treason': Freedom, God, ani Immortality. onlyboa -a Irnrnortality reocive dietinct treatrnent as poetulates in thi r.*trd Cntdgrt , bowcvcn-and preurmably these two are 'seinen beiden praktischen Postulat;n'. lhir ir confirnrd by the prominencc given to theee w,o lden later in the fragmcnt.

it ir

t see (e) uilcr objehtiocr ReWon (Nohl, pp. +8-so) snd thc diasuseion on pp. t7o-r above. t q the 6rst part of Fichte'a Grundlagc dcs Nantnechts appeared in March -ot r7g6i and one might be temptcd to object that the remarks &lnhabout 'thc whole wretched hurnan conrtruction of State, constitution, ^arre government and legal eysteq' presuppose a reading of the sednd pan (seit] rzgz) ii thei lutude to Fichte at al[. But Fichte givee noticc in hir intr,oduction to tht.

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153

read it juet after he wrotclcdcs Volh hat ihm eigene Gegenst&d*notto spcak of working on the budgetary strucarre of the Canton of Bernc in connection with his Cart translation-there would be nothing wonderful in his setting him+elf to show that the whole structure of contempo'ry political thought must be discarded.t Fichte seems, more than any

Pletonic tense', the eupreme moral ided under which every other ldec in his Ethics must be gubgumed; and he wants to apply it at once to thc problern of reforming Christianity which was always his mogt immediete
oonoern.

other writer, to have had the power to irritate Hegel into planr for
thcorctical reconetnrction. The rest of the fragment provides Bupporr for thie view. For, et thir time, a8 wc have suggeated, Hegcl probably felt himself to be at ro impasre in hig programme of practical religioug reform, and it woutd be natunl enough for him to turn his attention to theoretical reading and ttrc reforsrulation of his own ideas. Thie had already happgnei once in eg1, when he temporarily set aside his blueprint for the rehgbilitation of Chrietianity as Volhneligion in order to straightcn out hi! ovm ideas about psychology. But that was a bypath, and did not produce any startting icsults, whereaa here we arl'faced with r major theoretical development, together with its practical corollary (or 'application'). It is no wonder, therefore, if the excitement of his'new dircovery combined with his critical reaction to Fichte and hie jaup diccd obeerv:tion of the political scene to upset his intellectud balancc a little, and cause him to iay things that weri valid only within a conocptual scheme which he could not finally accept. It is clear that he does not really accept it even here. For he says thrt the trcement of free men as coga must cease; and eome kind of pofecat tifc wilt cxist evcn when we have'gone beyond the Sate' and itripped the'whole wretched human struchrre of-State, constitution, goiitm- * meot, and code of law' naked. But Hegel is not interested, for the moment; in what the'absolute freedom of all spirits' will be like on the ' political level. He has found in the 'Idea of beiury, t^lren in its higher

' em now convinced that the highest act of Vctnnft. . . is ar resthctic act, and that truth and goodnas only bcortc sistcrs in benty the philoaopher must have as much aesthetic powr as the poet. The men without aesthetic sense are our Buchstdm-philoeopherg.' This rccognition that 'the highest act of Varunft is an aesthetic act' is e mejor advancr in Hegel'e theory of human nehrncj for it involves a

'I

twolution in his conception of the relation betwecn Vcnutft

nd

Pluntasic, We dready know that without aesthetic sens one cannot be Volhsersieher; but the diecovery that without it one cannot be a philosopher either, means that as Volhsersiehcr Hegel must bcgfur to be

his own phitosopher; he cannot lean on others, and partiorlarly on

Kant, as he has done in the past. Ig he now leaning not on a philosopher, but on e poet? Did he g* this new insight not from Kant and Schiller but from Hdlderlin? It is possible-especially if this piece was written in r797:but it is by no means certain, or even highly probable, and the answer to the question ir far leoe important than'some scholam scem to thinl. HbHerlin cenainly had the idea first, and in view of its focal importance in the dcvelopment of Gernran thought after Kant, we could mrke e strong claim for him as the'real founder' of absolute idealism. But Hdldcrlin's inspiration came from the Citiqte of Judgenent snd from Schiller'e Acsthctic Latas; and anyone who shared hig aims and ideals, as Hegel did, could have arrived at the idea by the very serne route.t We know how much impressed Hug"l was with the Aestheth Lcttcrtwhen he read the fint instelments in 1795. Considering the problema thst he was hinself concerned with, it would have been nahrral enough for him to rc-read the whole eeries in the summer of r796,z

'

{ot,p.rt oJ whrt is to comc in the recond part; and, the final chaptcrof tht qr1! part containr a 'dcduction of thc concept of r Rcpublic' thst il quito
Ficbtc had elr,eady delivepd thp wholc treatige from the lectern, and gtudcnttt ryportr (including rome tlrat were trenchantly critical) were aiready cunut soo Fie.htclwcrfori, grg22rand 432-6o; and compare the editors'intioduction, ibid",305-6. t A, rtmsrk of Hdldcrlin'r in hie letter of zo Nov. 1796 makes it clcar tbet _,Hc&l mttrt brvc raid hc wss cuncntly occupied with ttri iroblem of Satc rnd Church cithcr i! th! private letter that he ccrtainly sent esrlier that same month dong wifi kttctr eo (which war intendcd for the eyeo of the Gogel fomily) or ebc in e dightly crrlicr letter thrt ir now lost: 'Mit den tungcn wiret Durro rcbr dcr ctrtc Unterricbt unrcrn Geist oft dr{rc&cn mu8, Dich dennoch licbcr bclchlfti8cn elr nit stact und Kirchc, wic ric gegenwlrtig aind; (,Bricfcri,4j). Thb odd antitlcrir only rcema naturcl to mc upon thc hypotheeir t[ai Hegct had nc mercly rpoLen of hb intcrcrt in the problcm, but hid further gwgortcd thrt thc Reptentulh at T0bingen would Ue i geod pooition in which to punucia

dcteitd coough to rccount for Hegcl'r reaction. Also we must remember-thrt

t HOlderlin firrt put forward thc therir that thc abgolutc 'unioa of subjcct and objec-t'was aesthctic in a lettcr to Schiller (kttcr to4r 4 Scpt. 1795, G,S.d, vi. rtr), and the gourcc of hir inspiration ir clear cnougbwhcn hc tdb Nicthammer $,"t h" ir going to put his vicws into a ecrice of 'New Lcttcn on^ tbc Aerthetic Edncqtion of Mrn' (Letter n7, z4 Fcb. 1796, ibid., p. zo3). I Hegel wrotc to Schelling in Apr. qg5 (Bricfc, i. aS) tbet Schillcr'r l-ettcrs t[Gt! I lmartctpiece'. But hc got thc title confuscd with l"!ing'r '&lucation of thc Human Race' and hc had not yct read the whole rcrice gine the third part (I*ttcn xvii-svii) did not appear until Jrmc. Hegel refcn to 'thc firat too nurrbors' of, Dh Horat (i.e. Irn and Feb. rZgS). Tbc fint appcar?nce of the idce which I ta&c to have been crucial for thc,leap that Holdcrtin and Hegel mtde, although Schiller did not-the idca of bcauty ar tho 'consumrnstion of hunanity'-is in Letter xv. S, which war in thc Febnrary numbcr. But Letter d. 6
Willoughby, pp. toa-3 and r+6-5r).

and Letter

sii. r

ane

much moro ruggr*irrc (rec Wilkinron and

BERNE 1793-1796

REASON AND FREEDOM

255

'Po.tty thus acquires a highcr digtuty, it becomes once again at thc it was at the beginning-the teacher of manhindl for rc philosophy or history remains at last, the bardic a* ldie Dichthnttl will done guvive all other arts and sciences.' This first practical oonscquence or 'application' that Hegel deriveg from his new discovery ir the paniorlar element in eine Ethih that reminds us mmt forcibly of
end what
H6lderlin. But thcre is not the slightest reason for thinking that Hcd could not have come to this conclusion by himself in Berne without any very direct intervention by hig friend. From his earliest years he qnr impreased by the role of the poet as a teacher in Greek society, and by the achievement of Shakespeare in making the history of England r

'historical' religion, such a8 Chrisrianig, is bound to be hostile to

myths; and a religion cannot reconcile and unify peoples if it ig hostile to their myths. So Hegel's final promise in thig fragment is that he will 3Pl"in somcthing which, as he proudly sayE, no one has thought of before: that 'we mugt have a new mytholog;y, which atands at the sctvice of the ldeen [i.e. of our new Ethics], it must be mythology of
ReaEont.r

last paragraph of the plan might almost havc come straight out -The of the Tilbingen fragment (Religion ist cine):

living heritage for his fellow countrymen. Among German

pots

Klopstock is the one to whom he refers most explicitly; but Ktopstoct is, of course, the poet who failed the supreme test in the eyes of Hcd as a schoolboy, or the poet of the dying age, as he would say now. Thc poetic impulse of the new age is rather to be looked for in Schiller. Schiller is the modern poet who exemplifies what Hegel means by claiming that poetry '8urvive8' philosophy, just as Shakespeare shost us how poetry'gurives' history.r Poetry'oun'iveg'in fact as a necessary element in religion; and thus this fragment heralds the most fundamental development of the Frenlfurt period: the claim that religion is somehow the ultimate or highest form of experience, and belongs to a different plane altogether from thgt occrrpied by reflective rason. From the beginning Hegel had embraced the view-held even by the most radical foes of 'superstition' in tlrc Enlightenment-that the masseg need a retigion that appeals to $ei$ oen8es, to set them, or keep them, on the path of morality. But now he tells us that'not only the great mob but also the philosopher' needs s religion of ttris gort. Thig is a radical departrue from the conception of rational religion as the goal of human progress which dominates all hi!, work from the Ttbingen fragmcnt of rTgg to the concluding paragraph! of the 'Positivity' essay written in April qg6. But it is a natural outgrowth of his reflections on the aesthetic and imaginative aspccB of Greek religron, and of his renewed study of Herder, both of which erc cleady documented in Jcdet Volh lut ihm eigene Gegetstdnde. The fir* section of that essay clearly demonstrat$ that the superiority of Greel religion over Christi*ity arose largely from its mythical character. A For Hcgel'e ochoolboy rcflections on thc Greek poete and KlopstocL rcc Doh,, pp. 48-5r; for the contrsst betrreen Klopetock and Shakeepesre sec thG first rcction of, Jc&t Volh lut ihm cigerc Gegatstttndz, Nohl, pp. 2r4-tg (Kno:, Pp. r45Tr). Tbe contrast bctrreen thc status of mythology in Greek religion srd oilturc and itr ltatu! in Chri*ianity and modern culture, which is thc centrrl topic of this rcction, providcs ue with the context for a propcr urdentrnding rnd apprcciation of Hcgel'o propoeal that 'we must have s new mythology'.

philosopher mu8t bc aghamed of it. Thus in the cna cnfghtcned and unenlightened must clasp hands, mythology must becoirc philosophical (in order toX makc thc people retional, and philoeophy must bicome mytholqical in order to make the philosophere aensible [aiml(ich)]. Then reigne eternal unity among ue. No more thc look of scorn tof thc cnlightened philooopher looking down on the mobl, no morc til blind trembling of the people before itg wise men and pricete. Then firet awqits Y "qoot development of all powers, of what is pectrliar to each and whet It common to all. No power shall any longer be euppressed, for universal fteedom and equality of spirits wili reignt-A hidhet rpi"it sent from hcaven must found this ncw religion among us, it will be the lagt (and) glcatest work of mankind. Almost, but not quite. For the 'subjective' religion that makes reason palpable to the senses in Religion ht eine is only a t anarnai d of.Varunft, a childhood governess who rimains as an old friend in the house of the grown man who is governed by his own reason; whereas this'myttological philosophy' d=oes away with all'governors', even-by implication the authority of rea!il)n. Religion now is neittrer a governe$ nor -with an lld friend, but a 'new spirit' of equality and freedom. The fragment eine Ethihfiewith perfect togic into the eract sequence of Hegel's-manuscripts that is suggested by giaphic analysis. For In the I Thc idea of reforming mythology in thG renricc of rcason might very well hnrc ocsured to schelling ii rzgai but evcn allowing for hir- wcll-known v-olatility it hardly seems plauible to agcribe it to him k-tzg6. For this reason

Until we exprese the ldem aesthetically, i.e. mythologicelly, they have no intercst for the paplc, and converselyuntil mythology is rational thc

againrt trits hypothesis however Here I hsve ventured to read um in place of thcund that appears in our printed tcxt8. I assumc (for rearonc of eyntactical balancc *rat wiU I hopc be o\iour) tlnt wtd ic simply a lapws calami.In the rert of the fragment thiform rtd occurs only three timee; thl sbbrevistion lr. ir uscd nine times.

slone it seetnE to me that any claim that Schelling \rrrs the original or the main ruthor of this piece muat bc get aside. If Hegel drdtranrcribe it from a manuscript by someoneelae, thc onlyplausible hypothcsis is thetitis partof one of Holderlin'g plaru for the'New Aesthetic Letterr'. (Cf. Letter rr7, line 38:'And I ehall sdvancc [in tbc 'Lettcrs'] from philoaophy to poctry and rctigion.') Thc way thrrt cinc Ethih begins with the mlrgl ptrilogoptri of phyeicr tells rathcr strongly

I a,..

256

BERNE t79t-1796

REASON AND FREEDOII!

piecc of Hegel's own work,

257

onc iide thc eseay Jedes Vok lut ihm eigmc Gcgenstdnde helpc u! morl then anything elge to undcrstand why Hegel wrote it, and how he mc to.conceive the project of a 'mphology of ieason'; and on tfie othcr aidc cinc Ethih h"lp. more than anphing else to explain why Hegel wcnt oo to write EIcusiJ. In the light of tfie doctrine that the highest sct of Vanatft ie acsthetic, md that even rational religion rnust be shrlllidt, Hegel'r invocation of the Great Mother appears no longer es I orcrc is a contribution to retional mphology, an expreasioo:'rside'.

however lisping and imperfect-of the niw spirit of freedom rnd equdity. Thc poetic fonnis not chogen simply bicauge it is historially appropriatc, but bccause it is only in the poetry that'survivee'them thst hietory end philomphy are frnally consurffnated. Therc is, in fact, no other point in the sequence of datable msnu' ecripts where this fragment could be inserted at all comfortably. Wc bavc alrcady noticed that the political doctrine of eke Ethihis essentidly trrnritional bdtween that which we find in the'Positivity' esss)rr and tbe yiiwu rcported by Rosenkranz ftom Hegel's Kant studi$ of 1798 end woilcd out in'rdie Vertasmngsschrift.t Something similar can bc ssid about tbe thcory of religion put forward here. The problem of horr r religion is foundcd holds the centre of the stage in the Frukfu* nanucripts. Hegel digcuses this problem theoretiiatty and studier tbc fourding of trro religions, fudaism and Chrisd*iry, in considereblc dcteil. Hc is concemed with comparative mythology in his cerliert studier of tudaism; but after that thc place of myth in religion is dluded b bnly in thc most marginal way. Insiead the fundanental theais ig thrt 'Religion ist cim mit der Liebe': all religion, Hellenic as well es ludrq Chritdan, ii rnalyred as an aesthetic consciousness of love and of rn absotute love-object. Only when this analysia is completed does Hegc! tnrn from the principle of Hers back to the principle of Phantasicwhich was in the forefront of his mind in his last ;onthl in Berne., Therc rrcl signs that in the greet manuscript, of which the so-called Systmfiag' mcnt.is dl that we have, Hegel did attempt finalty to provide at leil Bomc elemcntg of a nerr mythology.r But this attempt was made in the total context of a conception of religion that is both broader and decpcr than thc onc sketched in cinc Ethih.

It

od not somcthing thet he copied; and that hc wrote it in Berne-or more precisely at Tschugg-in the surnmcr of 1796. There is, however, one fact sbout the manuscript which might lccm to grve cause for gerious doubt about the authooHp, and which aill remaing to be dealt with. The plan is presented as a ecriee of intcntional gtatements in the first person singular, Bnd the last paragreph riss to a pitch of prophetic enthugiasm that is without parallel in Hegel's other'plan8'. Hegel did not in any other ingtance write out r Plm in the firat pereon aingular; and when one is making a plen in thig mode it is moie naturd to write 'Here mtst do this' or 'Hcre I

My conclugion therefore ig that the fragmcnt citu Ethih is indeed r

thouU do

this'than'Herel tlull do this'. This lettcr modc of cxprcseion the little note of self-congratulation about the'idea which ar far -like gr I know has nevcr yct occurred to anyone else'-is only rppropriate when one ia setting forth one's plans for the information oi gomeone idrc. Hegel did at least once promiae to do this in his cor*pondence with Schehg; and we know by inference that he must actually have donc it et least once in his correspondence with H6lderlin. H0lderlin rould have been by far the most netural recipient for this statement of intentions, and peihaps it is legitimate to cxplain the tone of the last prngnph by supposing that the 'calm Tastadanatsch' Hegel caught r little of Holderlin's prophetic enthusiasm from the very act of *riting to him about Bomcthing that he knew would be cloge to Hdlderlin's
hcert

$
I

I For r rummrry rccormt of the errolutionof Hegcl'r political idcar*ithottt lcfcrcnoc tb thc doctriner of, citu Ethih-ee the fust two seEtions of Chrg,ter V bclow. I Ewn thc cxtrcmely proraic Alpinc diary bearo witnesr to thir conocrni rG! thc rcmarlr about tlrc Tatfcbbrilchc antd the neighbouring crag cited on p. 16r t Scc Chapter IV, Section ro below, pp. ggr1. Of couree if we poococdn rnd ould &tc, ell of the manuacripte from which Rogcnkranz took thc furyrs* l*torirlu Stulirlr tbe picture might look rather dificrent. It is rt leart pouibb fhrt therc'rtudicr' incMed an errey on'@mparative mythology'.
ebovo.

APPENDIX
Texts

r.

THB TUBTNGEN ESSAy OF Religion ist ehu

t793

2, TtrE BERNE PLAN OP t794

(o) Unter objehtioer Relig;n
THE'EARLIEgT sYsrEM-PRocRAMME cERMAN t"'Xt,rnfERNE | 7 s6)
OF

4. THE FRANKFURT SKETCH ON

'FAITH AND BEING' (t Zg8) Glaubn ist ilie Art

5. g0ronnltx 'Ubn Urtheil und Seyf (Iena, April ryg1)

5to

APPENDTX Other commands concerning the wa

THE EARLIEST SYSTEM.PROGRAMIvTE

(1796)

srr

(')

(c) Withdrawal from public (D) Distribution of

fund possible iq

a common the Statewith public

the same tirne I ehall here lay down the principles for ahistory otmat*inil, and strip the whole wretched human work of State, constitution, govern-ri ment, legal syatem-naked to the skin. Finally come the Ideas of a moral{l

world, divinity, immortality-uprooting of all superstition, the prosecu-

tion of the prieethoodwhich of late poses as rational, at the bar of Reason;ii itgelf.-Absolute freedom of all spirits who bear theintellectualworldini; themselves, and cannot seek either God or immortality outside themsclves. i I

3. THE'EARLIEST SYSTEM-FRoCRAMME GERMAN IDEALrsnn' (nrinptt, t796)'

eine

OF

Ethik

' trl . . . trr Ethics. Since the whole of metfpfry{ics falls for the future ' *itttit moral thcory<f which Kant with hls $^if of praculal.nosqfles
has gveo only an cramfb,and

tl

. poahruttes (which is thi sami thing). Theifirst:Idea is, of course, I

irotf,rng tess tfian a comilet

preecntatioi lVorstlettutg>l d ,i self ab en labsolutely free- en$tJr iflasm!.Along with the free, self-consciouslesoer{ce there stands forthiot of rioOing;n entire world-theone t4e in{ thinkable creation out of nothing.J!1ere I shall descend into itrq rbalms of physics; .the question ii thit, how must a world be cortstitued for a moral entity? I would like to give wingo once more to our Hackward physics, that
adiances laboriously by data, we may at

it,(-)this Ethics will be all Idgas aystem of lldeml ^orof all practical the
not
exhausl,ed'

[4] Last of alt the Idea that unites all the rest, the ldea of beuty taking the word in its higher Platonic sense. I am now convinced that the highest act of Reason, the one through which it encompasses all Ideas, is an aesthetic act, and that truth and goodncss only becone sistns in beautlt-the philosopher must possess jugt as much aesthetic power as the poet. Men without aesthetic sense ie what the philosophers-of-the-letter of our times lur*, Buchstabnphilnophan] are. The I philosophy of the spirit is an aesthetic philosophy. One cannot bei crertive lgehtreicril in any way, even about history one cannot argue creativcly-without aesthetic sense. Here it ought to becomc clear what it ia that men lack, who understand no ideas-and who confes honestly enough that they find everphing obscrrrc 8s soon as it gocs beyond the table of contentg and the index.
[5] Poetry gains thereby a higher dignity, ehe bcomes at the end once more, what she was in the beginning-the tercher of nothhdi for there is no philosophy, no history left, the maker's art alone will suwive all other sciences and arts. [6] At the eame time we are told so often that the great mob must have a religion of the senses. But not only does the great mob need it, the philosopher needs it too. Monotheism of Reason and heart, polytheism of the imagination and of art, this is what we need.
fu] Here I shall discuss particularly * idea which, as far as I know, has never occurred to anyone else-we must have a new mphology,\ but this mythology must be in the sen'ice of thc ldeas, it must be a i

experiments. I

[a] Thus-if philosophy supplies the ilsa{, md

experience the

iast.o*tio

fonrarA to ior later times.

phyeics can satisfy a creative

It does not afppaf that our Present-day

tpttit such as o{* b
or ought to be.

hiue in essenltialt th9 physics that

I -look
I

lel From nature I come to the worh of m$n.'The Idea of mankind l\ fUiiigt premised-I shalt prove that it giveslusino Idea of the State, il iin.'iii'St"t" is a mecbanicd thing, any niolle tfran it gives us an Idea il of " muhhre.Ottly something that is an objettife lGegnstandl of freedont every 1l ir oUua an fdea. So we mugt go even beyottdithe Statel-for il $t"tu muEt treat free men as cogo in a machin{; 1"d this it ought not to do; eo it mugt stop, Ttie eelf-evldent that inith{is iphete all the ldeas, of peqpetual peace ri.., .tr only vbordinate Ideqs rlnder a higher one. At

mythology of, Rcason. i . [8] Until we express the Ideas aestheticallX, i.e. mythologioUy,l

i.6hi. Thc preaent trans-lation has been madc frorlFuhrmanr'e text becatue inii"lii*tt*ty exact 'I-egarten' of Beiasner (GSA,iq 8or-a) show that Fuhrmina'r text ir in letter'perfect accord with the maaudript'

t For thb curioru beckground of thic piece ede tfrc hppendix to Chaptor III (p. z+O aborrc). It har becn reprintcd among the 1wo[k{of Hegel (Doft" !p. 2I9iil tf," wotkr of Huldorlin (GS.d, iv, zgTn\, and !r\d3f Schelling (Fuhrrranr'

they have no interest for the peoph, and convemely until mythology is i rational the philosopher musi bi ashamed of it. ihus in the end tn- i lightened and unenlightened must clasp hands, mythology must b.come I philosophical in order tor make the people rationd, and philosophy
I

in place of the MS. wtil.he corrcction ws8 proposed by Ludwig Strauss, and the reasoru for adopting it rre obvioug cnough. Bw, of courle, I do not believe, as hc did, that it ie t coyyittg error (or at least not onc
Here
read

thct srogc from the difrculties of copying from soneotu che's script). Sce further,

p. 255 n.

2.

st2

APPENDIN

mythological in order to make the philosophers sensible Then reigns.etemal u{ty 1m9ng us. No more the look of fsinnl(ich)). \ scorn [of the enlightened philosopher looking down on the mob], no i more the blind trembling of the people before its wise men and priests. ri ti Then frst awaits us equal development of a// powera, of what is peculiar \i to each and what is common to all. No power shall any longer be suppr$eed for universal freedom and equality of spirits will reignl-A higher spirit sent from heaven must found this new religion among ue' it will bc the last (and) greatest work of mankind.

I must become

it is therefore contradi"rg"y tolaytl"t in orier to belieie'[in ro-rtuioij one must first be convinced of [its] b"ir,g. This independence rri, t subsistencel, rhe absoluteness of being is ihat people rto-bl. o"Zr;A [theindependent belnq] is certainly asiumed to 6e, [ut just r.oed i,

THE FRANKFURT SKETCH (1298) sr3 Ifnion and Being are synonymous; in [a] proposition thc "u.ry copula 'is' expresses thJuniott of sn6lect and predictia Leing; being t rt o$y b_e believed in; belief F"ithl preruppo.es a being [as its d"tu"t1]

n.,;L'#l

il x'J"11 :r Ghuben ist die Artl

rff&i "

[4 [g8r] Faith [Belie{l is the mode, in which the unity, w Dy an union antinomy has been united, ia present in our Yorstellung. :d. In is the activity; this activity reflected as object is what j as conflicting, order to unite, the terms of the antinomy must be rcognized; but their relation to one another as an antinomy mus! because it has what ig conflicting can only be recognized as measuring rod] against atready becn united; the union is the which trhe comparison is made, against whj the opposites appear as if it ig ghown that the such, appear as unsatisfied [unfu such, that they would have to opposcd limited terms could not subsi aufhcbm miiftafl, and thal, cancel themselves [or one a union (just to be able to even to be possible they [g8g]

leingr orly thryugh this [way 6i *grt/g1cen a mistaLen view arise, that there are different modes of ot i being, and hence that one can in virtue of that say: 'there is sometfrng, butli it not on that account

from thinkability being does "r*.r9/9." notrf6[ow; it ttft thinkabd somethingJ rs indeed so far as it is Jomethingr{hought.of; but something Fgught_oi is a sundered trhing, opposed t{*ethiirker; it is no existeni
neeessary-_

indegen$erye ls9u*gbsitlence] of being is assumed to [so{l *nrir/6i.c in tfie fact that it rs, be it for us oinot, being is zupptsea66";;;: Fi"g that may be utterly sundered from *,-.o-.tfrin g rtwbrcl, th.r" lies no necessity that we should enter into relation witfft: how f*; :gTqqqg be, of which it would yet be possibre ttovh" did not believe [in] it? i, is something possible, thinkable, y(ich yet we do not believe ffi, i.e. which is stilinot on that -o"ty thinkable]

j'.,

ghow that they are opposed, theyfi is presupposcd) then it is thereby' be proven, that they have to I I united, that the union ought to union itself does exist, is not therebyl exist [sar sol{1. But that presence of the Vorstellung of it is believed proven, rattrer this mode [matter of faith]; and cannot be proved, since the opposites are the in respect to them the union is what is indedependent terms, I pendcnt [r ; and to prove means (to show) the dependencel what is in respect to thege opposite [dependent terms] may certeinly be ir( another respect a dependent term, an opposite, in then there has to be once more a progression to a new its turn; is now once more what is believed [a matter of faith]. ruuon

tation rincc his orrn viewg about the argumcnt of the gkctch arc in miny difiercot from mine.

Dn \ilalter Bcringcr, witb whorn I have diccussed the tert at leagth. ctnnot bc held rerponsible for any mistskes that ther,e may bc in my

randation of this piece I

have received much helpful advice from

my

hence a contradiction; a union could in the same respect [i.e. y' respect in which the being is distinct] also not be a union; thus positive faith [beliuf] ir a union of the jort that in the place of /one an! only possible union sets up aoother one; in the place of one and-only possible being it puts [poslts] another being; and thus unites the opposites in a modl wh&eby ihey are indeed united, inc.omplgt"ly, -i.": ttrey are not united in tle respect in ought to be .',,

distinct being in also not be

[3] The

thing finds only in One Being its union; for a Respect presupposes a neture, which would

united.

t88

tl.a+] In positive religion any union is supposed [solrJ to be BortrGgiven; [but] what is given, that one stiu does not have till ono

Mm

GEORG \TILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL

\TERKE

Friihe Schriften

SUHRKAMP

i',:iiltt':Trf,W

li

mechanisdres

Rlderwerk behandeln; und das soll er nicht;

[Das zilteste Systemprogramm des deutschen

Idealismus]1

0Zg6 oder 1797)

eine Ethik. Da die ganze Metaphysik ki,inftig in die Moral fiillt - wovon Kant mit seinen beiden praktischen Postulaten nur ein Beispiel gegeben, nichts erschdpft hat -, so wird diese Ethik nichts anderes als ein vollstlndiges System aller Ideen oder, was dasselbe ist, aller praktischen Postulate sein. Die erste Idee ist natiirlich die Vorstellung von mir selbst als einem absolut freienl0flesen. Mit dem freien, selbstbewufiten Vesen tritt zugleidr eine ganzeWelt - aus dem Nichts her-

also soll er aufhdren. Ihr seht von selbst, da8 hier alle die Ideen vom ewigen Frieden usw. nvr antergeordnete Ideen einer hijheren Idee sind. Zugleich will ich hier die Prinzipien fiir eine Gesihichte der Menscbbeir niederlegen und das ganze elende Menschenwerk von Staat, Verfassung, Regie,urrg, Gesetzgebung bis auf die Haut entbldfien. Endlidr \Welt, Gottheit, kommen die Ideen von einer moralischen Unsterblichkeit, - umsturz alles Afterglaubens, Verfolgung des Priestertums, das neuerdrngs Vernunft heuchelt, durdr die Vernunft selbst. - Absolute Freiheit aller Geister, die die I intellektuelle 'Welt in sich tragen und weder Gott noch Un- |
sterblichheft au'l\er sicD suchen
das

di.irfen.

Zulerzt die ldee, die alle vereinigt, die Idee der Scbiinheit,

\(/ort in

hcjherem platonischen sinne genommen. Ich bin

vor - die einzig wahre und gedenkbare Schapfung lus Nichts, - Hier werde idr auf die Felder der Physik herabdie Frage ist diese: '!rie muf3 eine \ilfelt fiir ein
steigen;

moralisches tVesen beschaffen sein? Ich miichte unserer lang' samen, an Experimenten miihsam sdrreitenden Physik einmal wieder Fli,igel geben. So, wenn die Philosophie die Ideen, die Erfahrung die Dara angibt, kiinnen wir endlich die Physik im Gro8en bekom-

nun iiberzeugt, da8 der hiichste Akt der Vernunft, der, in denr sie alle Ideen urnfaBt, ein isthetisdrer Akt ist und dafi Waltrbeit und Giite nwr in der Scbiinbeit vetsdtwistert sind. Der philosoph mu8 ebensoviel Isthedsche Kraft besitzen als der Dichter. Die Menscihen ohne isthetisdren sinn sind
unsere Budrstabenphilosophen. Die Philosophie des Geistes ist eine Isthetisdre Philosophie. Man kann in nichts geistreicJr sein, selbstiiber Geschichte kann man nidrt geistreich raisonieren - olfne isthetischen sinn. Hier soll oflenbar werden, woran es ei[entlich den Menscihen fehlt, die keine Ideen verstehen - uqd treuherzig genug gestehen, dafi ihnen alles dunkel ist, rsobald es iiber Tabellen und Register hinausgeht.

men, die ich von splteren zeitaltern erwarte. Es scheint

schcipferischen Geist, wie k6nne. befriedigen soll, sein oder der unsrige ist Die ldee Menscltenaterk. aufs icjh komme Natur Von der der Menschheit voran, will idr zeigen, dafi es keine Idee vom Staat gibt, weil der Staat etwas Mecbanischas ist, so wenig als es eine Idee von einer Maschine gibt. Nur was Gegenstand der Freihelt ist, heifSt ldee.'vlir miissen also iiber den stadr hinails! - Denn jeder staat mu8 freie Menschen als

nidrt,

dafS

die jetzige Physik einen

bie

poesie bekommt dadurch eine hiihere \Wiirde, sie wird am Ende wieder, was sie am Anfang war - Lehretin der Menscbheir; denn es gibt keine Philosophie, keine Geschichte mehr, die Dichtkunst allein wird alle i,ibrigen'Wissenschaften und Kiinste iiberleben. Zu gleicher zeit hSren wir so oft, der grofle Haufen miisse eine sinnlidte Religiorz haben. Nictrr nur der gro8e Flaufen, auch der Philosoph bedarf ihrer. Monotheismus der vernunft

1 Hoffmeistd (cd.), Dokumente zu Hegels Entwicklung, S. zr9-zr; Schii- Piiggclcrs Daticrungr t796 oder ctste Mdnate ry97,YgL, Anm' d' Red. S. 628.

ler Nr. 15 (Friihsommer ry96).

23t

234

miissen eine neue M;'thologie haben, diese Mythologie aber mu8 im Dienste der Ideen stehen, sie mufi eine Mythologie der Vernunft werden, Ehe wir die Ideen Isthetisch, d. h. mythologisch machen, haben sie fiir das Volk kein Interesse; und umgekehrt, ehe die

und des Herzens, Polytheismus der Einbildungskraft und der Kunst, dies ist's, was wir bediirfen. Zuerct werde ich hier von einer Idee spredren, die, soviel ich wei8, nodr in keines Menschen Sinn gekommen ist - wir

Mythologie verniinftig ist, mu8 sidr der Philosoph ihrer sdrlmen. So miissen endlich Aufgekl?irte und Unaufgeklirte sic.h die Hand reichen, die Mythologie mu8 philosophisdr , )werden und das Volk vernilnftig, und die Philosophie mufi /mythologisch werden, um die Philosophen sinnlidr zu maI dren. Dann herrscht ewige Einheit unrer uns. Nimmer der veracltende BlicJ<, nimmer das blinde Zitten des Volks vor seinen \ffeisen und Priestern. Dann erst erwartet uns gleiche Ausbildung aller Krd,fte, des Einzelnen sowohl als aller Individuen. Keine Kraft wird mehr unterdriickt werden.

I \

Dann herrsdrt allgemeine Freiheit und Gleic}heit der Geister! - Ein hiiherer Geist, vom Himmel gesandt, mu8 diese neue Religion unter uns stiften, sie wird das letzte gr6f3te

Verk der Menschheit

sein.