IT has always appeared to me a matter of no ordinary difficulty, to deliver academical discourses under the guidance of a hand-book constructed by another; for every deviation in opinion seems to require at the same time a deviation from that order of arrangement which has originated from a different point of view. Certainly, the plan alluded to becomes the more easy, in proportion as the peculiar views of individuals with regard to details are subordinated to a common view with regard to the whole; that is, in proportion as that has existence, which is commonly called a School. But how little this is the case in Theology at the present time, every one knows. For the very same reason, therefore, which makes it a matter of necessity,—if a guiding-clue is to be employed at all, (a practice which is at all events useful, in many respects)—that I should construct one for myself,—it is not competent for me to put forth the claim that other instructors should make use of mine. If I should therefore appear to be going a step too far, in introducing to the public at large, by means of the press, a work which is intended merely for the present and future hearers of my lectures, I comfort myself with the thought, that these few sheets contain the whole of my present views with regard to the study of theology, and that these views, whatever their specific character, may, perhaps, even by their deviation from those which are held by other men, operate in the way of stimulus, and generate something better.
Other teachers are accustomed, in their encyclopædian courses, to give also a brief abstract of the individual disciplinæ themselves which are thus exhibited; to me it appeared more fitting to conform to the example of those who, in such discourses, prefer to fix the student’s whole attention upon the formal side of the subject, in order that the significance of the individual parts, and their connexion, may be the better apprehended.
DR. F. SCHLEIERMACHER.
BERLIN, December 1810.
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