To make any considerable additions to the book such as it appeared in Germany, has not been attempted by the Translator, though it has been suggested, that as the name of Schleiermacher is not in England, as among his countrymen, a household word, the letters ought to be prefaced by an exposition of his theological and philosophical system, as also by a short notice of his life. However, it would far exceed her competency to give a full and satisfactory exposition of the religious and scientific significance of a man who, as a Christian teacher and reformer, has by some been placed on a level with Luther and Calvin, and even with St. Paul; from whom is dated a new era in the history of the Church; and who is by many regarded as the individual in whose character and life, the interests and efforts of the great and important period during which he lived, are most fully and purely mirrored; while by others he is denounced with bitterness as a pantheist and a neologian, and as the principal leaf in the “trefoil of unbelief,” of which De Wette and Marheineke are represented as the two others.

Moreover, it was with the feeling that a man’s mind is not only “a kingdom to himself,” but also a most pleasant and profitable realm for others to rove in—more particularly when it bears a strongly pronounced individual character, as in the present case—that the Translator undertook to introduce to the English reader the man Schleiermacher, not the theologian; and the man and his private life, at least, are portrayed in these letters with a minuteness of detail that leaves nothing to be desired, while as a necessary consequence of the sincerity and the harmonious constitution of his mind and character, much light is also shed by them on his religious and philosophical views.

A few letters from Schleiermacher’s father and mother being included in the series, we learn to know the earliest tendencies of the child and the moral and religious atmosphere in which the young plant is reared; we follow him from the parental home to the Herrnhut establishment, into which he is led by fear of the corruptions of the world instilled by his parents into his inexperienced mind, and whence he is driven forth again in a few years by religious doubts, fostered, not only by the sceptical tendencies of his mind, but by the suspicions roused in consequence of the rigour, with which every divergent opinion on these subjects is excluded from the knowledge of the youths in the seminary at Barby. We meet him next at the university, poor, austere and proud, but seeking truth with earnest mind, until at the end of two years his necessities force him to accept the position of private tutor in a noble family, where he receives his first polish in intercourse with refined and noble-minded women. This connection, again, we see broken off abruptly because his honest mind cannot and will not bend to circumstances, though his heart is knit to the family by ties of strong affection; and we follow him to Berlin, where he resides for a short time as teacher in a seminary for schoolmasters, and thence to Landsberg, where two years are spent as assistant to a superannuated clergyman. These are the years of mental growth.

When we find him again in Berlin as chaplain to a charitable institution there, his mind has attained a development that commands attention, and friends begin to augur future distinction. Having formed an intimate friendship with the beautiful and accomplished Henrietta Herz, he meets in her house all the choice spirits of Berlin society; and stimulated by her and by Frederick Schlegel (of his connection with whom the letters give a full and interesting account) he plans with the latter the translation of Plato, which is to prove one of the brightest jewels in his crown of fame, and writes his first great literary work, the Discourses on Religion, addressed to the Cultivated Classes among its Contemners. In point of religion Protestant Germany was, at that period, pretty equally divided between Rationalism, that had degenerated into religious indifference, and Supernaturalism, that had petrified into a lifeless, hereditary acquiescence in an historically transmitted faith. In his discourses Schleiermacher addressed himself principally to those who looked down upon religion as an antiquated prejudice, or at the highest as a crutch to prop up morality, and considered piety as the sign of a weak mind; but the boldness with which he set aside all mere traditional faith, and proved true religion to have its source in the innermost feelings and deepest instincts of man, was in a manner an indirect attack upon the other party also.

The effect of the discourses, more particularly upon the younger generation, was perfectly electrical,¹ and was followed up by the Monologues, written a year later, and in which he depicts the ideal state to which his soul aspires. The letters introduce us to various friends whom this revelation of his inner being drew towards him; but though we are kept minutely acquainted with the progress of the composition of the Discourses, we hear but little of the favourable effect produced by them, while, on the contrary, we trace the injurious misunderstandings to which they give rise in the mind of his most influential patrons, and which lead to various complications. We trace also, in the letters, the effects upon his own mind of his unfortunate attachment to a married lady, which drives him eventually into voluntary exile at Stolpe in Pomerania, there to await the legal separation from her husband, which shall allow him to make her his wife. And we are glad to find by the correspondence with the object of his devotion, carried on from this place, that although he was sufficiently imbued with the notions of the times and the society amid which he lived, not to feel the necessity of subduing a passion which, at a later period of his life he would have regarded as unholy, he never in his intercourse with her outstepped the bounds of respectful affection, and even scrupulously avoided anything like clandestine correspondence with her. In his eyes her union with her husband, which lacked every inward bond, was not a real marriage, and might therefore be dissolved with as little violation of the laws of morality as of the laws of the state, which admitted divorce by mutual consent, without any criminal cause on either side; and far from his conscience being troubled by the connection, we see how the thought of his union with her is mixed up with all his highest aspirations. We see, also, when the connection is ultimately broken off, how bravely he battles with the sickness of the heart that follows the destruction of all his hopes; in like manner as through life, he conquers, with a power of will truly astounding, the torturing ailments of a sickly constitution, and renders his weak body an ever-ready instrument in the service of his mind.

From Stolpe, where he wrote his Critical Inquiry into all existing Systems of Ethics, and completed his translation of the first volume of Plato, we follow him to Halle, where he is appointed Professor of Theology and preacher to the university, and witness how he forgets his own sorrows in his interest for science and religion, and for the young minds committed to his charge, whom he not only gathers around him in the lecture room, but also in his home. When the time of danger and disaster breaks over Prussia, we find his letters not only filled with allusions to, and descriptions of, the events of the day, but also with sentiments of the noblest patriotism, and breathing courage and the heroism of self-sacrifice unto all whom he addresses, while his own acts prove that he is himself sincerely animated by the spirit which he endeavours to inspire into others. As time passes on, we further see how, while the deepest gloom is brooding over his country, a new happiness is preparing for himself; and no section of the letters is so interesting as that which comprises his correspondence with the young wife and mother, who, after the death of her first husband, one of his most beloved friends, becomes the partner of his life.

After Schleiermacher’s marriage, and his appointment as preacher in the church of the Holy Trinity in Berlin, and professor at the newly-established university there, to the foundation of which he had so zealously contributed, his letters become more rare. The craving for sympathy, which formed one of his chief characteristics, and which dictated the greater number of his letters, found satisfaction in his home; and his ever widening sphere of public activity and influence left him little time for private correspondence. However, when separated from those dearest to his heart, the necessity for constant communication was again felt; and several absences, which gave rise to correspondence, thus allow us to follow him in his letters through the later period of his life also, if not so consecutively as during the former, yet sufficiently so to enable us to see that he carried out practically as husband, father, teacher, and citizen, all that he had dreamt of and aspired to in youth.

The letters are divided into four sections; the first of which embraces the earliest period of Schleiermacher’s life, up to his appointment as assistant preacher in Landsberg, and to the death of his father in 1794; and the second, the years intervening between that event and his appointment as professor extraordinarius in the university of Halle in 1804; the third section comprises the following period up to his marriage in 1809; and the fourth contains letters written at intervals during the subsequent years of his life, and up to within a very short time of his death, which took place on the 12th February, 1834.

The correspondence is preceded by an autobiographical sketch drawn up by Schleiermacher for the ecclesiastical authorities on occasion of his ordination and first appointment as preacher, and each section is headed by a short editorial notice of such outward circumstances of his life, a knowledge of which has been considered necessary for the proper understanding of the letters. To these very scanty notices the translator has ventured to add such supplementary characteristics of Schleiermacher, at the various periods, as she has been able to glean from the memoirs of contemporary notabilities; but, with the exception of these, and the further addition of a few foot-notes, and the interpolation of a few letters drawn from other sources, as also the elimination of some trivial passages and unimportant letters, the book appears in English as it is in German. For, although the minuteness of detail that prevails, more especially in Schleiermacher’s letters to his sister in the first volume, may be found tedious by some readers, the translator has shrunk from using the pruning-knife more freely, as these very details, and the feelings with which he regards them, afford an insight into some of the most loveable parts of his nature, and also allow us to catch many glimpses of family life and social life, in a strange country and a bygone time, which are not without interest. To those who know how to unite the numerous traits revealed in these letters into an organic whole, they will present a living picture of a most attractive and strongly pronounced individuality, cast in a form in striking contrast with our national characteristics, and, therefore, the more interesting and worthy of study.

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Footnotes

1. As an instance of the effect produced by the Discourses, the subjoined passage from the autobiography of the somewhat eccentric Harms, who was afterwards opposed to Schleiermacher on many points, may be quoted:—“A friend said to me one day in the lecture-room—‘I say, Harms, I have got a book that is just the thing for you. I don’t know what to do with it, but I dare say you do; you shall have it, but you must tell me by-and-by what you think of it.’ It was Schleiermacher’s Discourses on Religion. After the lecture, as I had to pass my friend’s house, he went up and got the book for me, and I walked home with it under my arm. It was Saturday about noon. In the afternoon I began to read, having told my attendant to inform every one who might call, that I did not wish to be disturbed. I read far into the night, and finished the book. After that I slept a few hours. On Sunday morning I began again from the beginning, read again the whole forenoon, and began again after dinner; and then came a sensation in my head, as if two screws had been clapped upon my temples. Hereupon, I laid by the book, and walked round little Kiel—a solitary walk; and during this walk it was that I suddenly recognized that all rationalism, and all æsthetics, and all knowledge derived from ourselves, and all action emanating from ourselves, are utterly worthless and useless as regards the work of salvation, and that the necessity of our salvation coming from another source, so to say, flashed upon me. If to any one this sounds mysterious, or mystical, and this narrative seems like a myth, or a phantasm, they may take it as such; I cannot describe the matter more distinctly; but so much I know, that I may, with truth, call it the hour in which my higher life was born. I received from that book the impulse of a movement that will never cease. More than this Schleiermacher did not do for me; but so much he did do, and, next to God, I thank him for it, and always have done so, and will do so until we meet again (after death), and not until then will I cease.” When it is considered that the very book, which produced the effect described above, barely escaped being condemned by the public censor, for what were considered its pantheistic tendencies, the incident becomes curiously illustrative of the folly of exclusion in matters of opinion. ↩