The Son to the Father.
[XLV.] Drossen, 23rd December, 1789.
DEARLY BELOVED FATHER,
It has given me infinite pleasure to receive once more a letter from you directed to me especially, and to read therein the proofs of your loving and fatherly remembrance of me on a day so important to me as my birthday. That in looking back upon the past, and in looking forward into a future which as yet seems very dark, many a sigh should have escaped me, and many a painful feeling should have been awakened, is but natural; but I should be thoroughly unworthy of all the blessings which I have enjoyed in life through the kind Providence of God, and I would not be a true son of yours, if thankfulness to our heavenly Father, and trust in Him, who will in the end turn everything to our good, did not predominate in my heart. May he soon open up to us more hopeful prospects in the new year which we are about to enter, so that you may begin to reap the fruits of all your love and all your care.
How shall I thank you for the many good rules your letter contains? I hope that I shall succeed in steering clear of the two dangerous rocks which you mention in the beginning of the letter, but I hope this, not so much in reliance on my own art of steering, as in reliance on the excellent wind which swells my sails, and seems to be driving my bark midway between them. Sentimentalism—that phthisis of the mind which undermines all its strength and prevents those who are suffering under it from being masters of their own impressions, while, as in physical diseases of some kinds, even the most wholesome food is in them converted into unwholesome humours—sentimentalism has never been dangerous to me, because, wherever I have been, kind destiny has given me a few friends in whose society I have enjoyed much real pleasure, and have sharpened my feelings for the true and the good, without running into such extravagance. From any tendency to the system-mongering mania, I have always been still more exempt. My thinking began with doubting; and notwithstanding that I have since then read much and thought much, and had much intercourse with the firmest adherents of various systems, I have in theology, as well as in philosophy, remained pretty much in the same stage. I do not think that I shall ever succeed in forming for myself a regularly developed system, in accordance with which I shall be able to solve every question that may arise consistently with all the previous knowledge I may have acquired; but I have always been of opinion that to investigate and test, and to listen patiently to all parties and to all witnesses, are the only means by which we may at last attain to a sufficient degree of certainty and, above all, to a fixed limit between those matters regarding which we must adopt decided views, and which we can account for to ourselves and to others, and those which we may leave undecided without detriment to our happiness or our tranquillity. In this manner I remain a calm spectator of the wrestlings of the theological and philosophical athletes, without deciding in favour of any or staking my liberty on the triumphs of either party; never failing, however, to learn something from both.
In regard to a third question which you have repeatedly put to me, viz., the apportionment of my time, I cannot give you as satisfactory an answer. With me study is too much of a passion, if I may so say, to allow me when under no other control than my own, to pursue a subject during a fixed time, and then at the stroke of the clock, or very nearly so, to pass on to some other branch of knowledge. Everything that I do is done with a certain degree of impetuosity, and I persevere until I have got through it, up to a certain point at least. Such has been my way ever since I first went to Niesky and began to study the ancients with my friend Albertini, and up to this moment I have never been able to change it; perhaps, indeed, I have never earnestly wished to do so. I do not, therefore, prosecute any occupation according to a fixed hour or day, but fitfully and during irregular periods. Sometimes it is a certain portion of philosophy that chiefly occupies my mind, and then I inquire into its history, and examine well all the different opinions that have been advanced in relation to it, and endeavour to come to a conclusion as to which of these are tenable and consistent, which not. Mayhap, that while prosecuting these investigations, something draws my attention to a certain period of history, or to a disputed point in philology, in which case as soon as my previous investigations are concluded, I turn with equal fervour to these other subjects. In this manner, I am always alternating between practical and theoretical philosophy. At present I am engaged on a thorough revision of my strictly theological knowledge and acquirements. This mode of study has, perhaps, its defects, like every other, but it has also undeniable advantages. It prevents you from becoming perplexed and distracted by a number of disconnected subjects, and as it is generally by the desire to fill up some gap or other, which you have detected in your knowledge, that you are driven to your occupation, you work con amore, and do not run the risk of spending your time on something you do not want, merely for the sake of adhering to the rules you have laid down. Acting upon this principle, while here at Drossen, I have got through for the second time the greater part of Kant’s writings; I have read the moral and metaphysical works of Aristotle, and of father Wolf, also Xenophon, and various new works on Greek history, and further, Perefixe, The Life of Elizabeth, and various writings, throwing light upon that period; and since I began the recapitulation of my theological studies, exclusively, I have read Sack’s Defence of Faith, Töllner’s Miscellaneous Essays, Michaeli’s Introduction, &c., and next I shall commence Mr. Less’s Truth of the Christian Religion, in the edition which is in my uncle’s library. The newest edition I have not yet seen, nor have I come across Mr. Müller’s philosophical essays or any review of them. Upon the whole, we are very badly off in this little place in regard to literary novelties, and the neighbourhood of Francfort, which in this respect is in a very bad condition, and not at all like a university, is by no means productive of so many advantages as might be expected. But perhaps, after all, we lose but little by it. The mere advertisements of all the pro and contra trash about the religious edict, which has for a long time kept all the presses of the country in activity, have been enough to sicken us, and there is not either much to be learnt from the controversies about Kantianism, which are conducted in a paltry and unphilosophical spirit, and apparently with little regard for truth. My readings sometimes alternate with writing; for the subject matter of the former frequently afford me occasion for little essays, and I consider this a very good exercise. If you add to this a correspondence which I endeavour to carry on, so as to derive as much advantage as possible from it, and a certain amount of light reading undertaken with a view to cultivating my taste by acquaintance with good models, and learning from the inferior ones the defects of our day, and how to avoid them, you will find that my time is pretty well occupied.