The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 05 - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English by Various
page 25 of 598 (04%)
page 25 of 598 (04%)
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_a priori_ interpretation of nature that tended to withdraw the
mind from the actualities of existence; it often dealt with bold assertions, analogies, and figures of speech, rather than with facts and proofs. But it had its merits; for it aroused an interest in nature and nature-study, it kept alive the _philosophical_ interest in the outer world, the desire for unity, _Einheitstrieb_, which has remained a marked characteristic of German science from Alexander von Humboldt down to Robert Mayer, Helmholtz, Naegeli, Haeckel, Ostwald, Hertz, and Driesch. It opposed the one-sided mechanical method of science, and emphasized conceptions (the idea of development, the notion of the dynamic character of reality, pan-psychism, and vitalism) which are still moving the minds of men today, as is evidenced by the popularity of Henri Bergson, who, with our own William James, leads the contemporary school of philosophical Romanticists. Fichte's chief contribution to German thought was the _Wissenschaftslehre_, Schelling's the _Naturphilosophie_, and Schleiermacher's the philosophy of religion. All these thinkers took account of the prevailing tendencies of the times--_Aufklärung_, Kantian criticism, faith-philosophy, Romanticism, and Spinozism--and were more or less affected by them. Schleiermacher also came under the influence of Fichte, Schelling, and Greek idealism, particularly of Plato's philosophy; many were the sources from which he drew his material for the construction of a great system of Protestant theology that exercised a profound influence far beyond the boundaries of his country and won for him the title of the founder of the New Theology. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, the son of a clergyman of the reformed church, was born at Breslau, November 21, 1768, and was |
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