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GEORG WILHELM See also:FRIEDRICH See also:HEGEL (1770-1831) , See also:German philosopher, was See also:born at See also:Stuttgart on the 27th of See also:August 1770 . His See also:father, an See also:official in the fiscal service of See also:Wurttemberg, is not otherwise known to fame; and of his See also:mother we hear only that she had scholarship enough to See also:teach him the elements of Latin . He had one See also:sister, Christiana, who died unmarried, and a See also:brother See also:Ludwig, who served in the See also:campaigns of See also:Napoleon . At the See also:grammar school of Stuttgart, where See also:Hegel was educated between the ages of seven and eighteen, he was not remarkable . His See also:main productions were a See also:diary kept at intervals during eighteen months (1785-1787), and See also:translations of the See also:Antigone, the See also:Manual of See also:Epictetus, &c . But the characteristic feature of his studies was the copious extracts which from this See also:time onward he unremittingly made and preserved . This collection, alphabetically arranged, comprised annotations on classical authors, passages from See also:newspapers, See also:treatises on morals and See also:mathematics from the See also:standard See also:works of the See also:period . In this way he absorbed in their integrity the raw materials for elaboration . Yet as See also:evidence that he was not merely receptive we have essays already breathing that admiration of the classical See also:world which he never lost . His See also:chief amusement was See also:cards, and he began the See also:habit of taking See also:snuff . In•the autumn of 1788 he entered at See also:Tubingen as a student of See also:theology; but he showed no See also:interest in theology: his sermons were a failure, and he found more congenial See also:reading in the See also:classics, on the advantages of studying which his first See also:essay was written . After two years he took the degree of Ph.D., and in the autumn of 1793 received his theological certificate, stating him to be of See also:good abilities, but of middling See also:industry and knowledge, and especially deficient in See also:philosophy . As a student, his elderly See also:appearance gained him the See also:title " Old See also:man," but he took See also:part in the walks, See also:beer-drinking and love-making of his See also:fellows . He gained most from intellectual intercourse with his contemporaries, the two best known of whom were J . C . F . See also:Holderlin and See also:Schelling . With Holderlin Hegel learned to feel for the old Greeks a love which See also:grew stronger as the semi-Kantianized theology of his teachers more and more failed to interest him . With Schelling like sympathies See also:bound him . They both protested against the See also:political and ecclesiastical inertia of their native See also:state, and adopted the doctrines of freedom and See also:reason . The See also:story which tells how the two went out one See also:morning to See also:dance See also:round a See also:tree of See also:liberty in a meadow is an See also:anachronism, though in. keeping with their opinions . On leaving See also:college, he became a private See also:tutor at See also:Bern and lived in intellectual See also:isolation . He was, however, far from inactive . He compiled a systematic See also:account of the fiscal See also:system of the See also:canton Bern, but the main See also:factor in his See also:mental growth came from his study of See also:Christianity . Under the impulse given by See also:Lessing and See also:Kant he turned to the See also:original records of Christianity, and attempted to construe for himself the real significance of See also:Christ . He wrote a See also:life of Jesus, in which Jesus was simply the son of See also:Joseph and See also:Mary . He did not stop to criticize as a philologist, and ignored the miraculous . He asked for the See also:secret contained in the conduct and sayings of this man which made him the See also:hope of the human See also:race . Jesus appeared as revealing the unity with See also:God in which the Greeks in their best days unwittingly rejoiced, and as lifting the eyes of the See also:Jews from a lawgiver who metes out See also:punishment on the transgressor, to the destiny which in the See also:Greek conception falls on the just no less than on the unjust . The interest of these ideas is twofold . In Jesus Hegel finds the expression for something higher than See also:mere morality: he finds a See also:noble spirit which rises above the contrasts of virtue and See also:vice into the See also:concrete life, seeing the See also:infinite always embracing our finitude, and proclaiming the divine which is in man and cannot be overcome by See also:error and evil, unless the man See also:close his eyes and ears to the godlike presence within him . In religious life, in See also:short, he finds the principle which reconciles the opposition of the temporal mind . But, secondly, the See also:general source of the See also:doctrine that life is higher than all its incidents is of interest . He does not See also:free himself from the current theology either by rational moralizing like Kant, or by bold speculative See also:synthesis like See also:Fichte and Schelling . He finds his See also:panacea in the concrete life of humanity . But although he goes to the Scriptures, and tastes the mystical spirit of the See also:medieval See also:saints, the Christ of his conception has traits that seem borrowed from See also:Socrates and from the heroes of See also:Attic tragedy, who suffer much and yet smile gently on a destiny to which they were reconciled . Instead of the Hebraic doctrine of a Jesus punished for our sins, we have the Hellenic See also:idea of a man who is calmly tranquil in the consciousness of his unity with God . During these years Hegel kept up a slack See also:correspondence with Schelling and Holderlin . Schelling, already on the way to fame, kept Hegel abreast with German See also:speculation . Both of them were See also:intent on forcing the theologians into the daylight, and grudged them any aid they might expect from Kant's postulation of God and See also:immortality to See also:crown the edifice of See also:ethics . Meanwhile, Holderlin in See also:Jena had been following Fichte's career with an See also:enthusiasm with which he infected Hegel . It is pleasing to turn from these vehement struggles of thought to a tour which Hegel in See also:company with three other tutors made through the Bernese Oberland in See also:July and August 1796 . Of this tour he See also:left a See also:minute diary . He was delighted with the varied See also:play of the waterfalls, but no glamour blinded him to the squalor of Swiss See also:peasant life . The glaciers and the rocks called forth no raptures . " The spectacle of these eternally dead masses gave me nothing but the monotonous and at last tedious idea, ` Es ist so.' " Towards the close of his engagement at Bern, Hegel had received hopes from Schelling of a See also:post at Jena . Fortunately his friend HOlderlin, now tutor in See also:Frankfort, secured a similar situation there for Hegel in the See also:family of Herr See also:Gogol, a See also:merchant (See also:January 1797) . The new post gave him more leisure and the society he needed .
About this time he turned to questions of See also:economics and See also:government
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He had studied See also:Gibbon, See also:Hume and See also:Montesquieu in See also:Switzerland
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We now find him making extracts from the See also:English newspapers on the Poor-See also:Law See also:Bill of 1796; criticising the Prussian See also:land See also:laws, promulgated about the same time; and See also:writing a commentary on See also:Sir See also: But such an issue, he saw well, could only be the outcome of violence—of " See also:blood and See also:iron . " The philosopher did not pose as a See also:practical statesman . He described the German empire in its nullity as a conception without existence in fact . In such a state of things it was the business of the philosopher to set forth the outlines of the coming See also:epoch, as they were already moulding themselves into shape, amidst what the See also:ordinary See also:eye saw only as the disintegration of the old forms of social life . His old interest in the religious question reappears, but in a more philosophical See also:form . Starting with the contrast between a natural and a See also:positive See also:religion, he regards a positive religion as one imposed upon the mind from without, not a natural growth crowning the round of human life . A natural religion, on the other See also:hand, was not, he thought, the one universal religion of every clime and See also:age, but rather the spontaneous development of the See also:national See also:conscience varying in varying circumstances . A See also:people's religion completes and consecrates their whole activity: in it the people rises above its finite life in limited See also:spheres to an infinite life where it feels itself all at one . Even philosophy with Hegel at this epoch was subordinate to religion; for philosophy must never abandon the finite in the See also:search for the infinite . Soon, however, Hegel adopted a view according to which philosophy is a higher mode of apprehending the infinite than even religion . At Frankfort, meanwhile, the philosophic ideas of Hegel first assumed the proper philosophic form . In a MS. of 102 See also:quarto sheets, of which the first three and the seventh are wanting, there is preserved the original See also:sketch of the Hegelian system, so far as the See also:logic and See also:metaphysics and part of thephilosophy of nature are concerned . The third part of the system—the ethical theory—seems to have been composed afterwards; it is contained in its first draft in another MS. of 30 sheets . Even these had been preceded by earlier See also:Pythagorean constructions envisaging the divine life in divine triangles . Circumstances soon put Hegel in the way to See also:complete these outlines . His father died in January 1799; and the slender sum which Hegel received as his See also:inheritance, 3154 gulden (about £z6o), enabled him to think once more of a studious life . At the close of 1800 we find him asking Schelling for letters of introduction to See also:Bamberg, where with cheap living and good beer he hoped to prepare himself for the intellectual excitement of Jena . The upshot was that Hegel arrived at Jena in January 18or . An end had already come to the brilliant epoch at Jena, when the romantic poets, See also:Tieck, See also:Novalis and the Schlegels made it the headquarters of their fantastic See also:mysticism, and Fichte turned the results of Kant into the banner of revolutionary ideas . Schelling was the main philosophical See also:lion of the time; and in some quarters Hegel was spoken of as a new See also:champion summoned to help him in his struggle with the more prosaic continuators of Kant . Hegel's first performance seemed to justify the rumour . It was an essay on the difference between the philosophic systems of Fichte and Schelling, tending in the main to support the latter . Still more striking was the agreement shown in the Critical See also:Journal of Philosophy, which Schelling and Hegel wrote conjointly during the years 18oz-1803 . So latent was the difference between them at this epoch that in one or two cases it is not possible to determine by whom the essay was written . Even at a later period See also:foreign critics like See also:Cousin saw much that was alike in the two doctrines, and did not hesitate to regard Hegel as a See also:disciple of Schelling . The dissertation by which Hegel qualified for the position of Privatdozent (De orbitis planetarum) was probably chosen under the See also:influence of Schelling's philosophy of nature . It was an unfortunate subject . For while Hegel, depending on a numerical proportion suggested by See also:Plato, hinted in a single See also:sentence that it might be a See also:mistake to look for a See also:planet between See also:Mars and See also:Jupiter, Giuseppe Piazzi (q.v.) had already discovered the first of the asteroids (See also:Ceres) on the 1st of January r8or . Apparently in August, when Hegel qualified, the See also:news of the See also:discovery had not yet reached him, but critics have made this luckless See also:suggestion the ground of attack on a priori philosophy . Hegel's lectures, in the See also:winter of 1801-r8oz, on logic and metaphysics were attended by about eleven students . Later, in 1804, we find him with a class of about See also:thirty, lecturing on his whole system; but his See also:average attendance was rather less . Besides philosophy, he once at least lectured on mathematics . As he taught, he was led to modify his original system, and See also:notice after notice of his lectures promised a See also:text-See also:book of philosophy—which, however, failed to appear . Meanwhile, after the departure of Schelling from Jena in the See also:middle of 1803, Hegel was left to work out his own views . Besides philosophical studies, where he now added See also:Aristotle to Plato, he read See also:Homer and the Greek tragedians, made extracts from books, attended lectures on See also:physiology, and dabbled in other sciences . On his own See also:representation at See also:Weimar, he was in See also:February 1805 made a See also:professor extraordinarius, and in July 18o6 See also:drew his first and only See also:stipend—moo thalers . At Jena, though some of his hearers became attached to him, Hegel was not a popular lecturer any more than K . C . F . See also:Krause (q.v.) . The ordinary student found J . F . See also:Fries (q.v.) more intelligible . _ Of the lectures of that period there still remain considerable notes . The See also:language often had a theological tinge (never entirely absent), as when the " idea " was spoken of, or " the See also:night of the divine See also:mystery," or the See also:dialectic of the See also:absolute called the " course of the divine life . " Still his view was growing clearer, and his difference from Schelling more palpable . Both Schelling and Hegel stand in a relation to art, but while the aesthetic See also:model of Schelling was found in the contemporary world, where art was a See also:special See also:sphere and the artist a See also:separate profession in no intimate connexion with the age and nation, the model of Hegel was found rather in those works of national art in which art is not a part but an aspect of the See also:common life, and the artist is not a mere individual but a concentration of the See also:passion and power of beauty in the whole community . " Such art," says Hegel, " is the common good and the work of all .
Each See also:generation hands it on beautified to the next; each has done something to give utterance to the universal thought
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Those who are said to have See also:genius have acquired some special aptitude by which they render the general shapes of the nation their own work, one in one point, another in another
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What they produce is not their invention, but the invention of the whole nation; or rather, what they find is that the whole nation has found its true nature
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Each, as it were, piles up his See also: Niethammer (1766–1848) on the See also:day before the See also:battle, he speaks with admiration of the " world-soul," the See also:emperor, and with See also:satisfaction of the probable overthrow of the Prussians . The See also:scholar's wish was to see the clouds of See also:war pass away, and leave thinkers to their peaceful work . His See also:manuscripts were his main care; and doubtful of the safety of his last despatch to Bamberg, and disturbed by the See also:French soldiers in his lodgings, he hurried off, with the last pages of the Phdnomenologie, to take See also:refuge in the See also:pro-See also:rector's See also:house . Hegel's fortunes were now at the lowest ebb . Without means, and obliged to See also:borrow from Niethammer, he had no further hopes from the impoverished university . He had already tried to get away from Jena . In 1805, when several lecturers left in See also:con-sequence of diminished classes, he had written to Johann Heinrich See also:Voss (q.v.), suggesting that his philosophy might find more congenial See also:soil in See also:Heidelberg; but the application See also:bore no See also:fruit . He was, therefore, glad to become editor of the See also:Bamberger Zeitung (1807–1808) . Of his editorial work there is little to tell; no leading articles appeared in his columns . It was not a suitable vocation, and he gladly accepted the rectorship of the Aegidien-gymnasium in See also:Nuremberg, a post which he held from See also:December 1808 to August 1816 . See also:Bavaria at this time was modernizing her institutions . The school system was reorganized by new regulations, in accordance .with which Hegel wrote a See also:series of lessons in the outlines of philosophy—ethical, logical and psychological .
They were published in 184o by See also:Rosenkranz from Hegel's papers
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As a teacher and See also:master Hegel inspired confidence in his pupils, and maintained discipline without pedantic interference in their associations and See also:sports
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On See also:prize-days his addresses summing up the history of the school See also:year discussed some topic of general interest
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Five of these addresses are preserved
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The first is an exposition of the advantages of a classical training, when it is not confined to mere grammar
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" The perfection and grandeur of the master-works of Greek and See also:Roman literature must be the intellectual See also:bath, the See also:secular See also:baptism, which gives the first and unfading See also:tone and See also:tincture of See also:taste and See also:science." In another address, speaking of the introduction of military exercises at school, he says: " These exercises, while not in-tended to withdraw the students from their more immediate See also:duty, so far as they have any calling to it, still remind them of the possibility that every one, whatever See also:rank in society he may belong to, may one day have to defend his See also:country and his See also: Hegel's letters to his wife, written during his solitary See also:holiday See also:tours to See also:Vienna, the See also:Netherlands and See also:Paris, breathe of kindly and happy See also:affection . Hegel the tourist—recalling happy days spent together; confessing that, were it not because of his sense of duty as a traveller, he would rather be at See also:home, dividing his time between his books and his wife; commenting on the See also:shop windows at Vienna; describing the See also:straw hats of the Parisian ladies—is a contrast to the professor of a profound philosophical system . But it shows that the enthusiasm which in his days of courtship moved him to See also:verse had blossomed into a later age of domestic See also:bliss . In 1812 appeared the first two volumes of his Wissenschaft der Logik, and the work was completed by a third in 1816 . This work, in which his system was for the first time presented in what, with a few See also:minor alterations, was its ultimate shape, found some See also:audience in the world . Towards the close of his eighth session three professorships were almost simultaneously put within his reach—at See also:Erlangen, Berlin and Heidelberg . The Prussian offer expressed a doubt that his long See also:absence from university teaching might have made him rusty, so he accepted the post at Heidelberg, whence Fries had just gone to Jena (October 1816) . Only four hearers turned up for one of his courses . Others, however, on the See also:encyclopaedia of philosophy and the history of philosophy drew classes of twenty to thirty . While he was there Cousin first made his acquaintance, but a more intimate relation See also:dates from Berlin . Among his pupils was See also:Hermann F . W .
See also:Hinrichs (q.v.), to whose Religion in its Inward Relation to Science (1822) Hegel contributed an important See also:preface
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The strangest of his hearers was an Esthonian See also:baron, Boris d'Yrkull, who after serving in the See also:Russian army came to Heidelberg to hear the See also:wisdom of Hegel
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But his books and his lectures were alike obscure to the baron, who betook himself by Hegel's See also:advice to simpler studies before he returned to the Hegelian system
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At Heidelberg Hegel was active in a See also:literary way also
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In 1817 he brought out the Encyklopadie d. philos
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Wissenschaften See also:im Grundrisse (4th ed., Berlin, 1817; new ed., 1870) for use at his lectures
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It is the only exposition of the Hegelian system as a whole which we have See also:direct from Hegel's own hand
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Besides this work he wrote two reviews for the Heidelberg Jahrbiicher—the first on F
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H
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See also:Jacobi, the other a political pamphlet which called forth violent criticism
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It was entitled a Criticism on the Transactions of the Estates of Wurttemberg in 1815-1816
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On the 15th of See also: Though an improvement on the old constitution, it was unacceptable to the estates, jealous of their old privileges and suspicious of the king's intentions . A decided See also: |