ARNOLD

See also:

• ARNOLD RUGE (18o2—188o)

RUGE (18o2—188o)  , German philosopher and political writer, was born at Bergen, in the island of Rugen, on the 13th of September 1802 . He studied at Halle, Jena and Heidelberg, and became an adherent of the party which sought to create a free and united Germany . For his zeal he was confined for five years in the fortress of Kolberg, where he studied Plato and the Greek poets . On his release in 183o he published Schill and die Seinen, a tragedy, and a translation of Oedipus in Colonus . Ruge settled in Halle, where in 1837 with E . T . Echtermeyer he founded the Hallesche Jahrbucher fur deutsche Kunst and Wissenschaft . In this periodical he discussed the questions of the time from the point of view of the Hegelian philosophy . The Jahrbucher was detested by the orthodox party in Prussia; and was finally suppressed by the Saxon government in 1843 . In Paris Ruge tried to act with Karl Marx as co-editor of the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher, but had little sympathy with Marx's socialistic theories, and soon left him . In the revolutionary movement of 1848 he organized the Extreme Left in the Frankfort parliament, and for some time he lived in Berlin as the editor of the Die Reform . The Prussian government intervened and Ruge soon afterwards left for Paris, hoping, through his friend Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, to establish relations between German and French republicans; but in 1849 both Ledru-Rollin and Ruge had to take refuge in London .

Here, in

company with Giuseppe Mazzini and other advanced politicians, they formed a " European Democratic Committee." From this Ruge soon withdrew, and in 1850 went to Brighton, where he supported himself by teaching and writing . In 1866 and 187o he vigorously supported Prussia against Austria, and Germany against France . In his last years he received from the German government a pension of r000 marks . He died on the 3I St of December 1880 . Ruge was a leader in religious and political liberalism, but did not produce any work of enduring importance . In 1846–48 his Gesammelte Schriften were published in ten volumes . After this time he wrote, among other books, Unser System, Revolutionsnovellen, Die Loge des Humanismus, and Aus fruherer Zeit (his memoirs) . He also wrote many poems, and several dramas and romances, and translated into German various English works, including the Letters of Junius and Buckle's History of Civilization . His Letters and Diary (1825–80) were published by Paul Nerrlich (Berlin, 1885-87) . See A . W . Bolin's L .

Feuerbach, pp . 127-52 (Stuttgart, 1891) .