The Philosophy of History, Vol. 1 of 2Schlegel, Friedrich von
Philosophy
The Philosophy of History, Vol. 1 of 2
Schlegel, Friedrich von
History; History -- Philosophy
As, after discord had broken out among mankind, humanity became split
and divided into a multitude of nations, races, and languages, into
hostile and conflicting tribes, castes rigidly separated, and classes
variously divided; as indeed, when once we suppose this original
division and primitive opposition in the human race, it could not be
otherwise from the very nature and even destiny of man; so in a
psychological point of view, the moral unity of the individual man was
broken, and his faculties of will and understanding became mutually
opposed, or followed contrary courses. The whole internal structure of
human consciousness was deranged, and in the present divided state of
the human faculties, there is no longer the full play of the harmonious
soul--of the once unbroken spirit--but its every faculty hath now but a
limited, or, to speak more properly, one half of its proper power.
The restoration of the full life and entire operation of the divided
faculties of the human soul must be considered now only as a splendid
exception--the high gift of creative genius, and of a more than ordinary
strength of character; and such a re-union of faculties must be looked
upon as the high problem which constitutes the ultimate object and ideal
term of all the intellectual and moral exertions of man. When in an
individual a clear, comprehensive, penetrative understanding, that has
mastered all sound science, is combined with a will not only firm, but
pure and upright, such an individual has attained the great object of
his existence; and when a whole generation, or mankind in general,
present this harmonious concord between science on the one hand, and
moral conduct and external life, or to characterize them by one word,
the general will, on the other, which is often in utter hostility with
science--we may then truly say that humanity has attained its destiny.
The great error of ordinary philosophy, and the principal reason that
has prevented it from accomplishing its ends, is the supposition it so
hastily admits that the consciousness of man now entirely changed,
broken and mutilated, is the same as it was originally, and as it was
created and fashioned by its Maker; without observing that, since the
great primeval Revolution, man has not only been outwardly or
historically disunited, but even internally and psychologically
deranged. The moral being of man, a prey to internal discord, may be
said to be quartered, because the four primary faculties of the soul and
mind of man--Understanding and Will, Reason and Imagination, stand in a
two-fold opposition one to the other, and are, if we may so speak,
dispersed into the four regions of existence. Reason in man is the
regulating faculty of thought; and so far it occupies the first place in
life and the whole system and arrangement of life; but it is
unproductive in itself, and even in science it can pretend to no real
fertility or immediate intuition. Imagination on the other hand is
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