The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lecturesSchlegel, Friedrich von
Philosophy
The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures
Schlegel, Friedrich von
Language and languages -- Philosophy; Life; Philosophy
present disquisition, the more diligently and the more conscientiously
ought we to seek out and dwell upon every bright and quiet spot. For
such alone can cheer us on our way along the rugged path that leads to
the blissful goal of internal and spiritual peace, which will
essentially contribute to give a solid basis to the public and social
tranquillity, and to insure its permanence.
Slowly and gradually is it that the individual mind, distracted and
vacillating between God and a divine faith on the one hand, and a
higher, or even the highest, science on the other, advances in its
progress toward the perfect truth. Arriving, step by step, at fuller and
better convictions, it attains at last to a clear discernment that,
properly and fundamentally, these two apparently-conflicting objects are
not distinct, but in their inmost essence are perfectly one. But for the
final attainment of this end, the most important condition to be
observed is that scientific patience to which I called your attention in
the last Lecture. The chief thing to be guarded against is a precipitate
and over-hasty decision. For by such we should incur the great danger of
sacrificing the sacred deposit of faith to science, or of foolishly
rejecting the treasures of true science, which as such is indispensable
to the higher life, and even necessary and useful for the confirmation
of faith itself. And why, in the pursuit of truth--that proper spiritual
theme and highly interesting matter of the otherwise flat and insipid
drama of life--should we feel indisposed to such a scientific patience,
as I called it? Why should we be unwilling to recognize it as what it
really is--both salutary and indispensable to human frailty, and, as an
intellectual virtue, no less necessary than even moral patience? And the
latter is even the fundamental condition of every great or little
business, and almost every pursuit of life, if it is to attain to a
happy result, and is not to fail of its true end and aim. For patience
is, as it were, the indispensable portion which their earthly existence
brings to all men. Not only is it needed by the invalid on the bed of
sickness, in the long and tedious observance of his physician’s precise
and rigid prescriptions--not only is it wanted by the teacher in his
troublesome task of giving the first development to the intellectual
powers of the child--not only is patience requisite for the judge who
has to settle the complicated quarrel of two litigants, of whom each
claims his sympathy, each desires to win him to his own side and to bias
his judgment--but it is also indispensable to the warrior whom ambition
hurries forward in the pursuit of honor for himself and his country. For
numberless are the hardships and privations, and many, too, are the
miseries which the soldier must undergo before he can gain the object of
his hopes, the hard-fought battle and the glorious victory. The
statesman, too, with his wide sphere of influence and authority, stands
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