Hegel's Philosophy of Mind — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Georg Hegel · en
In this poetry, which soars over all that is external and sensuous,
who would recognise the prosaic ideas current about so-called
pantheism—ideas which let the divine sink to the external and the
sensuous? The copious extracts which Tholuck, in his work _Anthology
from the Eastern Mystics_, gives us from the poems of Jelaleddin and
others, are made from the very point of view now under discussion.
In his Introduction, Herr Tholuck proves how profoundly his soul has
caught the note of mysticism; and there, too, he points out the
characteristic traits of its oriental phase, in distinction from
that of the West and Christendom. With all their divergence,
however, they have in common the mystical character. The conjunction
of Mysticism with so-called Pantheism, as he says (p. 53), implies
that inward quickening of soul and spirit which inevitably tends to
annihilate that external _Everything_, which Pantheism is usually
held to adore. But beyond that, Herr Tholuck leaves matters standing
at the usual indistinct conception of Pantheism; a profounder
discussion of it would have had, for the author’s emotional
Christianity, no direct interest; but we see that personally he is
carried away by remarkable enthusiasm for a mysticism which, in the
ordinary phrase, entirely deserves the epithet Pantheistic. Where,
however, he tries philosophising (p. 12), he does not get beyond the
standpoint of the “rationalist” metaphysic with its uncritical
categories.