Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic
Georg Hegel · en
'There seem to be one or two motives acting upon Jacobi. The 'plain
man,' especially if he be of high character and of 'noble' religiosity,
has a feeling that the lust of philosophising disturbs the security of
life, and endangers things which are deservedly dear to him. In such
an one the 'enthusiasm of logic'--the calm pursuit of truth at all
costs, so characteristic of Lessing--is inferior to the 'enthusiasm
of life,'--a passion in which the terrestrial and the celestial are
inextricably blended, where one clings to God as the stronghold of
self, and sets personality--our human personality--in the throne of
the Eternal. He will be all that is noble and good, if only he be not
asked utterly to surrender self. So, too, Jacobi's God--or Absolute
(for he leaves his 'non-philosophy' so far as to use both names), is
rather the final aim of a grand, overpowering yearning, than a calm,
self-centred, self-expanding life which carries man along with it.
It would be, he feels, so very terrible, if at the last there were
no God to meet us--to find the throne of the universe vacant. Avaunt
philosophy, therefore! Let us cling to the faith of our nature and our
childhood, and refuse her treacherous consolations! With the central
proposition of Jacobi, Hegel, for one, is not inclined to quarrel. He
too, as he asks and answers the question as to the issues of this and
of the better life, might say
'Question, answer presuppose
Two points: that the thing itself which questions, answers,--_is,_ it
knows;
As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself--a force
Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its course,
Unaffected by its end,--that this thing likewise needs must be;
Call this--God, then, call that--Soul, and both the only facts for me.
Prove them facts? that they o'erpass my power of proving proves
them such:
Fact it is, I know, I know not something which is fact as much.'
But when Jacobi goes on to say that it is the supreme and final duty
of the true sage 'to unveil reality,'--meaning thereby that, given the
feeling, he has only to
'Define it well
For fear divine Philosophy
Should push beyond her mark and be
Procuress to the Lords of Hell,'