Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic
Georg Hegel · en
legislator of human reason.
This, it need hardly be added, is the conception of philosophy which
is implicitly the basis of Hegel's use. Let us hear Schelling. 'A
philosophy which in its principle is not already religion is no true
philosophy[2].'
Or again, as to the place of Ethics: 'Morality is Godlike disposition,
an uplifting above the influence of the concrete into the realm of the
utterly universal. Philosophy is a like elevation, and for that reason
intimately one with morality, not through subordination, but through
essential and inner likeness[3].' But, again, it has more than once
been felt that philosophy is kindred with Art. It has been said--not
as a compliment--that philosophy is only a form of gratifying the
aesthetic instincts. Schopenhauer has suggested--as a novelty--that
the true way to philosophy was not by science, but through Art. And
Schelling before him had--while asserting the inner identity of the
two--even gone so far as to assert[4] that 'Art is the sole, true and
eternal organon as well as the ostensible evidence of philosophy.'
Philosophy, therefore, is one of a triad in which the human spirit has
tried to raise itself above its limitations and to become god-like. And
philosophy is the climax; Art the lowest; Religion in the mean. But
this does not mean that Religion supersedes Art, and that Philosophy
supersedes religion; or, if we retain the term 'supersede,' we must add
that the superseded is not left behind and passed aside: it is rather
an integral constituent of what takes its place. Philosophy is true and
adequate only as it has given expression to all that religion had or
aimed at. So, too, Religion is not the destruction of Art: though here
the attitude may often seem to be more obviously negative. A religion
which has no place for art is, again, no true religion. And thus again,
Philosophy becomes a reconciler of Art and Religion: of the visible
ideal and the invisible God. Art, on the other hand, is a foretaste
and a prophecy of religion and philosophy.
But Art, Religion, and Philosophy, again, rest upon, grow out of, and
are the fulfilment of an ethical society-a state of human life where an
ordered commonwealth in outward visibility is animated and sustained by
the spirit of freedom and self-realisation. And that public objective
existence of social humanity in its turn reposes on the will and
intelligence of human beings, of souls which in various relations
of discipline and interaction with their environment have become
free-agents, and have risen to be more than portions of the physical
world, sympathetic with its changes, and become awake to themselves and
their surroundings. Such is the mental or spiritual life as it rises to
full sense of its power, recognises its kindred with the general life,
carries out that kindred in its social organisation, and at length
through the strength social union gives floats boldly in the empyrean
of spiritual life, in art, religion, and philosophy.