As to the points of resemblance between this system, and the states-constitution, both have legislative assemblies—in both, petitions and remonstrances are addressed to the throne, and in both, the grant of subsidies rests chiefly with the commons; while to the enactment of every law, the concurrence of the different branches of the legislature is essentially requisite. But, in many important points, these two forms of government totally differ. In the states-constitution, the crown is invested with more power and dignity. With more dignity, because to the crown landed estates are annexed; and the sovereign, instead of being a pensioner on the bounty of his parliament, is the first independent proprietor:—with more power, because in the representative system, the King, with the single exception of choosing an administration, can perform no act without the sanction of his ministers. Thus in this political system, according to the author's remark, the substantial power of royalty is vested in the hands of the ministry.
The next point of difference is that the representative system, particularly in England, rests too exclusively on the material basis of property; and that intelligence is there deprived of an adequate share in the national representation.[16] In the states-constitution, where the clerical and scientific classes form a separate estate, or distinct branch of the legislature, intelligence is invested with all the dignity and glory which human society can confer. The clergy, who are the representatives of revealed faith, or the fixed and immutable part of intelligence, correspond to the aristocracy, or the representatives of fixed property—while the scientific class, representing science, or the variable and progressive part of intelligence, corresponds to the Commons, the representatives of moveable property. Hence, Francis Baader has ingeniously called the clergy the Upper House of intelligence, and the scientific class, the Lower House.[17]
The last point of difference is that, while in many of the modern representative systems, municipal corporations are despised and rejected, they form the very key-stone of the states-constitution. The Revolutionists, who have had so prominent a share in the formation of these representative governments, know full well that municipal corporations form the best security of the rights of the family—the firmest ramparts of popular freedom. They are thus objects of peculiar hatred to men who, so far from wishing the commonalty to obtain stability or cohesion in their constitution, are desirous they should ever remain a loose, shifting mass of disunited atoms, ready to receive any form or impress which despotism may impose. Hence the war which at different times, and in different countries, regal or democratic tyranny has waged against these admirable institutions. In the English constitution, on the other hand, which has preserved so many elements of the old Christian monarchy, the free, municipal institutions have been carefully maintained. "The true internal strength and greatness of England, (says Schlegel) consist, as is now almost universally admitted by profound political observers, far more in the vigour and freedom of municipal corporations, better preserved in that country than elsewhere, than in her admired political constitution itself."[18] Defective as many parts of that constitution appeared to the author, yet on the whole, he highly valued the vigorously constituted, but temperate and mitigated, aristocracy of 1688. He knew that the remnants of the old Christian constitution were better preserved there than in any of the great continental monarchies:[19] that the British government possessed elements of stability as well as of freedom, to which those monarchies, in their existing degeneracy, could in vain pretend; and that the very peculiarities in the British constitution, to which he most strongly objected, had their origin in local circumstances, deep-rooted wants, and remote historical events. That extreme jealousy of regal power which that constitution betrays—that undue preponderance of property over intelligence—that political predominance of the aristocracy, which, though rendered necessary by the excessive depression of royalty and of the clergy, was certainly calculated to impede the organic development of the democracy, and thereby to expose the body politic to dangerous revulsions—in fine, that fierce collision of parties, which that constitution nurses and encourages—all reveal the fearful struggles by which it came into life. The imitation of this constitution which, by bringing back to the European nations the reminiscence of their ancient freedom, has naturally excited their enthusiastic admiration—the imitation of that constitution, I say, difficult at all times, has been rendered in some countries utterly impracticable by the studious rejection of two of the great hinges on which, for a hundred and fifty years, it has turned—I mean the predominance of the aristocracy on the one hand, and the free, municipal organization of the commonalty on the other. In many of the German states, as the author observes, the representative system works well; because the legislators have had the wisdom to connect the new with anterior institutions.
On the whole, what has been said of the Gothic architecture, may be applied to the old Christian monarchy—it was never brought to perfection. That lofty ideal of government, which Christianity had traced to the nations of the middle age—that admirable constitution, which was a partial reflection of the constitution of the church itself, and wherein were blended and united the principles of love and intelligence, stability and activity—in other words, where a paternal royalty, an enlightened priesthood, a mild aristocracy, a loyal, yet free-spirited, commonalty controlled, aided, balanced, and defended each other—that lofty ideal has never been—probably never will be—fully realized. Yet there are many reasons to suppose that a momentous, and not very distant, futurity will be charged with realizing, as far as human infirmity will permit, this ideal conception of the Christian state.
Such is an outline of the principal features in Schlegel's political system—a system which I have endeavoured, as far as my feeble powers permitted, to explain, illustrate, and enforce.
But while in the East of Germany, this great luminary and his satellite were shedding their mild radiance of political wisdom, a star of the first magnitude rose above the Western horizon of Germany, and filled the surrounding heaven with the splendour of its light. The illustrious Goerres, already celebrated for his profound researches in archæology, and many admirable political writings, published in 1819 his work, entitled "Germany and the Revolution," which produced so extraordinary a sensation, and was at the time so ably translated by Mr. Black. This work was followed in 1821 by that writer's still more wonderful production, entitled "Europe and the Revolution," a production which in the soundness of its doctrines—the generosity of its sentiments—the depth and comprehensiveness of its views—and the copiousness and variety of historical illustration brought forward in their support—surpasses perhaps all the mighty works in defence of social order and liberty which the momentous events of the last fifty years have called forth in different parts of Europe. With a few slight shades of difference, the political views of Goerres mainly accord with those of Schlegel; but, living under the free government of Bavaria, the former is able boldly to proclaim truths which the latter at Vienna was able only to hint. Goerres unites the strong, practical sense of Gentz—the masterly learning and profound and comprehensive understanding of F. Schlegel—to great boldness of character, and a style of peculiar force and condensation. While the political glance of Schlegel was mostly directed towards the past—that of Gentz to the present hour—the eye of Goerres is turned more particularly to the future. Had the counsels of this illustrious man been more generally followed, the perilous crisis, in which for the last five years Germany has been involved, would have been happily averted, or at least better provided against. Himself and Schlegel may be considered as the supreme oracles of that illustrious school of liberal Conservatives, founded by our great Burke, and which numbers besides the eminent Germans, whose names have already been mentioned, a Baron de Haller in Switzerland—a Viscount de Bonald in France[20]—a Count Henri de Merode in Belgium—and a Count Maistre in Piedmont: men whose writings contain, in a greater or less degree, the seeds of the future political regeneration of Europe.
While engaged in the editorship of the Concordia, Schlegel gave a new edition of his works with considerable improvements and augmentations. Actively as his time had been employed, a long period had now elapsed since he had given any great production to the world; and he was now preparing those immortal works, which were to shed so bright an effulgence round the close of his life. In the rapid review which has been here taken of his critical, philological and historical writings, nothing has been said of his philosophical pursuits; and yet philosophy was his darling study—philosophy, which the ancients called "the science of divine and human things," was alone capable of filling the vast capacity of Schlegel's mind. At the age of nineteen, he had already read all the works of Plato in their original tongue; and six-and-thirty years afterwards, he expressed a vivid recollection of the delight and enthusiasm which the perusal had excited in his youthful mind. In 1800, he commenced his philosophical career at the University of Jena before an admiring audience; we have already seen him at Paris, amid his philological labours, devoting a portion of his time to the cultivation of philosophy; and, amid all the struggles and occupations of his subsequent life, he would ever and anon snatch some moment to pay his homage to this celestial maid—this mistress of his heart—this object of his earliest enthusiasm and latest worship.
A very distinguished friend and disciple of Schlegel's, the Baron d'Eckstein asserts that, towards the close of the last century, a confederacy was formed among some men of the most superior minds for the regeneration of natural science—for the revival of the lofty physics of remote antiquity, when nature was regarded only as the splendid and almost transparent veil of the spiritual world. The members of this intellectual association were Schelling, the two Schlegels, the poet Tirek, Novalis, and the celebrated geographer Ritter. This confederacy was dissolved, when the pantheistical tendency of Schelling's philosophy became more apparent; and Frederick Schlegel, in particular, became afterwards the most strenuous and formidable opponent of a philosophic system which appeared to him, and rightly enough, only a more subtle and refined Spinozism. On the true nature of this philosophy, however, opinion was much divided; many religious men among the Protestants ranged themselves under its banners; even some of the Orthodox entered into terms of accommodation with it; and the great Catholic theologian, Zimmer, thought that, by means of this system, he could obtain a clearer conception of the great Christian mystery of the Trinity. Enormous as may be the errors contained in this philosophy, yet, as few philosophic systems are entirely erroneous, the philosophy of Schelling, which appears to have undergone a purification in its course, has been attended with some beneficial results. It has led to a more profound and spiritual knowledge of nature—it has been, to many, a point of transition from the materialism and rationalism of the eighteenth century to the Christian Religion—and, indeed, this effect it has had on its illustrious founder himself, who has for some years returned to the bosom of Christianity, and who probably will be remembered by posterity more for his recent labours as a profound Christian naturalist, than for the pantheistic reveries of his youth.[21]
Schlegel's earlier philosophical, as well as historical, works are no longer to be met with, and have not yet been re-published. In the Concordia for 1820, we find an outline of those lectures on the Philosophy of life, which the author delivered at Vienna, in the year 1827. This work immediately preceded the one to which this memoir is prefixed; and, as it embodies those general philosophical principles, of which in the latter an application is made to history, a rapid analysis of its doctrines, particularly in the psychological and ontological parts, will be useful, nay, almost necessary, to the elucidation of many passages in the following translation. But how can I attempt the analysis of a work where the arrangement of a formal, didactic discussion is studiously avoided—where the author pours forth his thoughts with all the freedom of conversation—high, spiritual conversation—- where such is the exuberant fulness of his ideas, such the shadowy subtilty of his perceptions, that even the German language, copious and philosophical as it is, seems at times inadequate to their expression. Long as Germany had been habituated to the genius of Schlegel, she herself seems to have been startled by the appearance of a work where the boldest, the most unlooked for, the sublimest vistas of philosophy were opened to her astonished view.