"That planetary world of sense, and the soul of the earth imprisoned therein, is only apparently dead. Nature only sleeps, and may again be awakened: and sleep is, if not the essence, yet a characteristic mark of Nature. Every thing in Nature hath this quality of sleep; not the animals merely, but the plants also sleep; and in the course of the seasons on the surface of the globe, there is a constant alternation between waking and slumber." ... "That soul, he continues, which slumbers under the prodigious tomb-stone of outward nature—a soul, which is not alien, but half akin to us—is divided between the troubled, painful reminiscence of eternal death, in which it originated—and the bright flowers of celestial Hope, which grow on the borders of that dark abyss. For this earthly Nature, as Holy Writ saith, is indeed subjected to nothingness—yet without its will, and without its fault: so it looks forward in expectation of Him who hath so subjected it—it looks forward in the hope that it may one day be free—one day have a share in the general resurrection and consummate revelation of God's glory; and for this last great day of future creation Nature anxiously sighs, and yearns from her inmost soul."[29]
I will now wind up this analysis with the following passage, in which the distinctive peculiarities of the different parts of ontology are shortly stated: "The distinctive characteristic of nature is sleep, or the struggle between life and death; the distinctive characteristic of man is imagination (for reason is a more negative faculty); the distinctive characteristic of the intelligences superior to man is restless, eternal activity, implanted in the very constitution of their being; and the distinctive characteristic of the Deity, in relation to his creatures, is infinite condescension."
Such is a brief summary of some of the principal observations in the psychological and ontological parts of the Philosophy of Life. And in this summary it has been my intention not so much to give an analysis of those parts, as to convey to the reader a clue for the better understanding of many passages in the work I have translated. The remaining parts of the "Philosophy of Life" are devoted to a variety of ethical, political, and æsthetic reflections, which it is unnecessary to enter into here.
Scarce had Germany recovered from the enthusiasm which this work, (the Philosophy of Life) excited; when its illustrious author delivered, in the year 1828, the following course of Lectures on the "Philosophy of History," which are now presented to the reader in an English garb. Defective as may be the medium through which the English reader becomes acquainted with this work, he will be enabled to form on it a more impartial, as well as more enlightened, judgment than any the translator could pronounce; and he will, therefore, only venture to observe that it has been considered in every respect worthy of its author's high reputation.
Towards the close of the year 1828, Schlegel repaired to Dresden; and that city, where the torch of his early enthusiasm had been first kindled, was now to witness its final extinction. He delivered in this city, before a numerous and distinguished auditory, nine lectures on the "Philosophy of Language," (Philosophie der Sprache), wherein he developed and expanded those philosophical views already laid down in his "Philosophy of Life." This work is even more metaphysical than the one last named—with untiring wing, the author here sustains his flight through the sublimest regions of philosophy. This production displays at times a gigantic vastness of conception which almost appals—we might almost say, that this mighty intelligence had in his ardent aspirations after Immortality, burst his earthly fetters—or that Divine Providence, judging a degenerate world unworthy of hearing such sublime accents, had called him to continue his hymn in eternity. On Sunday, the 11th of January, 1829, he was, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, preparing a lecture, which he was to deliver on the following Wednesday. He had in his former lectures spoken of Time and Eternity—he had called Time a distraction of Eternity—he had adverted to those ecstacies of great Saints, which he called transitions to Eternity. He was now in this lecture discoursing of the different degrees of knowledge attainable by man—of the perception—the notion—and the idea. He began a sentence with these remarkable words:—"Das ganz vollendete und vollkommne verstehen selbst aber"—"But the consummate and the perfect knowledge"—when the hand of sickness arrested his pen. That consummate and perfect knowledge he himself was now destined to attain in another and a better world; for, at one o'clock on the same night, he breathed out his pure and harmonious soul to heaven.
His death, though sudden, was not unprovided. He had ever lived up to his faith—through his writings there runs an under-current of calm, unostentatious piety; and I know no writer more deeply impressed with a sense of the loving agency of Providence. A gentleman, well acquainted with some of his most intimate friends, has assured me that, for some time prior to his death, he had prosecuted his devotional exercises with more than ordinary fervour; and that on the morning of that Sunday on which his last illness seized him, he had been united to his Lord in the Holy Communion—a presage and an earnest, let us hope, of that intimate union he was destined to enjoy in the long and cloudless day of Eternity!
The melancholy news of his death, when conveyed to his distinguished friend—Adam Müller, then at Vienna, gave such a violent shock to his feelings, that it brought on a stroke of apoplexy, which terminated his existence. A chain of the most exalted sympathies had united those souls in life—what marvel if the electric stroke, which prostrated the one should have laid low the other!
Frederick Schlegel married early in life the daughter of the celebrated Jewish philosopher Mendelsohn. This lady followed her husband in his change of religion. Mrs. Schlegel is one of the most intellectual women in Germany—she is advantageously known to the literary world by her German translation of Madame de Stael's Corinne; and report has ascribed to her elegant pen several of the poems in her husband's collection.[30]