But I am now approaching a passage in the life of Schlegel, which will be viewed in a different light according to the different feelings and convictions of my readers. By some his conduct will be considered a blameable apostacy from the faith of his fathers—by others, a generous sacrifice of early prejudices on the altar of truth. To disguise my own approbation of his conduct, would be to do violence to my feelings, and wrong to my principles; but to enter into a justification of his motives, would be to engage in a polemical discussion, most unseemly in an introduction to a work which is perfectly foreign to inquiries of that nature. I shall therefore confine myself to a brief statement of facts: noticing at the same time, the intellectual condition of the two great religious parties of Germany, immediately prior and subsequent to Schlegel's change of religion.
It was on his return from France in the year 1805, and in the ancient city of Cologne, that the subject of this memoir was received into the bosom of the Catholic church. There—in that venerable city, which was so often honoured by the abode of the great founder of Christendom—Charlemagne—which abounds with so many monuments of the arts, the learning, the opulence and political greatness of the middle age—where the great Christian Aristotle of the thirteenth century—Aquinas—had passed the first years of his academic course—there, in that venerable minster, too, one of the proudest monuments of Gothic architecture—was solemnized in the person of this illustrious man, the alliance between the ancient faith and modern science of Germany—an alliance that has been productive of such important consequences, and is yet pregnant with mightier results.
The purity of the motives which directed Schlegel in this, the most important act of his life, few would be ignorant or shameless enough to impeach. His station—his character—his virtues—all suffice to repel the very suspicion of unworthy motives; and the least reflection will shew, that while in a country circumstanced like Germany, his change of religion could not procure for him greater honours and emoluments than under any circumstances, his genius would be certain to command; that change would too surely expose him to obloquy, misrepresentation, and calumny—and what to a heart so sensitive as his, must have been still more painful—the alienation, perhaps, of esteemed friends. Had he remained a Protestant, he would instead of engaging in the service of Austria, have in all probability taken to that of Prussia, and there doubtless have received the same honours and distinctions which have been so deservedly bestowed on his illustrious brother. We may suppose, also, that a man of his mind and character, would not on slight and frivolous grounds, have taken a step so important; nor in a matter so momentous, have come to a decision, without a full and anxious investigation. In fact, his theological learning was extensive—he was well-read in the ancient fathers—the schoolmen of the middle age, and the more eminent modern divines; and though I am not aware that he has devoted any special treatise to theology, yet the remarks scattered through his works, whether on Biblical exegesis, or dogmatic divinity, are so pregnant, original and profound, that we plainly see it was in his power to have given to the world a "systema theologicum," no less masterly than that of his great predecessor—Leibnitz. The works of the early Greek fathers, indeed, he appears to have made a special object of scientific research, well knowing what golden grains of philosophy may be picked up in that sacred stream. The conversion of Schlegel was hailed with enthusiasm by the Catholics of Germany. This event occurred indeed, at a moment equally opportune to himself and to the Catholic body. To himself—for though his noble mind would never have run a-ground amid the miserable shallows of Rationalism, yet had it not then taken refuge in the secure haven of Catholicism, it might have been sucked down in the rapid eddies of Pantheism. To the Catholic body in Germany, this event was no less opportune; and for the reasons that shall now be stated.
Germany, which in the middle age had produced so many distinguished poets, artists, and philosophers, was, at the Reformation, shorn of much of her intellectual strength. In the disastrous thirty years' war, which that event brought about, she saw her universities robbed of their most distinguished ornaments, and the lights, which ought to have adorned her at home, shedding their lustre on foreign lands. The general languor and exhaustion of the German mind, consequent on that fearful and convulsive struggle, was apparent enough in the literature of the age, which ensued after the treaty of Westphalia. To these causes, which produced this general declension of German intellect, must be added one which specially applies to the Catholic portion of Germany.
Every great abuse of human reason, by a natural revulsion of feeling, inspires a certain dread and distrust of its powers. This has been more than once exemplified in the history of the church. So, at this momentous period, some of the German Catholic powers sought in obscurantism, a refuge and security against religious and political innovations, and denied to science that encouragement which she had a right to look for at their hands:—a policy as infatuated as it is culpable, for, while ignorance draws down contempt and disgrace on religion, it begets in its turn, as a melancholy experience has proved, those very errors and that very unbelief, against which it was designed as a protection.
Had the court of Austria acceded to the proposal of Leibnitz for establishing at Vienna that academy of sciences which he afterwards succeeded in founding at Berlin, the glory of that great resuscitation of the German mind, which occurred in the middle of the eighteenth century, would have then probably redounded to Catholic, rather than to Protestant, Germany. But the German Catholics, though they started later in the career of intellectual improvement, have at length reached, and even outstripped, their Protestant brethren in the race.
Three or four years before Schlegel embraced the Catholic faith, the signal for a return to the ancient church was given by the illustrious Count Stolberg. The religious impulse, which this great man imparted to German literature, was simultaneous with that Christian regeneration of philosophy, commenced in France by the Viscount de Bonald. And these two illustrious men, in the noble career which five and thirty years' ago they opened in their respective countries, have been followed by a series of gigantic intellects, who have restored the empire of faith, regenerated art and science, and renovated, if I may so speak, the human mind itself.[3]
Forty years' ago, the Catholics of Germany, as I said, were in a state of the most humiliating intellectual inferiority to their Protestant brethren—they could point to few writers of eminence in their own body—Protestantism was the lord of the ascendant in every department of German letters:—and yet so well have the Catholics employed the intervening time, they now furnish the most valuable portion of a literature, in many respects the most valuable in Europe. In every branch of knowledge, they can now shew writers of the highest order. To name but a few of the most distinguished, they have produced the two greatest Biblical critics of the age—Hug and Scholz—profound Biblical exegetists, like Alber, Ackermann, and, recently, Molitor, who has created a new era not only in Biblical literature, but in the Philosophy of History—divines, like Wiest, Dobmayer, Schwarz, Zimmer, Brenner, Liebermann, and Moehler, distinguished as they are for various and extensive learning, and understandings as comprehensive as they are acute—an ecclesiastical historian pre-eminent for genius, erudition, and celestial suavity, like Count Stolberg—philosophic archaiologists, like Hammer and Schlosser—admirable publicists, like Gentz, Adam Müller, and the Swiss Haller—and two philosophers, possessed of vast acquirements and colossal intellects, like Goerres, and the subject of this memoir. In Germany and elsewhere, Catholic genius seems only to have slumbered during the eighteenth century, in order to astonish the world by a new and extraordinary display of strength. It is undoubtedly true that several of the above-named individuals originally belonged to the Protestant church—and that that church should have given birth to men of such exalted genius, refined sensibility, and moral worth, is a circumstance which furnishes our Protestant brethren with additional claims to our love and respect. We hail these first proselytes as the pledges of a more general, and surely not a very distant, re-union.
The vigorous graft of talent, which the Catholic thus received from the Protestant community, was imparted to a stock, where the powers of vegetation, long dormant, began now to revive with renovated strength. The old Catholics zealously co-operated with the new in the regeneration of all the sciences—and the effects of their joint labours have been apparent, not only in the transcendent excellence of individual productions, but in the new life and energy infused into the learned corporations—the universities as well as the institutes of science. The mixed universities, like those of Bonn, Freyburg, and others, are in a great degree supported by Catholic talent; and the great Catholic University of Munich, which the present excellent King of Bavaria founded in 1826, already by the celebrity of its professors, the number of its scholars, and the admirable direction of the studies, bids fair to rival the most celebrated Universities in Germany.[4]
Gratifying as it must have been to Schlegel to see by how many distinguished spirits his example had been followed, and to witness the rapid literary improvement of that community in Germany to which he had now united himself, he could not expect to escape those crosses and contradictions which are, in this world, the heritage of the just. The rancorous invectives which the fanatic Rationalist—Voss, had never ceased to pour out on his own early friend and benefactor—the heavenly-minded Stolberg, excited the contempt and disgust of every well-constituted mind in the Protestant community. This Cerberus of Rationalism opened his deep-mouthed cry on Schlegel also, as he set his foot on the threshold of the Catholic church. In this instance, the religious bigotry of Voss was inflamed and exasperated by literary jealousy. By his criticisms, and masterly translation of Homer and other Greek poets, this highly gifted man had not only rendered imperishable service to German literature, but had contributed to infuse a new life into the study of classical antiquity. Jealous, therefore of his Greeks, whom he worshipped with a sort of exclusive idolatry, he looked with distrust and aversion on every attempt to introduce the orientals to the literary notice of the Germans. He ran down Asiatic literature of every age and nation with the most indiscriminate and unsparing violence—denounced the intentions of its admirers as evil and sinister; and, in allusion to the noble use which Stolberg, Schlegel, and others had made of their oriental learning in support of Christianity, petulantly exclaimed on one occasion, "The Brahmins have leagued with the Jesuits, in order to subvert the Protestant, or (as we should translate that word in this country) the Rationalist religion."