[15] In a number of the Concordia for 1820, Adam Müller frankly declared his opinion, that all the friends of social order would soon concur in the necessity of re-establishing the constitution of the three estates. This is language which at Vienna is as bold as it is auspicious.
[16] Those political changes which since Schlegel's death have occurred in the British constitution, while they have deprived property of much of its legitimate influence, have caused intelligence to be even less represented than heretofore in the legislature.
[17] Philosophische Schriften. vol. ii.
[18] See Concordia, page 66.
[19] According to the just remark of Burke, the states-constitution was in latter ages, better preserved in the Republics than in the monarchies of Europe.—See his letters on a regicide peace.
[20] Among these great conservatives, M. de Bonald is the only one who can be regarded as favourable to Absolutism. As long as this great writer deals in general propositions, he seldom errs; but when he comes to apply his principles to practice, then the political prejudices in which he was bred, and which a too limited course of reading has failed to correct—lead him sometimes into exaggerations and errors. On the whole he is as inferior to Burke as a publicist, as he is superior to him as a metaphysician.
[21] This view of the matter is confirmed by the high authority of the great Catholic philosopher—Molitor. Speaking of Schelling and his disciples, he says, (in the words of his recent French translator,) Quoique leurs premier ouvrages ne respirent pas encore entierement l'esprit pur et véritable, mais soient entachés plus ou moins de panthéisme ou de naturalisme, comme cela etoit presque necessaire à une époque encore si profondément enfoncée dans l'incrédulité et l'orgueil, cependant leurs principes ont eveillé l'esprit religieux, et donné une base plus profonde aux verités de cet ordre. C'est dans ce sens qu'on a retravaillé toutes les sciences, et l'on peut dire que ces hommes ont plus contribué á conduire vers la religion, que cette multitude de compendium dogmatiques du siecle dernier. He then adds, "Ou peut se faire une idée de la direction religieuse de la physique par les écrits de Steffens, Schubert, Pfaff, et Baader. Cet esprit conduira encore á de plus grands resultats; et bientot de nouvelles découvertes faites au ciel etoilé, sur la terre et dans son interieur, aussi bien que dans l'organisme, affermiront et mettront dans une nouvelle lumière ces hautes verités connues des anciens, mais que le sens stupide des modernes rejetait comme des songes et des superstitions." p.p. 165-6. Philosophie de la Tradition, traduite de l'Allemand. Paris. 1834.
[22] Philosophie der Sprache, p. 118-19.
[23] Ibid. p. 121.
[24] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 142. N.B. I have somewhat abridged the author's words.