But after 1827 this religious appropriation of philosophy becomes more apparent, and in 1829 Hegel seemed deliberately to accept the position of a Christian philosopher which Göschel had marked out for him. 'A philosophy without heart and a faith without intellect,' he remarks[16], 'are abstractions from the true life of knowledge and faith. The man whom philosophy leaves cold, and the man whom real faith does not illuminate may be assured that the fault lies in them, not in knowledge and faith. The former is still an alien to philosophy, the latter an alien to faith.'
This is not the place—in a philological chapter—to discuss the issues involved in the announcement that the truth awaits us ready to hand[17] 'in all genuine consciousness, in all religions and philosophies.' Yet one remark may be offered against hasty interpretations of a 'speculative' identity. If there is a double edge to the proposition that the actual is the reasonable, there is no less caution necessary in approaching and studying from both sides the far-reaching import of that equation to which Joannes Scotus Erigena gave expression ten centuries ago: 'Non alia est philosophia, i.e. sapientiae studium, et alia religio. Quid est aliud de philosophia tractare nisi verae religionis regulas exponere?'
[1] Christian Märklin, cap. 3.
[2] Hegel's Briefe, i. 141.
[3] Ibid. i. 172.
[4] Hegel's Briefe, i. 138.
[5] Ibid. i. 339.
[6] Hegel's Briefe, i. 328.