They sit and smile at. Hear how I salute ’em.
Lowestoffe. Did you not say yesterday, Atherton, that Eckart’s system had received high praise from Hegel?
Atherton. Oh yes, he calls it ‘a genuine and profound philosophy.’ Indeed the points of resemblance are very striking, and, setting aside for the moment some redeeming expressions and the more religious spirit of the man, Eckart’s theosophy is a remarkable anticipation of modern German idealism. That abstract ground of Godhead Eckart talks about, answers exactly to Hegel’s Logische Idee. The Trinity of process, the incarnation ever renewing itself in men, the resolution of redemption almost to a divine self-development, constitute strong features of family likeness between the Dominican and both Hegel and Fichte.[[94]]
Gower. One may fancy that while Hegel was teaching at Heidelberg it must have fared with poor Eckart as with the dead huntsman in the Danish ballad, while a usurper was hunting with his hounds over his patrimony,—
With my dogs so good,
He hunteth the wild deer in the wood;
And with every deer he slays on the mould,
He wakens me up in the grave so cold.
Atherton. Nay, if we come to fancying, let us call in Pythagoras at once, and say that the soul of Eckart transmigrated into Hegel.
Gower. With all my heart. The Portuguese have a superstition according to which the soul of a man who has died, leaving some duty unfulfilled or promised work unfinished, is frequently known to enter into another person, and dislodging for a time the rightful soul-occupant, impel him unconsciously to complete what was lacking. On a dreamy summer day like this, we can imagine Hegel in like manner possessed by Eckart in order to systematize his half-developed ideas.