These studies in Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, except Chapters III and VIII, claim to be something more than a mere expository paraphrase of Hegel, although following Hegel's argument in Chapter IV. The author's purpose is strictly theological and apologetic. His work is written with faith, and in the interest of "the faith." In fact, in England and America the theological rather than philosophical interest taken in the study of Hegel has mainly been called forth by the supposed intimate relation of his thought to religion and to Christianity regarded as the absolute, full, and final religion. To this pseudo-Hegelian school of England and America, Hegel, above all, is radically a theologian; all his thoughts beginning and ending in that of divinity. It regards Hegel's Philosophy of Religion as the very heart of his thinking, as "the highest bloom of his philosophy." It is supposed to reconcile Christian theology with the modern science of religion (or comparative religion), with anthropology, and with the classification of positive, pre-Christian religions. American students of Hegelian philosophy, as a rule, do not desire to be regarded as Hegelians. "Bound to swear in the name of no master in philosophy, and only in the name of Christ in religion, would better characterise them all. They are simply using his method … they are getting great help, and looking for still greater from the method, which was greater than even Hegel's own employment of it." Hegel's method is thus declared to be greater than himself, and is received like an article of faith. In these studies, while freely discussing and criticising all that Hegel has thought or said upon the subject of the philosophy of religion, the author entirely omits to enter into a critical discussion of precisely the most important point; namely, the absolute value of Hegel's philosophical method. He overlooks the interesting fact, that all that is permanently true and great in Hegel was really reached by Hegel himself, and understood, from a point of view that was diametrically opposed to his own accepted method; in glaring contrast to his evolution of the logical idea, and to his theory of "pure thought" or "reines Denken." "To reconcile reason with religion, by finding reason in religion and religion in reason," is doubtless a correct Hegelian statement, yet, at the same time, it only expresses an exclusive, one-sided aspect of the system.
There was a time when the Hegelian system ranked as a foremost intellectual phenomenon. It was, perhaps, the highest that philosophy ever had achieved; but its manifest fault consisted in its being a purely philosophical and a priori system. A philosophy that existed in external opposition to the sciences remained only an empty abstraction, just as force when severed from the phenomenon, or Deity when opposed to the outside world. Hegel's philosophy ultimately recognised, that force only is or exists in the phenomenon; that the internal itself constitutes the external, the Deity is only present in the universe, the infinite in the finite. Any philosophy proclaiming all this must be said to have succumbed with a vengeance to its own dialectic process.
A philosophy of this kind would seem to have signed its own death-warrant—or according to the popular German saying, "hat selbst den Stab über sich gebrochen!" And thus it really happened to Hegelianism—we mean to genuine German Hegelianism. From that moment it forfeited its claim to be regarded as the highest truth. It was compelled to step forth out of its one-sided exclusiveness, out of its opposition to empirical science. Hegelianism was not expected to effect any kind of compromise or reconciliation with empirical science, because any yielding on its own part would have been illogical, and could only have brought about a momentary truce, but no lasting peace. On the contrary, Hegelianism had to suffer the infinitely bitter pang of self-immolation. It had deliberately to commit suicide, in order thereupon to be welded with empirical science into a much higher and more comprehensive unity. In other words,—in fact in Hegel's own words—"when the old principle thus reappears, it is no longer what it was before, for it is changed and purified by the higher element into which it is now taken up."
The Hegelian system was thus compelled to acknowledge, that not only must philosophy agree with experience, but moreover, the creation of a philosophical science premises as an indispensable condition the hypothesis of an empirical science, which itself implies that the ideas of space, of time, of movement, and of matter cannot be obtained a priori,—that is before the experience of the things themselves,—or be purely evolved, according to the Hegelian method, from the logical idea. To attempt to reconcile reason with religion by finding reason in religion and religion in reason, is simply to evolve a priori a philosophy of religion from the logical idea. This is believed to be possible by means of the mystic factors—"the Hegelian method" and the "Logos." The original contents of eternal reason itself—of the logos—are supposed to exist within our mind in a form that constitutes our inmost truth; our spontaneous logical thinking coincides with the innate eternal reason in form and contents, and thus attains to the full revelation of itself.
But all this is purely an hypothesis, or a kind of belief in reason, "der Glaube an die Vernunft!" Hegel himself in conclusion was forced to admit that philosophy must closely observe the method of nature. (See Encycl. III, 22.) The editor of Hegel's Philosophy of History (Gans, page XV) says, "Hegel did not wish to personate the deity that creates or evolves history, but to be a man who contemplates created rational history"; and Hegel himself says (page 13), "we must take history as it is; we have to proceed according to an historical, empirical method. … Only from the study of history itself are we allowed to infer that historical events are really rational events." And in Hegel's "Naturphilosophie," (page 24,) and elsewhere there are to be found perfectly analogous passages.
It cannot be denied, that the author of this work on Hegel's philosophy of religion has made a deep study of all the vast details of the Hegelian system; but his one-sided theological criticism exclusively aims at representing Hegel himself as a theologian. This American pseudo-Hegelianism may probably have had the effect of stimulating American thinkers, but in other respects it has only retained the phantom and empty shadow of Hegelianism, playing fast and loose with the old system under the captious name of the "Hegelian method," and making a free use of its obscure, obsolete phraseology. The cry "back to Kant" by English Neo-Kantianism, is declared to mean a speedy return to Hegel's method, and to be only the first step of the protest "against temporary, materialistic, and psychological thought."
The last chapter, in the form of an appendix, is devoted to the discussion of "Christian Unity." The author deplores the current abstract conceptions of the church, and regards them as the main obstacle to its visible organic unity. The Hegelian ideas on religion and the state are believed to suggest a more concrete, historical view, and to destroy the abstract conception.
γνλν.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY; OR, LAW IN MIND AS IN MATTER. By Charles
Bray. Third edition, revised and abridged. London and New York:
Longmans, Green, & Co.
This work was originally published in 1841, and comprised an Exposition of the Doctrine of the Philosophy of Necessity, or the Law of Consequences, first, in its relation to Mental Science, secondly, in its relation to Ethics, and thirdly, an application of its principles to the social questions of the day. The third part has been omitted from the present edition, as being out of date, but many of its statistics and observations are given as an Appendix. In a prefatory note it is stated as a reason for preserving in an accessible form the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Bray, that he "worked out for himself a theory as to the purpose of existence that satisfied his own mind, and became to him a cheerful philosophy which intensified his enjoyment of all things good and pleasant, helped him to bear the troubles of life, and to meet the end in a spirit as bright as it was resigned"—a statement which those who knew him personally will heartily endorse.