A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson
1785. The Letters purport to be written by one of the Moroccan embassy
1953 words | Chapter 424
at Vienna in 1783.
[1403] Briefe, xxi.
[1404] P. 49.
[1405] P. 232.
[1406] Das zum Theil einzige wahre System der christlichen Religion. It
had been composed in its author's youth under the title False
Reasonings of the Christian Religion; and the MS. was lost through
the bankruptcy of a Dutch publisher.
[1407] Noack, Th. III, Kap. 9, p. 194.
[1408] Mauvillon further collaborated with Mirabeau, and became a
great admirer of the French Revolution. He left freethinking writings
among his remains. They are not described by Noack, and I have been
unable to meet with them.
[1409] It was a test of the depth of the freethinking spirit in
the men of the day. Semler justified the edict; Bahrdt vehemently
denounced it. Hagenbach, i, 372.
[1410] Cp. Crabb Robinson's Diary, iii, 48; Martineau, Study of
Spinoza, p. 328; Willis, Spinoza, pp. 162-68. Bishop Hurst laments
(Hist. of Rationalism, 3rd ed. p. 145) that Herder's early views as
to the mission of Christ "were, in common with many other evangelical
views, doomed to an unhappy obscuration upon the advance of his later
years by frequent intercourse with more skeptical minds."
[1411] On the clerical opposition to him at Weimar on this score see
Düntzer, Life of Goethe, Eng. tr. 1883, i, 317.
[1412] Cp. Kronenberg, Herder's Philosophie nach ihrem
Entwickelungsgang, 1889.
[1413] Kronenberg, p. 90.
[1414] Stuckenberg, Life of Immanuel Kant, 1882, pp. 381-87;
Kronenberg, Herder's Philosophie, pp. 91, 103.
[1415] Kahnis, p. 78, and Erdmann, as there cited. Erdmann finds the
pantheism of Herder to be, not Spinozistic as he supposed, but akin
to that of Bruno and his Italian successors.
[1416] The chief sample passages in his works are the poem Das
Göttliche and the speech of Faust in reply to Gretchen in the garden
scene. It was the surmised pantheism of Goethe's poem Prometheus that,
according to Jacobi, drew from Lessing his avowal of a pantheistic
leaning. The poem has even an atheistic ring; but we have Goethe's
own account of the influence of Spinoza on him from his youth onwards
(Wahrheit und Dichtung, Th. III, B. xiv; Th. IV, B. xvi). See also
his remarks on the "natural" religion of "conviction" or rational
inference, and that of "faith" (Glaube) or revelationism, in B. iv
(Werke, ed. 1866, xi, 134); also Kestner's account of his opinions
at twenty-three, in Düntzer's Life, Eng. tr. i, 185; and again his
letter to Jacobi, January 6, 1813, quoted by Düntzer, ii, 290.
[1417] See the Alt-Testamentliches Appendix to the West-Oestlicher
Divan.
[1418] Heine, Zur Gesch. der Rel. u. Phil. in Deutschland (Werke,
ed. 1876, iii, 92).
[1419] Wahrheit und Dichtung, Th. I, B. iv (Werke, ed. 1886, xi, 123).
[1420] Id. Th. III, B. xiv, par. 20 (Werke, xii, 159).
[1421] Id. pp. 165, 186.
[1422] Id. p. 184.
[1423] Cited by Baur, Gesch. der christl. Kirche, v, 50.
[1424] Compare, as to the hostility he aroused, Düntzer, i, 152, 317,
329-30, 451; ii, 291 note, 455, 461; Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe,
März 6, 1830; and Heine, last cit. p. 93.
[1425] Eckermann, März 11, 1832.
[1426] Id. Feb. 4, 1829.
[1427] Hurst, Hist. of Rationalism, 3rd ed. p. 150.
[1428] Wahrheit und Dichtung, Th. III, B. viii; Werke, xi, 334.
[1429] Cp., however, the estimate of Krause, above, p. 207. Virchow,
Göthe als Naturforscher, 1861, goes into detail on the biological
points, without reaching any general estimate.
[1430] Remarked by Hagenbach, tr. p. 238.
[1431] Letter to Goethe, August 17, 1795 (Briefwechsel, No. 87). The
passage is given in Carlyle's essay on Schiller.
[1432] In Die Sendung Moses.
[1433] See the Philosophische Briefe.
[1434] Carlyle translates, "No Rights of Man," which was probably
the idea.
[1435] Letter to Goethe, July 9, 1796 (Briefwechsel, No. 188). "It is
evident that he was estranged not only from the church but from the
fundamental truths of Christianity" (Rev. W. Baur, Religious Life of
Germany, Eng. tr. 1872, p. 22). F. C. Baur has a curious page in which
he seeks to show that, though Schiller and Goethe cannot be called
Christian in a natural sense, the age was not made un-Christian by them
to such an extent as is commonly supposed (Gesch. der christl. Kirche,
v, 46).
[1436] Cp. Tieftrunk, as cited by Stuckenberg, Life of Immanuel Kant,
p. 225.
[1437] Id. p. 376. In his early essay Träume eines Geistersehers,
erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (1766) this attitude is clear. It
ends with an admiring quotation from Voltaire's Candide.
[1438] Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? in the Berliner
Monatschrift, Dec. 1784, rep. in Kant's Vorzügliche kleine Schriften,
1833, Bd. i.
[1439] For an able argument vindicating the unity of Kant's system,
however, see Prof. Adamson, The Philosophy of Kant, 1879, p. 21 sq.,
as against Lange. With the verdict in the text compare that of Heine,
Zur Gesch. der Relig. u. Philos. in Deutschland, B. iii (Werke, as
cited, iii, 81-82); that of Prof. G. Santayana, The Life of Reason,
vol. i, 1905, p. 94 sq.; and that of Prof. A. Seth Pringle-Pattison,
The Philosophy of Religion in Kant and Hegel, rep. in vol. entitled
The Philosophical Radicals and Other Essays, 1907, pp. 264, 266.
[1440] Stuckenberg, pp. 225, 332.
[1441] Cp. Haym, Herder nach seinem Leben ... dargestellt, 1877, i,
33, 48; Kronenberg, Herder's Philosophie, p. 10.
[1442] Cp. Hagenbach, Eng. tr. p. 223.
[1443] Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Stück iii,
Abth. i, § 5; Abth. ii (ed. 1793, pp. 145-46, 188-89).
[1444] Work cited, Stück ii, Abschn. ii, Allg. Anm. p. 108 sq.
[1445] E.g. Stück iv, Th. i, preamble (p. 221, ed. cited).
[1446] Id. Stück iii, Abth. ii, Allg. Anm.: "This belief," he avows
frankly enough, "involves no mystery" (p. 199). In a note to the
second edition he suggests that there must be a basis in reason for the
idea of a Trinity, found as it is among so many ancient and primitive
peoples. The speculation is in itself evasive, for he does not give
the slightest reason for thinking the Goths capable of such metaphysic.
[1447] Stück iii, Abth. i, § 5; pp. 137, 139.
[1448] Stück iii, Abth. ii, p. 178.
[1449] Kant explicitly concurs in Warburton's thesis that the Jewish
lawgiver purposely omitted all mention of a future state from the
Pentateuch; since such belief must be supposed to have been current
in Jewry. But he goes further, and pronounces that simple Judaism
contains "absolutely no religious belief." To this complexion can
philosophic compromise come.
[1450] Stuckenberg, Life of Immanuel Kant, p. 329.
[1451] Borowski, Darstellung des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel Kant's,
1804, cited by Stuckenberg, p. 357.
[1452] Stuckenberg, pp. 359-60.
[1453] Stuckenberg, p. 361.
[1454] Cp. F. C. Baur, Gesch. der christl. Kirche, v, 63-66.
[1455] The first, on "Radical Evils," appeared in a Berlin monthly
in April, 1792, and was then reprinted separately.
[1456] Stuckenberg, p. 361.
[1457] Ueberweg, ii, 141; Stuckenberg, p. 363.
[1458] Stuckenberg, pp. 304-309.
[1459] Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Stück iv,
Th. 2.
[1460] Cp. Stuckenberg, p. 332; Seth Pringle-Pattison, as cited.
[1461] Stuckenberg, pp. 340, 346, 354, 468.
[1462] Letter of May 22, 1799, reproduced by Heine.
[1463] Zur Gesch. der Rel. u. Philos. in Deutschland. Werke, as cited,
iii, 96, 98.
[1464] Stuckenberg, p. 311.
[1465] Id. p. 357.
[1466] Stuckenberg, p. 351. "It is only necessary," adds Stuckenberg
(p. 468, note 142), "to develop Kant's hints in order to get the
views of Strauss in his Leben Jesu."
[1467] Id. p. 375. Erhard stated that Pestalozzi shared his views on
Christian ethics.
[1468] Stuckenberg, p. 358.
[1469] Cp. Weber, Gesch. der deutschen Literatur, 11te Aufl. p. 119;
R. Unger, Hamann und die Aufklärung, 1911.
[1470] Bartholmèss, Hist. crit. des doctr. relig. de la
philos. moderne, 1855, i, 136-40.
[1471] In demanding a "history of the human conscience" (Neue
Anthropologie, 1790) Platner seems to have anticipated the modern
scientific approach to religion.
[1472] Gespräche über den Atheismus, 1781.
[1473] Lehrbuch der Logik und Metaphysik, 1795.
[1474] W. Smith, Memoir of Fichte, 2nd ed. p. 10.
[1475] Id. pp. 12, 13, 20, 23, 25, etc.
[1476] Id. pp. 34-35.
[1477] Smith, p. 94.
[1478] Id. p. 34.
[1479] Adamson, Fichte, 1881, p. 32; Smith, as cited, pp. 64-65.
[1480] Letter to Kant, cited by Smith, p. 63.
[1481] Asserted by Stuckenberg, Life of Kant, p. 386.
[1482] Cp. Robins, A Defence of the Faith, 1862, pt. i, pp. 132-33;
Adamson, Fichte, pp. 50-67; W. Smith, Memoir of Fichte, pp. 106-107.
[1483] Adamson, pp. 71, 73.
[1484] Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters, 16te Vorles. ed. 1806,
pp. 509-510.
[1485] Compare the complaints of Hurst, Hist. of Rationalism,
3rd ed. pp. 136-37, and of Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Bohn
ed. p. 72. Fichte's theory, says Coleridge (after praising him as
the destroyer of Spinozism), "degenerated into a crude egoismus,
a boastful and hyperstoic hostility to Nature, as lifeless, godless,
and altogether unholy, while his religion consisted in the assumption
of a mere ordo ordinans, which we were permitted exotericé to call
God." Heine (as last cited, p. 75) insists that Fichte's Idealism is
"more Godless than the crassest Materialism."
[1486] Grundzüge, as cited, p. 502.
[1487] Cp. Seth Pringle-Pattison, as cited, p. 280, note.
[1488] Kurtz, Hist. of the Chr. Church, Eng. tr. 1864, ii, 225. Jahn
was well in advance of his age in his explanation of Joshua's
cosmic miracle as the mistaken literalizing of a flight of poetic
phrase. See the passage in his Introduction to the Book of Joshua,
cited by Rowland Williams, The Hebrew Prophets, ii (1871), 31, note 33.
[1489] R. N. Bain, Gustavus Vasa and his Contemporaries, 1894,
i. 265-68.
[1490] A. Sorel, L'Europe et la révolution française, i (1885), p. 458.
[1491] See articles on Beethoven by Macfarren in Dictionary of
Universal Biography, and by Grove in the Dictionary of Music and
Musicians.
[1492] Grove, art. cited, ed. 1904, i, 224.
[1493] Jonckbloet, Beknopte Geschiedenis der nederl. Letterkunde,
ed. 1880, p. 282.
[1494] Id. pp. 315-16.
[1495] Cp. Trinius, Freydenker-Lexicon, pp. 336-37; Colerus, Vie de
Spinoza, as cited, p. lviii.
[1496] See Texte, Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit, Eng. tr. p. 29.
[1497] Briefe, 1752, p. 451.
[1498] This is the basis of Pope's reference to "illustrious Passeran"
in his Epilogue to the Satires, 1738, ii, 124. The Rev. J. Bramstone's
satire, The Man of Taste (1733), spells the name "Pasaran," whence
may be inferred the extent of the satirist's knowledge of his topic.
[1499] Reprinted, in French, at London in 1749, in a more complete
and correct edition, published by J. Brindley.
[1500] The copy in the British Museum is dated 1737, and the title-page
describes Passerano as "a Piemontæse exile now in Holland, a Christian
Freethinker." It is presumably a re-issue.
[1501] Warburton in a note on Pope (Epilogue, as cited)
characteristically alleges that Passerano had been banished from
Piedmont "for his impieties, and lived in the utmost misery, yet
feared to practise his own precepts; and at last died a penitent." The
source of these allegations may serve as warrant for disbelieving
them. Warburton, it will be observed, says nothing of an imprisonment
in England.
[1502] London ed. 1749, pp. 24-25.
[1503] Koch, Histor. View of the European Nations, Eng. tr. 3rd
ed. p. 103. Cp. Crichton and Wheaton, Scandinavia, 1837, i, 383-96;
Otté, Scandinavian History, 1874, pp. 222-24; Villiers, Essay on
the Reformation, Eng. tr. 1836, p. 105. But cp. Allen, Histoire de
Danemark, Fr. tr. i, 298-300.
[1504] Otté, pp. 232-36; Crichton-Wheaton, i, 398-400; Geijer,
Hist. of the Swedes, Eng. tr. i, 125.
[1505] Koch, p. 104; Geijer, i, 129.
[1506] Crichton-Wheaton, ii, 322.
[1507] Ludwig Holberg, Baron Holberg, born at Bergen, Norway,
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