Part IV: The German World.
The German Spirit is the Spirit of the new World. Its aim is the realization of
absolute Truth as the unlimited self-determination of Freedom – that Freedom
which has its own absolute form itself as its purport.[25] The destiny of the
German peoples is, to be the bearers of the Christian principle. The principle
of Spiritual Freedom – of Reconciliation [of the Objective and Subjective], was
introduced into the still simple, unformed minds of those peoples; and the part
assigned them in the service of the World- Spirit was that of not merely
possessing the Idea of Freedom as the substratum of their religious conceptions,
but of producing it in free and spontaneous developments from their subjective
self-consciousness. In entering on the task of dividing the German World into
its natural periods, we must remark that we have not, as was the case in
treating of the Greeks and Romans, a double external relation – backwards to an
earlier World-Historical people, and forwards to a later one – to guide us.
History shows that the process of development among the peoples now under
consideration, was an altogether different one. The Greeks and Romans had
reached maturity within, ere they directed their energies outwards. The Germans,
on the contrary, began with self- diffusion – deluging the world, and
overpowering in their course the inwardly rotten, hollow political fabrics of
the civilized nations. Only then did their development begin, kindled by a
foreign culture, a foreign religion, polity and legislation. The process of
culture they underwent consisted in taking up foreign elements and reductively
amalgamating them with their own national life. Thus their history presents an
introversion – the attraction of alien forms of life and the bringing these to
bear upon their own. In the Crusades, indeed, and in the discovery of America,
the Western World directed its energies outwards. But it was not thus brought in
contact with a World-Historical people that had preceded it; it did not
dispossess a principle that had previously governed the world. The relation to
an extraneous principle here only accompanies [does not constitute] the history
– does not bring with it essential changes in the nature of those conditions
which characterize the peoples in question, but rather wears the aspect of
internal evolution.[26] – The relation to other countries and periods is thus
entirely different from that sustained by the Greeks and Romans. For the
Christian world is the world of completion; the grand principle of being is
realized, consequently the end of days is fully come. The Idea can discover in
Christianity no point in the aspirations of Spirit that is not satisfied. For
its individual members, the Church is, it is true, a preparation for an eternal
state as something future; since the units who compose it, in their isolated and
several capacity, occupy a position of particularity: but the Church has also
the Spirit of God actually present in it, it forgives the sinner and is a
present kingdom of heaven. Thus the Christian World has no absolute existence
outside its sphere, but only a relative one which is already implicitly
vanquished, and in respect to which its only concern is to make it apparent that
this conquest has taken place. Hence it follows that an external reference
ceases to be the characteristic element determining the epochs of the modern
world. We have therefore to look for another principle of division.
The German World took up the Roman culture and religion in their completed
form. There was indeed a German and Northern religion, but it had by no means
taken deep root in the soul; Tacitus therefore calls the Germans: “Securi
adversus Deos.” The Christian Religion which they adopted, had received from
Councils and Fathers of the Church, who possessed the whole culture, and in
particular, the philosophy of the Greek and Roman World, a perfected dogmatic
system; the Church, too, had a completely developed hierarchy. To the native
tongue of the Germans, the Church likewise opposed one perfectly developed – the
Latin. In art and philosophy a similar alien influence predominated. What of
Alexandrian and of formal Aristotelian philosophy was still preserved in the
writings of Boethius and elsewhere, became the fixed basis of speculative
thought in the West for many centuries. The same principle holds in regard to
the form of the secular sovereignty. Gothic and other chiefs gave themselves the
name of Roman Patricians, and at a later date the Roman Empire was restored.
Thus the German world appears, superficially, to be only a continuation of the
Roman. But there lived in it an entirely new Spirit, through which the World was
to be regenerated – the free Spirit, viz. which reposes on itself – the
absolutely self-determination [Eigensinn] of subjectivity. To this self-
involved subjectivity, the corresponding objectivity [Inhalt] stands opposed as
absolutely alien. The distinction and antithesis which is evolved from these
principles, is that of Church and State. On the one side, the Church develops
itself, as the embodiment of absolute Truth; for it is the consciousness of this
truth, and at the same time the agency for rendering the Individual harmonious
with it. On the other side stands secular consciousness, which, with its aims,
occupies the world of Limitation – the State, based on Heart [emotional and
thence social affections] or mutual confidence and subjectivity generally.
European history is the exhibition of the growth of each of these principles
severally, in Church and State; then of an antithesis on the part of both – not
only of the one to the other, but appearing within the sphere of each of these
bodies themselves (since each of them is itself a totality); lastly, of the
harmonizing of the antithesis. The three periods of this world will have to be
treated accordingly.
The first begins with the appearance of the German Nations in the Roman
Empire – the incipient development of these peoples, converts to Christianity,
and now established in the possession of the West. Their barbarous and simple
character prevents this initial period from possessing any great interest. The
Christian world then presents itself as “Christendom” – one mass, in which the
Spiritual and the Secular form only different aspects. This epoch extends to
Charlemagne.
The second period develops the two sides of the antithesis to a logically
consequential independence and opposition – the Church for itself as a
Theocracy, and the State for itself as a Feudal Monarchy. Charlemagne had formed
an alliance with the Holy See against the Lombards and the factions of the
nobles in Rome. A union thus arose between the spiritual and the secular power,
and a kingdom of heaven on earth promised to follow in the wake of this
conciliation. But just at this time, instead of a spiritual kingdom of heaven,
the inwardness of the Christian principle wears the appearance of being
altogether directed outwards and leaving its proper sphere. Christian Freedom is
perverted to its very opposite, both in a religious and secular respect; on the
one hand to the severest bondage, on the other hand to the most immoral excess –
a barbarous intensity of every passion. In this period two aspects of society
are to be especially noticed: the first is the formation of states – superior
and inferior suzerainties exhibiting a regulated subordination, so that every
relation becomes a firmly-fixed private right, excluding a sense of
universality. This regulated subordination appears in the Feudal System. The
second aspect presents the antithesis of Church and State. This antithesis
exists solely because the Church, to whose management the Spiritual was
committed, itself sinks down into every kind of worldliness – a worldliness
which appears only the more detestable, because all passions assume the sanction
of religion.
The time of Charles V’s reign – i.e., the first half of the sixteenth century
– forms the end of the second, and likewise the beginning of the third period.
Secularity appears now as gaining a consciousness of its intrinsic worth –
becomes aware of its having a value of its own in the morality, rectitude,
probity and activity of man. The consciousness of independent validity is
aroused through the restoration of Christian freedom. The Christian principle
has now passed through the terrible discipline of culture, and it first attains
truth and reality through the Reformation, This third period of the German World
extends from the Reformation to our own times. The principle of Free Spirit is
here made the banner of the World, and from this principle are evolved the
universal axioms of Reason. Formal Thought – the Understanding – had been
already developed; but Thought received its true material first with the
Reformation, through the reviviscent concrete consciousness of Free Spirit. From
that epoch Thought began to gain a culture properly its own: principles were
derived from it which were to be the norm for the constitution of the State.
Political life was now to be consciously regulated by Reason. Customary
morality, traditional usage lost its validity; the various claims insisted upon,
must prove their legitimacy as based on rational principles. Not till this era
is the Freedom of Spirit realized. We may distinguish these periods as Kingdoms
of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.[27] The Kingdom of the Father is the
consolidated, undistinguished mass, presenting a self-repeating cycle, mere
change – like that sovereignty of Chronos engulfing his offspring. The Kingdom
of the Son is the manifestation of God merely in a relation to secular existence
– shining upon it as upon an alien object. The Kingdom of the Spirit is the
harmonizing of the antithesis.
These epochs may be also compared with the earlier empires. In the German
aeon, as the realm of Totality, we see the distinct repetition of the earlier
epochs. Charlemagne’s time may be compared with the Persian Empire; it is the
period of substantial unity – this unity having its foundation in the inner man,
the Heart, and both in the Spiritual and the Secular still abiding in its
simplicity.
To the Greek world and its merely ideal unity, the time preceding Charles V
answers; where real unity no longer exists, because all phases of particularity
have become fixed in privileges and peculiar rights. As in the interior of the
realms themselves, the different estates of the realm, with their several
claims, are isolated, so do the various states in their foreign aspects occupy a
merely external relation to each other. A diplomatic policy arises, which in the
interest of a European balance of power, unites them with and against each
other. It is the time in which the world becomes clear and manifest to itself
(Discovery of America). So too does consciousness gain clearness in the
supersensuous world and respecting it.
Substantial objective religion brings itself to sensuous clearness in the
sensuous element (Christian Art in the age of Pope Leo), and also becomes clear
to itself in the element of inmost truth. We may compare this time with that of
Pericles. The introversion of Spirit begins (Socrates – Luther), though Pericles
is wanting in this epoch. Charles V possesses enormous possibilities in point of
outward appliances, and appears absolute in his power; but the inner spirit of
Pericles, and therefore the absolute means of establishing a free sovereignty,
are not in him. This is the epoch when Spirit becomes clear to itself in
separations occurring in the realm of reality; now the distinct elements of the
German world manifest their essential nature.
The third epoch may be compared with the Roman World. The unity of a
universal principle is here quite as decidedly present, yet not as the unity of
abstract universal sovereignty, but as the Hegemony of self-cognizant Thought.
The authority of Rational Aim is acknowledged, and privileges and
particularities melt away before the common object of the State. Peoples will
the Right in and for itself; regard is not had exclusively to particular
conventions between nations, but principles enter into the considerations with
which diplomacy is occupied. As little can Religion maintain itself apart from
Thought, but either advances to the comprehension of the Idea, or, compelled by
thought itself, becomes intensive belief – or lastly, from despair of finding
itself at home in thought, flees back from it in pious horror, and becomes
Superstition.
Section I: The Elements of the Christian German World.
Chapter I. The Barbarian Migrations.
Respecting this first period, we have on the whole little to say, for it affords
us comparatively slight materials for reflection. We will not follow the Germans
back into their forests, nor investigate the origin of their migrations. Those
forests of theirs have always passed for the abodes of free peoples, and Tacitus
sketched his celebrated picture of Germany with a certain love and longing –
contrasting it with the corruption and artificiality of that world to which he
himself belonged. But we must not on this account regard such a state of
barbarism as an exalted one, or fall into some such error as Rousseau’s, who
represents the condition of the American savages as one in which man is in
possession of true freedom. Certainly there is an immense amount of misfortune
and sorrow of which the savage knows nothing; but this is a merely negative
advantage, while freedom is essential positive. It is only the blessings
conferred by affirmative freedom that are regarded as such in the highest grade
of consciousness.
Our first acquaintance with the Germans finds each individual enjoying an
independent freedom; and yet there is a certain community of feeling and
interest, though not yet matured to a political condition. Next we see them
inundating the Roman empire. It was partly the fertility of its domains, partly
the necessity of seeking other habitations, that furnished the inciting cause.
In spite of the wars in which they engage with the Romans, individuals, and even
entire clans, enter their service as soldiers. Even so early as the battle of
Pharsalia we find German cavalry united with the Roman forces of Caesar. In
military service and intercourse with civilized peoples, they became acquainted
with their advantages – advantages tending to the enjoyment and convenience of
life, but also, and principally, those of mental cultivation. In the later
emigrations, many nations – some entirely, others partially – remained behind in
their original abodes.
Accordingly, a distinction must be made between the German nations who
remained in their ancient habitations and those who spread themselves over the
Roman empire, and mingled with the conquered peoples. Since in their migratory
expeditions the Germans attached themselves to their leaders of their own free
choice, we find a peculiar duplicate condition of the great Teutonic families
(Eastern and Western Goths; Goths in all parts of the world and in their
original country; Scandinavians and Normans in Norway, but also appearing as
knightly adventurers in the wide world). However different might be the fates of
these peoples, they nevertheless had one aim in common – to procure themselves
possessions, and to develop themselves in the direction of political
organization. This process of growth is equally characteristic of all. In the
West – in Spain and Portugal – the Suevi and Vandals are the first settlers, but
are subdued and dispossessed by the Visigoths. A great Visigothic kingdom was
established, to which Spain, Portugal, and a part of Southern France belonged.
The second kingdom is that of the Franks – a name which, from the end of the
second century, was given in common to the Istaevonian races between the Rhine
and the Weser. They established themselves between the Moselle and the Scheldt,
and under their leader, Clovis, pressed forward into Gaul as far as the Loire.
He afterwards reduced the Franks on the Lower Rhine, and the Alemanni on the
Upper Rhine; his sons subjugated the Thuringians and Burgundians. The third
kingdom is that of the Ostrogoths in Italy, founded by Theodoric, and highly
nourishing beneath his rule. The learned Romans Cassiodorus and Boëthius filled
the highest offices of state under Theodoric. But this Ostrogothic kingdom did
not last long; it was destroyed by the Byzantines under Belisarius and Narses.
In the second half (568) of the sixth century, the Lombards invaded Italy and
ruled for two centuries, till this kingdom also was subjected to the Frank
sceptre by Charlemagne. At a later date, the Normans also established themselves
in Lower Italy. Our attention is next claimed by the Burgundians, who were
subjugated by the Franks, and whose kingdom forms a kind of partition wall
between France and Germany. The Angles and Saxons entered Britain and reduced it
under their sway. Subsequently, the Normans make their appearance here also.
These countries – previously a part of the Roman empire – thus experienced the
fate of subjugation by the Barbarians. In the first instance, a great contrast
presented itself between the already civilized inhabitants of those countries
and the victors; but this contrast terminated in the hybrid character of the new
nations that were now formed. The whole mental and moral existence of such
states exhibits a divided aspect; in their inmost being we have characteristics
that point to an alien origin. This distinction strikes us even on the surface,
in their language, which is an intermixture of the ancient Roman – already
united with the vernacular – and the German. We may class these nations together
as Romanic – comprehending thereby Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France.
Contrasted with these stand three others, more or less German- speaking nations,
which have maintained a consistent tone of uninterrupted fidelity to native
character – Germany itself, Scandinavia, and England. The last was, indeed,
incorporated in the Roman empire, but was affected by Roman culture little more
than superficially – like Germany itself – and was again Germanized by Angles
and Saxons. Germany Proper kept itself pure from any admixture; only the
southern and western border – on the Danube and the Rhine – had been subjugated
by the Romans. The portion between the Rhine and the Elbe remained thoroughly
national. This part of Germany was inhabited by several tribes. Besides the
Ripuarian Franks and those established by Clovis in the districts of the Maine,
four leading tribes – the Alemanni, the Boioarians, the Thuringians, and the
Saxons – must be mentioned. The Scandinavians retained in their fatherland a
similar purity from intermixture; and also made themselves celebrated by their
expeditions, under the name of Normans. They extended their chivalric
enterprises over almost all parts of Europe. Part of them went to Russia, and
there became the founders of the Russian Empire; part settled in Northern France
and Britain; another established principalities in Lower Italy and Sicily. Thus
a part of the Scandinavians founded states in foreign lands, another maintained
its nationality by the ancestral hearth.
We find, moreover, in the East of Europe, the great Sclavonic nation, whose
settlements extended west of the Elbe to the Danube. The Magyars (Hungarians)
settled in between them. In Moldavia, Wallachia and northern Greece appear the
Bulgarians, Servians, and Albanians, likewise of Asiatic origin – left behind as
broken barbarian remains in the shocks and counter- shocks of the advancing
hordes. These people did, indeed, found kingdoms and sustain spirited conflicts
with the various nations that came across their path. Sometimes, as an advanced
guard – an intermediate nationality – they took part in the struggle between
Christian Europe and unchristian Asia. The Poles even liberated beleaguered
Vienna from the Turks; and the Sclaves have to some extent been drawn within the
sphere of Occidental Reason. Yet this entire body of peoples remains excluded
from our consideration, because hitherto it has not appeared as an independent
element in the series of phases that Reason has assumed in the World. Whether it
will do so hereafter, is a question that does not concern us here; for in
History we have to do with the Past.
The German Nation was characterized by the sense of Natural Totality – an
idiosyncrasy which we may call Heart [Gemüth].[28] “Heart” is that undeveloped,
indeterminate totality of Spirit, in reference to the Will, in which
satisfaction of soul is attained in a correspondingly general and indeterminate
way. Character is a particular form of will and interest asserting itself; but
the quality in question [Gemüthlichkeit] has no particular aim – riches, honor,
or the like; in fact does not concern itself with any objective condition [a
“position in the world” in virtue of wealth, dignity, etc.] but with the entire
condition of the soul – a general sense of enjoyment. Will in the case of such
an idiosyncrasy is exclusively formal Will[29] – its purely subjective Freedom
exhibits itself as self-will. To the disposition thus designated, every
particular object of attraction seems important, for “Heart” surrenders itself
entirely to each; but as, on the other hand, it is not interested in the quality
of such aim in the abstract, it does not become exclusively absorbed in that
aim, so as to pursue it with violent and evil passion – does not go the length
of abstract vice. In the idiosyncrasy we term “Heart,” no such absorption of
interest presents itself; it wears, on the whole, the appearance of
“well-meaning.” Character is its direct opposite.[30] This is the abstract
principle innate in the German peoples, and that subjective side which they
present to the objective in Christianity. “Heart” has no particular object; in
Christianity we have the Absolute Object [i.e., it is concerned with the entire
range of Truth] – all that can engage and occupy human subjectivity. Now it is
the desire of satisfaction without further definition or restriction, that is
involved in “Heart”; and it is exactly that for which we found an appropriate
application in the principle of Christianity. The Indefinite as Substance, in
objectivity, is the purely Universal – God; while the reception of the
individual will to a participation in His favor, is the complementary element in
the Christian concrete Unity. The absolutely Universal is that which contains in
it all determinations, and in virtue of this is itself indeterminate. Subject
[individual personality] is the absolutely determinate; and these two are
identical.[31] This was exhibited above as the material content [Inhalt] in
Christianity; here we find it subjectively as “Heart.” Subject [Personality]
must then also gain an objective form, that is, be expanded to an object. It is
necessary that for the indefinite susceptibilty which we designate “Heart,” the
Absolute also should assume the form of an Object, in order that man on his part
may attain a consciousness of his unity with that object. But this recognition
of the Absolute [in Christ] requires the purification of man’s subjectivity –
requires it to become a real, concrete self, a sharer in general interests as a
denizen of the world at large, and that it should act in accordance with large
and liberal aims, recognize Law, and find satisfaction in it. – Thus we find
here two principles corresponding the one with the other, and recognize the
adaptation of the German peoples to be, as we stated above, the bearers of the
higher principle of Spirit.
We advance then to the consideration of the German principle in its primary
phase of existence, i.e. the earliest historical condition of the German
nations. Their quality of “Heart” is in its first appearance quite abstract,
undeveloped and destitute of any particular object; for substantial aims are not
involved in “Heart” itself. Where this susceptibilty stands alone, it appears as
a want of character – mere inanity. “Heart” as purely abstract, is dulness; thus
we see in the original condition of the Germans a barbarian dulness, mental
confusion and vagueness. Of the Religion of the Germans we know little. – The
Druids belonged to Gaul and were extirpated by the Romans. There was indeed, a
peculiar northern mythology; but how slight a hold the religion of the Germans
had upon their hearts, has been already remarked, and it is also evident from
the fact that the Germans were easily converted to Christianity. The Saxons, it
is true, offered considerable resistance to Charlemagne; but this was directed,
not so much against the religion he brought with him, as against oppression
itself. Their religion had no profundity; and the same may be said of their
ideas of law. Murder was not regarded and punished as a crime: it was expiated
by a pecuniary fine. This indicates a deficiency in depth of sentiment – that
absence of a power of abstraction and discrimination that marks their peculiar
temperament [Nichtentzweitseyn des Gemuthes] – a temperament which leads them to
regard it only as an injury to the community when one of its members is killed,
and nothing further. The blood- revenge of the Arabs is based on the feeling
that the honor of the Family is injured. Among the Germans the community had no
dominion over the individual, for the element of freedom is the first
consideration in their union in a social relationship. The ancient Germans were
famed for their love of freedom; the Romans formed a correct idea of them in
this particular from the first. Freedom has been the watchword in Germany down
to the most recent times, and even the league of princes under Frederick II had
its origin in the love of liberty. This element of freedom, in passing over to a
social relationship, can establish only popular communities ; so that these
communities constitute the whole state, and every member of the community, as
such, is a free man. Homicide could be expiated by a pecuniary mulct, because
the individuality of the free man was regarded as sacred – permanently and
inviolably – whatever he might have done. The community or its presiding power,
with the assistance of members of the community, delivered judgment in affairs
of private right, with a view to the protection of person and property. For
affairs affecting the body politic at large – for wars and similar contingencies
– the whole community had to be consulted. The second point to be observed is,
that social nuclei were formed by free confederation, and by voluntary
attachment to military leaders and princes. The connection in this case was that
of Fidelity; for Fidelity is the second watchword of the Germans, as Freedom was
the first. Individuals attach themselves with free choice to an individual, and
without external prompting make this relation an inviolable one. This we find
neither among the Greeks nor the Romans. The relation of Agamemnon and the
princes who accompanied him was not that of feudal suit and service: it was a
free association merely for a particular purpose – a Hegemony. But the German
confederations have their being not in a relation to a mere external aim or
cause, but in a relation to the spiritual self – the subjective inmost
personality. Heart, disposition, the concrete subjectivity in its integrity,
which does not attach itself to any abstract bearing of an object, but regards
the whole of it as a condition of attachment – making itself dependent on the
person and the cause – renders this relation a compound of fidelity to a person
and obedience to a principle.
The union of the two relations – of individual freedom in the community, and
of the bond implied in association – is the main point in the formation of the
State. In this, duties and rights are no longer left to arbitrary choice, but
are determined as fixed relations; – involving, moreover, the condition that the
State be the soul of the entire body, and remain its sovereign – that from it
should be derived particular aims and the authorization both of political acts
and political agents – the generic character and interests of the community
constituting the permanent basis of the whole. But here we have the peculiarity
of the German states, that contrary to the view thus presented, social relations
do not assume the character of general definitions and laws, but are entirely
split up into private rights and private obligations. They perhaps exhibit a
social or communal mould or stamp, but nothing universal; the laws are
absolutely particular, and the Rights are Privileges. Thus the state was a
patchwork of private rights, and a rational political life was the tardy issue
of wearisome struggles and convulsions.
We have said, that the Germans were predestined to be the bearers of the
Christian principle, and to carry out the Idea as the absolutely Rational aim.
In the first instance we have only vague volition, in the background of which
lies the True and Infinite. The True is present only as an unsolved problem, for
their Soul is not yet purified. A long process is required to complete this
purification so as to realize concrete Spirit. Religion comes forward with a
challenge to the violence of the passions, and rouses them to madness. The
excess of passions is aggravated by evil conscience, and heightened to an insane
rage; which perhaps would not have been the case, had that opposition been
absent. We behold the terrible spectacle of the most fearful extravagance of
passion in all the royal houses of that period. Clovis, the founder of the Frank
Monarchy, is stained with the blackest crimes. Barbarous harshness and cruelty
characterize all the succeeding Merovingians; the same spectacle is repeated in
the Thuringian and other royal houses. The Christian principle is certainly the
problem implicit in their souls; but these are primarily still crude. The Will –
potentially true – mistakes itself, and separates itself from the true and
proper aim by particular, limited aims. Yet it is in this struggle with itself
and contrariety to its bias, that it realizes its wishes; it contends against
the object which it really desires, and thus accomplishes it; for implicitly,
potentially, it is reconciled. The Spirit of God lives in the Church; it is the
inward impelling Spirit. But it is in the World that Spirit is to be realized –
in a material not yet brought into harmony with it. Now this material is the
Subjective Will, which thus has a contradiction in itself. On the religious
side, we often observe a change of this kind: a man who has all his life been
fighting and hewing his way – who with all vehemence of character and passion,
has struggled and revelled in secular occupations – on a sudden repudiates it
all, to betake himself to religious seclusion. But in the World, secular
business cannot be thus repudiated; it demands accomplishment, and ultimately
the discovery is made, that Spirit finds the goal of its struggle and its
harmonization, in that very sphere which it made the object of its resistance –
it finds that secular pursuits are a spiritual occupation.
We thus observe, that individuals and peoples regard that which is their
misfortune, as their greatest happiness, and conversely, struggle against their
happiness as their greatest misery. La vérité, en la repoussant, on I’embrasse.
Europe comes to the truth while, and to the degree in which, she has repulsed
it. It is in the agitation thus occasioned, that Providence especially exercises
its sovereignty; realizing its absolute aim – its honor – as the result of
unhappiness, sorrow, private aims and the unconscious will of the nations of the
earth.
While, therefore, in the West this long process in the world’s history –
necessary to that purification by which Spirit in the concrete is realized – is
commencing, the purification requisite for developing Spirit in the abstract
which we observe carried on contemporaneously in the East, is more quickly
accomplished. The latter does not need a long process, and we see it produced
rapidly, even suddenly, in the first half of the seventh century, in
Mahometanism.
Chapter II Mohametanism.
On the one hand we see the European world forming itself anew – the nations
taking firm root there, to produce a world of free reality expanded and
developed in every direction. We behold them beginning their work by bringing
all social relations under the form of particularity – with dull and narrow
intelligence splitting that which in its nature is generic and normal, into a
multitude of chance contingencies; rendering that which ought to be simple
principle and law, a tangled web of convention, In short, while the West began
to shelter itself in a political edifice of chance, entanglement and
particularity, the very opposite direction necessarily made its appearance in
the world, to produce the balance of the totality of spiritual manifestation.
This took place in the Revolution of the East, which destroyed all particularity
and dependence, and perfectly cleared up and purified the soul and disposition;
making the abstract One the absolute object of attention and devotion, and to
the same extent, pure subjective consciousness – the Knowledge of this One alone
– the only aim of reality; – making the Unconditioned [das Verhältnisslose] the
condition [Verhält-niss] of existence.
We have already become acquainted with the nature of the Oriental principle,
and seen that its Highest Being is only negative; – that with it the positive
imports an abandonment to mere nature – the enslavement of Spirit to the world
of realities, Only among the Jews have we observed the principle of pure Unity
elevated to a thought; for only among them was adoration paid to the One, as an
object of thought. This unity then remained, when the purification of the mind
to the conception of abstract Spirit had been accomplished; but it was freed
from the particularity by which the worship of Jehovah had been hampered.
Jehovah was only the God of that one people – the God of Abraham, of Isaac and
Jacob: only with the Jews had this God made a covenant; only to this people had
he revealed himself. That speciality of relation was done away with in
Mahometanism. In this spiritual universality, in this unlimited and indefinite
purity and simplicity of conception, human personality has no other aim than the
realization of this universality and simplicity. Allah has not the affirmative,
limited aim of the Judaic God. The worship of the One is the only final aim of
Mahometanism, and subjectivity has this worship for the sole occupation of its
activity, combined with the design to subjugate secular existence to the One.
This One has indeed, the quality of Spirit; yet because subjectivity suffers
itself to be absorbed in the object, this One is deprived of every concrete
predicate; so that neither does subjectivity become on its part spiritually
free, nor on the other hand is the object of its veneration concrete. But
Mahometanism is not the Hindoo, not the Monastic immersion in the Absolute.
Subjectivity is here living and unlimited – an energy which enters into secular
life with a purely negative purpose, and busies itself and interferes with the
world, only in such a way as shall promote the pure adoration of the One. The
object of Mahometan worship is purely intellectual; no image, no representation
of Allah is tolerated. Mahomet is a prophet but still man – not elevated above
human weaknesses. The leading features of Mahometanism involve this – that in
actual existence nothing can become fixed, but that everything is destined to
expand itself in activity and life in the boundless amplitude of the world, so
that the worship of the One remains the only bond by which the whole is capable
of uniting. In this expansion, this active energy, all limits, all national and
caste distinctions vanish; no particular race, political claim of birth or
possession is regarded – only man as a believer. To adore the One, to believe in
him, to fast – to remove the sense of speciality and consequent separation from
the Infinite, arising from corporeal limitation – and to give alms – that is, to
get rid of particular private possession – these are the essence of Mahometan
injunctions; but the highest meed is to die for the Faith. He who perishes for
it in battle is sure of Paradise.
The Mahometan religion originated among the Arabs. Here Spirit exists in its
simplest form, and the sense of the Formless has its especial abode; for in
their deserts nothing can be brought into a firm consistent shape. The flight of
Mahomet from Mecca in the year 622 is the Moslem era. Even during his life, and
under his own leadership, but especially by following up his designs after his
death under the guidance of his successors, the Arabs achieved their vast
conquests. They first came down upon Syria and conquered its capital Damascus in
the year 634. They then passed the Euphrates and Tigris and turned their arms
against Persia, which soon submitted to them. In the West they conquered Egypt,
Northern Africa and Spain, and pressed into Southern France as far as the Loire,
where they were defeated by Charles Martel near Tours, A.D. 732. Thus the
dominion of the Arabs extended itself in the West. In the East they reduced
successively Persia, as already stated, Samarkand, and the Southwestern part of
Asia Minor. These conquests, as also the spread of their religion, took place
with extraordinary rapidity. Whoever became a convert to Islam gained a perfect
equality of rights with all Mussulmans. Those who rejected it, were, during the
earliest period, slaughtered. Subsequently, however, the Arabs behaved more
leniently to the conquered; so that if they were unwilling to go over to Islam,
they were only required to pay an annual poll-tax. The towns that immediately
submitted, were obliged to pay the victor a tithe of all their possessions;
those which had to be captured, a fifth.
Abstraction swayed the minds of the Mahometans. Their object was, to
establish an abstract worship, and they struggled for its accomplishment with
the greatest enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was Fanaticism, that is, an enthusiasm
for something abstract – for an abstract thought which sustains a negative
position towards the established order of things. It is the essence of
fanaticism to bear only a desolating destructive relation to the concrete; but
that of Mahometanism was, at the same time, capable of the greatest elevation –
an elevation free from all petty interests, and united with all the virtues that
appertain to magnanimity and valor. La religion et la terreur were the
principles in this case, as with Robespierre la liberté et la terreur. But real
life is nevertheless concrete, and introduces particular aims; conquest leads to
sovereignty and wealth, to the conferring of prerogatives on a dynastic family,
and to a union of individuals. But all this is only contingent and built on
sand; it is to-day, and to-morrow is not. With all the passionate interest he
shows, the Mahometan is really indifferent to this social fabric, and rushes on
in the ceaseless whirl of fortune. In its spread Mahometanism founded many
kingdoms and dynasties. On this boundless sea there is a continual onward
movement; nothing abides firm. Whatever curls up into a form remains all the
while transparent, and in that very instant glides away. Those dynasties were
destitute of the bond of an organic firmness: the kingdoms, therefore, did
nothing but degenerate; the individuals that composed them simply vanished.
Where, however, a noble soul makes itself prominent – like a billow in the
surging of the sea – it manifests itself in a majesty of freedom, such that
nothing more noble, more generous, more valiant, more devoted was ever
witnessed. The particular determinate object which the individual embraces is
grasped by him entirely – with the whole soul. While Europeans are involved in a
multitude of relations, and form, so to speak, “a bundle” of them – in
Mahometanism the individual is one passion and that alone; he is superlatively
cruel, cunning, bold, or generous. Where the sentiment of love exists, there is
an equal abandon – love the most fervid. The ruler who loves the slave,
glorifies the object of his love by laying at his feet all his magnificence,
power and honor – forgetting sceptre and throne for him; but on the other hand
he will sacrifice him just as recklessly. This reckless fervor shows itself also
in the glowing warmth of the Arab and Saracen poetry. That glow is the perfect
freedom of fancy from every fetter – an absorption in the life of its object and
the sentiment it inspires, so that selfishness and egotism are utterly banished.
Never has enthusiasm, as such, performed greater deeds. Individuals may be
enthusiastic for what is noble and exalted in various particular forms. The
enthusiasm of a people for its independence, has also a definite aim. But
abstract and therefore all-comprehensive enthusiasm – restrained by nothing,
finding its limits nowhere, and absolutely indifferent to all beside – is that
of the Mahometan East.
Proportioned to the rapidity of the Arab conquests, was the speed with which
the arts and sciences attained among them their highest bloom. At first we see
the conquerors destroying everything connected with art and science. Omar is
said to have caused the destruction of the noble Alexandrian library. “These
books,” said he, “either contain what is in the Koran, or something else: in
either case they are superfluous.” But soon afterwards the Arabs became zealous
in promoting the arts and spreading them everywhere. Their empire reached the
summit of its glory under the Caliphs Al-Mansor and Haroun Al-Raschid. Large
cities arose in all parts of the empire, where commerce and manufactures
flourished, splendid palaces were built, and schools created. The learned men of
the empire assembled at the Caliph’s court, which not merely shone outwardly
with the pomp of the costliest jewels, furniture and palaces, but was
resplendent with the glory of poetry and all the sciences. At first the Caliphs
still maintained entire that simplicity and plainness which characterized the
Arabs of the desert, (the Caliph Abubeker is particularly famous in this
respect,) and which acknowledged no distinction of station and culture. The
meanest Saracen, the most insignificant old Woman, approached the Caliph as an
equal. Unreflecting naivete does not stand in need of culture; and in virtue of
the freedom of his Spirit, each one sustains a relation of equality to the
ruler.
The great empire of the Caliphs did not last long: for on the basis presented
by Universality nothing is firm. The great Arabian empire fell about the same
time as that of the Franks: thrones were demolished by slaves and by fresh
invading hordes – the Seljuks and Mongols – and new kingdoms founded, new
dynasties raised to the throne. The Osman race at last succeeded in establishing
a firm dominion, by forming for themselves a firm centre in the Janizaries.
Fanaticism having cooled down, no moral principle remained in men’s souls. In
the struggle with the Saracens, European valor had idealized itself to a fair
and noble chivalry. Science and knowledge, especially that of philosophy, came
from the Arabs into the West. A noble poetry and free imagination were kindled
among the Germans by the East – a fact which directed Goethe’s attention to the
Orient and occasioned the composition of a string of lyric pearls, in his
“Divan,” which in warmth and felicity of fancy cannot be surpassed. But the East
itself, when by degrees enthusiasm had vanished, sank into the grossest vice.
The most hideous passions became dominant, and as sensual enjoyment was
sanctioned in the first form which Mahometan doctrine assumed, and was exhibited
as a reward of the faithful in Paradise, it took the place of fanaticism. At
present, driven back into its Asiatic and African quarters, and tolerated only
in one corner of Europe through the jealousy of Christian Powers, Islam has long
vanished from the stage of history at large, and has retreated into Oriental
ease and repose.
Chapter III. The Empire of Charlemagne.
The empire of the Franks, as already stated, was founded by Clovis. After his
death, it was divided among his sons. Subsequently, after many struggles and the
employment of treachery, assassination and violence, it was again united, and
once more divided. Internally the power of the kings was very much increased, by
their having become princes in conquered lands. These were indeed parcelled out
among the Frank freemen; but very considerable permanent revenues accrued to the
king, together with what had belonged to the emperors, and the spoils of
confiscation. These therefore the king bestowed as personal, i.e. not heritable,
beneficia, on his warriors, who in receiving them entered into a personal
obligation to him – became his vassals and formed his feudal array. The very
opulent Bishops were united with them in constituting the King’s Council, which
however did not circumscribe the royal authority. At the head of the feudal
array was the Major Domus. These Majores Domus soon assumed the entire power and
threw the royal authority into the shade, while the kings sank into a torpid
condition and became mere puppets. From the former sprang the dynasty of the
Carlovingians. Pepin le Bref, the son of Charles Martel, was in the year 752
raised to the dignity of King of the Franks. Pope Zacharias released the Franks
from their oath of allegiance to the still living Childeric III – the last of
the Merovingians – who received the tonsure, i.e. became a monk, and was thus
deprived of the royal distinction of long hair. The last of the Merovingians
were utter weaklings, who contented themselves with the name of royalty, and
gave themselves up almost entirely to luxury – a phenomenon that is quite common
in the dynasties of the East, and is also met with again among the last of the
Carlovingians. The Majores Domus, on the contrary, were in the very vigor of
ascendant fortunes, and were in such close alliance with the feudal nobility,
that it became easy for them ultimately to secure the throne.
The Popes were most severely pressed by the Lombard kings and sought
protection from the Franks. Out of gratitude Pepin undertook to defend Stephen
II. He led an army twice across the Alps, and twice defeated the Lombards. His
victories gave splendor to his newly established throne, and entailed a
considerable heritage on the Chair of St. Peter. In A.D. 800 the son of Pepin –
Charlemagne – was crowned Emperor by the Pope, and hence originated the firm
union of the Carlovingians with the Papal See. For the Roman Empire continued to
enjoy among the barbarians the prestige of a great power, and was ever regarded
by them as the centre from which civil dignities, religion, laws and all
branches of knowledge – beginning with written characters themselves – flowed to
them. Charles Martel, after he had delivered Europe from Saracen domination, was
– himself and his successors – dignified with the title of “Patrician” by the
people and senate of Rome; but Charlemagne was crowned Emperor, and that by the
Pope himself. There were now, therefore, two Empires, and in them the Christian
confession was gradually divided into two Churches, the Greek and the Roman. The
Roman Emperor was the born defender of the Roman Church, and this position of
the Emperor towards the Pope seemed to declare that the Frank sovereignty was
only a continuation of the Roman Empire. The Empire of Charlemagne had a very
considerable extent. Franconia Proper stretched from the Rhine to the Loire.
Aquitania, south of the Loire, was in 768 – the year of Pepin’s death – entirely
subjugated. The Frank Empire also included Burgundy, Alemannia (southern Germany
between the Lech, the Maine and the Rhine), Thuringia, which extended to the
Saale, and Bavaria. Charlemagne likewise conquered the Saxons, who dwelt between
the Rhine and the Weser, and put an end to the Lombard dominion, so that he
became master of Upper and Central Italy.
This great empire Charlemagne formed into a systematically organized State,
and gave the Frank dominion settled institutions adapted to impart to it
strength and consistency. This must however not be understood, as if he first
introduced the Constitution of his empire in its whole extent, but as implying
that institutions partly already in existence, were developed under his
guidance, and attained a more decided and unobstructed efficiency. The King
stood at the head of the officers of the empire, and the principle of hereditary
monarchy was already recognized. The King was likewise master of the armed
force, as also the largest landed proprietor, while the supreme judicial power
was equally in his hands. The military constitution was based on the “arrière-
ban.” Every freeman was bound to arm for the defence of the realm, and had to
provide for his support in the field for a certain time. This militia (as it
would now be called) was under the command of Counts and Margraves, which latter
presided over large districts on the borders of the empire – the “Marches.”
According to the general partition of the country, it was divided into provinces
[or counties], over each of which a Count presided. Over them again, under the
later Carlovingians, were Dukes, whose seats were large cities, such as Cologne,
Ratisbon, and the like. Their office gave occasion to the division of the
country into Duchies: thus there was a Duchy of Alsatia, Lorraine, Frisia,
Thuringia, Rhaetia. These Dukes were appointed by the Emperor. Peoples that had
retained their hereditary princes after their subjugation, lost this privilege
and received Dukes, when they revolted; this was the case with Alemannia,
Thuringia, Bavaria, and Saxony. But there was also a kind of standing army for
readier use. The vassals of the emperor, namely, had the enjoyment of estates on
the condition of performing military service, whenever commanded. And with a
view to maintain these arrangements, commissioners (Missi) were sent out by the
emperor, to observe and report concerning the affairs of the Empire, and to
inquire into the state of judicial administration and inspect the royal estates.
Not less remarkable is the management of the revenues of the state. There
were no direct taxes, and few tolls on rivers and roads, of which several were
farmed out to the higher officers of the empire. Into the treasury flowed on the
one hand judicial fines, on the other hand the pecuniary satisfactions made for
not serving in the army at the emperor’s summons. Those who enjoyed beneficia,
lost them on neglecting this duty. The chief revenue was derived from the crown-
lands, of which the emperor had a great number, on which royal palaces [Pfalzen]
were erected. It had been long the custom for the kings to make progresses
through the chief provinces, and to remain for a time in each palatinate; the
due preparations for the maintenance of the court having been already made by
Marshals, Chamberlains, etc.
As regards the administration of justice, criminal causes and those which
concern real property were tried before the communal assemblies under the
presidency of a Count. Those of less importance were decided by at least seven
free men – an elective bench of magistrates – under the presidency of the
Centgraves. The supreme jurisdiction belonged to the royal tribunals, over which
the king presided in his palace: to these the feudatories, spiritual and
temporal, were amenable. The royal commissioners mentioned above gave especial
attention in their inquisitorial visits to the judicial administration, heard
all complaints, and punished injustice. A spiritual and a temporal envoy had to
go their circuit four times a year.
In Charlemagne’s time the ecclesiastical body had already acquired great
weight. The bishops presided over great cathedral establishments, with which
were also connected seminaries and scholastic institutions. For Charlemagne
endeavored to restore science, then almost extinct, by promoting the foundation
of schools in towns and villages. Pious souls believed that they were doing a
good work and earning salvation by making presents to the church; in this way
the most savage and barbarous monarchs sought to atone for their crimes. Private
persons most commonly made their offerings in the form of a bequest of their
entire estate to religious houses, stipulating for the enjoyment of the usufruct
only for life or for a specified time. But it often happened that on the death
of a bishop or abbot, the temporal magnates and their retainers invaded the
possessions of the clergy, and fed and feasted there till all was consumed; for
religion had not yet such an authority over men’s minds as to be able to bridle
the rapacity of the powerful. The clergy were obliged to appoint stewards and
bailiffs to manage their estates; besides this, guardians had charge of all
their secular concerns, led their men-at-arms into the field, and gradually
obtained from the king territorial jurisdiction, when the ecclesiastics had
secured the privilege of being amenable only to their own tribunals, and enjoyed
immunity from the authority of the royal officers of justice (the Counts). This
involved an important step in the change of political relations, inasmuch as the
ecclesiastical domains assumed more and more the aspect of independent provinces
enjoying a freedom surpassing anything to which those of secular princes had yet
made pretensions. Moreover the clergy contrived subsequently to free themselves
from the burdens of the state, and opened the churches and monasteries as
asylums – that is, inviolable sanctuaries for all offenders. This institution
was on the one hand very beneficial as a protection in cases of violence and
oppression; but it was perverted on the other hand into a means of impunity for
the grossest crimes. In Charlemagne’s time, the law could still demand from
conventual authorities the surrender of offenders. The bishops were tried by a
judicial bench consisting of bishops; as vassals they were properly subject to
the royal tribunal. Afterwards the monastic establishments sought to free
themselves from episcopal jurisdiction also: and thus they made themselves
independent even of the church. The bishops were chosen by the clergy and the
religious communities at large; but as they were also vassals of the sovereign,
their feudal dignity had to be conferred by him. The contingency of a contest
was avoided by the obligation to choose a person approved of by the king.
The imperial tribunals were held in the palace where the emperor resided. The
sovereign himself presided in them, and the magnates of the imperial court
constituted with him the supreme judicial body. The deliberations of the
imperial council on the affairs of the empire did not take place at appointed
times, but as occasions offered – at military reviews in the spring, at
ecclesiastical councils and on court-days. It was especially these court-days,
to which the feudal nobles were invited – when the king held his court in a
particular province, generally on the Rhine, the centre of the Frank empire –
that gave occasion to the deliberations in question. Custom required the
sovereign to assemble twice a year a select body of the higher temporal and
ecclesiastical functionaries, but here also the king had decisive power. These
conventions are therefore of a different character from the Imperial Diets of
later times, in which the nobles assume a more independent position.
Such was the state of the Frank Empire – that first consolidation of
Christianity into a political form proceeding from itself, the Roman empire
having been swallowed up by Christianity. The constitution just described looks
excellent; it introduced a firm military organization and provided for the
administration of justice within the empire. Yet after Charlemagne’s death it
proved itself utterly powerless – externally defenceless against the invasions
of the Normans, Hungarians, and Arabs, and internally inefficient in resisting
lawlessness, spoliation, and oppression of every kind. Thus we see, side by side
with an excellent constitution, the most deplorable condition of things, and
therefore confusion in all directions. Such political edifices need, for the
very reason that they originate suddenly, the additional strengthening afforded
by negativity evolved within themselves: they need reactions in every form, such
as manifest themselves in the following period.
Section II: The Middle Ages
While the first period of the German World ends brilliantly with a mighty
empire, the second is commenced by the reaction resulting from the antithesis
occasioned by that infinite falsehood which rules the destinies of the Middle
Ages and constitutes their life and spirit. This reaction is first, that of the
particular nationalities against the universal sovereignty of the Frank empire –
manifesting itself in the splitting up of that great empire. The second reaction
is that of individuals against legal authority and the executive power – against
subordination, and the military and judicial arrangements of the constitution.
This produced the isolation and therefore defencelessness of individuals. The
universality of the power of the state disappeared through this reaction:
individuals sought protection with the powerful, and the latter became
oppressors. Thus was gradually introduced a condition of universal dependence,
and this protecting relation is then systematized into the Feudal System. The
third reaction is that of the church – the reaction of the spiritual element
against the existing order of things. Secular extravagances of passion were
repressed and kept in check by the Church, but the latter was itself secularized
in the process, and abandoned its proper position. From that moment begins the
introversion of the secular principle. These relations and reactions all go to
constitute the history of the Middle Ages, and the culminating point of this
period is the Crusades; for with them arises a universal instability, but one
through which the states of Christendom first attain internal and external
independence.
Chapter I. The Feudality and the Hierarchy.
The First Reaction is that of particular nationality against the universal
sovereignty of the Franks. It appears indeed, at first sight, as if the Frank
empire was divided by the mere choice of its sovereigns; but another
consideration deserves attention, vis. that this division was popular, and was
accordingly maintained by the peoples. It was, therefore, not a mere dynastic
act – which might appear unwise, since the princes thereby weakened their own
power – but a restoration of those distinct nationalities which had been held
together by a connecting bond of irresistible might and the genius of a great
man. Louis the Pious [le Débonnaire] son of Charlemagne, divided the empire
among his three sons. But subsequently, by a second marriage, another son was
born to him – Charles the Bald. As he wished to give him also an inheritance,
wars and contentions arose between Louis and his other sons, whose already
received portion would have to be diminished by such an arrangement. In the
first instance, therefore, a private interest was involved in the contest; but
that of the nations which composed the empire made the issue not indifferent to
them. The western Franks had already identified themselves with the Gauls, and
with them originated a reaction against the German Franks, as also at a later
epoch one on the part of Italy against the Germans. By the treaty of Verdun,
A.D. 843, a division of the empire among Charlemagne’s descendants took place;
the whole Frank empire, some provinces excepted, was for a moment again united
under Charles the Gross. It was, however, only for a short time that this weak
prince was able to hold the vast empire together; it was broken up into many
smaller sovereignties, which developed and maintined an independent position.
These were the Kingdom of Italy, which was itself divided, the two Burgundian
sovereignties – Upper Burgundy, of which the chief centres were Geneva and the
convent of St. Maurice in Valaise, and Lower Burgundy between the Jura, the
Mediterranean and the Rhone – Lorraine, between the Rhine and the Meuse,
Normandy, and Brittany. France Proper was shut in between these sovereignties;
and thus limited did Hugh Capet find it when he ascended the throne. Eastern
Franconia, Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Swabia, remained parts of the German
Empire. Thus did the unity of the Frank monarchy fall to pieces. The internal
arrangements of the Frank empire also suffered a gradual but total decay; and
the first to disappear was the military organization. Soon after Charlemagne we
see the Norsemen from various quarters making inroads into England, France and
Germany. In England seven dynasties of Anglo-Saxon Kings were originally
established, but in the year 827 Egbert united these sovereignties into a single
kingdom. In the reign of his successor the Danes made very frequent invasions
and pillaged the country. In Alfred the Great’s time they met with vigorous
resistance, but subsequently the Danish King Canute conquered all England. The
inroads of the Normans into France were contemporaneous with these events. They
sailed up the Seine and the Loire in light boats, plundered the towns, pillaged
the convents, and went off with their booty. They beleaguered Paris itself, and
the Carlovingian Kings were reduced to the base necessity of purchasing a peace.
In the same way they devastated the towns lying on the Elbe; and from the Rhine
plundered Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and made Lorraine tributary to them. The
Diet of Worms, in 882, did indeed issue a general proclamation, summoning all
subjects to rise in arms, but they were compelled to put up with a disgraceful
composition. These storms came from the north and the west. The Eastern side of
the empire suffered from the inroads of the Magyars. These barbarian peoples
traversed the country in wagons, and laid waste the whole of Southern Germany.
Through Bavaria, Swabia, and Switzerland they penetrated into the interior of
France and reached Italy. The Saracens pressed forward from the South. Sicily
had been long in their hands: they thence obtained a firm footing in Italy,
menaced Rome – which diverted their attack by a composition – and were the
terror of Piedmont and Provence.
Thus these three peoples invaded the empire from all sides in great masses,
and in their desolating marches almost came into contact with each other. France
was devastated by the Normans as far as the Jura; the Hungarians reached
Switzerland, and the Saracens Valaise. Calling to mind that organization of the
“arrière-ban,” and considering it in juxtaposition with this miserable state of
things, we cannot fail to be struck with the inefficiency of all those far-
famed institutions, which at such a juncture ought to have shown themselves most
effective. We might be inclined to regard the picture of the noble and rational
constitution of the Frank monarchy under Charlemagne – exhibiting itself as
strong, comprehensive, and well ordered, internally and externally – as a
baseless figment. Yet it actually existed; the entire political system being
held together only by the power, the greatness, the regal soul of this one man –
not based on the spirit of the people – not having become a vital element in it.
It was superficially induced – an a priori constitution like that which Napoleon
gave to Spain, and which disappeared with the physical power that sustained it.
That, on the contrary, which renders a constitution real, is that it exists as
Objective Freedom – the Substantial form of volition – as duty and obligation
acknowledged by the subjects themselves. But obligation was not yet recognized
by the German Spirit, which hitherto showed itself only as “Heart” and
subjective choice; for it there was as yet no subjectivity involving unity, but
only a subjectivity conditioned by a careless superficial self-seeking. Thus
that constitution was destitute of any firm bond; it had no objective support in
subjectivity; for in fact no constitution was as yet possible.
This leads us to the Second Reaction – that of individuals against the
authority of law. The capacity of appreciating legal order and the common weal
is altogether absent, has no vital existence in the peoples themselves. The
duties of every free citizen, the authority of the judge to give judicial
decisions, that of the count of a province to hold his court, and interest in
the laws as such, are no longer regarded as valid now that the strong hand from
above ceases to hold the reins of sovereignty. The brilliant administration of
Charlemagne had vanished without leaving a trace, and the immediate consequence
was the general defencelessness of individuals. The need of protection is sure
to be felt in some degree in every well-organized state: each citizen knows his
rights and also knows that for the security of possession the social state is
absolutely necessary. Barbarians have not yet attained this sense of need – the
want of protection from others. They look upon it as a limitation of their
freedom if their rights must be guaranteed them by others. Thus, therefore, the
impulse towards a firm organization did not exist: men must first be placed in a
defenceless condition, before they were sensible of the necessity of the
organization of a State. The political edifice had to be reconstructed from the
very foundations. The commonwealth as then organized had no vitality or firmness
at all either in itself or in the minds of the people; and its weakness
manifested itself in the fact that it was unable to give protection to its
individual members. As observed above, the idea of duty was not present in the
Spirit of the Germans; it had to be restored. In the first instance volition
could only be arrested in its wayward career in reference to the merely external
point of possession; and to make it feel the importance of the protection of the
State, it had to be violently dislodged from its obtuseness and impelled by
necessity to seek union and a social condition. Individuals were therefore
obliged to consult for themselves by taking refuge with Individuals, and
submitted to the authority of certain powerful persons, who constituted a
private possession and personal sovereignty out of that authority which formerly
belonged to the Commonwealth. As officers of the State, the counts did not meet
with obedience from those committed to their charge, and they were as little
desirous of it. Only for themselves did they covet it. They assumed to
themselves the power of the State, and made the authority with which they had
been intrusted as a beneficium, a heritable possession. As in earlier times the
King or other magnates conferred fiefs on their vassals by way of rewards, now,
conversely, the weaker and poorer surrendered their possessions to the strong,
for the sake of gaining efficient protection. They committed their estates to a
Lord, a Convent, an Abbot, a Bishop (feudum oblatum), and received them back,
encumbered with feudal obligations to these superiors. Instead of freemen they
became vassals – feudal dependants – and their possession a beneficium. This is
the constitution of the Feudal System. “Feudum” is connected with “fides”; the
fidelity implied in this case is a bond established on unjust principles, a
relation that does indeed contemplate a legitimate object, but whose import is
not a whit the less injustice ; for the fidelity of vassals is not an obligation
to the Commonwealth, but a private one – ipso facto therefore subject to the
sway of chance, caprice, and violence. Universal injustice, universal
lawlessness is reduced to a system of dependence on and obligation to
individuals, so that the mere formal side of the matter, the mere fact of
compact constitutes its sole connection with the principle of Right. – Since
every man had to protect himself, the martial spirit, which in point of external
defence seemed to have most ignominiously vanished, was reawakened; for
torpidity was roused to action partly by extreme ill-usage, partly by the greed
and ambition of individuals. The valor that now manifested itself, was displayed
not on behalf of the State, but of private interests. In every district arose
castles; fortresses were erected, and that for the defence of private property,
and with a view to plunder the tyranny. In the way just mentioned, the political
totality was ignored at those points where individual authority was established,
among which the seats of bishops and archbishops deserve especial mention. The
bishoprics had been freed from the jurisdiction of the judicial tribunals, and
from the operations of the executive generally. The bishops had stewards on whom
at their request the Emperors conferred the jurisdiction which the Counts had
formerly exercised. Thus there were detached ecclesiastical domains –
ecclesiastical districts which belonged to a saint (Germ. Weichbilder). Similar
suzerainties of a secular kind were subsequently constituted. Both occupied the
position of the previous Provinces [Gaue] or Counties [Grafschaften]. Only in a
few towns where communities of freemen were independently strong enough to
secure protection and safety, did relics of the ancient free constitution
remain. With these exceptions the free communities entirely disappeared, and
became subject to the prelates or to the Counts and Dukes, thenceforth known as
seigneurs and princes. The imperial power was extolled in general terms, as
something very great and exalted: the Emperor passed for the secular head of
entire Christendom: but the more exalted the ideal dignity of the emperors, the
more limited was it in reality. France derived extraordinary advantage from the
fact that it entirely repudiated this baseless assumption, while in Germany the
advance of political development was hindered by that pretence of power. The
kings and emperors were no longer chiefs of the state, but of the princes, who
were indeed their vassals, but possessed sovereignty and territorial lordships
of their own. The whole social condition therefore, being founded on individual
sovereignty, it might be supposed that the advance to a State would be possible
only through the return of those individual sovereignties to an official
relationship. But to accomplish this, a superior power would have been required,
such as was not in existence; for the feudal lords themselves determined how far
they were still dependent on the general constitution of the state. No authority
of Law and Right is valid any longer; nothing but chance power – the crude
caprice of particular as opposed to universally valid Right; and this struggles
against equality of Rights and Laws. Inequality of political privileges – the
allotment being the work of the purest haphazard – is the predominant feature.
It is impossible that a Monarchy can arise from such a social condition through
the subjugation of the several minor powers under the Chief of the State, as
such. Reversely, the former were gradually transformed into Principalities
[Fürstenthumer], and became united with the Principality of the Chief; thus
enabling the authority of the king and of the state to assert itself. While,
therefore, the bond of political unity was still wanting, the several
seigneuries attained their development independently.
In France the dynasty of Charlemagne, like that of Clovis, became extinct
through the weakness of the sovereigns who represented it. Their dominion was
finally limited to the petty sovereignty of Laon; and the last of the
Carlovingians, Duke Charles of Lorraine, who laid claim to the crown after the
death of Louis V, was defeated and taken prisoner. The powerful Hugh Capet, Duke
of France, was proclaimed king. The title of King, however, gave him no real
power; his authority was based on his territorial possessions alone. At a later
date, through purchase, marriage, and the dying out of families, the kings
became possessed of many feudal domains; and their authority was frequently
invoked as a protection against the oppressions of the nobles. The royal
authority in France became heritable at an early date, because the fiefs were
heritable; though at first the kings took the precaution to have their sons
crowned during their lifetime. France was divided into many sovereignties: the
Duchy of Guienne, the Earldom of Flanders, the Duchy of Gascony, the Earldom of
Toulouse, the Duchy of Burgundy, the Earldom of Vermandois; Lorraine too had
belonged to France for some time. Normandy had been ceded to the Normans by the
kings of France, in order to secure a temporary repose from their incursions.
From Normandy Duke William passed over into England and conquered it in the year
1066. Here he introduced a fully developed feudal constitution – a network
which, to a great extent, encompasses England even at the present day. And thus
the Dukes of Normandy confronted the comparatively feeble Kings of France with a
power of no inconsiderable pretensions. – Germany was composed of the great
duchies of Saxony, Swabia, Bavaria, Carinthia, Lorraine and Burgundy, the
Margraviate of Thuringia, etc. with several bishoprics and archbishoprics. Each
of those duchies again was divided into several fiefs, enjoying more of less
independence. The emperor seems often to have united several duchies under his
immediate sovereignty. The Emperor Henry III was, when he ascended the throne,
lord of many large dukedoms; but he weakened his own power by enfeoffing them to
others. Germany was radically a free nation, and had not, as France had, any
dominant family as a central authority; it continued an elective empire. Its
princes refused to surrender the privilege of choosing their sovereign for
themselves; and at every new election they introduced new restrictive
conditions, so that the imperial power was degraded to an empty shadow. – In
Italy we find the same political condition. The German Emperors had pretensions
to it: but their authority was valid only so far as they could support it by
direct force of arms, and as the Italian cities and nobles deemed their own
advantage to be promoted by submission. Italy was, like Germany, divided into
many larger and smaller dukedoms, earldoms, bishoprics and seigneuries. The Pope
had very little power, either in the North or in the South; which latter was
long divided between the Lombards and the Greeks, until both were overcome by
the Normans. – Spain maintained a contest with the Saracens, either defensive or
victorious, through the whole mediaeval period, till the latter finally
succumbed to the more matured power of Christian civilization.
Thus all Right vanished before individual Might; for equality of Rights and
rational legislation, where the interests of the political Totality, of the
State, are kept in view, had no existence. The Third Reaction, noticed above,
was that of the element of Universality against the Real World as split up into
particularity. This reaction proceeded from below upwards – from that condition
of isolated possession itself; and was then promoted chiefly by the church. A
sense of the nothingness of its condition seized on the world as it were
universally. In that condition of utter isolation, where only the unsanctioned
might of individuals had any validity [where the State was non-existent,] men
could find no repose, and Christendom was, so to speak, agitated by the tremor
of an evil conscience. In the eleventh century, the fear of the approaching
final judgment and the belief in the speedy dissolution of the world, spread
through all Europe. This dismay of soul impelled men to the most irrational
proceedings. Some bestowed the whole of their possessions on the Church, and
passed their lives in continual penance; the majority dissipated their worldly
all in riotous debauchery. The Church alone increased its riches by the
hallucinations, through donations and bequests. – About the same time too,
terrible famines swept away their victims: human flesh was sold in open market.
During this state of things, lawlessness, brutal lust, the most barbarous
caprice, deceit and cunning, were the prevailing moral features. Italy, the
centre of Christendom, presented the most revolting aspect. Every virtue was
alien to the times in question; consequently virtus had lost its proper meaning:
in common use it denoted only violence and oppression, sometimes even libidinous
outrage. This corrupt state of things affected the clergy equally with the
laity. Their own advowees had made themselves masters of the ecclesiastical
estates intrusted to their keeping, and lived on them quite at their own
pleasure, restricting the monks and clergy to a scanty pittance. Monasteries
that refused to accept advowees were compelled to do so; the neighboring lords
taking the office upon themselves or giving it to their sons. Only bishops and
abbots maintained themselves in possession, being able to protect themselves
partly by their own power, partly by means of their retainers; since they were,
for the most part, of noble families.
The bishoprics being secular fiefs, their occupants were bound to the
performance of imperial and feudal service. The investiture of the bishops
belonged to the sovereigns, and it was their interest that these ecclesiastics
should be attached to them. Whoever desired a bishopric, therefore, had to make
application to the king; and thus a regular trade was carried on in bishoprics
and abbacies. Usurers who had lent money to the sovereign, received compensation
by the bestowal of the dignities in question; the worst of men thus came into
possession of spiritual offices. There could be no question that the clergy
ought to have been chosen by the religious community, and there were always
influential persons who had the right of electing them; but the king compelled
them to yield to his orders. Nor did the Papal dignity fare any better. Through
a long course of years the Counts of Tusculum near Rome conferred it on members
of their own family, or on persons to whom they had sold it for large sums of
money. The state of things became at last so intolerable, that laymen as well as
ecclesiastics of energetic character opposed its continuance. The Emperor Henry
III put an end to the strife of factions, by nominating the Popes himself, and
supporting them by his authority in defiance of the opposition of the Roman
nobility. Pope Nicholas II decided that the Popes should be chosen by the
Cardinals; but as the latter partly belonged to dominant families, similar
contests of factions continued to accompany their election. Gregory VII (already
famous as Cardinal Hildebrand) sought to secure the independence of the church
in this frightful condition of things, by two measures especially. First, he
enforced the celibacy of the clergy. From the earliest times, it must be
observed, the opinion had prevailed that it was commendable and desirable for
the clergy to remain unmarried. Yet the annalists and chroniclers inform us that
this requirement was but indifferently complied with. Nicholas II had indeed
pronounced the married clergy to be a new sect; but Gregory VII proceeded to
enforce the restriction with extraordinary energy, excommunicating all the
married clergy and all laymen who should hear mass when they officiated. In this
way the ecclesiastical body was shut up within itself and excluded from the
morality of the State. – His second measure was directed against simony, i.e.
the sale of or arbitrary appointment to bishoprics and to the Papal See itself.
Ecclesiastical offices were thenceforth to be filled by the clergy, who were
capable of administering them; an arrangement which necessarily brought the
ecclesiastical body into violent collision with secular seigneurs.
These were the two grand measures by which Gregory purposed to emancipate the
Church from its condition of dependence and exposure to secular violence. But
Gregory made still further demands on the secular power. The transference of
benefices to a new incumbent was to receive validity simply in virtue of his
ordination by his ecclesiastical superior, and the Pope was to have exclusive
control over the vast property of the ecclesiastical community. The Church as a
divinely constituted power, laid claim to supremacy over secular authority –
founding that claim on the abstract principle that the Divine is superior to the
Secular. The Emperor at his coronation – a ceremony which only the Pope could
perform – was obliged to promise upon oath that he would always be obedient to
the Pope and the Church. Whole countries and states, such as Naples, Portugal,
England and Ireland came into a formal relation of vassalage to the Papal chair.
Thus the Church attained an independent position: the Bishops convoked synods
in the various countries, and in these convocations the clergy found a permanent
centre of unity and support. In this way the Church attained the most
influential position in secular affairs. It arrogated to itself the award of
princely crowns, and assumed the part of mediator between sovereign powers in
war and peace. The contingencies which particularly favored such interventions
on the part of the Church were the marriages of princes. It frequently happened
that princes wished to be divorced from their wives; but for such a step they
needed the permission of the Church. The latter did not let slip the opportunity
of insisting upon the fulfilment of demands that might have been otherwise urged
in vain, and thence advanced till it had obtained universal influence. In the
chaotic state of the community generally, the intervention of the authority of
the Church was felt as a necessity. By the introduction of the “Truce of God,”
feuds and private revenge were suspended for at least certain days in the week,
or even for entire weeks; and the Church maintained this armistice by the use of
all its ghostly appliances of excommunication, interdict and other threats and
penalties. The secular possessions of the Church brought it however into a
relation to other secular princes and lords, which was alien to its proper
nature; it constituted a formidable secular power in contraposition to them, and
thus formed in the first instance a centre of opposition against violence and
arbitrary wrong. It withstood especially the attacks upon the ecclesiastical
foundations – the secular lordships of the Bishops; and on occasion of
opposition on the part of vassals to the violence and caprice of princes, the
former had the support of the Pope. But in these proceedings the Church brought
to bear against opponents only a force and arbitrary resolve of the same kind as
their own, and mixed up its secular interest with its interest as an
ecclesiastical, i.e., a divinely substantial power. Sovereigns and peoples were
by no means incapable of discriminating between the two, or of recognizing the
worldly aims that were apt to intrude as motives for ecclesiastical
intervention. They therefore stood by the Church as far as they deemed it their
interest to do so; otherwise they showed no great dread of excommunication or
other ghostly terrors. Italy was the country where the authority of the Popes
was least respected; and the worst usage they experienced was from the Romans
themselves. Thus what the Popes acquired in point of land and wealth and direct
sovereignty, they lost in influence and consideration.
We have then to probe to its depths the spiritual element in the Church – the
form of its power. The essence of the Christian principle has already been
unfolded; it is the principle of Mediation. Man realizes his Spiritual essence
only when he conquers the Natural that attaches to him. This conquest is
possible only on the supposition that the human and the divine nature are
essentially one, and that Man, so far as he is Spirit, also possesses the
essentiality and substantiality that belong to the idea of Deity. The condition
of the mediation in question is the consciousness of this unity; and the
intuition of this unity was given to man in Christ. The object to be attained is
therefore, that man should lay hold on this consciousness, and that it should be
continually excited in him. This was the design of the Mass: in the Host Christ
is set forth as actually, present; the piece of bread consecrated by the priest
is the present God, subjected to human contemplation and ever and anon offered
up. One feature of this representation is correct, inasmuch as the sacrifice of
Christ is here regarded as an actual and eternal transaction, Christ being not a
mere sensuous and single, but a completely universal, i.e., divine, individuum;
but on the other hand it involves the error of isolating the sensuous phase; for
the Host is adored even apart from its being partaken of by the faithful, and
the presence of Christ is not exclusively limited mental vision and Spirit.
Justly therefore did the Lutheran Reformation make this dogma an especial object
of attack. Luther proclaimed the great doctrine that the Host had spiritual
value and Christ was received only on the condition of faith in him; apart from
this, the Host, he affirmed, was a mere external thing, possessed of no greater
value than any other thing. But the Catholic falls down before the Host; and
thus the merely outward has sanctity ascribed to it. The Holy as a mere thing
has the character of externality; thus it is capable of being taken possession
of by another to my exclusion: it may come into an alien hand, since the process
of appropriating it is not one that takes place in Spirit, but is conditioned by
its quality as an external object [Dingheit]. The highest of human blessings is
in the hands of others. Here arises ipso facto a separation between those who
possess this blessing and those who have to receive it from others – between the
Clergy and the Laity. The laity as such are alien to the Divine. This is the
absolute schism in which the Church in the Middle Ages was involved: it arose
from the recognition of the Holy as something external. The clergy imposed
certain conditions, to which the laity must conform if they would be partakers
of the Holy. The entire development of doctrine, spiritual insight and the
knowledge of divine things, belonged exclusively to the Church: it has to
ordain, and the laity have simply to believe: obedience is their duty – the
obedience of faith, without insight on their part. This position of things
rendered faith a matter of external legislation, and resulted in compulsion and
the stake. The generality of men are thus cut off from the Church; and on the
same principle they are severed from the Holy in every form. For on the same
principle as that by which the clergy are the medium between man on the one hand
and God and Christ on the other hand, the layman cannot directly apply to the
Divine Being in his prayers, but only through mediators – human beings who
conciliate God for him, the Dead, the Perfect – Saints. Thus originated the
adoration of the Saints, and with it that conglomerate of fables and falsities
with which the Saints and their biographies have been invested. In the East the
worship of images had early become popular, and after a lengthened struggle had
triumphantly established itself: – an image, a picture, though sensuous, still
appeals rather to the imagination; but the coarser natures of the West desired
something more immediate as the object of their contemplation, and thus arose
the worship of relics. The consequence was a formal resurrection of the dead in
the mediaeval period, every pious Christian wished to be in possession of such
sacred earthly remains. Among the Saints the chief object of adoration was the
Virgin Mary. She is certainly the beautiful concept of pure love – a mother’s
love; but Spirit and Thought stand higher than even this; and in the worship of
this conception that of God in Spirit was lost, and Christ himself was set
aside. The element of mediation between God and man was thus apprehended and
held as something external. Thus through the perversion of the principle of
Freedom, absolute Slavery became the established law. The other aspects and
relations of the spiritual life of Europe during this period flow from this
principle. Knowledge, comprehension of religious doctrine, is something of which
Spirit is judged incapable; it is the exclusive possession of a class, which has
to determine the True. For man may not presume to stand in a direct relation to
God; so that, as we said before, if he would apply to Him, he needs a mediator –
a Saint. This view imports the denial of the essential unity of the Divine and
Human; since man, as such, is declared incapable of recognizing the Divine and
of approaching thereto. And while humanity is thus separated from the Supreme
Good, no change of heart, as such, is insisted upon – for this would suppose
that the unity of the Divine and the Human is to be found in man himself – but
the terrors of Hell are exhibited to man in the most terrible colors, to induce
him to escape from them, not by moral amendment, but in virtue of something
external – the “means of grace.” These, however, are an arcanum to the laity;
another – the “Confessor,” must furnish him with them. The individual has to
confess – is bound to expose all the particulars of his life and conduct to the
view of the Confessor – and then is informed what course he has to pursue to
attain spiritual safety. Thus the Church took the place of Conscience: it put
men in leading strings like children, and told them that man could not be freed
from the torments which his sins had merited, by any amendment of his own moral
condition, but by outward actions, opera operata – actions which were not the
promptings of his own good-will, but performed by command of the ministers of
the church; e.g., hearing mass, doing penance, going through a certain number of
prayers, undertaking pilgrimages – actions which are unspiritual, stupefy the
soul, and which are not only mere external ceremonies, but are such as can be
even vicariously performed, The supererogatory works ascribed to the saints,
could be purchased, and the spiritual advantage which they merited, secured to
the purchaser. Thus was produced an utter derangement of all that is recognized
as good and moral in the Christian Church: only external requirements are
insisted upon, and these can be complied with in a merely external way. A
condition the very reverse of Freedom is intruded into the principle of freedom
itself.
With this perversion is connected the absolute separation of the spiritual
from the secular principle generally. There are two Divine Kingdoms – the
intellectual in the heart and cognitive faculty, and the socially ethical whose
element and sphere is secular existence. It is science alone that can comprehend
the kingdom of God and the socially Moral world as one Idea, and that recognizes
the fact that the course of Time has witnessed a process ever tending to the
realization of this unity. But Piety [or Religious Feeling] as such, has nothing
to do with the Secular: it may make its appearance in that sphere on a mission
of mercy, but this stops short of a strict socially ethical connection with it –
does not come up to the idea of Freedom. Religious Feeling is extraneous to
History, and has no History; for History is rather the Empire of Spirit
recognizing itself in its Subjective Freedom, as the economy of social morality
[sittliches Reich] in the State. In the Middle Ages that embodying of the Divine
in actual life was wanting; the antithesis was not harmonized. Social morality
was represented as worthless, and that in its three most essential particulars.
One phase of social morality is that connected with Love – with the emotions
called forth in the marriage relation. It is not proper to say that Celibacy is
contrary to Nature, but that it is adverse to Social Morality [Sittlichkeit].
Marriage was indeed reckoned by the Church among the Sacraments; but
notwithstanding the position thus assigned it, it was degraded, inasmuch as
celibacy was reckoned as the more holy state. A second point of social morality
is presented in Activity – the workman has to perform for his subsistence. His
dignity consists in his depending entirely on his diligence, conduct, and
intelligence, for the supply of his wants. In direct contravention of this
principle, Pauperism, laziness, inactivity, was regarded as nobler: and the
Immoral thus received the stamp of consecration. A third point of morality is,
that obedience be rendered to the Moral and Rational, as an obedience to laws
which I recognize as just; that it be not that blind and unconditional
compliance which does not know what it is doing, and whose course of action is a
mere groping about without clear consciousness or intelligence. But it was
exactly this latter kind of obedience that passed for the most pleasing to God;
a doctrine that exalts the obedience of Slavery, imposed by the arbitrary will
of the Church, above the true obedience of Freedom.
In this way the three vows of Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience turned out the
very opposite of what they assumed to be, and in them all social morality was
degraded. The Church was no longer a spiritual power, but an ecclesiastical one;
and the relation which the secular world sustained to it was unspiritual,
automatic, and destitute of independent insight and conviction. As the
consequence of this, we see everywhere vice, utter absence of respect for
conscience, shamelessness, and a distracted state of things, of which the entire
history of the period is the picture in detail.
According to the above, the Church of the Middle Ages exhibits itself as a
manifold Self- contradiction. For Subjective Spirit, although testifying of the
Absolute, is at the same time limited and definitely existing Spirit, as
Intelligence and Will. Its limitation begins in its taking up this distinctive
position, and here consentaneously begins its contradictory and self-alienated
phase; for that intelligence and will are not imbued with the Truth, which
appears in relation to them as something given [posited ab extra]. This
externality of the Absolute Object of comprehension affects the consciousness
thus: – that the Absolute Object presents itself as a merely sensuous, external
thing – common outward existence – and yet claims to be Absolute: in the
mediaeval view of things this absolute demand is made upon Spirit. The second
form of the contradiction in question has to do with the relation which the
Church itself sustains. The true Spirit exists in man – is his Spirit; and the
individual gives himself the certainty of this identity with the Absolute, in
worship – the Church sustaining merely the relation of a teacher and directress
of this worship. But here, on the contrary, we have an ecclesiastical body, like
the Brahmins in India, in possession of the Truth – not indeed by birth, but in
virtue of knowledge, teaching and training – yet with the proviso that this
alone is not sufficient, an external form, an unspiritual title being judged
essential to actual possession. This outward form is Ordination, whose nature is
such that the consecration imparted inheres essentially like a sensuous quality
in the individual, whatever be the character of his soul – be he irreligious,
immoral, or absolutely ignorant. The third kind of contradiction is the Church
itself, in its acquisition as an outward existence, of possessions and an
enormous property – state of things which, since that Church despises or
professes to despise riches, is none other than a Lie.
And we found the State, during the mediaeval period, similarly involved in
contradictions. We spoke above of an imperial rule, recognized as standing by
the side of the Church and constituting its secular arm. But the power thus
acknowledged is invalidated by the fact that the imperial dignity in question is
an empty title, not regarded by the Emperor himself or by those who wish to make
him the instrument of their ambitious views, as conferring solid authority on
its possessor; for passion and physical force assume an independent position,
and own no subjection to that merely abstract conception. But secondly, the bond
of union which holds the Mediaeval State together, and which we call Fidelity,
is left to the arbitrary choice of men’s disposition [Gemüth] which recognizes
no objective duties. Consequently, this Fidelity is the most unfaithful thing
possible. German Honor in the Middle Ages has become a proverb; but examined
more closely as History exhibits it we find it a veritable Punica fides or
Groeca fides; for the princes and vassals of the Emperor are true and honorable
only to their selfish aims, individual advantage and passions, but utterly
untrue to the Empire and the Emperor; because in “Fidelity” in the abstract,
their subjective caprice receives a sanction, and the State is not organized as
a moral totality. A third contradiction presents itself in the character of
individuals, exhibiting, as they do on the one hand, piety – religious devotion,
the most beautiful in outward aspect, and springing from the very depths of
sincerity – and on the other hand a barbarous deficiency in point of
intelligence and will. We find an acquaintance with abstract Truth, and yet the
most uncultured, the rudest ideas of the Secular and the Spiritual: a truculent
delirium of passion and yet a Christian sanctity which renounces all that is
worldly, and devotes itself entirely to holiness. So self-contradictory, so
deceptive is this mediaeval period ; and the polemical zeal with which its
excellence is contended for, is one of the absurdities of our times. Primitive
barbarism, rudeness of manners, and childish fancy are not revolting; they
simply excite our pity. But the highest purity of soul defiled by the most
horrible barbarity; the Truth, of which a knowledge has been acquired, degraded
to a mere tool by falsehood and self-seeking; that which is most irrational,
coarse and vile, established and strengthened by the religious sentiment – this
is the most disgusting and revolting spectacle that was ever witnessed, and
which only Philosophy can comprehend and so justify. For such an antithesis must
arise in man’s consciousness of the Holy while this consciousness still remains
primitive and immediate; and the profounder the truth to which Spirit comes into
an implicit relation – while it has not vet become aware of its own presence in
that profound truth – so much the more alien is it to itself in this its unknown
form: but only as the result of this alienation does it attain its true
harmonization.
We have then contemplated the Church as the reaction of the Spiritual against
the secular life of the time; but this reaction is so conditioned, that it only
subjects to itself that against which it reacts – does not reform it. While the
Spiritual, repudiating its proper sphere of action, has been acquiring secular
power, a secular sovereignty has also consolidated itself and attained a
systematic development – the Feudal System. As through their isolation, men are
reduced to a dependence on their individual power and might, every point in the
world on which a human being can maintain his ground becomes an energetic one.
While the Individual still remains destitute of the defence of laws and is
protected only by his own exertion, life, activity and excitement everywhere
manifest themselves. As men are certain of eternal salvation through the
instrumentality of the Church, and to this end are bound to obey it only in its
spiritual requirements, their ardor in the pursuit of worldly enjoyment
increases, on the other hand, in inverse proportion to their fear of its
producing any detriment to their spiritual weal; for the Church bestows
indulgences, when required, for oppressive, violent and vicious actions of all
kinds.
The period from the eleventh to the thirteenth century witnessed the rise of
an impulse which developed itself in various forms. The inhabitants of various
districts began to build enormous churches – Cathedrals, erected to contain the
whole community. Architecture is always the first art, forming the inorganic
phase, the domiciliation of the divinity; not till this is accomplished does Art
attempt to exhibit to the worshippers the divinity himself – the Objective.
Maritime commerce was carried on with vigor by the cities on the Italian,
Spanish, and Flemish coasts, and this stimulated the productive industry of
their citizens at home. The Sciences began in some degree to revive: the
Scholastic Philosophy was in its glory. Schools for the study of law were
founded at Bologna and other places, as also for that of medicine. It is on the
rise and growing importance of the Towns, that all these creations depend as
their main condition; a favorite subject of historical treatment in modern
times. And the rise of such communities was greatly desiderated. For the Towns,
like the Church, present themselves as reactions against feudal violence – as
the earliest legally and regularly constituted power. Mention has already been
made of the fact that the possessors of power compelled others to put themselves
under their protection. Such centres of safety were castles [Burgen], churches
and monasteries, round which were collected those who needed protection. These
now became burghers [Burger], and entered into a cliental relation to the lords
of such castles or to monastic bodies. Thus a firmly established community was
formed in many places. Many cities and fortified places [Castelle] still existed
in Italy, in the South of France, and in Germany on the Rhine, which dated their
existence from the ancient Roman times, and which originally possessed municipal
rights, but subsequently lost them under the rule of feudal governors [Vögte].
The citizens, like their rural neighbors, had been reduced to vassalage.
The principle of free possession however began to develop itself from the
protective relation of feudal protection; i.e., freedom originated in its direct
contrary. The feudal lords or great barons enjoyed, properly speaking, no free
or absolute possession, any more than their dependents ; they had unlimited
power over the latter, but at the same time they also were vassals of princes
higher and mightier than themselves, and to whom they were under engagements –
which, it must be confessed, they did not fulfil except under compulsion. The
ancient Germans had known of none other than free possession; but this principle
had been perverted into its complete opposite, and now for the first time we
behold the few feeble commencements of a reviving sense of freedom. Individuals
brought into closer relation by the soil which they cultivated, formed among
themselves a kind of union, confederation, or conjuratio. They agreed to be and
to perform on their own behalf that which they had previously been and performed
in the service of their feudal lord alone. Their first united undertaking was
the erection of a tower in which a bell was suspended: the ringing of the bell
was a signal for a general rendezvous, and the object of the union thus
appointed was the formation of a kind of militia. This is followed by the
institution of a municipal government, consisting of magistrates, jurors,
consuls, and the establishment of a common treasury, the imposition of taxes,
tolls, etc. Trenches are dug and walls built for the common defence, and the
citizens are forbidden to erect fortresses for themselves individually. In such
a community, handicrafts, as distinguished from agriculture, find their proper
home. Artisans necessarily soon attained a superior position to that of the
tillers of the ground, for the latter were forcibly driven to work; the former
displayed activity really their own, and a corresponding diligence and interest
in the result of their labors. Formerly artisans had been obliged to get
permission from their liege lords to sell their work, and thus earn something
for themselves: they were obliged to pay them a certain sum for this privilege
of market, besides contributing a portion of their gains to the baronial
exchequer. Those who had houses of their own were obliged to pay a considerable
quit-rent for them; on all that was imported and exported, the nobility imposed
large tolls, and for the security afforded to travellers they exacted
safe-conduct money. When at a later date these communities became stronger, all
such feudal rights were purchased from the nobles, or the cession of them
compulsorily extorted: by degrees the towns secured an independent jurisdiction
and likewise freed themselves from all taxes, tolls and rents. The burden which
continued the longest was the obligation the towns were under to make provision
for the Emperor and his whole retinue during his stay within their precincts, as
also for seigneurs of inferior rank under the same circumstances. The trading
class subsequently divided itself into guilds, to each of which were attached
particular rights and obligations. The factions to which episcopal elections and
other contingencies gave rise, very often promoted the attainment by the towns
of the rights above-mentioned. As it would not infrequently happen that two
rival bishops were elected to the same see, each one sought to draw the citizens
into his own interest, by granting them privileges and freeing them from
burdens. Subsequently arose many feuds with the clergy, the bishops and abbots.
In some towns they maintained their position as lords of the municipality; in
others the citizens got the upper hand, and obtained their freedom. Thus, e.g.,
Cologne threw off the yoke of its bishop; Mayence on the other hand remained
subject. By degrees cities grew to be independent republics: first and foremost
in Italy, then in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. They soon come to occupy
a peculiar position with respect to the nobility. The latter united itself with
the corporations of the towns, and constituted as e.g., in Berne, a particular
guild. It soon assumed special powers in the corporations of the towns and
attained a dominant position; but the citizens resisted the usurpation and
secured the government to themselves. The rich citizens (populus crassus) now
excluded the nobility from power. But in the same way as the party of the
nobility was divided into factions – especially those of Ghibellines and Guelfs,
of which the former favored the Emperor, the latter the Pope – that of the
citizens also was rent in sunder by intestine strife. The victorious faction was
accustomed to exclude its vanquished opponents from power. The patrician
nobility which supplanted the feudal aristocracy, deprived the common people of
all share in the conduct of the state, and thus proved itself no less oppressive
than the original noblesse. The history of the cities presents us with a
continual change of constitutions, according as one party among the citizens or
the other – this faction or that, got the upper hand. Originally a select body
of citizens chose the magistrates; but as in such elections the victorious
faction always had the greatest influence, no other means of securing impartial
functionaries was left, but the election of foreigners to the office of judge
and podésta. It also frequently happened that the cities chose foreign princes
as supreme seigneurs, and intrusted them with the signoria. But all of these
arrangements were only of short continuance; the princes soon misused their
sovereignty to promote their own ambitious designs and to gratify their
passions, and in a few years were once more deprived of their supremacy. – Thus
the history of these cities presents on the one hand, in individual characters
marked by the most terrible or the most admirable features, an astonishingly
interesting picture; on the other hand it repels us by assuming, as it
unavoidably does, the aspect of mere chronicles. In contemplating the restless
and ever-varying impulses that agitate the very heart of these cities and the
continual struggles of factions, we are astonished to see on the other side
industry – commerce by land and sea – in the highest degree prosperous. It is
the same principle of lively vigor, which, nourished by the internal excitement
in question, produces this phenomenon.
We have contemplated the Church, which extended its power over all the
sovereignties of the time, and the Cities, where a social organization on a
basis of Right was first resuscitated, as powers reacting against the authority
of princes and feudal lords. Against these two rising powers, there followed a
reactionary movement of princely authority; the Emperor now enters on a struggle
with the Pope and the cities. The Emperor is recognized as the apex of
Christian, i.e. secular power, the Pope on the other hand as that of
Ecclesiastical power, which had now however become as decidedly a secular
dominion. In theory, it was not disputed that the Roman Emperor was the Head of
Christendom – that he possessed the dominium mundi – that since all Christian
states belonged to the Roman Empire, their princes owed him allegiance in all
reasonable and equitable requirements. However satisfied the emperors themselves
might be of the validity of this claim, they had too much good sense to attempt
seriously to enforce if but the empty title of Roman Emperor was a sufficient
inducement to them to exert themselves to the utmost to acquire and maintain it
in Italy. The Othos especially cherished the idea of the continuation of the old
Roman empire, and were ever and anon summoning the German princes to join them
in an expedition to Rome with a view to coronation there; – an undertaking in
which they were often deserted by them and had to undergo the shame of a
retreat. Equal disappointment was experienced by those Italians who hoped for
deliverance at the hands of the Emperor from the ochlocracy that domineered over
the cities, or from the violence of the feudal nobility in the country at large.
The Italian princes who had invoked the presence of the Emperor and had promised
him aid in asserting his claims, drew back and left him in the lurch; and those
who had previously expected salvation for their country, then broke out into
bitter complaints that their beautiful country was devastated by barbarians,
their superior civilization trodden under foot, and that right and liberty,
deserted by the Emperor, must also perish. Especially touching and deep are the
lamentations and reproaches which Dante addresses to the Emperors.
The second complication with Italy was that struggle which contemporaneously
with the former was sustained chiefly by the great Swabians – the house of
Hohenstaufen – and whose object was to bring back the secular power of the
Church, which had become independent, to its original dependence on the state.
The Papal See was also a secular power and sovereignty, and the Emperor asserted
the superior prerogative of choosing the Pope and investing him with his secular
sovereignty. It was these rights of the State for which the Emperors contended.
But to that secular power which they withstood, they were at the same time
subject, in virtue of its spiritual pretensions: thus the contest was an
interminable contradiction. Contradictory as the varying phases of the contest,
in which reconciliation was ever alternating with renewed hostilities, was also
the instrumentality employed in the struggle. For the power with which the
Emperors made head against their enemy – the princes, their servants and
subjects, were divided in their own minds, inasmuch as they were bound by the
strongest ties of allegiance to the Emperor and to his enemy at one and the same
time. The chief interest of the princes lay in that very assumption of
independence in reference to the State, against which on the part of the Papal
See the Emperor was contending ; so that they were willing to stand by the
Emperor in cases where the empty dignity of the imperial crown was impugned, or
on some particular occasions – e.g., in a contest with the cities – but
abandoned him when he aimed at seriously asserting his authority against the
secular power of the clergy, or against other princes. As, on the one hand, the
German emperors sought to realize their title in Italy, so, on the other hand,
Italy had its political centre in Germany. The interests of the two countries
were thus linked together, and neither could gain political consolidation within
itself. In the brilliant period of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, individuals of
commanding character sustained the dignity of the throne; sovereigns like
Frederick Barbarossa, in whom the imperial power manifested itself in its
greatest majesty, and who by his personal qualities succeeded in attaching the
subject princes to his interests. Yet brilliant as the history of the
Hohenstaufen dynasty may appear, and stirring as might have been the contest
with the Church, the former presents on the whole nothing more than the tragedy
of this house itself, and the latter had no important result in the sphere of
Spirit. The cities were indeed compelled to acknowledge the imperial authority,
and their deputies swore to observe the decisions of the Roncalian Diet; but
they kept their word no longer than they were compelled to do so. Their sense of
obligation depended exclusively on the direct consciousness of a superior power
ready to enforce it. It is said that when the Emperor Frederick I asked the
deputies of the cities whether they had not sworn to the conditions of peace,
they answered: “Yes, but not that we would observe them.” The result was that
Frederick I at the Peace of Constance (1183) was obliged to concede to them a
virtual independence; although he appended the stipulation, that in this
concession their feudal obligations to the German Empire were understood to be
reserved. The contest between the Emperors and the Popes regarding investitures
was settled at the close of 1122 by Henry V and Pope Calixtus II on these terms:
the Emperor was to invest with the sceptre; the Pope with the ring and crosier;
the chapter were to elect the Bishops in the presence of the Emperor or of
imperial commissioners; then the Emperor was to invest the Bishop as a secular
feudatory with the temper alia, while the ecclesiastical investiture was
reserved for the Pope. Thus the protracted contest between the secular and
spiritual powers was at length set at rest.
Chapter II. The Crusades.
The Church gained the victory in the struggle referred to in the previous
chapter; and in this way secured as decided a supremacy in Germany, as she did
in the other states of Europe by a calmer process. She made herself mistress of
all the relations of life, and of science and art; and she was the permanent
repository of spiritual treasures. Yet notwithstanding this full and complete
development of ecclesiastical life, we find a deficiency and consequent craving
manifesting itself in Christendom, and which drove it out of itself. To
understand this want, we must revert to the nature of the Christian religion
itself, and particularly to that aspect of it by which it has a footing in the
Present in the consciousness of its votaries.
The objective doctrines of Christianity had been already so firmly settled by
the Councils of the Church, that neither the mediaeval nor any other philosophy
could develop them further, except in the way of exalting them intellectually,
so that they might be satisfactory as presenting the form of Thought. And one
essential point in this doctrine was the recognition of the Divine Nature as not
in any sense an other-world existence [ein Jenseits], but as in unity with Human
Nature in the Present and Actual. But this Presence is at the same time
exclusively Spiritual Presence. Christ as a particular human personality has
left the world; his temporal existence is only a past one – i.e., it exists only
in mental conception. And since the Divine existence on earth is essentially of
a spiritual character, it cannot appear in the form of a Dalai-Lama. The Pope,
however high his position as Head of Christendom and Vicar of Christ, calls
himself only the Servant of Servants. How then did the Church realize Christ as
a definite and present existence? The principal form of this realization was, as
remarked above, the Holy Supper, in the form it presented as the Mass: in this
the Life, Suffering, and Death of the actual Christ were verily present, as an
eternal and daily repeated sacrifice. Christ appears as a definite and present
existence in a sensuous form as the Host, consecrated by the Priest; so far all
is satisfactory: that is to say, it is the Church, the Spirit of Christ, that
attains in this ordinance direct and full assurance. But the most prominent
feature in this sacrament is, that the process by which Deity is manifested, is
conditioned by the limitations of particularity – that the Host, this Thing, is
set up to be adored as God. The Church then might have been able to content
itself with this sensuous presence of Deity; but when it is once granted that
God exists in external phenomenal presence, this external manifestation
immediately becomes infinitely varied; for the need of this presence is
infinite. Thus innumerable instances will occur in the experience of the Church,
in which Christ has appeared to one and another, in various places; and still
more frequently his divine Mother, who as standing nearer to humanity, is a
second mediator between the Mediator and man (the miracle-working images of the
Virgin are in their way Hosts, since they supply a benign and gracious presence
of God). In all places, therefore, there will occur manifestations of the
Heavenly, in specially gracious appearances, the stigmata of Christ’s Passion,
etc.; and the Divine will be realized in miracles as detached and isolated
phenomena. In the period in question the Church presents the aspect of a world
of miracle; to the community of devout and pious persons natural existence has
utterly lost its stability and certainty: rather, absolute certainty has turned
against it, and the Divine is not conceived of by Christendom under conditions
of universality as the law and nature of Spirit, but reveals itself in isolated
and detached phenomena, in which the rational form of existence is utterly
perverted.
In this complete development of the Church, we may find a deficiency: but
what can be felt as a want by it? What compels it, in this state of perfect
satisfaction and enjoyment, to wish for something else within the limits of its
own principles – without apostatizing from itself? Those miraculous images,
places, and times, are only isolated points, momentary appearances – are not an
embodiment of Deity, not of the highest and absolute kind. The Host, the supreme
manifestation, is to be found indeed in innumerable churches; Christ is therein
transubstantiated to a present and particular existence: but this itself is of a
vague and general character; it is not his actual and very presence as
particularized in Space. That presence has passed away, as regards time; but as
spatial and as concrete in space it has a mundane permanence in this particular
spot, this particular village, etc. It is then this mundane existence [in
Palestine] which Christendom desiderates, which it is resolved on attaining.
Pilgrims in crowds had indeed been able to enjoy it; but the approach to the
hallowed localities is in the hands of the Infidels, and it is a reproach to
Christendom that the Holy Places and the Sepulchre of Christ in particular are
not in possession of the Church. In this feeling Christendom was united;
consequently the Crusades were undertaken, whose object was not the furtherance
of any special interests on the part of the several states that engaged in them,
but simply and solely the conquest of the Holy Land.
The West once more sallied forth in hostile array against the East. As in the
expedition of the Greeks against Troy, so here the invading hosts were entirely
composed of independent feudal lords and knights; though they were not united
under a real individuality, as were the Greeks under Agamemnon or Alexander.
Christendom, on the contrary, was engaged in an undertaking whose object was the
securing of the definite and present existence [of Deity] – the real culmination
of Individuality. This object impelled the West against the East, and this is
the essential interest of the Crusades.
The first and immediate commencement of the Crusades was made in the West
itself. Many thousands of Jews were massacred, and their property seized; and
after this terrible prelude Christendom began its march. The monk, Peter the
Hermit of Amiens, led the way with an immense troop of rabble. This host passed
in the greatest disorder through Hungary, and robbed and plundered as they went;
but their numbers dwindled away, and only a few reached Constantinople. For
rational considerations were out of the question; the mass of them believed that
God would be their immediate guide and protector. The most striking proof that
enthusiasm almost robbed the nations of Europe of their senses, is supplied by
the fact that at a later time troops of children ran away from their parents,
and went to Marseilles, there to take ship for the Holy Land. Few reached it;
the rest were sold by the merchants to the Saracens as slaves.
At last, with much trouble and immense loss, more regular armies attained the
desired object; they beheld themselves in possession of all the Holy Places of
note – Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Golgotha, and even the Holy Sepulchre. In the
whole expedition – in all the acts of the Christians – appeared that enormous
contrast (a feature characteristic of the age) – the transition on the part of
the Crusading host from the greatest excesses and outrages to the profoundest
contrition and humiliation. Still dripping with the blood of the slaughtered
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Christians fell down on their faces at the tomb of
the Redeemer, and directed their fervent supplications to him.
Thus did Christendom come into the possession of its highest good. Jerusalem
was made a kingdom, and the entire feudal system was introduced there – a
constitution which, in presence of the Saracens, was certainly the worst that
could be adopted. Another crusade in the year 1204 resulted in the conquest of
Constantinople and the establishment of a Latin Empire there. Christendom,
therefore, had appeased its religious craving; it could now veritably walk
unobstructed in the footsteps of the Saviour. Whole shiploads of earth were
brought from the Holy Land to Europe. Of Christ himself no corporeal relics
could be obtained, for he was arisen: the Sacred Handkerchief, the Cross, and
lastly the Sepulchre, were the most venerated memorials. But in the Grave is
found the real point of retro-version; it is in the grave that all the vanity of
the Sensuous perishes. At the Holy Sepulchre the vanity of [the cherished]
opinion passes away [the fancies by which the substance of truth has been
obscured disappear] ; there all is seriousness. In the negation of that definite
and present embodiment – i.e., of the Sensuous – it is that the turning-point in
question is found, and those words have an application: “Thou wouldst not suffer
thy Holy One to see corruption.” Christendom was not to find its ultimatum of
truth in the grave. At this sepulchre the Christian world received a second time
the response given to the disciples when they sought the body of the Lord there:
“Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.” You must
not look for the principle of your religion in the Sensuous, in the grave among
the dead, but in the living Spirit in yourselves. We have seen how the vast idea
of the union of the Finite with the Infinite was perverted to such a degree as
that men looked for a definite embodiment of the Infinite in a mere isolated
outward object [the Host]. Christendom found the empty Sepulchre, but not the
union of the Secular and the Eternal; and so it lost the Holy Land. It was
practically undeceived; and the result which it brought back with it was of a
negative kind: viz., that the definite embodiment which it was seeking, was to
be looked for in Subjective Consciousness alone, and in no external object; that
the definite form in question, presenting the union of the Secular with the
Eternal, is the Spiritual self-cognizant independence of the individual. Thus
the world attains the conviction that man must look within himself for that
definite embodiment of being which is of a divine nature: subjectivity thereby
receives absolute authorization, and claims to determine for itself the relation
[of all that exists] to the Divine.[32] This then was the absolute result of the
Crusades, and from them we may date the commencement of self-reliance and
spontaneous activity. The West bade an eternal farewell to the East at the Holy
Sepulchre, and gained a comprehension of its own principle of subjective
infinite Freedom. Christendom never appeared again on the scene of history as
one body.
Crusades of another kind, bearing somewhat the character of wars with a view
to mere secular conquest, but which involved a religious interest also, were the
contests waged by Spain against the Saracens in the peninsula itself. The
Christians had been shut up in a corner by the Arabs; but they gained upon their
adversaries in strength, because the Saracens in Spain and Africa were engaged
in war in various directions, and were divided among themselves. The Spaniards,
united with Frank knights, undertook frequent expeditions against the Saracens;
and in this collision of the Christians with the chivalry of the East – with its
freedom and perfect independence of soul – the former became also partakers in
this freedom. Spain gives us the fairest picture of the knighthood of the Middle
Ages, and its hero is the Cid. Several Crusades, the records of which excite our
unmixed loathing and detestation, were undertaken against the South of France
also. There an aesthetic culture had developed itself: the Troubadours had
introduced a freedom of manners similar to that which prevailed under the
Hohenstaufen Emperors in Germany; but with this difference, that the former had
in it something affected, while the latter was of a more genuine kind. But as in
Upper Italy, so also in the South of France fanatical ideas of purity had been
introduced;[33] a Crusade was therefore preached against that country by Papal
authority. St. Dominic entered it with a vast host of invaders, who, in the most
barbarous manner, pillaged and murdered the innocent and the guilty
indiscriminately, and utterly laid waste the fair region which they inhabited.
Through the Crusades the Church reached the completion of its authority: it
had achieved the perversion of religion and of the divine Spirit; it had
distorted the principle of Christian Freedom to a wrongful and immoral slavery
of men’s souls; and in so doing, far from abolishing lawless caprice and
violence and supplanting them by a virtuous rule of its own, it had even
enlisted them in the service of ecclesiastical authority. In the Crusades the
Pope stood at the head of the secular power: the Emperor appeared only in a
subordinate position, like the other princes, and was obliged to commit both the
initiative and the executive to the Pope, as the manifest generalissimo of the
expedition. We have already seen the noble house of Hohenstaufen presenting the
aspect of chivalrous, dignified and cultivated opponents of the Papal power,
when Spirit [the moral and intellectual element in Christendom] had given up the
contest. We have seen how they were ultimately obliged to yield to the Church;
which, elastic enough to sustain any attack, bore down all opposition and would
not move a step towards conciliation. The fall of the Church was not to be
effected by open violence; it was from within – by the power of Spirit and by an
influence that wrought its way upwards – that ruin threatened it. Respect for
the Papacy could not but be weakened by the very fact that the lofty aim of the
Crusades – the satisfaction expected from the enjoyment of the sensuous Presence
– was not attained. As little did the Popes succeed in keeping possession of the
Holy Land. Zeal for the holy cause was exhausted among the princes of Europe.
Grieved to the heart by the defeat of the Christians, the Popes again and again
urged them to advance to the rescue; but lamentations and entreaties were vain,
and they could effect nothing. Spirit, disappointed with regard to its craving
for the highest form of the sensuous presence of Deity, fell back upon itself. A
rupture, the first of its kind and profound as it was novel, took place. From
this time forward we witness religious and intellectual movements in which
Spirit – transcending the repulsive and irrational existence by which it is
surrounded – either finds its sphere of exercise within itself, and draws upon
its own resources for satisfaction, or throws its energies into an actual world
of general and morally justified aims, which are therefore aims consonant with
Freedom. The efforts thus originated are now to be described: they were the
means by which Spirit was to be prepared to comprehend the grand purpose of its
Freedom in a form of greater purity and moral elevation.
To this class of movements belongs in the first place the establishment of
monastic and chivalric orders, designed to carry out those rules of life which
the Church had distinctly enjoined upon its members. That renunciation of
property, riches, pleasures, and free will, which the Church had designated as
the highest of spiritual attainments, was to be a reality – not a mere
profession. The existing monastic and other institutions that had adopted this
vow of renunciation, had been entirely sunk in the corruption of worldliness.
But now Spirit sought to realize in the sphere of the principle of negativity –
purely in itself – what the Church had demanded. The more immediate occasion of
this movement was the rise of numerous heresies in the South of France and
Italy, whose tendency was in the direction of enthusiasm; and the unbelief which
was now gaining ground, but which the Church justly deemed not so dangerous as
those heresies. To counteract these evils, new monastic orders were founded, the
chief of which was that of the Franciscans, or Mendicant Friars, whose founder,
St. Francis of Assisi – a man possessed by an enthusiasm and ecstatic passion
that passed all bounds – spent his life in continually striving for the loftiest
purity. He gave an impulse of the same kind to his order; the greatest fervor of
devotion, the sacrifice of all pleasures in contravention of the prevailing
worldliness of the Church, continual penances, the severest poverty (the
Franciscans lived on daily alms) – were therefore peculiarly characteristic of
it. Contemporaneously with it arose the Dominican order, founded by St. Dominic;
its special business was preaching. The mendicant friars were diffused through
Christendom to an incredible extent; they were, on the one hand, the standing
apostolic army of the Pope, while, on the other hand, they strongly protested
against his worldliness. The Franciscans were powerful allies of Louis of
Bavaria in his resistance of the Papal assumptions, and they are said to have
been the authors of the position, that a General Council was higher authority
than the Pope; but subsequently they too sank down into a torpid and
unintelligent condition. In the same way the ecclesiastical Orders of Knighthood
contemplated the attainment of purity of Spirit. We have already called
attention to the peculiar chivalric spirit which had been developed in Spain
through the struggle with the Saracens: the same spirit was diffused as the
result of the Crusades through the whole of Europe. The ferocity and savage
valor that characterized the predatory life of the barbarians – pacified and
brought to a settled state by possession, and restrained by the presence of
equals – was elevated by religion and then kindled to a noble enthusiasm through
contemplating the boundless magnanimity of Oriental prowess. For Christianity
also contains the element of boundless abstraction and freedom; the Oriental
chivalric spirit found therefore in Occidental hearts a response, which paved
the way for their attaining a nobler virtue than they had previously known.
Ecclesiastical orders of knighthood were instituted on a basis resembling that
of the monastic fraternities. The same conventual vow of renunciation was
imposed on their members – the giving up of all that was worldly. But at the
same time they undertook the defence of the pilgrims: their first duty therefore
was knightly bravery; ultimately, they were also pledged to the sustenance and
care of the poor and the sick. The Orders of Knighthood were divided into three:
that of St. John, that of the Temple, and the Teutonic Order. These associations
are essentially distinguished from the self-seeking principle of feudalism.
Their members sacrificed themselves with almost suicidal bravery for a common
interest. Thus these Orders transcended the circle of their immediate
environment, and formed a network of fraternal coalition over the whole of
Europe. But their members sank down to the level of vulgar interests, and the
Orders became in the sequel a provisional institute for the nobility generally,
rather than anything else. The Order of the Temple was even accused of forming a
religion of its own, and of having renounced Christ in the creed which, under
the influence of the Oriental Spirit, it had adopted.
A second impulsion, having a similar origin, was that in the direction of
Science. The development of Thought – the abstractly Universal – now had its
commencement. Those fraternal associations themselves, having a common object,
in whose service their members were enlisted, point to the fact that a general
principle was beginning to be recognized, and which gradually became conscious
of its power. Thought was first directed to Theology, which now became
Philosophy under the name of Scholastic Divinity. For philosophy and theology
have the Divine as their common object; and although the theology of the Church
was a stereotyped dogma, the impulse now arose to justify this body of doctrine
in the view of Thought. “When we have arrived at Faith,” says the celebrated
scholastic, Anselm, “it is a piece of negligence to stop short of convincing
ourselves, by the aid of Thought, of that to which we have given credence.” But
thus conditioned Thought was not free, for its material was already posited ab
extra; it was to the proof of this material that philosophy devoted its
energies. But Thought suggested a variety of questions, the complete answer to
which was not given directly in the symbols of the Church; and since the Church
had not decided respecting them, they were legitimate subjects of controversy.
Philosophy was indeed called an ancilla fidei, for it was in subjection to that
material of the Church’s creed, which had been already definitely settled; but
yet it was impossible for the opposition between Thought and Belief not to
manifest itself. As Europe presented the spectacle of chivalric contests
generally – passages of arms and tournaments – it was now the theatre for
intellectual jousting also. It is incredible to what an extent the abstract
forms of Thought were developed, and what dexterity was acquired in the use of
them. This intellectual tourneying for the sake of exhibiting skill, and as a
diversion (for it was not the doctrines themselves, but only the forms in which
they were couched that made the subject of debate), was chiefly prosecuted and
brought to perfection in France. France, in fact, began at that time to be
regarded as the centre of Christendom : there the scheme of the first Crusades
originated, and French armies carried it out: there the Popes took refuge in
their struggles with the German emperors and with the Norman princes of Naples
and Sicily, and there for a time they made a continuous sojourn. – We also
observe in the period subsequent to the Crusades, commencements of Art – of
Painting, viz.: even during their continuance a peculiar kind of poetry had made
it appearance. Spirit, unable to satisfy its cravings, created for itself by
imagination fairer forms and in a calmer and freer manner than the actual world
could offer.
Chapter III. The Transition from Feudalism to Monarchy.
The moral phenomena above mentioned, tending in the direction of a general
principle, were partly of a subjective, partly of a speculative order. But we
must now give particular attention to the practical political movements of the
period. The advance which that period witnessed, presents a negative aspect in
so far as it involves the termination of the sway of individual caprice and of
the isolation of power. Its affirmative aspect is the rise of a supreme
authority whose dominion embraces all – a political power properly so called,
whose subjects enjoy an equality of rights, and in which the will of the
individual is subordinated to that common interest which underlies the whole.
This is the advance from Feudalism to Monarchy. The principle of feudal
sovereignty is the outward force of individuals – princes, liege lords; it is a
force destitute of intrinsic right. The subjects of such a Constitution are
vassals of a superior prince or seigneur, to whom they have stipulated duties to
perform: but whether they perform these duties or not, depends upon the
seigneur’s being able to induce them so to do, by force of character or by grant
of favors: – conversely, the recognition of those feudal claims themselves was
extorted by violence in the first instance; and the fulfilment of the
corresponding duties could be secured only by the constant exercise of the power
which was the sole basis of the claims in question. The monarchical principle
also implies a supreme authority, but it is an authority over persons possessing
no independent power to support their individual caprice; where we have no
longer caprice opposed to caprice; for the supremacy implied in monarchy is
essentially a power emanating from a political body, and is pledged to the
furtherance of that equitable purpose on which the constitution of a state is
based. Feudal sovereignty is a polyarchy: we see nothing but Lords and Serfs; in
Monarchy, on the contrary, there is one Lord and no Serf, for servitude is
abrogated by it, and in it Right and Law are recognized; it is the source of
real freedom. Thus in monarchy the caprice of individuals is kept under, and a
common gubernatorial interest established. In the suppression of those isolated
powers, as also in the resistance made to that suppression, it seems doubtful
whether the desire for a lawful and equitable state of things, or the wish to
indulge individual caprice, is the impelling motive. Resistance to kingly
authority is entitled Liberty, and is lauded as legitimate and noble when the
idea of arbitrary will is associated with that authority. But by the arbitrary
will of an individual exerting itself so as to subjugate a whole body of men, a
community is formed; and comparing this state of things with that in which every
point is a centre of capricious violence, we find a much smaller number of
points exposed to such violence. The great extent of such a sovereignty
necessitates general arrangements for the purposes of organization, and those
who govern in accordance with those arrangements are at the same time, in virtue
of their office itself, obedient to the state: Vassals become Officers of State,
whose duty it is to execute the laws by which the state is regulated. But since
this monarchy is developed from feudalism, it bears in the first instance the
stamp of the system from which it sprang. – individuals quit their isolated
capacity and become members of Estates [or Orders of the Realm] and
Corporations; the vassals are powerful only by combination as an Order; in
contraposition to them the cities constitute Powers in virtue of their communal
existence. Thus the authority of the sovereign inevitably ceases to be mere
arbitrary sway. The consent of the Estates and Corporations is essential to its
maintenance ; and if the prince wishes to have that consent, he must will what
is just and reasonable. We now see a Constitution embracing various Orders,
while Feudal rule knows no such Orders. We observe the transition from feudalism
to monarchy taking place in three ways: 1. Sometimes the lord paramount gains a
mastery over his independent vassals, by subjugating their individual power –
thus making himself sole ruler.
2. Sometimes the princes free themselves from the feudal relation altogether,
and become the territorial lords of certain states; or lastly
3. The lord paramount unites the particular lordships that own him as their
superior, with his own particular suzerainty, in a more peaceful way, and thus
becomes master of the whole.
These processes do not indeed present themselves in history in that pure and
abstract form in which they are exhibited here: often we find more modes than
one appearing contemporaneously ; but one or the other always predominates. The
cardinal consideration is that the basis and essential condition of such a
political formation is to be looked for in the particular nationalities in which
it had its birth. Europe presents particular nations, constituting a unity in
their very nature, and having the absolute tendency to form a state. All did not
succeed in attaining this political unity: we have now to consider them
severally in relation to the change thus introduced. First, as regards the Roman
empire, the connection between Germany and Italy naturally results from the idea
of that empire : the secular dominion united with the spiritual was to
constitute one whole; but this state of things was rather the object of constant
struggle than one actually attained. In Germany and Italy the transition from
the feudal condition to monarchy involved the entire abrogation of the former:
the vassals became independent monarchs.
Germany had always embraced a great variety of stocks: – Swabians, Bavarians,
Franks, Thuringians, Saxons, Burgundians: to these must be added the Sclaves of
Bohemia, Germanized Sclaves in Mecklenburg, in Brandenburg, and in a part of
Saxony and Austria; so that no such combination as took place in France was
possible. Italy presented a similar state of things. The Lombards had
established themselves there, while the Greeks still possessed the Exarchate and
Lower Italy: the Normans too established a kingdom of their own in Lower Italy,
and the Saracens maintained their ground for a time in Sicily. When the rule of
the house of Hohenstaufen was terminated, barbarism got the upper hand
throughout Germany; the country being broken up into several sovereignties, in
which a forceful despotism prevailed. It was the maxim of the electoral princes
to raise only weak princes to the imperial throne; they even sold the imperial
dignity to foreigners. Thus the unity of the state was virtually annulled. A
number of centres of power were formed, each of which was a predatory state: the
legal constitution recognized by feudalism was dissolved, and gave place to
undisguised violence and plunder; and powerful princes made themselves lords of
the country. After the interregnum the Count of Hapsburg was elected Emperor,
and the House of Hapsburg continued to fill the imperial throne with but little
interruption. These emperors were obliged to create a force of their own, as the
princes would not grant them an adequate power attached to the empire. But that
state of absolute anarchy was at last put an end to by associations having
general aims in view. In the cities themselves we see associations of a minor
order; but now confederations of cities were formed with a common interest in
the suppression of predatory violence. Of this kind was the Hanseatic League in
the North, the Rhenish League consisting of cities lying along the Rhine, and
the Swabian League. The aim of all these confederations was resistance to the
feudal lords; and even princes united with the cities, with a view to the
subversion of the feudal condition and the restoration of a peaceful state of
things throughout the country. What the state of society was under feudal
sovereignty is evident from the notorious association formed for executing
criminal justice: it was a private tribunal, which, under the name of the
Vehmgericht, held secret sittings; its chief seat was the northwest of Germany.
A peculiar peasant association was also formed. In Germany the peasants were
bondmen; many of them took refuge in the towns, or settled down as freemen in
the neighborhood of the towns (Pfahlbürger); but in Switzerland a peasant
fraternity was established. The peasants of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were
under imperial governors; for the Swiss governments were not the property of
private possessors, but were official appointments of the Empire. These the
sovereigns of the Hapsburg line wished to secure to their own house. The
peasants, with club and ironstudded mace [Morgenstern], returned victorious from
a contest with the haughty steel-clad nobles, armed with spear and sword, and
practised in the chivalric encounters of the tournament. Another invention also
tended to deprive the nobility of the ascendancy which they owed to their
accoutrements – that of gunpowder. Humanity needed it, and it made its
appearance forthwith. It was one of the chief instruments in freeing the world
from the dominion of physical force, and placing the various orders of society
on a level. With the distinction between the weapons they used, vanished also
that between lords and serfs. And before gunpowder fortified places were no
longer impregnable, so that strongholds and castles now lose their importance.
We may indeed be led to lament the decay or the depreciation of the practical
value of personal valor – the bravest, the noblest may be shot down by a
cowardly wretch at safe distance in an obscure lurking-place; but, on the other
hand, gunpowder has made a rational, considerate bravery – Spiritual valor – the
essential to martial success. Only through this instrumentality could that
superior order of valor be called forth – that valor in which the heat of
personal feeling has no share; for the discharge of firearms is directed against
a body of men – an abstract enemy, not individual combatants. The warrior goes
to meet deadly peril calmly, sacrificing himself for the common weal; and the
valor of cultivated nations is characterized by the very fact, that it does not
rely on the strong arm alone, but places its confidence essentially in the
intelligence, the generalship, the character of its commanders; and, as was the
case among the ancients, in a firm combination and unity of spirit on the part
of the forces they command.
In Italy, as already noticed, we behold the same spectacle as in Germany –
the attainment of an independent position by isolated centres of power. In that
country, warfare in the hand of the Condottieri became a regular business. The
towns were obliged to attend to their trading concerns, and therefore employed
mercenary troops, whose leaders often became feudal lords; Francis Sforza even
made himself Duke of Milan. In Florence, the Medici, a family of merchants, rose
to power. On the other hand, the larger cities of Italy reduced under their sway
several smaller ones and many feudal chiefs. A Papal territory was likewise
formed. There, also, a very large number of feudal lords had made themselves
independent; by degrees they all became subject to the one sovereignty of the
Pope. How thoroughly equitable in the view of social morality such a subjugation
was, is evident from Machiavelli’s celebrated work “The Prince.” This book has
often been thrown aside in disgust, as replete with the maxims of the most
revolting tyranny; but nothing worse can be urged against it than that the
writer, having the profound consciousness of the necessity for the formation of
a State, has here exhibited the principles on which alone states could be
founded in the circumstances of the times. The chiefs who asserted an isolated
independence, and the power they arrogated, must be entirely subdued; and though
we cannot reconcile with our idea of Freedom, the means which he proposes as the
only efficient ones, and regards as perfectly justifiable – inasmuch as they
involve the most reckless violence, all kinds of deception, assassination, and
so forth – we must nevertheless confess that the feudal nobility, whose power
was to be subdued, were assailable in no other way, since an indomitable
contempt for principle, and an utter depravity of morals, were thoroughly
engrained in them.
In France we find the converse of that which occurred in Germany and Italy.
For many centuries the Kings of France possessed only a very small domain, so
that many of their vassals were more powerful than themselves: but it was a
great advantage to the royal dignity in France, that the principle of hereditary
monarchy was firmly established there. The consideration it enjoyed was
increased by the circumstance that the corporations and cities had their rights
and privileges confirmed by the king, and that the appeals to the supreme feudal
tribunal – the Court of Peers, consisting of twelve members enjoying that
dignity – became increasingly frequent. The king’s influence was extended by his
affording that protection which only the throne could give. But that which
essentially secured respect for royalty, even among the powerful vassals, was
the increasing personal power of the sovereign. In various ways, by inheritance,
by marriage, by force of arms, etc., the Kings had come into possession of many
Earldoms [Grafschaften] and several Duchies. The Dukes of Normandy had, however,
become Kings of England; and thus a formidable power confronted France, whose
interior lay open to it by way of Normandy. Besides this there were powerful
Duchies still remaining; nevertheless, the King was not a mere feudal suzerain
[Lehnsherr] like the German Emperors, but had become a territorial possessor
[Landesherr] : he had a number of barons and cities under him, who were subject
to his immediate jurisdiction; and Louis IX succeeded in rendering appeals to
the royal tribunal common throughout his kingdom. The towns attained a position
of greater importance in the state. For when the king needed money, and all his
usual resources – such as taxes and forced contributions of all kinds – were
exhausted, he made application to the towns and entered into separate
negotiations with them. It was Philip the Fair who, in the year 1302, first
convoked the deputies of the towns as a Third Estate in conjunction with the
clergy and the barons. All indeed that they were in the first instance concerned
with was the authority of the sovereign as the power that had convoked them, and
the raising of taxes as the object of their convocation; but the States
nevertheless secured an importance and weight in the kingdom, and as the natural
result, an influence on legislation also. A fact which is particularly
remarkable is the proclamation issued by the kings of France, giving permission
to the bondsmen on the crown lands to purchase their freedom at a moderate
price. In the way we have indicated the kings of France very soon attained great
power; while the flourishing state of the poetic art in the hands of the
Troubadours, and the growth of the scholastic theology, whose especial centre
was Paris, gave France a culture superior to that of the other European states,
and which secured the respect of foreign nations.
England, as we have already had occasion to mention, was subjugated by
William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy. William introduced the feudal system
into it, and divided the kingdom into fiefs, which he granted almost exclusively
to his Norman followers. He himself retained considerable crown possessions; the
vassals were under obligation to perform service in the field, and to aid in
administering justice: the King was the guardian of all vassals under age; they
could not marry without his consent. Only by degrees did the barons and the
towns attain a position of importance. It was especially in the disputes and
struggles for the throne that they acquired considerable weight. When the
oppressive rule and fiscal exactions of the Kings became intolerable,
contentions and even war ensued: the barons compelled King John to swear to
Magna Charta, the basis of English liberty, i.e., more particularly of the
privileges of the nobility. Among the liberties thus secured, that which
concerns the administration of justice was the chief: no Englishman was to be
deprived of personal freedom, property, or life without the judicial verdict of
his peers. Every one, moreover, was to be entitled to the free disposition of
his property. Further, the King was to impose no taxes without the consent of
the archbishops, bishops, earls, and barons. The towns, also, favored by the
Kings in opposition to the barons, soon elevated themselves into a Third Estate
and to representation in the Commons’ House of Parliament. Yet the King was
always very powerful, if he possessed strength of character: his crown estates
procured for him due consideration; in later times, however, these were
gradually alienated – given away – so that the King was reduced to apply for
subsidies to the parliament.
We shall not pursue the minute and specifically historic details that concern
the incorporation of principalities with states, or the dissensions and contests
that accompanied such incorporations. We have only to add that the kings, when
by weakening the feudal constitution, they had attained a higher degree of
power, began to use that power against each other in the undisguised interest of
their own dominion. Thus France and England carried on wars with each other for
a century. The kings were always endeavoring to make foreign conquests; the
towns, which had the largest share of the burdens and expenses of such wars,
were opposed to them, and in order to placate them the kings granted them
important privileges.
The Popes endeavored to make the disturbed state of society to which each of
these changes gave rise, an occasion for the intervention- of their authority;
but the interest of the growth of states was too firmly established to allow
them to make their own interest of absolute authority valid against it. Princes
and peoples were indifferent to papal clamor urging them to new crusades. The
Emperor Louis set to work to deduce from Aristotle, the Bible, and the Roman Law
a refutation of the assumptions of the Papal See; and the electors declared at
the Diet held at Rense in 1338, and afterwards still more decidedly at the
Imperial Diet held at Frankfort, that they would defend the liberties and
hereditary rights of the Empire, and that to make the choice of a Roman Emperor
or King valid, no papal confirmation was needed. So, at an earlier date, 1302,
on occasion of a contest between Pope Boniface and Philip the Fair, the Assembly
of the States convoked by the latter had offered opposition to the Pope. For
states and communities had arrived at the consciousness of independent moral
worth. – Various causes had united to weaken the papal authority: the Great
Schism of the Church, which led men to doubt the Pope’s infallibility, gave
occasion to the decisions of the Councils of Constance and Basle, which assumed
an authority superior to that of the Pope, and therefore deposed and appointed
Popes. The numerous attempts directed against the ecclesiastical system
confirmed the necessity of a reformation. Arnold of Brescia, Wickliffe, and Huss
met with sympathy in contending against the dogma of the papal vicegerency of
Christ, and the gross abuses that disgraced the hierarchy. These attempts were,
however, only partial in their scope. On the one hand the time was not yet ripe
for a more comprehensive onslaught; on the other hand the assailants in question
did not strike at the heart of the matter, but (especially the two latter)
attacked the teaching of the Church chiefly with the weapons of erudition, and
consequently failed to excite a deep interest among the people at large.
But the ecclesiastical principle had a more dangerous foe in the incipient
formation of political organizations, than in the antagonists above referred to.
A common object, an aim intrinsically possessed of perfect moral validity,[34]
presented itself to secularity in the formation of states; and to this aim of
community the will, the desire, the caprice of the individual submitted
themselves. The hardness characteristic of the selfseeking quality of “Heart,”
maintaining its position of isolation – the knotty heart of oak underlying the
national temperament of the Germans – was broken down and mellowed by the
terrible discipline of the Middle Ages. The two iron rods which were the
instruments of this discipline were the Church and serfdom. The Church drove the
“Heart” [Gemüth] to desperation – made Spirit pass through the severest bondage,
so that the soul was no longer its own; but it did not degrade it to Hindoo
torpor, for Christianity is an intrinsically spiritual principle and, as such,
has a boundless elasticity. In the same way serfdom, which made a man’s body not
his own, but the property of another, dragged humanity through all the barbarism
of slavery and unbridled desire, and the latter was destroyed by its own
violence. It was not so much from slavery as through slavery that humanity was
emancipated. For barbarism, lust, injustice constitute evil: man, bound fast in
its fetters, is unfit for morality and religiousness; and it is from this
intemperate and ungovernable state of volition that the discipline in question
emancipated him. The Church fought the battle with the violence of rude
sensuality in a temper equally wild and terroristic with that of its antagonist:
it prostrated the latter by dint of the terrors of hell, and held it in
perpetual subjection, in order to break down the spirit of barbarism and to tame
it into repose. Theology declares that every man has this struggle to pass
through, since he is by nature evil, and only by passing through a state of
mental laceration arrives at the certainty of Reconciliation. But granting this,
it must on the other hand be maintained, that the form of the contest is very
much altered when the conditions of its commencement are different, and when
that reconciliation has had an actual realization. The path of torturous
discipline is in that case dispensed with (it does indeed make its appearance at
a later date, but in a quite different form), for the waking up of consciousness
finds man surrounded by the element of a moral state of society. The phase of
negation is, indeed, a necessary element -in human development, but it has now
assumed the tranquil form of education, so that all the terrible characteristics
of that inward struggle vanish.
Humanity has now attained the consciousness of a real internal harmonization
of Spirit, and a good conscience in regard to actuality – to secular existence.
The Human Spirit has come to stand on its own basis. In the self-consciousness
to which man has thus advanced, there is no revolt against the Divine, but a
manifestation of that better subjectivity, which recognizes the Divine in its
own being; which is imbued with the Good and True, and which directs its
activities to general and liberal objects bearing the stamp of rationality and
beauty.
Art and Science as Putting a Period to the Middle Ages
Humanity beholds its spiritual firmament restored to serenity. With that
tranquil settling down of the world into political order which we have been
contemplating, was conjoined an exaltation of Spirit to a nobler grade of
humanity in a sphere involving more comprehensive and concrete interests than
that with which political existence is concerned. The Sepulchre – that caput
mortuum of Spirit – and the Ultramundane cease to absorb human attention. The
principle of a specific and definite embodiment of the Infinite – that
desideratum which urged the world to the Crusades, now developed itself in a
quite different direction, viz. in secular existence asserting an independent
ground: Spirit made its embodiment an outward one and found a congenial sphere
in the secular life thus originated. The Church, however, maintained its former
position, and retained the principle in question in its original form. Yet even
in this case, that principle ceased to be limited to a bare outward existence [a
sacred thing, the Host, e.g.]: it was transformed and elevated by Art. Art
spiritualizes – animates the mere outward and material object of adoration with
a form which expresses soul, sentiment, Spirit; so that piety has not a bare
sensuous embodiment of the Infinite to contemplate, and does not lavish its
devotion on a mere Thing, but on the higher element with which the material
object is imbued – that expressive form with which Spirit has invested it. – It
is one thing for the mind to have before it a mere Thing – such as the Host per
se, a piece of stone or wood, or a wretched daub; – quite another thing for it
to contemplate a painting, rich in thought and sentiment, or a beautiful work of
sculpture, in looking at which, soul holds converse with soul and Spirit with
Spirit. In the former case, Spirit is torn from its proper element, bound down
to something utterly alien to it – the Sensuous, the Non-Spiritual. In the
latter, on the contrary, the sensuous object is a beautiful one, and the
Spiritual Form with which it is endued, gives it a soul and contains truth in
itself. But on the one hand, this element of truth as thus exhibited, is
manifested only in a sensuous mode, not in its appropriate form; on the other
hand, while Religion normally involves independence of that which is essentially
a mere outward and material object – a mere thing – that kind of religion which
is now under consideration, finds no satisfaction in being brought into
connection with the Beautiful: the coarsest, ugliest, poorest representations
will suit its purpose equally well – perhaps better. Accordingly real
masterpieces – e.g. Raphael’s Madonnas – do not enjoy distinguished veneration,
or elicit a multitude of offerings: inferior pictures seem on the contrary to be
especial favorites and to be made the object of the warmest devotion and the
most generous liberality. Piety passes by the former for this very reason, that
were it to linger in their vicinity it would feel an inward stimulus and
attraction; – an excitement of a kind which cannot but be felt to be alien,
where all that is desiderated is a sense of mental bondage in which self is lost
– the stupor of abject dependence. – Thus Art in its very nature transcended the
principle of the Church. But as the former manifests itself only under sensuous
limitations [and does not present the suspicious aspect of abstract thought], it
is at first regarded as a harmless and indifferent matter. The Church,
therefore, continued to follow it; but as soon as the free Spirit in which Art
originated, advanced to Thought and Science, a separation ensued.
For Art received a further support and experienced an elevating influence as
the result of the study of antiquity (the name humaniora is very expressive, for
in those works of antiquity honor is done to the Human and to the development of
Humanity) : through this study the West became acquainted with the true and
eternal element in the activity of man. The outward occasion of this revival of
science was the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Large numbers of Greeks took
refuge in the West and introduced Greek literature there; and they brought with
them not only the knowledge of the Greek language but also the treasures to
which that knowledge was the key. Very little of Greek literature had been
preserved in the convents, and an acquaintance with the language could scarcely
be said to exist at all. With the Roman literature it was otherwise ; in regard
to that, ancient traditions still lingered: Virgil was thought to be a great
magician (in Dante he appears as the guide in Hell and Purgatory). Through the
influence of the Greeks, then, attention was again directed to the ancient Greek
literature; the West had become capable of enjoying and appreciating it; quite
other ideals and a different order of virtue from that with which mediaeval
Europe was familiar were here presented; an altogether novel standard for
judging of what was to be honored, commended and imitated was set up. The Greeks
in their works exhibited quite other moral commands than those with which the
West was acquainted; scholastic formalism had to make way for a body of
speculative thought of a widely different complexion: Plato became known in the
West, and in him a new human world presented itself. These novel ideas met with
a principal organ of diffusion in the newly discovered Art of Printing, which,
like the use of gunpowder, corresponds with modern character, and supplied the
desideratum of the age in which it was invented, by tending to enable men to
stand in an ideal connection with each other. So far as the study of the
ancients manifested an interest in human deeds and virtues, the Church continued
to tolerate it, not observing that in those alien works an altogether alien
spirit was advancing to confront it.
As a third leading feature demanding our notice in determining the character
of the period, might be mentioned that urging of Spirit outwards – that desire
on the part of man to become acquainted with his world. The chivalrous spirit of
the maritime heroes of Portugal and Spain opened a new way to the East Indies
and discovered America. This progressive step also, involved no transgression of
the limits of ecclesiastical principles or feeling. The aim of Columbus was by
no means a merely secular one: it presented also a distinctly religious aspect;
the treasures of those rich Indian lands which awaited his discovery were
destined in his intention to be expended in a new Crusade, and the heathen
inhabitants of the countries themselves were to be converted to Christianity.
The recognition of the spherical figure of the earth led man to perceive that it
offered him a definite and limited object, and navigation had been benefited by
the new found instrumentality of the magnet, enabling it to be something better
than mere coasting: thus technical appliances make their appearance when a need
for them is experienced. These three events – the so-called Revival of Learning,
the flourishing of the Fine Arts and the discovery of America and of the passage
to India by the Cape – may be compared with that blush of dawn, which after long
storms first betokens the return of a bright and glorious day. This day is the
day of Universality, which breaks upon the world after the long, eventful, and
terrible night of the Middle Ages – a day which is distinguished by science, art
and inventive impulse – that is, by the noblest and highest, and which Humanity,
rendered free by Christianity and emancipated through the instrumentality of the
Church, exhibits as the eternal and veritable substance of its being.
Section III: The Modern Time.
We have now arrived at the third period of the German World, and thus enter upon
the period of Spirit conscious that it is free, inasmuch as it wills the True,
the Eternal – that which is in and for itself Universal.
In this third period also, three divisions present themselves. First, we have
to consider the Reformation in itself – the allenlightening Sun, following on
that blush of dawn which we observed at the termination of the mediaeval period;
next, the unfolding of that state of things which succeeded the Reformation; and
lastly, the Modern Times, dating from the end of the last century.
Chapter I. The Reformation
The Reformation resulted from the corruption of the Church. That corruption was
not an accidental phenomenon; it was not the mere abuse of power and dominion. A
corrupt state of things is very frequently represented as an “abuse”; it is
taken for granted that the foundation was good – the system, the institution
itself faultless – but that the passion, the subjective interest, in short the
arbitrary volition of men has made use of that which in itself was good to
further its own selfish ends, and that all that is required to be done is to
remove these adventitious elements. On this showing the institute in question
escapes obloquy, and the evil that disfigures it appears something foreign to
it. But when accidental abuse of a good thing really occurs, it is limited to
particularity. A great and general corruption affecting a body of such large and
comprehensive scope as a Church, is quite another thing. – The corruption of the
Church was a native growth; the principle of that corruption is to be looked for
in the fact that the specific and definite embodiment of Deity which it
recognizes, is sensuous – that the external in a coarse material form, is
enshrined in its inmost being. (The refining transformation which Art supplied
was not sufficient.) The higher Spirit – that of the World – has already
expelled the Spiritual from it; it finds nothing to interest it in the Spiritual
or in occupation with it; thus it retains that specific and definite embodiment;
– i.e., we have the sensuous immediate subjectivity, not refined by it to
Spiritual subjectivity. – Henceforth it occupies a position of inferiority to
the World- Spirit; the latter has already transcended it, for it has become
capable of recognizing the Sensuous as sensuous, the merely outward as merely
outward; it has learned to occupy itself with the Finite in a finite way, and in
this very activity to maintain an independent and confident position as a valid
and rightful subjectivity.[35]
The element in question which is innate in the Ecclesiastical principle only
reveals itself as a corrupting one when the Church has no longer any opposition
to contend with – when it has become firmly established. Then its elements are
free to display their tendencies without let or hindrance. Thus it is that
externality in the Church itself which becomes evil and corruption, and develops
itself as a negative principle in its own bosom. – The forms which this
corruption assumes are coextensive with the relations which the Church itself
sustains, into which consequently this vitiating element enters. The
ecclesiastical piety of the period displays the very essence of superstition –
the fettering of the mind to a sensuous object, a mere Thing – in the most
various forms: – slavish deference to Authority; for Spirit, having renounced
its proper nature in its most essential quality [having sacrificed its
characteristic liberty to a mere sensuous object], has lost its Freedom, and is
held in adamantine bondage to what is alien to itself; – a credulity of the most
absurd and childish character in regard to Miracles, for the Divine is supposed
to manifest itself in a perfectly disconnected and limited way, for purely
finite and particular purposes; – lastly, lust of power, riotous debauchery, all
the forms of barbarous and vulgar corruption, hypocrisy and deception – all this
manifests itself in the Church; for in fact the Sensuous in it is not subjugated
and trained by the Understanding; it has become free, but only in a rough and
barbarous way. – On the other hand the virtue which the Church presents, since
it is negative only in opposition to sensual appetite, is but abstractly
negative; it does not know how to exercise a moral restraint In the indulgence
of the senses; in actual life nothing is left for it but avoidance,
renunciation, inactivity.
These contrasts which the Church exhibits – of barbarous vice and lust on the
one hand, and an elevation of soul that is ready to renounce all worldly things,
on the other hand – became still wider in consequence of the energetic position
which man is sensible of occupying in his subjective power over outward and
material things in the natural world, in which he feels himself free, and so
gains for himself an absolute right. – The Church whose office it is to save
souls from perdition, makes this salvation itself a mere external appliance, and
is now degraded so far as to perform this office in a merely external fashion.
The remission of sins – the highest satisfaction which the soul craves, the
certainty of its peace with God, that which concerns man’s deepest and inmost
nature – is offered to man in the most grossly superficial and trivial fashion –
to be purchased for mere money; while the object of this sale is to procure
means for dissolute excess. One of the objects of this sale was indeed the
building of St. Peter’s, that magnificent chef-d’oeuvre of Christian fabrics
erected in the metropolis of religion. But, as that paragon of works of art, the
Athene and her temple-citadel at Athens, was built with the money of the allies
and issued in the loss of both allies and power; so the completion of this
Church of St. Peter and Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel,
were the Doomsday and the ruin of this proud spiritual edifice.
The time-honored and cherished sincerity of the German people is destined to
effect this revolution out of the honest truth and simplicity of its heart.
While the rest of the world are urging their way to India, to America –
straining every nerve to gain wealth and to acquire a secular dominion which
shall encompass the globe, and on which the sun shall never set – we find a
simple Monk looking for that specific embodiment of Deity which Christendom had
formerly sought in an earthly sepulchre of stone, rather in the deeper abyss of
the Absolute Ideality of all that is sensuous and external – in the Spirit and
the Heart – the heart, which, wounded unspeakably by the offer of the most
trivial and superficial appliances to satisfy the cravings of that which is
inmost and deepest, now detects the perversion of the absolute relation of truth
in its minutest features, and pursues it to annihilation. Luther’s simple
doctrine is that the specific embodiment of Deity – infinite subjectivity, that
is true spirituality, Christ – is in no way present and actual in an outward
form, but as essentially spiritual is obtained only in being reconciled to God –
in faith and spiritual enjoyment. These two words express everything. That which
this doctrine desiderates, is not the recognition of a sensuous object as God,
nor even of something merely conceived, and which is not actual and present, but
of a Reality that is not sensuous. This abrogation of externality imports the
reconstruction of all the doctrines, and the reform of all the superstition into
which the Church consistently wandered, and in which its spiritual life was
dissipated. This change especially, affects the doctrine of works; for works
include what may be performed under any mental conditions – not necessarily in
faith, in one’s own soul, but as mere external observances prescribed by
authority. Faith is by no means a bare assurance respecting mere finite things –
an assurance which belongs only to limited mind – as e.g., the belief that such
or such a person existed and said this or that; or that the Children of Israel
passed dry-shod through the Red Sea – or that the trumpets before the walls of
Jericho produced as powerful an impression as our cannons; for although nothing
of all this had been related to us, our knowledge of God would not be the less
complete. In fact it is not a belief in something that is absent, past and gone,
but the subjective assurance of the Eternal, of Absolute Truth, the Truth of
God. Concerning this assurance, the Lutheran Church affirms that the Holy Spirit
alone produces it – i.e., that it is an assurance which the individual attains,
not in virtue of his particular idiosyncrasy, but of his essential being. – The
Lutheran doctrine therefore involves the entire substance of Catholicism, with
the exception of all that results from the element of externality – as far as
the Catholic Church insists upon that externality. Luther therefore could not do
otherwise than refuse to yield an iota in regard to that doctrine of the
Eucharist in which the whole question is concentrated. Nor could he concede to
the Reformed [Calvinistic] Church, that Christ is a mere commemoration, a mere
reminiscence: in this respect his view was rather in accordance with that of the
Catholic Church, viz. that Christ is an actual presence, though only in faith
and in Spirit. He maintained that the Spirit of Christ really fills the human
heart – that Christ therefore is not to be regarded as merely a historical
person, but that man sustains an immediate relation to him in Spirit.
While, then, the individual knows that he is filled with the Divine Spirit,
all the relations that sprung from that vitiating element of externality which
we examined above, are ipso facto abrogated: there is no longer a distinction
between priests and laymen; we no longer find one class in possession of the
substance of the Truth, as of all the spiritual and temporal treasures of the
Church; but the heart – the emotional part of man’s Spiritual nature – is
recognized as that which can and ought to come into possession of the Truth; and
this subjectivity is the common property of all mankind. Each has to accomplish
the work of reconciliation in his own soul. – Subjective Spirit has to receive
the Spirit of Truth into itself, and give it a dwelling place there. Thus that
absolute inwardness of soul which pertains to religion itself, and Freedom in
the Church are both secured. Subjectivity therefore makes the objective purport
of Christianity, i.e. the doctrine of the Church, its own. In the Lutheran
Church the subjective feeling and the conviction of the individual is regarded
as equally necessary with the objective side of Truth. Truth with Lutherans is
not a finished and completed thing; the subject himself must be imbued with
Truth, surrendering his particular being in exchange for the substantial Truth,
and making that Truth his own. Thus subjective Spirit gains emancipation in the
Truth, abnegates its particularity and comes to itself in realizing the truth of
its being. Thus Christian Freedom is actualized. If Subjectivity be placed in
feeling only, without that objective side, we have the standpoint of the merely
Natural Will.
In the proclamation of these principles is unfurled the new, the latest
standard round which the peoples rally – the banner of Free Spirit, independent,
though finding its life in the Truth, and enjoying independence only in it. This
is the banner under which we serve, and which we bear. Time, since that epoch,
has had no other work to do than the formal imbuing of the world with this
principle, in bringing the Reconciliation implicit [in Christianity] into
objective and explicit realization.
Culture is essentially concerned with Form; the work of Culture is the
production of the Form of Universality, which is none other than Thought.[36]
Consequently Law, Property, Social Morality, Government, Constitutions, etc.,
must be conformed to general principles, in order that they may accord with the
idea of Free Will and be Rational. Thus only can the Spirit of Truth manifest
itself in Subjective Will – in the particular shapes which the activity of the
Will assumes. In virtue of that degree of intensity which Subjective Free Spirit
has attained, elevating it to the form of Universality, Objective Spirit attains
manifestation. This is the sense in which we must understand the State to be
based on Religion. States and Laws are nothing else than Religion manifesting
itself in the relations of the actual world. This is the essence of the
Reformation: Man is in his very nature destined to be free.
At its commencement, the Reformation concerned itself only with particular
aspects of the Catholic Church: Luther wished to act in union with the whole
Catholic world, and expressed a desire that Councils should be convened. His
theses found supporters in every country. In answer to the charge brought
against Luther and the Protestants, of exaggeration – nay, even of calumnious
misrepresentation in their descriptions of the corruption of the Church, we may
refer to the statements of Catholics themselves, bearing upon this point, and
particularly to those contained in the official documents of Ecclesiastical
Councils. But Luther’s onslaught, which was at first limited to particular
points, was soon extended to the doctrines of the Church; and leaving
individuals, he attacked institutions at large – conventual life, the secular
lordships of the bishops, etc. His writings now controverted not merely isolated
dicta of the Pope and the Councils, but the very principle on which such a mode
of deciding points in dispute was based – in fact, the Authority of the Church.
Luther repudiated that authority, and set up in its stead the Bible and the
testimony of the Human Spirit. And it is a fact of the weightiest import that
the Bible has become the basis of the Christian Church: henceforth each
individual enjoys the right of deriving instruction for himself from it, and of
directing his conscience in accordance with it. We see a vast change in the
principle by which man’s religious life is guided: the whole system of
Tradition, the whole fabric of the Church becomes problematical, and its
authority is subverted. Luther’s translation of the Bible has been of
incalculable value to the German people. It has supplied them with a People’s
Book, such as no nation in the Catholic world can boast; for though the latter
have a vast number of minor productions in the shape of prayer books, they have
no generally recognized and classical book for popular instruction. In spite of
this it has been made a question in modern times whether it is judicious to
place the Bible in the hands of the People. Yet the few disadvantages thus
entailed are far more than counterbalanced by the incalculable benefits thence
accruing: narratives, which in their external shape might be repellent to the
heart and understanding, can be discriminatingly treated by the religious sense,
which, holding fast the substantial truth, easily vanquishes any such
difficulties. And even if the books which have pretensions to the character of
People’s Books, were not so superficial as they are, they would certainly fail
in securing that respect which a book claiming such a title ought to inspire in
individuals. But to obviate this difficulty is no easy matter, for even should a
book adapted to the purpose in every other respect be produced, every country
parson would have some fault to find with it, and think to better it. In France
the need of such a book has been very much felt; great premiums have been
offered with a view to obtaining one, but, from the reason stated, without
success. Moreover, the existence of a People’s Book presupposes as its primary
condition an ability to read on the part of the People; an ability which in
Catholic countries is not very commonly to be met with.
The denial of the Authority of the Church necessarily led to a separation.
The Council of Trent stereotyped the principles of Catholicism, and made the
restoration of concord impossible. Leibnitz at a later time discussed with
Bishop Bossuet the question of the union of the Churches; but the Council of
Trent remains the insurmountable obstacle. The Churches became hostile parties,
for even in respect to secular arrangements a striking difference manifested
itself. In the non-Catholic countries the conventual establishments and
episcopal foundations were broken up, and the rights of the then proprietors
ignored. Educational arrangements were altered; the fasts and holy days were
abolished. Thus there was also a secular reform – a change affecting the state
of things outside the sphere of ecclesiastical relations: in many places a
rebellion was raised against the temporal authorities. In Münster the
Anabaptists expelled the Bishop and established a government of their own; and
the peasants rose en masse to emancipate themselves from the yoke of serfdom.
But the world was not yet ripe for a transformation of its political condition
as a consequence of ecclesiastical reformation. – The Catholic Church also was
essentially influenced by the Reformation: the reins of discipline were drawn
tighter, and the greatest occasions of scandal, the most crying abuses were
abated. Much of the intellectual life of the age that lay outside its sphere,
but with which it had previously maintained friendly relations, it now
repudiated. The Church came to a dead stop – “hitherto and no farther!” It
severed itself from advancing Science, from philosophy and humanistic
literature; and an occasion was soon offered of declaring its enmity to the
scientific pursuits of the period. The celebrated Copernicus had discovered that
the earth and the planets revolve round the sun, but the Church declared against
this addition to human knowledge. Galileo, who had published a statement in the
form of a dialogue of the evidence for and against the Copernican discovery
(declaring indeed his own conviction of its truth), was obliged to crave pardon
for the offence on his knees. The Greek literature was not made the basis of
culture; education was intrusted to the Jesuits. Thus does the Spirit of the
Catholic world in general sink behind the Spirit of the Age.
Here an important question solicits investigation: – why the Reformation was
limited to certain nations, and why it did not permeate the whole Catholic
world. The Reformation originated in Germany, and struck firm root only in the
purely German nations; outside of Germany itself it established itself in
Scandinavia and England. But the Romanic and Sclavonic nations kept decidedly
aloof from it. Even South Germany has only partially adopted the Reformation – a
fact which is consistent with the mingling of elements which is the general
characteristic of its nationality. In Swabia, Franconia, and the Rhine countries
there were many convents and bishoprics, as also many free imperial towns; and
the reception or rejection of the Reformation very much depended on the
influences which these ecclesiastical and civil bodies respectively exercised ;
for we have already noticed that the Reformation was a change influencing the
political life of the age as well as its religious and intellectual condition.
We must further observe, that authority has much greater weight in determining
men’s opinions than people are inclined to believe. There are certain
fundamental principles which men are in the habit of receiving on the strength
of authority; and it was mere authority which in the case of many countries
decided for or against the adoption of the Reformation. In Austria, in Bavaria,
in Bohemia, the Reformation had already made great progress; and though it is
commonly said that when truth has once penetrated men’s souls, it cannot be
rooted out again, it was indisputably stifled in the countries in question, by
force of arms, by stratagem or persuasion. The Sclavonic nations were
agricultural. This condition of life brings with it the relation of lord and
serf. In agriculture the agency of nature predominates; human industry and
subjective activity are on the whole less brought into play in this department
of labor than elsewhere. The Sclavonians therefore did not attain so quickly or
readily as other nations the fundamental sense of pure individuality – the
consciousness of Universality – that which we designated above as “political
power,” and could not share the benefits of dawning freedom. – But the Romanic
nations also – Italy, Spain, Portugal, and in part France – were not imbued with
the Reformed doctrines. Physical force perhaps did much to repress them; yet
this alone would not be sufficient to explain the fact, for when the Spirit of a
Nation craves anything no force can prevent its attaining the desired object:
nor can it be said that these nations were deficient in culture; on the
contrary, they were in advance of the Germans in this respect. It was rather
owing to the fundamental character of these nations, that they did not adopt the
Reformation. But what is this peculiarity of character which hindered the
attainment of Spiritual Freedom? We answer: the pure inwardness of the German
nation was the proper soil for the emancipation of Spirit; the Romanic Nations,
on the contrary, have maintained in the very depth of their soul – in their
Spiritual Consciousness – the principle of Disharmony:[37] they are a product of
the fusion of Roman and German blood, and still retain the heterogeneity thence
resulting. The German cannot deny that the French, the Italians, the Spaniards,
possess more determination of character – that they pursue a settled aim (even
though it have a fixed idea for its object) with perfectly clear consciousness
and the greatest attention – that they carry out a plan with great
circumspection, and exhibit the greatest decision in regard to specific objects.
The French call the Germans entiers, “entire” – i.e., stubborn; they are also
strangers to the whimsical originality of the English. The Englishman attaches
his idea of liberty to the special [as opposed to the general] ; he does not
trouble himself about the Understanding [logical inference], but on the contrary
feels himself so much the more at liberty, the more his course of action or his
license to act contravenes the Understanding – i.e., runs counter to [logical
inferences or] general principles. On the other hand, among the Romanic peoples
we immediately encounter that internal schism, that holding fast by an abstract
principle, and as the counterpart of this, an absence of the Totality of Spirit
and sentiment which we call “Heart”; there is not that meditative introversion
of the soul upon itself; – in their inmost being they may be said to be
alienated from themselves [abstract principles carry them away]. With them the
inner life is a region whose depth they do not appreciate; for it is given over
“bodily” to particular [absorbing] interests, and the infinity that belongs to
Spirit is not to be looked for there. Their inmost being is not their own. They
leave it as an alien and indifferent matter, and are glad to have its concerns
settled for them by another. That other to which they leave it is the Church.
They have indeed something to do with it themselves; but since that which they
have to do is not self-originated and self-prescribed, not their very own, they
are content to leave the affair to be settled in a superficial way. “Eh bien,”
said Napoleon, “we shall go to mass again, and my good fellows will say: ‘That
is the word of command!’” This is the leading feature in the character of these
nations – the separation of the religious from the secular interest, i.e., from
the special interest of individuality; and the ground of this separation lies in
their inmost soul, which has lost its independent entireness of being, its
profoundest unity. Catholicism does not claim the essential direction of the
Secular; religion remains an indifferent matter on the one side, while the other
side of life is dissociated from it, and occupies a sphere exclusively its own.
Cultivated Frenchmen therefore feel an antipathy to Protestantism because it
seems to them something pedantic, dull, minutely captious in its morality; since
it requires that Spirit and Thought should be directly engaged in religion: in
attending mass and other ceremonies, on the contrary, no exertion of thought is
required, but an imposing sensuous spectacle is presented to the eye, which does
not make such a demand on one’s attention as entirely to exclude a little chat,
while yet the duties of the occasion are not neglected.
We spoke above of the relation which the new doctrine sustained to secular
life, and now we have only to exhibit that relation in detail. The development
and advance of Spirit from the time of the Reformation onwards consist in this,
that Spirit, having now gained the consciousness of its Freedom, through that
process of mediation which takes place between man and God – that is, in the
full recognition of the objective process as the existence [the positive and
definite manifestation] of the Divine essence – now takes it up and follows it
out in building up the edifice of secular relations. That harmony [of Objective
and Subjective Will] which has resulted from the painful struggles of History,
involves the recognition of the Secular as capable of being an embodiment of
Truth; whereas it had been formerly regarded as evil only, as incapable of Good
– the latter being considered essentially ultramundane. It is now perceived that
Morality and Justice in the State are also divine and commanded by God, and that
in point of substance there is nothing higher or more sacred. One inference is
that Marriage is no longer deemed less holy than Celibacy. Luther took a wife to
show that he respected marriage, defying the calumnies to which he exposed
himself by such a step. It was his duty to do so, as it was also to eat meat on
Fridays; to prove that such things are lawful and right, in opposition to the
imagined superiority of abstinence. The Family introduces man to community – to
the relation of interdependence in society; and this union is a moral one: while
on the other hand the monks, separated from the sphere of social morality,
formed as it were the standing army of the Pope, as the janizaries formed the
basis of the Turkish power. The marriage of the priests entails the
disappearance of the outward distinction between laity and clergy. – Moreover
the repudiation of work no longer earned the reputation of sanctity; it was
acknowledged to be more commendable for men to rise from a state of dependence
by activity, intelligence, and industry, and make themselves independent. It is
more consonant with justice that he who has money should spend it even in
luxuries, than that he should give it away to idlers and beggars; for he bestows
it on an equal number of persons by so doing, and these must at any rate have
worked diligently for it. Industry, crafts and trades now have their moral
validity recognized, and the obstacles to their prosperity which originated with
the Church, have vanished. For the Church had pronounced it a sin to lend money
on interest: but the necessity of so doing led to the direct violation of her
injunctions. The Lombards (a fact which accounts for the use of the term
“lombard” in French to denote a loan-office), and particularly the House of
Medici, advanced money to princes in every part of Europe. The third point of
sanctity in the Catholic Church – blind obedience, was likewise denuded of its
false pretensions. Obedience to the laws of the State, as the Rational element
in volition and action, was made the principle of human conduct. In this
obedience man is free, for all that is demanded is that the Particular should
yield to the General. Man himself has a conscience; consequently the subjection
required of him is a free allegiance. This involves the possibility of a
development of Reason and Freedom, and of their introduction into human
relations; and Reason and the Divine commands are now synonymous. The Rational
no longer meets with contradiction on the part of the religious conscience; it
is permitted to develop itself in its own sphere without disturbance, without
being compelled to resort to force in defending itself against an adverse power.
But in the Catholic Church, that adverse element is unconditionally sanctioned.
Where the Reformed doctrine prevails, princes may still be bad governors, but
they are no longer sanctioned and solicited thereto by the promptings of their
religious conscience. In the Catholic Church on the contrary, it is nothing
singular for the conscience to be found in opposition to the laws of the State.
Assassinations of sovereigns, conspiracies against the state, and the like, have
often been supported and carried into execution by the priests.
This harmony between the State and the Church has now attained immediate
realization.[38] We have, as yet, no reconstruction of the State, of the system
of jurisprudence, etc., for thought must first discover the essential principle
of Right. The Laws of Freedom had first to be expanded to a system as deduced
from an absolute principle of Right. Spirit does not assume this complete form
immediately after the Reformation; it limits itself at first to direct and
simple changes, as e.g., the doing away with conventual establishments and
episcopal jurisdiction, etc. The reconciliation between God and the World was
limited in the first instance to an abstract form; it was not yet expanded into
a system by which the moral world could be regulated.
In the first instance this reconciliation must take place in the individual
soul, must be realized by feeling; the individual must gain the assurance that
the Spirit dwells in him – that, in the language of the Church, a brokenness of
heart has been experienced, and that Divine grace has entered into the heart
thus broken. By Nature man is not what he ought to be; only through a
transforming process does he arrive at truth. The general and speculative aspect
of the matter is just this – that the human heart is not what it should be. It
was then required of the individual that he should know what he is in himself;
that is, the teaching of the Church insisted upon man’s becoming conscious that
he is evil. But the individual is evil only when the Natural manifests itself in
mere sensual desire – when an unrighteous will presents itself in its untamed,
untrained, violent shape; and yet it is required that such a person should know
that he is depraved, and that the good Spirit dwells in him; in fact he is
required to have a direct consciousness of and to “experience” that which was
presented to him as a speculative and implicit truth. The Reconciliation having,
then, assumed this abstract form, men tormented themselves with a view to force
upon their souls the consciousness of their sinfulness and to know themselves as
evil. The most simple souls, the most innocent natures were accustomed in
painful introspection to observe the most secret workings of the heart, with a
view to a rigid examination of them. With this duty was conjoined that of an
entirely opposite description; it was required that man should attain the
consciousness that the good Spirit dwells in him – that Divine Grace has found
an entrance into his soul. In fact the important distinction between the
knowledge of abstract truth and the knowledge of what has actual existence was
left out of sight. Men became the victims of a tormenting uncertainty as to
whether the good Spirit has an abode in them, and it was deemed indispensable
that the entire process of spiritual transformation should become perceptible to
the individual himself. An echo of this self-tormenting process may still be
traced in much of the religious poetry of that time; the Psalms of David which
exhibit a similar character were then introduced as hymns into the ritual of
Protestant Churches. Protestantism took this turn of minute and painful
introspection, possessed with the conviction of the importance of the exercise,
and was for a long time characterized by a self-tormenting disposition and an
aspect of spiritual wretchedness; which in the present day has induced many
persons to enter the Catholic pale, that they might exchange this inward
uncertainty for a formal broad certainty based on the imposing totality of the
Church. A more refined order of reflection upon the character of human actions
was introduced into the Catholic Church also. The Jesuits analyzed the first
rudiments of volition (velleitas) with as painful minuteness as was displayed in
the pious exercises of Protestantism ; but they had a science of casuistry which
enabled them to discover a good reason for everything, and so get rid of the
burden of guilt which this rigid investigation seemed to aggravate.
With this was connected another remarkable phenomenon, common to the Catholic
with the Protestant World. The human mind was driven into the Inward, the
Abstract, and the Religious element was regarded as utterly alien to the
secular. That lively consciousness of his subjective life and of the inward
origin of his volition that had been awakened in man, brought with it the belief
in Evil, as a vast power the sphere of whose malign dominion is the Secular.
This belief presents a parallelism with the view in which the sale of
Indulgences originated : for as eternal salvation could be secured for money, so
by paying the price of one’s salvation through a compact made with the Devil,
the riches of the world and the unlimited gratification of desires and passions
could be secured. Thus arose that famous legend of Faust, who in disgust at the
unsatisfactory character of speculative science, is said to have plunged into
the world and purchased all its glory at the expense of his salvation. Faust, if
we may trust the poet, had the enjoyment of all that the world could give, in
exchange for his soul’s weal; but those poor women who were called Witches were
reputed to get nothing more by the bargain than the gratification of a petty
revenge by making a neighbor’s cow go dry or giving a child the measles. But in
awarding punishment it was not the magnitude of the injury in the loss of the
milk or the sickness of the child that was considered; it was the abstract power
of the Evil One in them that was attacked. The belief in this abstract, special
power whose dominion is the world – in the Devil and his devices – occasioned an
incalculable number of trials for witchcraft both in Catholic and Protestant
countries. It was impossible to prove the guilt of the accused; they were only
suspected : it was therefore only a direct knowledge [one not mediated by
proofs] on which this fury against the evil principle professed to be based. It
was indeed necessary to have recourse to evidence, but the basis of these
judicial processes was simply the belief that certain individuals were possessed
by the power of the Evil One. This delusion raged among the nations in the
sixteenth century with the fury of a pestilence. The main impulse was suspicion.
The principle of suspicion assumes a similarly terrible shape during the sway of
the Roman Emperors, and under Robespierre’s Reign of Terror; when mere
disposition, unaccompanied by any overt act or expression, was made an object of
punishment. Among the Catholics, it was the Dominicans to whom (as was the
Inquisition in all its branches) the trials for witchcraft were intrusted.
Father Spee, a noble Jesuit, wrote a treatise against them (he is also the
author of a collection of fine poems bearing the title of “Trutznachtigall,”)
giving a full exposure of the terrible character of criminal justice in
proceedings of this kind. Torture, which was only to be applied once, was
continued until a confession was extorted. If the accused fainted under the
torture it was averred that the Devil was giving them sleep: if convulsions
supervened, it was said that the Devil was laughing in them; if they held out
steadfastly, the Devil was supposed to give them power. These persecutions
spread like an epidemic sickness through Italy, France, Spain and Germany. The
earnest remonstrances of enlightened men, such as Spec and others, already
produced a considerable effect. But it was Thomasius, a Professor of Halle, who
first opposed this prevalent superstition with very decided success. The entire
phenomenon is in itself most remarkable when we reflect that we have not long
been quit of this frightful barbarity (even as late as the year 1780 a witch was
publicly burned at Glarus in Switzerland). Among the Catholics persecution was
directed against heretics as well as against witches: we might say indeed that
they were placed in one category; the unbelief of the heretics was regarded as
none other than the indwelling principle of Evil – a possession similar to the
other.
Leaving this abstract form of Subjectiveness we have now to consider the
secular side – the constitution of the State and the advance of Universality –
the recognition of the universal laws of Freedom. This is the second and the
essential point.
Chapter II. Influence of the Reformation on Political Development.
In tracing the course of the political development of the period, we observe in
the first place the consolidation of Monarchy, and the Monarch invested with an
authority emanating from the State. The incipient stage in the rise of royal
power, and the commencement of that unity which the states of Europe attained,
belong to a still earlier period. While these changes were going forward, the
entire body of private obligations and rights which had been handed down from
the Middle Age, still retained validity. Infinitely important is this form of
private rights, which the organic constituents of the executive power of the
State have assumed. At their apex we find a fixed and positive principle – the
exclusive right of one family to the possession of the throne, and the
hereditary succession of sovereigns further restricted by the law of
primogeniture. This gives the State an immovable centre. The fact that Germany
was an elective empire prevented its being consolidated into one state; and for
the same reason Poland has vanished from the circle of independent states. The
State must have a final decisive will: but if an individual is to be the final
deciding power, he must be so in a direct and natural way, not as determined by
choice and theoretic views, etc. Even among the free Greeks the oracle was the
external power which decided their policy on critical occasions; here birth is
the oracle – something independent of any arbitrary volition. But the
circumstance that the highest station in a monarchy is assigned to a family,
seems to indicate that the sovereignty is the private property of that family.
As such that sovereignty would seem to be divisible; but since the idea of
division of power is opposed to the principle of the state, the rights of the
monarch and his family required to be more strictly defined. Sovereign
possession is not a peculium of the individual ruler, but is consigned to the
dynastic family as a trust; and the estates of the realm possess security that
that trust shall be faithfully discharged, for they have to guard the unity of
the body politic. Thus, then, royal possession no longer denotes a kind of
private property, private possession of estates, demesnes, jurisdiction, etc.,
but has become a State-property – a function pertaining to and involved with the
State.
Equally important, and connected with that just noticed, is the change of
executive powers, functions, duties and rights, which naturally belong to the
State, but which had become private property and private contracts or
obligations – into possession conferred by the State. The rights of seigneurs
and barons were annulled, and they were obliged to content themselves with
official positions in the State. This transformation of the rights of vassals
into official functions took place in the several kingdoms in various ways. In
France, e.g., the great Barons, who were governors of provinces, who could claim
such offices as a matter of right, and who like the Turkish Pashas, maintained a
body of troops with the revenues thence derived – troops which they might at any
moment bring into the field against the King – were reduced to the position of
mere landed proprietors or court nobility, and those Pashalics became offices
held under the government; or the nobility were employed as officers – generals
of the army, an army belonging to the State. In this aspect the origination of
standing armies is so important an event; for they supply the monarchy with an
independent force and are as necessary for the security of the central authority
against the rebellion of the subject individuals as for the defence of the state
against foreign enemies. The fiscal system indeed had not as yet assumed a
systematic character – the revenue being derived from customs, taxes and tolls
in countless variety, besides the subsidies and contributions paid by the
estates of the realm; in return for which the right of presenting a statement of
grievances was conceded to them, as is now the case in Hungary. – In Spain the
spirit of chivalry had assumed a very beautiful and noble form. This chivalric
spirit, this knightly dignity, degraded to a mere inactive sentiment of honor,
has attained notoriety as the Spanish grandezza. The Grandees were no longer
allowed to maintain troops of their own, and were also withdrawn from the
command of the armies; destitute of power they had to content themselves as
private persons with an empty title. But the means by which the royal power in
Spain was consolidated, was the Inquisition. This, which was established for the
persecution of those who secretly adhered to Judaism, and of Moors and heretics,
soon assumed a political character, being directed against the enemies of the
State. Thus the Inquisition confirmed the despotic power of the King: it claimed
supremacy even over bishops and archbishops, and could cite them before its
tribunal. The frequent confiscation of property – one of the most customary
penalties – tended to enrich the treasury of the State. Moreover, the
Inquisition was a tribunal which took cognizance of mere suspicion; and while it
consequently exercised a fearful authority over the clergy, it had a peculiar
support in the national pride. For every Spaniard wished to be considered
Christian by descent, and this species of vanity fell in with the views and
tendency of the Inquisition. Particular provinces of the Spanish monarchy, as
e.g., Aragon, still retained many peculiar rights and privileges; but the
Spanish Kings from Philip II downwards proceeded to suppress them altogether. It
would lead us too far to pursue in detail the process of the depression of the
aristocracy in the several states of Europe. The main scope of this depressing
process was, as already stated, the curtailment of the private rights of the
feudal nobility, and the transformation of their seigneurial authority into an
official position in connection with the State. This change was in the interest
of both the King and the People. The powerful barons seemed to constitute an
intermediate body charged with the defence of liberty; but properly speaking, it
was only their own privileges which they maintained against the royal power on
the one hand and the citizens on the other hand. The barons of England extorted
Magna Charta from the King; but the citizens gained nothing by it, on the
contrary they remained in their former condition. Polish Liberty too, meant
nothing more than the freedom of the barons in contraposition to the King, the
nation being reduced to a state of absolute serfdom. When liberty is mentioned,
we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of
private interests which is thereby designated. For although the nobility were
deprived of their sovereign power, the people were still oppressed in
consequence of their absolute dependence, their serfdom, and subjection to
aristocratic jurisdiction; and they were partly declared utterly incapable of
possessing property, partly subjected to a condition of bond-service which did
not permit of their freely selling the products of their industry. The supreme
interest of emancipation from this condition concerned the power of the State as
well as the subjects – that emancipation which now gave them as citizens the
character of free individuals, and determined that what was to be performed for
the Commonwealth should be a matter of just allotment, not of mere chance. The
aristocracy of possession maintains that possession against both – viz., against
the power of the State at large and against individuals. But the aristocracy
have a position assigned them, as the support of the throne, as occupied and
active on behalf of the State and the common weal, and at the same time as
maintaining the freedom of the citizens. This in fact is the prerogative of that
class which forms the link between the Sovereign and the People – to undertake
to discern and to give the first impulse to that which is intrinsically Rational
and Universal ; and this recognition of and occupation with the Universal must
take the place of positive personal right. This subjection to the Head of the
State of that intermediate power which laid claim to positive authority was now
accomplished, but this did not involve the emancipation of the subject class.
This took place only at a later date, when the idea of right in and for itself
arose in men’s minds. Then the sovereigns relying on their respective peoples,
vanquished the caste of unrighteousness; but where they united with the barons,
or where the latter maintained their freedom against the kings, those positive
rights or rather wrongs continued.
We observe also as an essential feature now first presenting itself in the
political aspect of the time, a connected system of States and a relation of
States to each other. They became involved in various wars: the Kings having
enlarged their political authority, now turn their attention to foreign lands,
insisting upon claims of all kinds. The aim and real interest of the wars of the
period is invariably conquest.
Italy especially had become such an object of desire, and was a prey to the
rapacity of the French, the Spaniards, and at a later date, of the Austrians. In
fact absolute disintegration and dismemberment has always been an essential
feature in the national character of the inhabitants of Italy, in ancient as
well as in modern times. Their stubborn individuality was exchanged for a union
the result of force, under the Roman dominion ; but as soon as this bond was
broken, the original character reappeared in full strength. In later times, as
if finding in them a bond of union otherwise impossible – after having escaped
from a selfishness of the most monstrous order and which displayed its perverse
nature in crimes of every description – the Italians attained a taste for the
Fine Arts: thus their civilization, the mitigation of their selfishness, reached
only the Grade of Beauty, not that of Rationality – the higher unity of Thought.
Consequently, even in poetry and song the Italian nature is different from ours.
Improvisation characterizes the genius of the Italians; they pour out their very
souls in Art and the ecstatic enjoyment of it. Enjoying a naturel so imbued with
Art, the State must be an affair of comparative indifference, a merely casual
matter to the Italians. But we have to observe also that the wars in which
Germany engaged, were not particularly honorable to it: it allowed Burgundy,
Lorraine, Alsace, and other parts of the empire to be wrested from it. From
these wars between the various political powers there arose common interests,
and the object of that community of interest was the maintenance of severalty –
the preservation to the several States of their independence – in fact the
“balance of power.” The motive to this was of a decidedly “practical” kind,
viz., the protection of the several States from conquest. The union of the
States of Europe as the means of shielding individual States from the violence
of the powerful – the preservation of the balance of power, had now taken the
place of that general aim of the elder time, the defence of Christendom, whose
centre was the Papacy. This new political motive was necessarily accompanied by
a diplomatic condition – one in which all the members of the great European
system, however distant, felt an interest in that which happened to any one of
them. Diplomatic policy had been brought to the greatest refinement in Italy,
and was thence transmitted to Europe at large. Several princes in succession
seemed to threaten the stability of the balance of power in Europe. When this
combination of States was just commencing, Charles V was aiming at universal
monarchy; for he was Emperor of Germany and King of Spain to boot: the
Netherlands and Italy acknowledged his sway, and the whole wealth of America
flowed into his coffers. With this enormous power, which, like the contingencies
of fortune in the case of private property, had been accumulated by the most
felicitous combinations of political dexterity – among other things by marriage,
– but which was destitute of an internal and reliable bond, he was nevertheless
unable to gain any advantage over France, or even over the German princes; nay
he was even compelled to a peace by Maurice of Saxony. His whole life was spent
in suppressing disturbances in all parts of his empire and in conducting foreign
wars. The balance of power in Europe was similarly threatened by Louis XIV.
Through that depression of the grandees of his kingdom which Richelieu and after
him Mazarin had accomplished, he had become an absolute sovereign. France, too,
had the consciousness of its intellectual superiority in a refinement of culture
surpassing anything of which the rest of Europe could boast. The pretensions of
Louis were founded not on extent of dominion, (as was the case with Charles V)
so much as on that culture which distinguished his people, and which at that
time made its way everywhere with the language that embodied it, and was the
object of universal admiration: they could therefore plead a higher
justification than those of the German Emperor. But the very rock on which the
vast military resources of Philip II had already foundered – the heroic
resistance of the Dutch – proved fatal also to the ambitious schemes of Louis.
Charles XII also presented a remarkably menacing aspect; but his ambition had a
Quixotic tinge and was less sustained by intrinsic vigor. Through all these
storms the nations of Europe succeeded in maintaining their individuality and
independence. An external relation in which the States of Europe had an interest
in common, was that sustained to the Turks – the terrible power which threatened
to overwhelm Europe from the East. The Turks of that day had still a sound and
vigorous nationality, whose power was based on conquest, and which was therefore
engaged in constant warfare, or at least admitted only a temporary suspension of
arms. As was the case among the Franks, the conquered territories were divided
among their warriors as personal, not heritable possessions; when in later times
the principle of hereditary succession was adopted, the national vigor was
shattered. The flower of the Osman force, the Janizaries, were the terror of the
Europeans. Their ranks were recruited from a body of Christian boys of handsome
and vigorous proportions, brought together chiefly by means of annual
conscriptions among the Greek subjects of the Porte, strictly educated in the
Moslem faith, and exercised in arms from early youth. Without parents, without
brothers or sisters, without wives, they were, like the monks, an altogether
isolated and terrible corps. The Eastern European powers were obliged to make
common cause against the Turks – viz.: Austria, Hungary, Venice and Poland. The
battle of Lepanto saved Italy, and perhaps all Europe, from a barbarian
inundation.
An event of special importance following in the train of the Reformation was
the struggle of the Protestant Church for political existence. The Protestant
Church, even in its original aspect, was too intimately connected with secular
interests not to occasion secular complications and political contentions
respecting political possession. The subjects of Catholic princes become
Protestant, have and make claims to ecclesiastical property, change the nature
of the tenure, and repudiate or decline the discharge of those ecclesiastical
functions to whose due performance the emoluments are attached (jura stoloe).
Moreover a Catholic government is bound to be the brachium seculare of the
Church; the Inquisition, e.g., never put a man to death, but simply declared him
a heretic, as a kind of jury; he was then punished according to civil laws.
Again, innumerable occasions of offence and irritation originated with
processions and feasts, the carrying of the Host through the streets,
withdrawals from convents, etc. Still more excitement would be felt when an
Archbishop of Cologne attempted to make his archepiscopate a secular princedom
for himself and his family. Their confessors made it a matter of conscience with
Catholic princes to wrest estates that had been the property of the Church out
of the hands of the heretics. In Germany, however, the condition of things was
favorable to Protestantism in as far as the several territories which had been
imperial fiefs, had become independent principalities. But in countries like
Austria, the princes were indifferent to Protestants, or even hostile to them;
and in France they were not safe in the exercise of their religion except as
protected by fortresses. War was the indispensable preliminary to the security
of Protestants ; for the question was not one of simple conscience, but involved
decisions respecting public and private property which had been taken possession
of in contravention of the rights of the Church, and whose restitution it
demanded. A condition of absolute mistrust supervened; absolute, because
mistrust bound up with the religious conscience was its root. The Protestant
princes and towns formed at that time a feeble union, and the defensive
operations they conducted were much feebler still. After they had been worsted,
Maurice the Elector of Saxony, by an utterly unexpected and adventurous piece of
daring, extorted a peace, itself of doubtful interpretation, and which left the
real sources of embitterment altogether untouched. It was necessary to fight out
the battle from the very beginning. This took place in the Thirty Years’ War, in
which first Denmark and then Sweden undertook the cause of freedom. The former
was compelled to quit the field, but the latter under Gustavus Adolphus – that
hero of the North of glorious memory – played a part which was so much the more
brilliant inasmuch as it began to wage war with the vast force of the Catholics,
alone – without the help of the Protestant states of the Empire. The powers of
Europe, with a few exceptions, precipitate themselves on Germany – flowing back
towards it as to the fountain from which they had originally issued, and where
now the right of inwardness that has come to manifest itself in the sphere of
religion, and that of internal independence and severalty is to be fought out.
The struggle ends without an Ideal result – without having attained the
consciousness of a principle as an intellectual concept – in the exhaustion of
all parties, in a scene of utter desolation, where all the contending forces
have been wrecked; it issues in letting parties simply take their course and
maintain their existence on the basis of external power. The issue is in fact
exclusively of a political nature.
In England also, war was indispensable to the establishment of the Protestant
Church: the struggle was in this case directed against the sovereigns, who were
secretly attached to Catholicism because they found the principle of absolute
sway confirmed by its doctrines. The fanaticized people rebelled against the
assumption of absolute sovereign power – importing that Kings are responsible to
God alone (i.e., to the Father Confessor) – and in opposition to Catholic
externality, unfurled the banner of extreme subjectivity in Puritanism – a
principle which, developing itself in the real world, presents an aspect partly
of enthusiastic elevation, partly of ridiculous incongruity. The enthusiasts of
England, like those of Münster, were for having the State governed directly by
the fear of God; the soldiery sharing the same fanatical views prayed while they
fought for the cause they had espoused. But a military leader now has the
physical force of the country and consequently the government in his hands: for
in the State there must be government, and Cromwell knew what governing is. He,
therefore, made himself ruler, and sent that praying parliament about their
business. With his death however his right to authority vanished also, and the
old dynasty regained possession of the throne. Catholicism, we may observe, is
commended to the support of princes as promoting the security of their
government – a position supposed to be particularly manifest if the Inquisition
be connected with the government; the former constituting the bulwark of the
latter. But such a security is based on a slavish religious obedience, and is
limited to those grades of human development in which the political constitution
and the whole legal system still rest on the basis of actual positive
possession; but if the constitution and laws are to be founded on a veritable
eternal Right, then security is to be found only in the Protestant religion, in
whose principle Rational Subjective Freedom also attains development. The Dutch
too offered a vigorous opposition to the Catholic principle as bound up with the
Spanish sovereignty. Belgium was still attached to the Catholic religion and
remained subject to Spain: on the contrary, the northern part of the Netherlands
– Holland – stood its ground with heroic valor against its oppressors. The
trading class, the guilds and companies of marksmen formed a militia whose
heroic courage was more than a match for the then famous Spanish infantry. Just
as the Swiss peasants had resisted the chivalry of Austria, so here the trading
cities held out against disciplined troops. During this struggle on the
Continent itself, the Dutch fitted out fleets and deprived the Spaniards of part
of their colonial possessions, from which all their wealth was derived. As
independence was secured to Holland in its holding to the Protestant principle,
so that of Poland was lost through its endeavor to suppress that principle in
the case of dissidents. Through the Peace of Westphalia the Protestant Church
had been acknowledged as an independent one – to the great confusion and
humiliation of Catholicism. This peace has often passed for the palladium of
Germany, as having established its political constitution. But this constitution
was in fact a confirmation of the particular rights of the countries into which
Germany had been broken up. It involves no thought, no conception of the proper
aim of a state. We should consult “Hippolytus à lapide” (a book which, written
before the conclusion of the peace, had a great influence on the condition of
the Empire) if we would become acquainted with the character of that German
freedom of which so much is made. In the peace in question the establishment of
a complete particularity, the determination of all relations on the principle of
private right is the object manifestly contemplated – a constituted anarchy,
such as the world had never before seen; – i.e., the position that an Empire is
properly a unity, a totality, a state, while yet all relations are determined so
exclusively on the principle of private right that the privilege of all the
constituent parts of that Empire to act for themselves contrarily to the
interest of the whole, or to neglect that which its interest demands and which
is even required by law – is guaranteed and secured by the most inviolable
sanctions. Immediately after this settlement, it was shown what the German
Empire was as a state in relation to other states: it waged ignominious wars
with the Turks, for deliverance from whom Vienna was indebted to Poland. Still
more ignominious was its relation to France, which took possession in time of
peace of free cities, the bulwarks of Germany, and of flourishing provinces, and
retained them undisturbed.
This constitution, which completely terminated the career of Germany as an
Empire, was chiefly the work of Richelieu, by whose assistance – Romish Cardinal
though he was – religious freedom in Germany was preserved. Richelieu, with a
view to further the interests of the State whose affairs he superintended,
adopted the exact opposite of that policy which he promoted in the case of its
enemies; for he reduced the latter to political impotence by ratifying the
political independence of the several parts of the Empire, while at home he
destroyed the independence of the Protestant party. His fate has consequently
resembled that of many great statesmen, inasmuch as he has been cursed by his
countrymen, while his enemies have looked upon the work by which he ruined them
as the most sacred goal of their desires – the consummation of their rights and
liberties. The result of the struggle therefore was the forcibly achieved and
now politically ratified coexistence of religious parties, forming political
communities whose relations are determined according to prescriptive principles
of civil or [rather, for such their true nature was] of private right.
The Protestant Church increased and so perfected the stability of its
political existence by the fact that one of the states which had adopted the
principles of the Reformation raised itself to the position of an independent
European power. This power was destined to start into a new life with
Protestantism: Prussia, viz., which making its appearance at the end of the
seventeenth century, was indebted, if not for origination, yet certainly for the
consolidation of its strength, to Frederick the Great; and the Seven Years’ War
was the struggle by which that consolidation was accomplished. Frederick II
demonstrated the independent vigor of his power by resisting that of almost all
Europe – the union of its leading states. He appeared as the hero of
Protestantism, and that not individually merely, like Gustavus Adolphus, but as
the ruler of a state. The Seven Years’ War was indeed in itself not a war of
religion; but it was so in view of its ultimate issues, and in the disposition
of the soldiers as well as of the potentates under whose banner they fought. The
Pope consecrated the sword of Field-Marshal Daun, and the chief object which the
Allied Powers proposed to themselves was the crushing of Prussia as the bulwark
of the Protestant Church. But Frederick the Great not only made Prussia one of
the great powers of Europe as a Protestant power, but was also a philosophical
King – an altogether peculiar and unique phenomenon in modern times.
There had been English Kings who were subtle theologians, contending for the
principle of absolutism: Frederick on the contrary took up the Protestant
principle in its secular aspect; and though he was by no means favorable to
religious controversies, and did not side with one party or the other, he had
the consciousness of Universality, which is the profoundest depth to which
Spirit can attain, and is Thought conscious of its own inherent power.
Chapter III. The Éclaircissement and Revolution[39]
Protestantism had introduced the principle of Subjectivity, importing religious
emancipation and inward harmony, but accompanying this with the belief in
Subjectivity as Evil, and in a power [adverse to man’s highest interests] whose
embodiment is “the World.” Within the Catholic pale also, the casuistry of the
Jesuits brought into vogue interminable investigations, as tedious and
wire-drawn as those in which the scholastic theology delighted, respecting the
subjective spring of the Will and the motives that affect it. This Dialectic,
which unsettles all particular judgments and opinions, transmuting the Evil into
Good and Good into Evil, left at last nothing remaining but the mere action of
subjectivity itself, the Abstractum of Spirit – Thought. Thought contemplates
everything under the form of Universality, and is consequently the impulsion
towards and production of the Universal. In that elder scholastic theology the
real subject-matter of investigation – the doctrine of the Church – remained an
ultramundane affair; in the Protestant theology also Spirit still sustained a
relation to the Ultramundane; for on the one side we have the will of the
individual – the Spirit of Man – I, myself, and on the other the Grace of God,
the Holy Ghost; and so in the Wicked, the Devil. But in Thought, Self moves
within the limits of its own sphere; that with which it is occupied – its
objects are as absolutely present to it [as they were distinct and separate in
the intellectual grade above mentioned] ; for in thinking I must elevate the
object to Universality.[40] This is utter and absolute Freedom, for the pure
Ego, like pure Light, is with itself alone [is not involved with any alien
principle] ; thus that which is diverse from itself, sensuous or spiritual, no
longer presents an object of dread, for in contemplating such diversity it is
inwardly free and can freely confront it. A practical interest makes use of,
consumes the objects offered to it: a theoretical interest calmly contemplates
them, assured that in themselves they present no alien element. – Consequently,
the ne plus ultra of Inwardness, of Subjectiveness, is Thought. Man is not free,
when he is not thinking; for except when thus engaged he sustains a relation to
the world around him as to another, an alien form of being. This comprehension –
the penetration of the Ego into and beyond other forms of being with the most
profound self-certainty [the identity of subjective and objective Reason being
recognized], directly involves the harmonization of Being: for it must be
observed that the unity of Thought with its Object is already implicitly present
[i.e., in the fundamental constitution of the Universe], for Reason is the
substantial basis of Consciousness as well as of the External and Natural. Thus
that which presents itself as the Object of Thought is no longer an absolutely
distinct form of existence [ein Jenseits], not of an alien and grossly
substantial [as opposed to intelligible] nature.
Thought is the grade to which Spirit has now advanced. It involves the
Harmony of Being in its purest essence, challenging the external world to
exhibit the same Reason which Subject [the Ego] possesses. Spirit perceives that
Nature – the World – must also be an embodiment of Reason, for God created it on
principles of Reason. An interest in the contemplation and comprehension of the
present world became universal. Nature embodies Universality, inasmuch as it is
nothing other than Sorts, Genera, Power, Gravitation, etc., phenomenally
presented. Thus Experimental Science became the science of the World; for
experimental science involves on the one hand the observation of phenomena, on
the other hand also the discovery of the Law, the essential being, the hidden
force that causes those phenomena – thus reducing the data supplied by
observation to their simple principles. Intellectual consciousness was first
extricated from that sophistry of thought, which unsettles everything, by
Descartes. As it was the purely German nations among whom the principle of
Spirit first manifested itself, so it was by the Romanic nations that the
abstract idea (to which the character assigned them above – viz., that of
internal schism, more readily conducted them) was first comprehended.
Experimental science therefore very soon made its way among them (in common with
the Protestant English), but especially among the Italians. It seemed to men as
if God had but just created the moon and stars, plants and animals, as if the
laws of the universe were now established for the first time; for only then did
they feel a real interest in the universe, when they recognized their own Reason
in the Reason which pervades it. The human eye became clear, perception quick,
thought active and interpretative. The discovery of the laws of Nature enabled
men to contend against the monstrous superstition of the time, as also against
all notions of mighty alien powers which magic alone could conquer. The
assertion was even ventured on, and that by Catholics not less than by
Protestants, that the External [and Material], with which the Church insisted
upon associating superhuman virtue, was external and material, and nothing more
– that the Host was simply dough, the relics of the Saints mere bones. The
independent authority of Subjectivity was maintained against belief founded on
authority, and the Laws of Nature were recognized as the only bond connecting
phenomena with phenomena. Thus all miracles were disallowed: for Nature is a
system of known and recognized Laws; Man is at home in it, and that only passes
for truth in which he finds himself at home; he is free through the acquaintance
he has gained with Nature. Nor was thought less vigorously directed to the
Spiritual side of things: Right and [Social] Morality came to be looked upon as
having their foundation in the actual present Will of man, whereas formerly it
was referred only to the command of God enjoined ab extra, written in the Old
and New Testament, or appearing in the form of particular Right [as opposed to
that based on general principles] in old parchments, as privilegia, or in
international compacts. What the nations acknowledge as international Right was
deduced empirically from observation (as in the work of Grotius) ; then the
source of the existing civil and political law was looked for, after Cicero’s
fashion, in those instincts of men which Nature has planted in their hearts –
e.g., the social instinct; next the principle of security for the person and
property of the citizens, and of the advantage of the commonwealth – that which
belongs to the class of “reasons of State.” On these principles private rights
were on the one hand despotically contravened, but on the other hand such
contravention was the instrument of carrying out the general objects of the
State in opposition to mere positive or prescriptive claims. Frederick II may be
mentioned as the ruler who inaugurated the new epoch in the sphere of practical
life – that epoch in which practical political interest attains Universality [is
recognized as an abstract principle], and receives an absolute sanction.
Frederick II merits especial notice as having comprehended the general object of
the State, and as having been the first sovereign who kept the general interest
of the State steadily in view, ceasing to pay any respect to particular
interests when they stood in the way of the common weal. His immortal work is a
domestic code – the Prussian municipal law. How the head of a household
energetically provides and governs with a view to the weal of that household and
of his dependents – of this he has. given a unique specimen.
These general conceptions, deduced from actual and present consciousness –
the Laws of Nature and the substance of what is right and good, have received
the name of Reason. The recognition of the validity of these laws was designated
by the term Éclaircissement (Aufklärung). From France it passed over into
Germany, and created a new world of ideas. The absolute criterion – taking the
place of all authority based on religious belief and positive laws of Right
(especially political Right) – is the verdict passed by Spirit itself on the
character of that which is to be believed or obeyed. After a free investigation
in open day, Luther had secured to mankind Spiritual Freedom and the
Reconciliation [of the Objective and Subjective] in the concrete: he
triumphantly established the position that man’s eternal destiny [his spiritual
and moral position] must be wrought out in himself [cannot be an opus operatum,
a work performed for him]. But the import of that which is to take place in him
– what truth is to become vital in him, was taken for granted by Luther as
something already given, something revealed by religion. Now, the principle was
set up that this import must be capable of actual investigation – something of
which I [in this modern time] can gain an inward conviction – and that to this
basis of inward demonstration every dogma must be referred.
This principle of thought makes its appearance in the first instance in a
general and abstract form; and is based on the axiom of Contradiction and
Identity.[41] The results of thought are thus posited as finite, and the
eclaircissement utterly banished and extirpated all that was speculative from
things human and divine. Although it is of incalculable importance that the
multiform complex of things should be reduced to its simplest conditions, and
brought into the form of Universality, yet this still abstract principle does
not satisfy the living Spirit, the concrete human soul.
This formally absolute principle brings us to the last stage in History, our
world, our own time.
Secular life is the positive and definite embodiment of the Spiritual Kingdom
– the Kingdom of the Will manifesting itself in outward existence. Mere impulses
are also forms in which the inner life realizes itself; but these are transient
and disconnected; they are the ever-changing applications of volition. But that
which is just and moral belongs to the essential, independent, intrinsically
universal Will; and if we would know what Right really is, we must abstract from
inclination, impulse and desire as the particular; i.e., we must know what the
Will is in itself. For benevolent, charitable, social impulses are nothing more
than impulses – to which others of a different class are opposed. What the Will
is in itself can be known only when these specific and contradictory forms of
volition have been eliminated. Then Will appears as Will, in its abstract
essence. The Will is Free only when it does not will anything alien, extrinsic,
foreign to itself (for as long as it does so, it is dependent), but wills itself
alone – wills the Will. This is absolute Will – the volition to be free. Will
making itself its own object is the basis of all Right and Obligation –
consequently of all statutory determinations of Right, categorical imperatives,
and enjoined obligations. The Freedom of the Will per se, is the principle and
substantial basis of all Right – is itself absolute, inherently eternal Right,
and the Supreme Right in comparison with other specific Rights; nay, it is even
that by which Man becomes Man, and is therefore the fundamental principle of
Spirit. But the next question is: How does Will assume a definite form? For in
willing itself, it is nothing but an identical reference to itself; but, in
point of fact, it wills something specific: there are, we know, distinct and
special Duties and Rights. A particular application, a definite form of Will, is
desiderated; for pure Will is its own object, its own application, which, as far
as this showing goes, is no object, no application. In fact, in this form it is
nothing more than formal Will. But the metaphysical process by which this
abstract Will develops itself, so as to attain a definite form of Freedom, and
how Rights and Duties are evolved therefrom, this is not the place to
discuss.[42] It may however be remarked that the same principle obtained
speculative recognition in Germany, in the Kantian Philosophy. According to it
the simple unity of Self-consciousness, the Ego, constitutes the absolutely
independent Freedom, and is the fountain of all general conceptions – i.e., all
conceptions elaborated by Thought – Theoretical Reason; and likewise of the
highest of all practical determinations [or conceptions] – Practical Reason, as
free and pure Will; and Rationality of Will is none other than the maintaining
one’s self in pure Freedom – willing this and this alone – Right purely for the
sake of Right, Duty purely for the sake of Duty. Among the Germans this view
assumed no other form than that of tranquil theory; but the French wished to
give it practical effect. Two questions, therefore, suggest themselves: Why did
this principle of Freedom remain merely formal?[43] and why did the French
alone, and not the Germans, set about realizing it? With the formal principle
more significant categories were indeed connected: one of the chief of these
(for instance) was Society, and that which is advantageous for Society: but the
aim of Society is itself political – that of the State (vid. “Droits de l’homme
et du citoyen,” 1791) – the conservation of Natural Rights; but Natural Right is
Freedom, and, as further determined, it is Equality of Rights before the Law. A
direct connection is manifest here, for Equality, Parity, is the result of the
comparison of many;[44] the “Many” in question being human beings, whose
essential characteristic is the same, viz., Freedom. That principle remains
formal, because it originated with abstract Thought – with the Understanding,
which is primarily the selfconsciousness of Pure Reason, and as direct
[unreflected, undeveloped] is abstract. As yet, nothing further is developed
from it, for it still maintains an adverse position to Religion, i.e. to the
concrete absolute substance of the Universe. As respects the second question –
why the French immediately passed over from the theoretical to the practical,
while the Germans contented themselves with theoretical abstraction, it might be
said: the French are hot-headed [ils ont la tête près du bonnet]; but this is a
superficial solution: the fact is that the formal principle of philosophy in
Germany encounters a concrete real World in which Spirit finds inward
satisfaction and in which conscience is at rest. For on the one hand it was the
Protestant World itself which advanced so far in Thought as to realize the
absolute culmination of Self-Consciousness; on the other hand, Protestantism
enjoys, with respect to the moral and legal relations of the real world, a
tranquil confidence in the [Honorable] Disposition of men – a sentiment, which,
[in the Protestant World,] constituting one and the same thing with Religion, is
the fountain of all the equitable arrangements that prevail with regard to
private right and the constitution of the State. In Germany the éclaircissement
was conducted in the interest of theology: in France it immediately took up a
position of hostility to the Church. In Germany the entire compass of secular
relations had already undergone a change for the better; those pernicious
ecclesiastical institutes of celibacy, voluntary pauperism, and laziness, had
been already done away with; there was no dead weight of enormous wealth
attached to the Church, and no constraint put upon Morality – a constraint which
is the source and occasion of vices; there was not that unspeakably hurtful form
of iniquity which arises from the interference of spiritual power with secular
law, nor that other of the Divine Right of Kings, i.e. the doctrine that the
arbitrary will of princes, in virtue of their being “the Lord’s Anointed,” is
divine and holy: on the contrary their will is regarded as deserving of respect
only so far as in association with reason, it wisely contemplates Right,
Justice, and the weal of the community. The principle of Thought, therefore, had
been so far conciliated already; moreover the Protestant World had a conviction
that in the Harmonization which had previously been evolved [in the sphere of
Religion] the principle which would result in a further development of equity in
the political sphere was already present.
Consciousness that has received an abstract culture, and whose sphere is the
Understanding [Verstand] can be indifferent to Religion, but Religion is the
general form in which Truth exists for non-abstract consciousness. And the
Protestant Religion does not admit of two kinds of consciences, while in the
Catholic world the Holy stands on the one side and on the other side abstraction
opposed to Religion, that is to its superstition and its truth. That formal,
individual Will is in virtue of the abstract position just mentioned made the
basis of political theories; Right in Society is that which the Law wills, and
the Will in question appears as an isolated individual will; thus the State, as
an aggregate of many individuals, is not an independently substantial Unity, and
the truth and essence of Right in and for itself – to which the will of its
individual members ought to be conformed in order to be true, free Will; but the
volitional atoms [the individual wills of the members of the State] are made the
starting point, and each will is represented as absolute. An intellectual
principle was thus discovered to serve as a basis for the State – one which does
not, like previous principles, belong to the sphere of opinion, such as the
social impulse, the desire of security for property, etc., nor owe its origin to
the religious sentiment, as does that of the Divine appointment of the governing
power – but the principle of Certainty, which is identity with my
self-consciousness, stopping short however of that of Truth, which needs to be
distinguished from it. This is a vast discovery in regard to the profoundest
depths of being and Freedom. The consciousness of the Spiritual is now the
essential basis of the political fabric, and Philosophy has thereby become
dominant. It has been said, that the French Revolution resulted from Philosophy,
and it is not without reason that Philosophy has been called “Weltweisheit”
[World Wisdom;] for it is not only Truth in and for itself, as the pure essence
of things, but also Truth in its living form as exhibited in the affairs of the
world. We should not, therefore, contradict the assertion that the Revolution
received its first impulse from Philosophy. But this philosophy is in the first
instance only abstract Thought, not the concrete comprehension of absolute Truth
– intellectual positions between which there is an immeasurable chasm.
The principle of the Freedom of the Will, therefore, asserted itself against
existing Right. Before the French Revolution, it must be allowed, the power of
the grandees had been diminished by Richelieu, and they had been deprived of
privileges; but, like the clergy, they retained all the prerogatives which gave
them an advantage over the lower class. The political condition of France at
that time presents nothing but a confused mass of privileges altogether
contravening Thought and Reason – an utterly irrational state of things, and one
with which the greatest corruption of morals, of Spirit was associated – an
empire characterized by Destitution of Right, and which, when its real state
begins to be recognized, becomes shameless destitution of Right. The fearfully
heavy burdens that pressed upon the people, the embarrassment of the government
to procure for the Court the means of supporting luxury and extravagance, gave
the first impulse to discontent. The new Spirit began to agitate men’s minds:
oppression drove men to investigation. It was perceived that the sums extorted
from the people were not expended in furthering the objects of the State, but
were lavished in the most unreasonable fashion. The entire political system
appeared one mass of injustice. The change was necessarily violent, because the
work of transformation was not undertaken by the government. And the reason why
the government did not undertake it was that the Court, the Clergy, the
Nobility, the Parliaments themselves, were unwilling to surrender the privileges
they possessed, either for the sake of expediency or that of abstract Right;
moreover, because the government as the concrete centre of the power of the
State, could not adopt as its principle abstract individual wills, and
reconstruct the State on this basis; lastly, because it was Catholic, and
therefore the Idea of Freedom – Reason embodied in Laws – did not pass for the
final absolute obligation, since the Holy and the religious conscience are
separated from them. The conception, the idea of Right asserted its authority
all at once, and the old framework of injustice could offer no resistance to its
onslaught. A constitution, therefore, was established in harmony with the
conception of Right, and on this foundation all future legislation was to be
based. Never since the sun had stood in the firmament and the planets revolved
around him had it been perceived that man’s existence centres in his head, i.e.,
in Thought, inspired by which he builds up the world of reality. Anaxagoras had
been the first to say that nous; governs the World; but not until now had man
advanced to the recognition of the principle that Thought ought to govern
spiritual reality, This was accordingly a glorious mental dawn. All thinking
beings shared in the jubilation of this epoch. Emotions of a lofty character
stirred men’s minds at that time; a spiritual enthusiasm thrilled through the
world, as if the reconciliation between the Divine and the Secular was now first
accomplished.
The two following points must now occupy our attention: 1st. The course which
the Revolution in France took; 2d. How that Revolution became World-Historical.
1. Freedom presents two aspects: the one concerns its substance and purport –
its objectivity – the thing itself – [that which is performed as a free act];
the other relates to the Form of Freedom, involving the consciousness of his
activity on the part of the individual; for Freedom demands that the individual
recognize himself in such acts, that they should be veritably his, it being his
interest that the result in question should be attained. The three elements and
powers of the State in actual working must be contemplated according to the
above analysis, their examination in detail being referred to the Lectures on
the Philosophy of Right.
(1.) Laws of Rationality – of intrinsic Right – Objective or Real Freedom: to
this category belong Freedom of Property and Freedom of Person. Those relics of
that condition of servitude which the feudal relation had introduced are hereby
swept away, and all those fiscal ordinances which were the bequest of the feudal
law – its tithes and dues, are abrogated. Real [practical] Liberty requires
moreover freedom in regard to trades and professions – the permission to every
one to use his abilities without restriction – and the free admission to all
offices of State. This is a summary of the elements of real Freedom, and which
are not based on feeling – for feeling allows of the continuance even of serfdom
and slavery – but on the thought and self- consciousness of man recognizing the
spiritual character of his existence.
(2.) But the agency which gives the laws practical effect is the Government
generally. Government is primarily the formal execution of the laws and the
maintenance of their authority: in respect to foreign relations it prosecutes
the interest of the State; that is, it assists the independence of the nation as
an individuality against other nations; lastly, it has to provide for the
internal weal of the State and all its classes – what is called administration:
for it is not enough that the citizen is allowed to pursue a trade or calling,
it must also be a source of gain to him; it is not enough that men are permitted
to use their powers, they must also find an opportunity of applying them to
purpose. Thus the State involves a body of abstract principles and a practical
application of them. This application must be the work of a subjective will, a
will which resolves and decides. Legislation itself – the invention and positive
enactment of these statutory arrangements, is an application of such general
principles. The next step, then, consists in [specific] determination and
execution. Here then the question presents itself: what is the decisive will to
be? The ultimate decision is the prerogative of the monarch: but if the State is
based on Liberty, the many wills of individuals also desire to have a share in
political decisions. But the Many are All; and it seems but a poor expedient,
rather a monstrous inconsistency, to allow only a few to take part in those
decisions, since each wishes that his volition should have a share in
determining what is to be law for him. The Few assume to be the deputies, but
they are often only the despoilers of the Many. Nor is the sway of the Majority
over the Minority a less palpable inconsistency.
(3.) This collision of subjective wills leads therefore to the consideration
of a third point, that of Disposition – an ex animo acquiescence in the laws;
not the mere customary observance of them, but the cordial recognition of laws
and the Constitution as in principle fixed and immutable, and of the supreme
obligation of individuals to subject their particular wills to them. There may
be various opinions and views respecting laws, constitution and government, but
there must be a disposition on the part of the citizens to regard all these
opinions as subordinate to the substantial interest of the State, and to insist
upon them no further than that interest will allow; moreover nothing must be
considered higher and more sacred than good will towards the State; or, if
Religion be looked upon as higher and more sacred, it must involve nothing
really alien or opposed to the Constitution. It is, indeed, regarded as a maxim
of the profoundest wisdom entirely to separate the laws and constitution of the
State from Religion, since bigotry and hypocrisy are to be feared as the results
of a State Religion. But although the aspects of Religion and the State are
different, they are radically one; and the laws find their highest confirmation
in Religion.
Here it must be frankly stated, that with the Catholic Religion no rational
constitution is possible; for Government and People must reciprocate that final
guarantee of Disposition, and can have it only in a Religion that is not opposed
to a rational political constitution.
Plato in his Republic makes everything depend upon the Government, and makes
Disposition the principle of the State; on which account he lays the chief
stress on Education. The modern theory is diametrically opposed to this,
referring everything to the individual will. But here we have no guarantee that
the will in question has that right disposition which is essential to the
stability of the State.
In view then of these leading considerations we have to trace the course of
the French Revolution and the remodelling of the State in accordance with the
Idea of Right. In the first instance purely abstract philosophical principles
were set up: Disposition and Religion were not taken into account. The first
Constitutional form of Government in France was one which recognized Royalty;
the monarch was to stand at the head of the State, and on him in conjunction
with his Ministers was to devolve the executive power; the legislative body on
the other hand were to make the laws. But this constitution involved from the
very first an internal contradiction; for the legislature absorbed the whole
power of the administration: the budget, affairs of war and peace, and the
levying of the armed force were in the hands of the Legislative Chamber.
Everything was brought under the head of Law. The budget however is in its
nature something diverse from law, for it is annually renewed, and the power to
which it properly belongs is that of the Government. With this moreover is
connected the indirect nomination of the ministry and officers of state, etc.
The government was thus transferred to the Legislative Chamber, as in England to
the Parliament. This constitution was also vitiated by the existence of absolute
mistrust; the dynasty lay under suspicion, because it had lost the power it
formerly enjoyed, and the priests refused the oath. Neither government nor
constitution could be maintained on this footing, and the ruin of both was the
result. A government of some kind however is always in existence. The question
presents itself then, Whence did it emanate? Theoretically, it proceeded from
the people; really and truly from the National Convention and its Committees.
The forces now dominant are the abstract principles – Freedom, and, as it exists
within the limits of the Subjective Will – Virtue. This Virtue has now to
conduct the government in opposition to the Many, whom their corruption and
attachment to old interests, or a liberty that has degenerated into license, and
the violence of their passions, render unfaithful to virtue. Virtue is here a
simple abstract principle and distinguishes the citizens into two classes only –
those who are favorably disposed and those who are not. But disposition can only
be recognized and judged of by disposition. Suspicion therefore is in the
ascendant; but virtue, as soon as it becomes liable to suspicion, is already
condemned. Suspicion attained a terrible power and brought to the scaffold the
Monarch, whose subjective will was in fact the religious conscience of a
Catholic. Robespierre set up the principle of Virtue as supreme, and it may be
said that with this man Virtue was an earnest matter. Virtue and Terror are the
order of the day; for Subjective Virtue, whose sway is based on disposition
only, brings with it the most fearful tyranny. It exercises its power without
legal formalities, and the punishment it inflicts is equally simple – Death.
This tyranny could not last; for all inclinations, all interests, reason itself
revolted against this terribly consistent Liberty, which in its concentrated
intensity exhibited so fanatical a shape. An organized government is introduced,
analogous to the one that had been displaced; only that its chief and monarch is
now a mutable Directory of Five, who may form a moral, but have not an
individual unity; under them also suspicion was in the ascendant, and the
government was in the hands of the legislative assemblies; this constitution
therefore experienced the same fate as its predecessor, for it had proved to
itself the absolute necessity of a governmental power. Napoleon restored it as a
military power, and followed up this step by establishing himself as an
individual will at the head of the State: he knew how to rule, and soon settled
the internal affairs of France. The avocats, idealogues and abstract-principle
men who ventured to show themselves he sent “to the right about,” and the sway
of mistrust was exchanged for that of respect and fear. He then, with the vast
might of his character turned his attention to foreign relations, subjected all
Europe, and diffused his liberal institutions in every quarter. Greater
victories were never gained, expeditions displaying greater genius were never
conducted: but never was the powerlessness of Victory exhibited in a clearer
light than then. The disposition of the peoples, i.e. their religious
disposition and that of their nationality, ultimately precipitated this
colossus; and in France constitutional monarchy, with the “Charte” as its basis,
was restored. But here again the antithesis of Disposition [good feeling] and
Mistrust made its appearance. The French stood in a mendacious position to each
other, when they issued addresses full of devotion and love to the monarchy, and
loading it with benediction. A fifteen years’ farce was played. For although the
Charte was the standard under which all were enrolled, and though both parties
had sworn to it, yet on the one side the ruling disposition was a Catholic one,
which regarded it as a matter of conscience to destroy the existing
institutions. Another breach, therefore, took place, and the Government was
overturned. At length, after forty years of war and confusion indescribable, a
weary heart might fain congratulate itself on seeing a termination and
tranquillization of all these disturbances. But although one main point is set
at rest, there remains on the one hand that rupture which the Catholic principle
inevitably occasions, on the other hand that which has to do with men’s
subjective will. In regard to the latter, the main feature of incompatibility
still presents itself, in the requirement that the ideal general will should
also be the empirically general – i.e. that the units of the State, in their
individual capacity, should rule, or at any rate take part in the government.
Not satisfied with the establishment of rational rights, with freedom of person
and property, with the existence of a political organization in which are to be
found various circles of civil life each having its own functions to perform,
and with that influence over the people which is exercised by the intelligent
members of the community, and the confidence that is felt in them, “Liberalism”
sets up in opposition to all this the atomistic principle, that which insists
upon the sway of individual wills; maintaining that all government should
emanate from their express power, and have their express sanction. Asserting
this formal side of Freedom – this abstraction – the party in question allows no
political organization to be firmly established. The particular arrangements of
the government are forthwith opposed by the advocates of Liberty as the mandates
of a particular will, and branded as displays of arbitrary power. The will of
the Many expels the Ministry from power, and those who had formed the Opposition
fill the vacant places; but the latter having now become the Government, meet
with hostility from the Many, and share the same fate. Thus agitation and unrest
are perpetuated. This collision, this nodus, this problem is that with which
history is now occupied, and whose solution it has to work out in the future.
2. We have now to consider the French Revolution in its organic connection
with the History of the World; for in its substantial import that event is
World-Historical, and that contest of Formalism which we discussed in the last
paragraph must be properly distinguished from its wider bearings. As regards
outward diffusion its principle gained access to almost all modern states,
either through conquest or by express introduction into their political life.
Particularly all the Romanic nations, and the Roman Catholic World in special –
France, Italy, Spain – were subjected to the dominion of Liberalism. But it
became bankrupt everywhere; first, the grand firm in France, then its branches
in Spain and Italy; twice, in fact, in the states into which it had been
introduced. This was the case in Spain, where it was first brought in by the
Napoleonic Constitution, then by that which the Cortes adopted – in Piedmont,
first when it was incorporated with the French Empire, and a second time as the
result of internal insurrection; so in Rome and in Naples it was twice set up.
Thus Liberalism as an abstraction, emanating from France, traversed the Roman
World; but Religious slavery held that world in the fetters of political
servitude. For it is a false principle that the fetters which bind Right and
Freedom can be broken without the emancipation of conscience – that there can be
a Revolution without a Reformation. – These countries, therefore, sank back into
their old condition – in Italy with some modifications of the outward political
condition. Venice and Genoa, those ancient aristocracies, which could at least
boast of legitimacy, vanished as rotten despotisms. Material superiority in
power can achieve no enduring results: Napoleon could not coerce Spain into
freedom any more than Philip II could force Holland into slavery.
Contrasted with these Romanic nations we observe the other powers of Europe,
and especially the Protestant nations. Austria and England were not drawn within
the vortex of internal agitation, and exhibited great, immense proofs of their
internal solidity. Austria is not a Kingdom, but an Empire, i.e., an aggregate
of many political organizations. The inhabitants of its chief provinces are not
German in origin and character, and have remained unaffected by “ideas.”
Elevated neither by education nor religion, the lower classes in some districts
have remained in a condition of serfdom, and the nobility have been kept down,
as in Bohemia; in other quarters, while the former have continued the same, the
barons have maintained their despotism, as in Hungary. Austria has surrendered
that more intimate connection with Germany which was derived from the imperial
dignity, and renounced its numerous possessions and rights in Germany and the
Netherlands. It now takes its place in Europe as a distinct power, involved with
no other. England, with great exertions, maintained itself on its old
foundations ; the English Constitution kept its ground amid the general
convulsion, though it seemed so much the more liable to be affected by it, as a
public Parliament, that habit of assembling in public meeting which was common
to all orders of the state, and a free press, offered singular facilities for
introducing the French principles of Liberty and Equality among all classes of
the people. Was the English nation too backward in point of culture to apprehend
these general principles? Yet in no country has the question of Liberty been
more frequently a subject of reflection and public discussion. Or was the
English constitution so entirely a Free Constitution – had those principles been
already so completely realized in it, that they could no longer excite
opposition or even interest? The English nation may be said to have approved of
the emancipation of France; but it was proudly reliant on its own constitution
and freedom, and instead of imitating the example of the foreigner, it displayed
its ancient hostility to its rival, and was soon involved in a popular war with
France.
The Constitution of England is a complex of mere particular Rights and
particular privileges: the Government is essentially administrative – that is,
conservative of the interests of all particular orders and classes; and each
particular Church, parochial district, county, society, takes care of itself, so
that the Government, strictly speaking, has nowhere less to do than in England.
This is the leading feature of what Englishmen call their Liberty, and is the
very antithesis of such a centralized administration as exists in France, where
down to the least village the Maire is named by the Ministry or their agents.
Nowhere can people less tolerate free action on the part of others than in
France: there the Ministry combines in itself all administrative power, to
which, on the other hand, the Chamber of Deputies lays claim. In England, on the
contrary, every parish, every subordinate division and association has a part of
its own to perform. Thus the common interest is concrete, and particular
interests are taken cognizance of and determined in view of that common
interest. These arrangements, based on particular interests, render a general
system impossible. Consequently, abstract and general principles have no
attraction for Englishmen – are addressed in their case to inattentive ears. –
The particular interests above referred to have positive rights attached to
them, which date from the antique times of Feudal Law, and have been preserved
in England more than in any other country. By an inconsistency of the most
startling kind, we find them contravening equity most grossly; and of
institutions characterized by real freedom there are nowhere fewer than in
England. In point of private right and freedom of possession they present an
incredible deficiency: sufficient proof of which is afforded in the rights of
primogeniture, involving the necessity of purchasing or otherwise providing
military or ecclesiastical appointments for the younger sons of the aristocracy.
The Parliament governs, although Englishmen are unwilling to allow that such
is the case. It is worthy of remark, that what has been always regarded as the
period of the corruption of a republican people, presents itself here; viz.
election to seats in parliament by means of bribery. But this also they call
freedom – the power to sell one’s vote, and to purchase a seat in parliament.
But this utterly inconsistent and corrupt state of things has nevertheless
one advantage, that it provides for the possibility of a government – that it
introduces a majority of men into parliament who are statesmen, who from their
very youth have devoted themselves to political business and have worked and
lived in it. And the nation has the correct conviction and perception that there
must be a government, and is therefore willing to give its confidence to a body
of men who have had experience in governing; for a general sense of
particularity involves also a recognition of that form of particularity which is
a distinguishing feature of one class of the community – that knowledge,
experience, and facility acquired by practice, which the aristocracy who devote
themselves to such interests exclusively possess. This is quite opposed to the
appreciation of principles and abstract views which everyone can understand at
once, and which are besides to be found in all Constitutions and Charters. It is
a question whether the Reform in Parliament now on the tapis, consistently
carried out, will leave the possibility of a Government.
The material existence of England is based on commerce and industry, and the
English have undertaken the weighty responsibility of being the missionaries of
civilization to the world; for their commercial spirit urges them to traverse
every sea and land, to form connections with barbarous peoples, to create wants
and stimulate industry, and first and foremost to establish among them the
conditions necessary to commerce, viz. the relinquishment of a life of lawless
violence, respect for property, and civility to strangers.
Germany was traversed by the victoriouss French hosts, but German nationality
delivered it from this yoke. One of the leading features in the political
condition of Germany is that code of Rights which was certainly occasioned by
French oppression, since this was the especial means of bringing to light the
deficiencies of the old system. The fiction of an Empire has utterly vanished.
It is broken up into sovereign states. Feudal obligations are abolished, for
freedom of property and of person have been recognized as fundamental
principles. Offices of State are open to every citizen, talent and adaptation
being of course the necessary conditions. The government rests with the official
world, and the personal decision of the monarch constitutes its apex; for a
final decision is, as was remarked above, absolutely necessary. Yet with firmly
established laws, and a settled organization of the State, what is left to the
sole arbitrament of the monarch is, in point of substance, no great matter. It
is certainly a very fortunate circumstance for a nation, when a sovereign of
noble character falls to its lot; yet in a great state even this is of small
moment, since its strength lies in the Reason incorporated in it. Minor states
have their existence and tranquillity secured to them more or less by their
neighbors: they are therefore, properly speaking, not independent, and have not
the fiery trial of war to endure. As has been remarked, a share in the
government may be obtained by every one who has a competent knowledge,
experience, and a morally regulated will. Those who oi airstoi, not ignorance
and the presumptuous conceit of “knowing better.” Lastly, as to Disposition, we
have already remarked that in the Protestant Church the reconciliation of
Religion with Legal Right has taken place. In the Protestant world there is no
sacred, no religious conscience in a state of separation from, or perhaps even
hostility to Secular Right.
This is the point which consciousness has attained, and these Mr. G. H.
Lewes, in his Biographical History of Philosophy, Vol. IV, Ed. 1841.
I cannot mention any work that will serve as a compendium of the course, but
I may remark that in my “Outlines of the Philosophy of Law,” §§341-360, I have
already given a definition of such a Universal History as it is proposed to
develop, and a syllabus of the chief elements or periods into are the principal
phases of that form in which the principle of Freedom has realized itself; – for
the History of the World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Freedom.
But Objective Freedom – the laws of real Freedom – demand the subjugation of the
mere contingent Will – for this is in its nature formal. If the Objective is in
itself Rational, human insight and conviction must correspond with the Reason
which it embodies, and then we have the other essential element – Subjective
Freedom – also realized.[45] We have confined ourselves to the consideration of
that progress of the Idea [which has led to this consummation], and have been
obliged to forego the pleasure of giving a detailed picture of the prosperity,
the periods of glory that have distinguished the career of peoples, the beauty
and grandeur of the character of individuals, and the interest attaching to
their fate in weal or woe. Philosophy concerns itself only with the glory of the
Idea mirroring itself in the History of the World. Philosophy escapes from the
weary strife of passions that agitate the surface of society into the calm
region of contemplation; that which interests it is the recognition of the
process of development which the Idea has passed through in realizing itself –
i.e., the Idea of Freedom, whose reality is the consciousness of Freedom and
nothing short of it.
That the History of the World, with all the changing scenes which its annals
present, is this process of development and the realization of Spirit – this is
the true Theodicaea, the justification of God in History. Only this insight can
reconcile Spirit with the History of the World – viz., that what has happened,
and is happening every day, is not only not “without God,” but is essentially
His Work.
