第24章

When modern times are in the same way called upon to revert to the standpoint of an ancient philosophy (as is recommended specially in regard to the philosophy of Plato) in order to make this a means of escaping from the complications and difficulties of succeeding times, this reversion does not come naturally as in the first case. This discreet counsel has the same origin as the request to cultivated members of society to turn back to the customs and ideas of the savages of the North American forests, or as the recommendation to adopt the religion of Melchisedec which Fichte (6) has maintained to be the purest and simplest possible, and therefore the one at which we must eventually arrive. On the one hand, in this retrogression the desire for an origin and for a fixed point of departure is unmistakable, but such must be sought for in thought and Idea alone and not in an authoritatively given form. On the other hand, the return of the developed, enriched Mind to a simplicity such as this-which means to an abstraction, an abstract condition or thought is to be regarded only as the escape of an incapacity which cannot enjoy the rich material of development which it sees before it, and which demands to be controlled and comprehended in its very depths by thought, but seeks a refuge in fleeing from the difficulty and in mere sterility.

From what has been said it is quite comprehensible how so many of those who, whether induced by some special attraction such as this, or simply by the fame of a Plato or ancient philosophy in general, direct their way thereto in order to draw their own philosophy from these sources, do not find themselves satisfied by the study, and unjustifiably quit such altogether. Satisfaction is found in them to a certain extent only. We must know in ancient philosophy or in the philosophy of any given period, what we are going to look for. Or at least we must know that in such a philosophy there is before us a definite stage in the development of thought, and in it those forms and necessities of Mind which lie within the limits of that stage alone are brought into existence. There slumber in the Mind of modern times ideas more profound which require for their awakening other surroundings and another present than the abstract, dim, grey thought of olden times. In Plato, for instance, questions regarding the nature of freedom, the origin of evil and of sin, providence, &c., do not find their philosophic answer. On such subjects we certainly may in part take the ordinary serious views of the present time, and in part philosophically set their consideration altogether aside, or else consider sin and freedom as something negative only. But neither the one plan nor the other gives freedom to Mind if such subjects have once been explicitly for it, and if the opposition in self-consciousness has given it the power of sinking its interests therein. The case is similar with regard to questions regarding the limits of knowledge, the opposition between subjectivity and objectivity which had not yet come up in Plato's age. The independence of the within itself and its explicit existence was foreign to him; man had not yet gone back within himself, had not yet set himself forth as explicit. The subject was indeed the individual as free, but as yet he knew himself only as in unity with his Being. The Athenian knew himself to be free, as such, just as the Roman citizen would, as ingenuus. But the fact that man is in and for himself free, in his essence and as man, free born, was known neither by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, nor the Roman legislators, even though it is this conception alone which forms the source of law. In Christianity the individual, personal mind for the first time becomes of real, infinite and absolute value; God wills that all men shall be saved. It was in the Christian religion that the doctrine was advanced that all men are equal before God, because Christ has set them free with the freedom of Christianity.

These principles make freedom independent of any such things as birth, standing or culture. The progress made through them is enormous, but they still come short of this, that to be free constitutes the very idea of man. The sense of this existent principle has been an active force for centuries and centuries, and an impelling power which has brought about the most tremendous revolutions; but the conception and the knowledge of the natural freedom of man is a knowledge of himself which is not old.

Introduction B. Relation of Philosophy to Other Departments of Knowledge.

The History of Philosophy has to represent this science in that form of time and individualities from which its outward form has resulted. Such a representation has, however, to shut out from itself the external history of the time, and to take into account only the general character of the people and time, and likewise their circumstances as a whole. But as a matter of fact, the history of Philosophy does present this character, and that indeed in the highest possible degree; its connection with it is of the closest kind, and the particular appearance presented by a philosophy belonging to one special period, is only a particular aspect or element in the character. Because of this inward correspondence we have partly to consider more closely the particular relation borne by a philosophy to its historical surroundings, and partly, but pre-eminently, what is proper to itself, from which alone, after separating everything related however closely, we can fix our standpoint. This connection, which is not merely external but essential, has thus two sides, which we must consider. The first is the distinctly historical side, the second is the connection with other matters - the connection of Philosophy with Religion, for instance, by which we at once obtain a deeper conception of Philosophy itself.