THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY OF
GERMANY.
Popular philosophy flatters our ordinary consciousness, makes it the ultimate standard. Although with Spinoza we begin with pre-supposed definitions, the content is still profoundly speculative in nature, and it is not derived from the ordinary consciousness. In Spinoza thinking is not merely the form, for the content belongs to thinking itself; it is the content of thought in itself. In the speculative content the instinct of reason satisfies itself on its own account, because this content, as a totality which integrates itself within itself, at once in itself justifies itself to thought. The content in Spinoza is only without ground in so far as it has no external ground, but is a ground in itself. But if the content is finite, a demand for an external ground is indicated, since in such a case we desire to have a ground other than this finite. In its matter the philosophy of Wolff is indeed a popular philosophy, even if in form it still makes thought authoritative. Until the time of Kant the philosophy of Wolff was thus pre-eminent, Baumgarten, Crusius, and Moses Mendelssohn worked each of them independently on the same lines as Wolff; the philosophy of the last-mentioned was popular and graceful in form. The Wolffian philosophy was thus carried on, although it had cast off its pedantic methods: no further progress was however made. The question dealt with was how perfection could be attained - what it is possible to think and what not; metaphysic was reduced to its slightest consistency and to its completest vacuity, so that in its texture not a single thread remained secure. Mendelssohn considered himself, and was considered, the greatest of philosophers, and was lauded as such by his friends. In his "Morgenstunden" we really find a dry Wolffian philosophy, however much these gentlemen endeavoured to give their dull abstractions a bright Platonic form.
The forms of Philosophy which we have considered bear the character which pertains specially to metaphysics, of proceeding from general determinations of the understanding, but of combining therewith experience and observation, or the empiric method in general. One side of this metaphysic is that the opposites of thought are brought into consciousness, and that attention is directed upon the solution of this contradiction. Thought and Being or extension, God and the world, good and evil, the power and prescience of God on the one side, and the evil in the world and human freedom on the other: these contradictions, the opposites of soul and spirit, things conceived and things material, and their mutual relation, have occupied all men's attention. The solution of these opposites and contradictions has still to be given, and God is set forth as the One in whom all these contradictions are solved. This is what is common to all these philosophies as far as their main elements are concerned. Yet we must likewise remark that these contradictions are not solved in themselves, i.e. that the nullity of the supposition is not demonstrated in itself, and thereby a true concrete solution has not come to pass. Even if God is recognised as solving all contradictions, God as the solution of these contradictions is a matter of words rather than something conceived and comprehended. If God is comprehended in His qualities, and prescience, omnipresence, omniscience, power, wisdom, goodness, justice, &c., are considered as qualities of God Himself, they simply lead to contradictions; and these contradictions, Leibnitz (supra, p. 348) sought to remove by saying that the qualities temper one another, i.e. that they are combined in such a way that one annuls the other. This, however, is no real comprehension of such contradiction.
This metaphysic contrasts greatly with the old philosophy of a Plato or an Aristotle. To the old philosophy we can always turn again and admit its truth; it is satisfying in the stage of development it has reached - a concrete centre-point which meets all the problems set by thought as these are comprehended. In this modern metaphysic, however, the opposites are merely developed into absolute contradictions. God is indeed given as their absolute solution, but only as an abstract solution, as a Beyond; on this side all contradictions are, as regards their content, unsolved and unexplained. God is not comprehended as the One in whom these contradictions are eternally resolved; He is not comprehended as Spirit, as the Trinity. It is in Him alone as Spirit, and as Spirit which is Three in One, that this opposition of Himself and His Other, the Son, is contained, and with it the resolution of the same; this concrete Idea of God as reason, has not as yet found an entrance into Philosophy.
In order that we may now cast a retrospective glance over the philosophic efforts of other nations, we shall apply ourselves to the further progress of Philosophy. Once more we see Scepticism making its way into this and philosophy of the understanding. But this time it is, properly speaking, in the form of Idealism, or the determinations are subjective determinations of self-consciousness.
