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ART. VIII.-STRAUSS AND GERMAN HELLENISM.

Leben und Schriften des Dichters und Philologen Nicodemus Frischlin. Ein Beitrag zur Deutschen Culturgeschichte in der zweiten Hälfte des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts. Von David Friderich Strauss. Mit dem Bildnisse Frischlins.-(Life and Writings of the Poet and Philologist Nicodemus Frischlin. A Contribution to the History of German Culture in the second half of the Sixteenth Century. By David Frederic Strauss.) Frankfurt

am Main; Literarische Anstalt, 1855. Christian Friderich Daniel Schubart's Leben in seinen Briefen. Gesammelt, bearbeitet und herausgegeben von David Friderich Strauss. (The Life of Christian Frederic Daniel Schubart, as delineated in his Letters. Collected, worked-up, and edited by D. F. Strauss.) 2 vols. Duncker, Berlin, 1849.

Christian Märklin. Ein Lebens- und Charakterbild aus der Gegenwart. Von D. F. Strauss.-(Christian Märklin. A Picture of Life and Character from the present Day. By D. F. Strauss.) Mannheim, Bassermann, 1851.

Der Romantiker auf dem Throne der Cäsaren, oder Julian der Abtrünnige. Ein Vortrag von D. F. Strauss.-(The Romancer on the Throne of the Caesars, or Julian the Apostate. A Lecture by D. F. Strauss.) Mannheim, 1847.

SINCE elaborating the mythical hypothesis in his celebrated Life of Jesus, Dr. Strauss has abandoned the proper region of philosophical and theological inquiry for more literary studies, bent, apparently, on illustrating and testing his "world-theory" by asking how it will meet the wants and measure the achievements of non-mythic actual men. There are few modern writers in Germany whose literary ability is so great. Calm, acute, and thoughtful, with a cultivated scholar-like taste, a quick insight into individual peculiarities, and great tact in presenting the strongest practical side of a speculative view, he makes up for a slight chilliness of manner by the general good sense and anxious justice pervading these biographies, and by the clear, cold, intellectual perspective that underlies his delineations. You always feel that he is applying an inward criticism of his own to the lives he is recounting; and though occasionally you wonder whether your author be himself a man, or only a reflective Muse candid enough to adopt the Hegelian philosophy of history, there is an interest in the sincerity of the thought, the steadiness of the hand that holds the ideal scales, and the perfect simplicity

of the style, which carries us on even through his last and least interesting work.

These writings are all pervaded by the philosophy of the writer. Indeed, we may feel pretty sure that the figures he so carefully sketches have been chosen more in order to bring out the background of thought on which he outlines them than for their own intrinsic worth. The three biographic sketches are sketches of men who, like himself, have been diverted from theology; and even the clever lecture on Julian regards the emperor almost entirely as a retrograde heathen Divine. One-and perhaps the most interesting of these memoirs, as far as concerns Strauss's own share in the authorship-is almost autobiographic, for it is a memoir of a school and college friend of his own, who had passed with him through all the stages of declining orthodoxy, and finally died a firm disciple of that semi-classical "Humanismus" (or Humanity-worship) in which the left school of Hegelianism has issued, and which it is now Dr. Strauss's object in life to preach. Of this little memoir, though not the earliest, we will speak first, because it affords that insight into Dr. Strauss's own history and convictions, and into the affinities of the extreme school of scepticism in Germany, which gives the true point of view for his other works.

Strauss's memoirs of Christian Märklin bears somewhat the same testimony to the German thinker's system of thought which Carlyle's Life of Sterling was intended to bear to the less complete and defined scepticism of our great essayist. It is a kind of protest against intolerant practical estimates of sceptics. It says, "Here is a man's life lived under the shadow of this unbelief,-can you show me any thing truer or nobler that has been nourished on your positive theology?" And Strauss certainly proves, in his own case, much more successfully, we think, than Carlyle, that his friend did share to the uttermost the desolating scepticism of his own mind. Nor is the picture of Märklin, though not coloured with that remarkable genius which makes Carlyle's work a permanent literary possession, at all less noble and fascinating than that of the radiant-minded, elastic Sterling. But while it was Sterling's gift (being "rich," as Carlyle calls him, “in cheerful fancies, in grave logic, in all kinds of bright activity," "beautifullest sheetlightning, not to be condensed into thunderbolts") to flash genial light on the stormy and despondent irony of his friend, it was apparently Märklin's part to supply to the lighter Schwabian temperaments of his circle something of the tenacity of purpose and maturity of judgment which is best calculated permanently to bind a group first drawn together by common adherence

to a school of colourless thought. It was the strong texture of his character which made Märklin the centre of his set of dreary Hegelians, which marked him out in that school of thin impersonal dialecticians as "distinguishable, honourable, and lovable, amidst the dim common populations." Märklin's character has great and noble features. Nor is it very easy to see how he can have felt drawn to the knot of Tübingen thinkers, of which Dr. Strauss has since become the leader. Indeed, it gave him no lasting satisfaction. Dr. Strauss himself represents his friend in later life as taking up the very same intellectual position which Carlyle has assumed in England. He turned away from a philosophy he found helpless, and a theology he believed to be false, into bitter satire on the helplessness of the day; holding up men of other ages for partial idolatry, and puzzling himself as to the sources of their health. History "still has truth; take refuge there," he said. He called on men to look away from the present confusion and morbid disease, to the free healthy public life of Greece and Rome. Had Germany a like public life, they might, he thought, be inspired to like sacrifices; but how to get such a public life without conditioning for impossible spiritual beliefs?

Christian Märklin and David Frederic Strauss were prepared together in the same Wirtemberg seminary from boyhood upwards for pastors of the German Protestant Church. It was between the years 1825 and 1830 that they studied together in the theological faculty of the University of Tübingen, and there arrived at those semi-Teutonic, semi-classical faiths or no faiths, which, with some English modifications, have often recently been the result of similar studies in English Universities, especially at Oxford. It was just at the time when the Classical and the Christian philosophy and literature were beginning to unite at their very fountains in human reason. Till now Christianity had come with a weight of external authority which scarcely rendered a real amalgamation possible. Classical literature had often floated like a kind of superficial oil over the stormy nature of both Catholic and Protestant scholars,-nay, sometimes it formed the deeper character, while the Christian element rose to the surface: but the two had never yet really mingled; they had totally different spheres; biblical and ecclesiastical authority enforced Christianity, while mere literary taste drew men to the classical learning the former was considered part of the fact and institution of life, the latter was ornamental culture. But as soon as the deeper question as to biblical authority began to be raised; when sceptics picked holes in the authenticity of Scripture, and believers found themselves obliged to found the main authority

of Christianity in its appeals to the conscience and spirit of man, then the Greek philosophy and the Roman type of character appealed on more equal terms to the mind of the student. They too might, so far as they could, approve themselves to the reason and conscience; if their chance of success was very unequal in degree, it was not wholly different in kind. When Schleiermacher was preaching a Christianity of sentiment, and Hegel demonstrating a Christianity of abstract reason, and even the highest adherents of the old school had to yield many essential points to the historical criticisms of their opponents, it was not possible wholly to refuse Plato's claim to be heard as a religious teacher, or to turn back the heroic types of Roman character with an intimation that they were not admissible claimants for a Christian's reverence or emulation; for they too, if they could establish a hold on the reason, might force their way into the new Christian philosophy; or, if they could touch the conscience and affections, would stand on the same basis with the remodelled Christian religion.

And it very soon began to be apparent that a thoroughly new struggle between the Classical and Christian types of thought so far as they were distinct-was really beginning in Germany. Candidates of theology,' who had been taught to appreciate Classical literature more thoroughly than Christian creeds, first sublimated their ecclesiastical facts, and then renounced all that was characteristic even in the faith itself. "All the young men," says Dr. Strauss, "who along with Märklin constituted the flower of the youth" then preparing for the theological classes in Tübingen,-"that set alone excepted which dreamt itself over, without experiencing any shock, from the Classical poetry into the Christian,-found their way, after a longer or shorter term of ecclesiastical service, into the class of teachers, or the private life of literary authorship." And in accounting for his friend Märklin's remarkable influence over this set, he goes on to say, "Many caught new ideas more quickly, but none worked them up more thoroughly; many surpassed him in memory, but few transformed their knowledge so completely into flesh and blood as he did. In reading the classics his own mind became antique, just as, later on, the study of philosophy turned in him to practical wisdom. His fellow-students early perceived that here there was really a character in process of formation. When there was a dispute to settle, a moral collision to disentangle, it was his opinion that was eagerly asked for, and respectfully and trustfully accepted." Strauss, Märklin, and their set, found little in the teaching of the Tübingen professors to modify the force with

which the new thoughts of Schleiermacher and Hegel seized on their minds. There is something wild and wayward in the 'influences of a German University, totally distinct from those of our own similar institutions. They have no stately overpowering Fellows or Dons,-only learned students, about as shy and awkward as their pupils. There is no settled, grave, immutable public opinion, keeping watch and ward over individual eccentricities, and setting practical limits to social and gregarious tendencies. There are enthusiasms which spread like wildfire, but no standing checks to such enthusiasms in the decorum and reserve which keeps a certain castle of retreat always open to the English student. The German students are like the masses-a great and often coherent democracy, always conscious of its power, within certain limits subject to compulsory laws, but scarcely under the influence of the University government. They attend when they please, and as long as they please, the only limit being the necessity of securing a certain number of certificates of attendance for future use. They work hard, but confine themselves to their favourite studies, and resist and reject influences foreign to their nature, and so get great attainments, but little culture. They wander about in the woods and hills, and work, and quarrel, and drink, and listen to their favourite orators in the lecture-room, and are a people. Nowhere is impulsive freedom so unlimited, elastic, and social, as in a German University. The professors and theologians of an old and unpopular school get empty benches and empty churches. Märklin, for instance, used to read Hegel to his set at Tübingen at the very hour when his old-school uncle preached in the University church; and often made that anxious relative sigh over his nephew's downward tendencies, when they met, just before serviceMärklin, with the heretic philosopher's book under his arm, bending his steps away from the church which the sensitive divine was approaching "clad," says Dr. Strauss, “in the Genevan gown and the power of the spirit."

It is very curious to note how the Greek culture amalgamated with the German wants in all the literary and religious tendencies of the day. At first sight there is little analogy between the two peoples: the one lively, witty, graceful, definite-minded, quick-eyed, external; the other hearty, earnest, awkward, mystic, contemplative, inward:-and still less between the character of their religious admirations. Yet it is evident that the modern German speculation has taken its impress very much from the Greek schools; and it is still more certain, that even when men like Strauss and Märklin have totally given up "every thing objective" in religion, they still

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