6. Contemplation and Action. In 1838 there was
founded at Halle, under the editorship of Arnold Ruge
and T. Echtermeyer, the hallische Jahrbücher für
deutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst. In an early issue
there is a review by Rosenkranz—on Strauss's scale a
Hegelian of the Right or Right-Center—of Hegel's
Lectures on the Philosophy of History which had been
published in 1837. Rosenkranz points out that Hegel
himself had believed that philosophy could only elicit
the reason in the events of the past, but that people
had asked him for “a history of the future.” Rosenkranz
argues that since, according to Hegel, the essence of
mind is “reason and freedom,” we can expect them
to spread in the future. Later that year, a pupil of
Michelet, the Polish Count August von Cieszkowski,
published a book entitled Prolegomena zur Historioso-
phie (Berlin, 1838) in which it was argued that since
philosophy is concerned with the eternal essence of
mind it cannot be confined to the past and present
but must extend to the future too. The end of history
is the rational freedom and eventual divinity of man-
kind. As long as men are unaware of their place in
history they cannot be free, but as they sweep away
brute facts and substitute conscious deeds for them they
transform the natural, secular community into a uni-
versal church. Control of social circumstances by con-
scious action (called by Cieszkowski “Praxis”) will make
the world divine. The radical implications of these
views were explored by Moses Hess in DieEuropäische
Triarchie (Leipzig, 1841), with acknowledgments to
Cieszkowski's “philosophy of the deed.” Hess called
for an alliance between France, Prussia, and England
to oppose Austria and Russia, and to make possible
the establishment of a completely free society in
Europe. In 1841 Hess met Karl Marx when the Rhein-
ische Zeitung—to which both Marx and Hess later
contributed until it was closed down at the behest of
the Russian Government—was being founded, and he
claims, too, that he converted Engels to communism
during a discussion at Cologne that same year.
In the hallische Jahrbücher of 1842 Ruge published
a remarkable discussion of Hegel's political philosophy.
According to Ruge, Hegel's constitutional proposals in
his Philosophie des Rechts are presented as if they were
“eternal truths” instead of what was suitable at a par-
ticular period of Prussian history. Ruge noticed in
Hegel a “split” between his “theory and his practice.”
The philosopher, Ruge wrote, “should throw the whole
truth as a ferment into the world.” When what exists
is unreasonable, there is “the demand for 'Praxis,' and
the strong duty to engage in it.” This, in turn, requires
the reforming “Pathos of religion” which must emerge
in “fanaticism.” “As long as there are batteries to be
taken or positions to defend, there is no history without
fanaticism.” Ruge soon came into association with
Marx and Engels, who published their earliest theoret-
ical writings in his Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher
(Paris, 1844).
Hegelians of the Left, then, claimed that Hegel had
failed to recognize the implications of his own basic
ideas. Ignoring Hegel's interest in mysticism, they
developed his views about the “myths” of Christianity,
and moved towards the idea that God and humanity
are one. They used Hegelian arguments, too, to under-
mine Hegel's view that philosophy can only understand
the reason embodied in the past and cannot predict
the future. His linkage between reason and freedom
was their justification for advocating the forcible real-
ization of freedom in the existing irrational social order.
“Orthodox” Hegelians were ill prepared to oppose this
development because of their hostility to the Historical
School of Law. Hegel's insistence that the divine is
in
this world and not beyond it, led some Hegelians
(e.g., Feuerbach) to become empiricists and nonreduc-
tive materialists and hence to abandon Hegelianism
altogether.
In his magnificent hegel und seine Zeit (Berlin, 1857)
Rudolf Haym took the view that Hegel was a political
time-server, who supported Napoleon when he was on
top and Prussian absolutism when he had his chair at
Berlin. The last part of this charge is questionable, but
Haym was correct in noticing a certain passivity in
Hegel's views. “Will and freedom,” Haym wrote,
“evaporated away in Hegel into thought and knowl-
edge.” He wrote of “the whole duplicity of the sys-
tem,” and said that in it the notion of freedom was
“devalued.” According to Haym, Hegel's philosophy
of religion is “archaistic,” exhibits “apologetic, reac-
tionary (restaurative) tendencies,” and is an attempt,
like that of the Neo-Platonists, to refurbish the myths
of a dying religion. Haym concluded that, just as the
metaphysics of Leibniz and Wolff were followed by
Kant's Critical Philosophy, so Hegel's metaphysics
would be followed by a critical philosophy which
would ask: “How is the synthesis possible of language,
art, religion, and of legal, moral, scientific activity?”
