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832 Life and Writing's of Herder.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
: Account Of Herder's Life And Writings.
of this extensive plan was £ ver carried into execution we are not informed . His pupil afterwards acquitted himself respectably in a military capacity . When the plan of study was exhibited to the Count , he observed ' , ^ no king had ever yet enjoyed so complete an education i " A feeling of the connectedness of his sphere of action at Biickelrorg led
Herder to turn his thoughts to some change of situation ; and his choice for a time seems to have wavered between a professor ' s chair and some permanent office in the state . In reference to the former object , he made a hasty journey to Gottingen in the beginning of 1772 ; and here commenced his acquaintance with Heyne , of whom he writes with enthusiasm in one of his letters to his future wife : CJS he has one off the noblest , most refined , and
harmonious souls , that ever dwelt in the bosom of a classical scholar , and that for centuries we may look for in vain ; devoid of all trick and artifice , and of the least approach to undue familiarity ; gentle and modest in his manners ; but concealing under all this the deepest learning , sentiment , and reflection ; and careful that no unhallowed eye should look on these
treasures /* Nothing , however , ensued immediately from this visit to Gottingen ; and , though one off two offers were made to him from various quarters , Herder still continued at Buckeburg . The year 1772 was remarkable for a correspondence in which he engaged with Lavater 5 occasioned by the pleasure which he had experienced in reading the latter's < 6 Views into Eternity . "
Herder considered JLavater as 3 after Klopsiock , one of the greatest geniuses of Germany ^—a man who grasped every old and new truth with an intuitive quickiaess that made all his enthusiasm overlooked , —and who brought to every subject ^ even where he was most in error , a truth of the heart that enchanted every one capable of sympathizing with him . ' In the spring of 1773 , Herder marriedthe lady to whom he had been long attached ; and in this union he found one of the chief sources of the happiness of his future life . His case may be quoted in opposition to the wellknown observation of Bacon : * from the time that he became a family man , his character seemed placed in circumstances peculiarly suited to its development , his intellectual energies acquired new force , and he engaged with ardour in the prosecution of his various literary undertakings . He had formerly conceived , and partially executed , at Riga , the plan of a work , 6 < - On the Earliest Records of the Human Race ; " this unfinished plan he now resumedj , and completed the first part of it in six weeks . The purpose of this work is to illustrate the fundamental ideas of religion from their original sources . The subject was one in which Herder took the deepest interest ; thfs first part he struck off at a heat 9 and was often employed on it as early as four o'clock on a summer ' s morning . He still kept his eye on Gottingeno The nature of his theological opinions had been a subject of inquiry in the Hanoverian States ; and in reference
probably to this , he published , in the winter of 1773 and 4 , his " Provincial Letters to Preachers . ' * These are considered as amongst the most original of his writings , but are too deeply tinctured with a spirit of invective . The immediate object of his attack was the dry , prosaic , and anatomizing mode of scriptural criticism which was fthen 5 under the high authority of Michaelis ' s name and example , beginning to prevail in Germany , and which Herder thought calculated to weaken the positive truths and degrade the elevated and poetical spirit of £ he Bible . His opponents replied to him ? probably with
* He that ha & h wife and children tntth given hostages to fortune , & c . } & c . — Essays , VIII .
832 Life And Writing's Of Herder.
832 Life and Writing's of Herder .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1830, page 832, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02121830/page/32/
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