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Life and Writings of Herder. 837
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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.
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: Account Of Herder's Life And Writings.
that Spinoz »* s want of imagination , while h 9 perhaps ^ aided the spirituality and com prehensiveness of his own views , might be one reason why he could not clothe them in a form that was intelligible to ordinary mindso He thought , however ^ that the spirit of his philosophy was entertained by many who did not rank among his followers , and that this was particularly the case with Lessingo Herder ' s own words , on this subject 5 are worth recording : *
" Jews and Christians , Greeks and Indians , those who speculate with Uhe head or the heart—Scholastics and Mystics , Imve alike shared in the spirit of this philosophy , which , as it existed long before Spinoza , so it will continue long after him ,, Often those very individuals who contended most strenuously against him , that is to say , against his ill-understood or ill-chosen
phraseology , had they been required to explain themselves , would have been found 9 in their own language , sometimes betterp and sometimes worse , chosen , to be of Ms faith s to cherish , in the deepest and liveliest convictions of their Ihearts , the idea of one all-pervading and essential spirit of truth , goodness ^ and beauty ^ without which all our talking- and writing mean nothing . "f
The works of Spinoza are little studied in this country ; according to Herder ' s account of thern 9 they treat of the profoundest subjects in the profoundest manner , and are ill fitted to yield instruction and improvement to ordinary minds ,. Let us each Tejoice in aod cherish , ( those views of the Great Source of all life s and power and goodness , which are most congenial and consolatory to our own heairts , and most clearly approve themselves to our own . unperverted understandings , without being curious to know how
others think and feel , or presuming to condemn them , because their deepest and most serious convictions , when they find utterance * , clothe themselves in a phraseology that may seem strange to us . One useful inference , at least , we may draw from the fact , that the devout and tender-hearted Herder thought most favourably of the system of a man whom all the rest of the world , with scarcely a dissentient voice , and the sceptical Bayle J amongst the number , have conspired to brand with the obnoxious title of an Atheist ; and that is , when we observe the proneness of mankind to set up the idols
of their own imaginations as the only true and immutable image of the infinite God—how cautious we ought to be in applying the epithet of Atheist io any individual whose views on this awful and mysterious subject may be at variance with our own ; and ,, wherever we recognize a spirit of love ,, and gratitude , and trust , of conscientious subjection to the moral law , and of ardent sympathy with the well-being and happiness of rnan how gladly we should cherish the hope that , in the depths of that heart , there may be a vital acknowledgment of the Universal Father in spirit and in truth !
Our restricted limits compel us to give a very brief notice of the remaining events of Herder ' s life , and of the principal works which , from this period to liis death , he gave to the world . In 1775 , his thoughts were again turned to the prospect of a Professor ' s chair at Gottingen . His wishes on this subject were strengthened by a disagreeable difference , in which , under circumstances most honourable to himself , he had been engaged with his patron . The Count had requested him to dispense with the previous ceremony of examination in ordaining a young man who had already , on the
* Nachschnft an Gespi & che ubcr Spinoza 8 System . -f Let the reader compare witfli this the language of our own pure-minded aiud Christian poet , Wordsworth , in the opening of tine ninth book of the Excuraiou . t Vie dc Spinoza . Dictiouaire , & c , de Bayic
Life And Writings Of Herder. 837
Life and Writings of Herder . 837
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1830, page 837, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02121830/page/37/
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