of the highest principle of morality. If I am asked whether it is my nature to venerate the sun, I say again, Certainly! For it is likewise a manifestation of the highest Being, and indeed the mightiest that we children of earth are permitted to perceive. I adore in it the light and productive power of God, whereby alone we live, move, and subsist, and with us all plants and animals. If I am asked whether I am inclined to bow before a thumb-bone of the Apostle Peter or Paul, I say: Spare me, and keep aloof with your absurdities."1

Goethe's expressed willingness to venerate the sun as well as the Christ is not a little indicative of his real stand-point. The natural and the divine were conjoined in his view. The earthly inheritance seemed to him, for the time being, a sufficient kingdom of heaven. He was the serene world-child, bending an interested gaze upon all that was brought near to him, but without restless striving after the future and the invisible. It is commonly admitted that Schiller's poetry, as a whole, is distinguished by a greater moral earnestness than that of Goethe. His native temper, as well as his study of Kant's philosophy, to which he was devoted for a time, made him prize deeply the energetic will which faces difficulty and pushes on toward the ideal. His formal attitude toward revealed religion was nevertheless quite as negative as was that of his illustrious contemporary. Indeed, it is much easier to quote favorable references to the Bible from Goethe than from Schiller. The latter, however, was not wholly silent or antagonistic. In a letter which he wrote to Goethe in 1795, he thus expressed his appreciation of

1 Quoted by Filtsch, Goethe's Stellung zur Religion.

the Christian ideal: "I find in the Christian religion virtually the foundation for the highest and the noblest, and its manifestations in men's lives appear to me only on this account so repugnant and insipid, because they are mutilated expressions of this highest. If one directs his attention to the essential characteristic of Christianity, which distinguishes it from all monotheistic religions, he will find it in nothing else than the abrogation of law, the abrogation of the Kantian imperative, in place of which Christianity aims to introduce a free inclination. It is thus in its pure form an expression of a beautiful morality, or of the incarnation of the holy, and in this sense the only æsthetic religion." 1

Schiller died in 1805, Goethe in 1832. Shortly before the former date, a new school of poetry, the Romantic, had come on to the stage, the chief exponents being Novalis, Tieck, Frederic Schlegel, A. W. Schlegel, and Werner. The school represented a most pronounced reaction against rationalism. It was also averse to making so much of classic models as was done by Goethe and Schiller, and claimed a larger appreciation for the literature of medieval and early modern times. Patient and consistent elaboration it did not seek after. It was the school of subjectivity and fantasy, entertaining rather by flashes of genius and swift, vague flights than by those carefully drawn pictures which the greatest poets have fashioned to be the immortal companions of the human mind. Speaking as the exponent of his school, Frederic Schlegel says: "The beginning of all poesy is to abolish the course 1 Quoted by Scherer, "Schiller, und seine Zeit."

and the laws of reasoned thinking, and to transfer ourselves into the beautiful confusion of fantasy, into the original chaos of human nature. That is Romantic which presents a sentimental subject in a fantastic form, that is, in a form wholly determined by the fantasy."1 Among the current philosophies that of Schelling was most appreciated by the advocates of Romanticism. It accorded with the bent of the school which found in the middle ages its most congenial historical field, and which preferred a warmly colored mythology to sober reality, that a number of its leading representatives should pass into the Romish Church.

The same age which presents us with the names of the most illustrious German poets records also the achievements of a supreme musical talent. Beethoven (1770-1827) was a younger contemporary of Schiller and Goethe. Mendelssohn was born four years after the death of Schiller, and made his public appearance as musical performer in 1819, when ten years of age. Glück had won favor in the middle part of the preceding century, and the striking career of Mozart covered the latter portion of that century, his death occurring in 1792.

IV. CHIEF EVENTS IN SWEDEN, THE NETHERLANDS, AND

SWITZERLAND.

The most noteworthy contribution of Sweden to the history of the period was a peculiar product of the mystical or theosophic spirit. In constructive talent, or

1 Quoted by Hettner, Die Romantische Schule.

in capacity for minute analysis and patient elaboration, no mystic of the eighteenth century takes precedence of the founder of the New Church. However much of the fanciful entered into the thinking of Emanuel Swedenborg, he must be allowed, to a very large extent, the merit of consistency. His writings present, not disjointed vagaries, but a coherent system. Some of his earlier revelations, it is true, were not so perfect but that he had occasion to revise certain items; still throughout the great body of his works one finds a high measure of agreement.

This characteristic of systematic and consistent representation on the part of Swedenborg is explained in large part by the long period of scientific study and reflection which preceded his supposed office of revelaAs a seer he clothed in a new drapery many of the thoughts to which he had already become partial as a scientist.

tor.

Swedenborg was born in 1688. After taking the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Upsal in 1709, he spent several years in foreign study and travel. In 1717, by royal appointment, he was made an assessor in the College of Mines. His official duties were not exacting, and he found leisure to write largely upon scientific subjects, as also to enlarge the sphere of his information by visits to neighboring countries. The connection of this line of activity with his subsequent vocation was not ignored by Swedenborg himself, as appears from these words which he wrote to Oetinger in 1766: "I was introduced by the Lord into the natural sciences, and thus prepared, and indeed from the year 1710 to 1744, when heaven was opened

to me."1 From the date of this initiation, if we may accept his own account, he was a man of two worlds, and advanced rapidly to a familiar acquaintance with the whole kingdom beyond, both on its heavenly and on its infernal side. "The Lord opened my eyes," he says, "very often daily, so that in mid-day I could see into the other world, and in a state of perfect wakefulness converse with angels and spirits."

Swedenborg's assumption as to his calling was of the most daring order. He claimed in effect to be the apostle of a new dispensation, the medium for introducing the New Jerusalem which John saw in prophetic vision descending from heaven. Writing shortly before his death, he thus described his unique instrumentality: "Since the Lord cannot manifest Himself in person, and yet He has foretold that He would come and establish a new Church, which is the New Jerusalem, it follows that He is to do it by means of a man, who is able not only to receive the doctrines of the Church with his understanding, but also to publish them by the press. That the Lord has manifested Himself before me, His servant, and sent me on this office, and that after this, He opened the sight of my spirit, and thus let me into the spiritual world, and gave me to see the heavens and the hells, and also to speak with angels and spirits, and this now continually for many years, I testify in truth."2 This bringing of the New Jerusalem into this world was closely associated, not to say identified, in the mind of Swedenborg, with the

1 Quoted by Benjamin Worcester, "Life and Mission of Swedenborg," p. 171.

2 True Christian Religion, n. 779.