they lived together in the same room; and the intimacy thus commenced, exercised from first to last a marked influence, partly through sympathy and partly through rivalry, on the destinies of these two great thinkers. In later life they had their differences. "They stood aloof, the scars remaining;" and so wide, indeed, was the breach that, after Hegel's death, Schelling was summoned to Berlin to preach down the doctrines of his early friend, which were supposed to have become too dominant and exclusive—an enterprise which he attempted without much success. But in those early days at Tübingen, in the springtime of their youth, the identity of their aspirations (it was the era of the French revolution, when politics were more engrossing even than philosophy) seems to have knit them together, as it afterwards did at Jena, in the closest intellectual fellowship. After completing his university course, Hegel accepted the office of tutor in a family in Switzerland, which he exchanged, some years afterwards, for a more agreeable appointment of the same kind at Frankfort. On the death of his father in 1799, the small patrimony which he inherited enabled him to proceed to Jena, and to establish himself there on a more independent footing. He gave lectures on philosophy as a private teacher (privat-docent) in the university. His friend Schelling, although some years his junior, had got the start of him, and was settled as a professor (extraordinary) in the same place. Göthe, Schiller, and Wieland lived at Weimar, which was not far off, so that he was in contact with the most brilliant intellectual society which Germany at that time afforded. The genius of Schelling, as prolific as it was precocious, had by this time given to the world a series of profound philosophical disquisitions. At the age of nineteen he had shown a wonderful insight into the philosophy of Fichte, and had even carried it forward into a new development; and when Hegel now joined him he had just published his System of Transcendental Idealism. Hegel had no pretentions to such pliancy of intellect and rapid power of composition; but he, too, was laying the foundations of a system which, although identical in its groundwork, or nearly so, with that of Schelling, was intended to be far more rigorous and logical in its procedure. It was, indeed, in their method that the main difference between the two philosophers lay. Schelling was of opinion that the citadel of truth was to be carried by a coup de main, by a genial, "intellectual intuition." Hegel conceived that it was to be won only by slow sap and regular logical approaches.
Hegel remained at Jena until 1807, during which period he published a dissertation on "The Difference between the Systems of Fichte and of Schelling;" edited, along with Schelling, a journal of philosophy; and delivered lectures on the history of philosophy, and on the phenomenology of the mind. In 1803 Schelling migrated to Würzburg, and after some interval Hegel was promoted to the chair which he had vacated. But the emoluments of an extraordinary professorship being inadequate to support him, he resigned the appointment and removed to Bamberg, where he acted for a short time as the editor of a political journal. In 1808 Hegel was appointed to the office of rector in the gymnasium at Nürnberg. Here he married, and here he remained, giving elementary courses of instruction in philosophy and religion, until 1816, when he received a call to a philosophical professorship (ordinary) at Heidelberg. Two years afterwards he was summoned to fill the chair of philosophy in the university of Berlin, which had been vacant since the death of Fichte in 1814. Thus, although the events of Hegel's life were simple and monotonous, the scene of his labours was not a little varied. Stuttgart, Tübingen, Jena, Bamberg, Nürnberg, Heidelberg, and Berlin, these were the stages in his pilgrimage, and they are here recorded for the behoof of those who may care to know where a great philosopher has been domiciled. His appearance and demeanour as a lecturer are thus described by Rosenkranz—"Utterly careless about the graces of rhetoric, thoroughly real and absorbed in the business of the moment, ever pressing forwards, and often extremely dogmatic in his assertions, Hegel enchained his students by the intensity of his speculative power. His voice was in harmony with his eye. It was a great eye, but it looked inwards; and the momentary glances which it threw outwards seemed to issue from the very depths of idealism, and arrested the beholder like a spell. His accent was rather broad, and without sonorous ring; but through its apparent commonness there broke that lofty animation which the might of knowledge inspires, and which, in moments when the genius of humanity was adjuring the audience through his lips, left no hearer unmoved. In the sternness of his noble features there was something almost calculated to strike terror, had not the beholder been again propitiated by the gentleness and cordiality of the expression. A peculiar smile bore witness to the purest benevolence, but it was blended with something harsh, cutting, sorrowful, or rather ironical. His, in short, were the tragic lineaments of the philosopher, of the hero whose destiny it is to struggle with the riddle of the universe."
Hegel died at Berlin in 1831. He was cut off suddenly by cholera. The disease seems to have attacked his brain principally, and to have run a milder course than is usual with that formidable malady. The regulation which declared that all persons dying of cholera should be buried in a separate churchyard was relaxed, by high authority, in his favour. He was interred beside the grave of Fichte, in a churchyard near one of the principal gates of the city.
Soon after Hegel's death, an edition of his collected works was published by an association of his friends. This collection comprises his early philosophical treatises; the phenomenology of the mind; logic (metaphysic); the encyclopedia of science (embracing logic, the philosophy of nature, the philosophy of mind); the philosophy of law; the philosophy of history; æsthetics; the philosophy of religion; the history of philosophy; and miscellaneous writings—in all, eighteen, or rather twenty-one volumes, for some of them are divided into parts, each of which is again equal to a volume. To give any account of writings so multifarious is here quite out of the question. It is not even possible, within the limits of this article, to go into any details respecting the Hegelian philosophy, strictly so called. A slight sketch of its groundwork and general scope is all that can be attempted. This, however, may be sufficient. To show clearly what the principle and aim of the system is, particularly as contrasted with the philosophy of this country, is what is now proposed, and this may, perhaps, afford some insight into the system itself, and form a better introduction to its study than could be obtained from any literal repetition of its peculiar forms of expression, or of its peculiar method of procedure.
This philosophy gives itself out as the philosophy of the "absolute." The meaning of this word "absolute," then, is what must, first of all, be determined. It is nowhere explained by the system, or by any of its opponents or defenders. It may, indeed, be said that Hegel's whole philosophy is nothing but an explanation of the "absolute." But a definition of one word extending over a score of volumes is very apt to evaporate before it can be apprehended. The following is shorter. "The absolute," truth absolute, is whatever is true for intellect considered simply as intellect, and not considered as this or as that particular intellect; it is truth for all intellect, and not merely truth for some intellect; in other words, "the absolute" is truth for pure intellect, and not truth for modified intellect. An illustration will help to make plain this somewhat abstract definition. Suppose five intellects, each of them modified by the possession of one, and only one, of our five senses. One man merely sees, another merely tastes, another merely smells, another merely hears, and another merely touches; and suppose an apple presented to these five individuals. Each of them would apprehend only one sensation; but while the sensation in each case would be different, the one in each case would not be different. The man who saw the apple would see one sight, the man who tasted it would experience one taste, the man who heard it (when struck) would hear one sound, and so in regard to the others. The sensations would be peculiar to each intellect; each would have its own; but the "one" would be common to them all: it would be the same for all. Here, then, in this "one" we have an absolute truth, or at any rate a truth which may be accepted as an illustration of such. If there were no other intellects in the universe except these five, it would, in the strictest sense, be an absolute truth. Here the "one" presenting nothing but what is common and intelligible to all, is to be regarded as a truth of intellect simply—of pure intellect: the "one sensation" again presenting, in each case, something which is peculiar to each intellect, is to be regarded as a truth of modified intellect. Looking at the five cases, we say that, in each case, the "one sensation," in so far as it is one, is an absolute and universal truth; while, in so far as it is sensation, it is a relative and particular truth. Such is the explanation of "the absolute;" and it seems not unintelligible if one will keep in view the illustration by which it is enforced. As a farther
