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Among the opponents of the Hegelian philosophy the members of the “theistic school,” who have above been designated as semi-Hegelians, approximate it most closely. These endeavor, in part retaining the dialectic method, to blend the immanence of the absolute, which philosophy cannot give up and concerning which Hegel had erred only by way of over-emphasis, with the transcendence of God demanded by Christian consciousness, to establish a theism which shall contain pantheism as a moment in itself. God is present in all creatures, yet distinct from them; he is intramundane as well as extramundane; he is self-conscious personality, free creative spirit, is this from all eternity, and does not first become such through the world-development. He does not need the world for his perfection, but out of his goodness creates it. Philosophy must begin with the living Godhead instead of beginning, like Hegel’s Logic, with the empty concept of being. For the categories—as Schelling had already objected—express necessary forms or general laws only, to which all reality must conform, but which are never capable of generating reality; the content which appears in them and which obeys them, can only be created by a Deity, and only empirically cognized. This is the standpoint of Christian Hermann Weisse[1] in Leipsic (1801-66), Karl Philipp Fischer[2] in Erlangen (1807-85), Immanuel Hermann Fichte[3] (1797-1879; 1842-65 professor in Tuebingen), and the follower of Schleiermacher, Julius Braniss in Breslau (1792-1873). The following hold similar views, influenced, like Weisse and K. Ph. Fischer, by Schelling: Jacob Sengler of Freiburg (1799-1878; The Idea of God, 1845 seq.), Leopold Schmid of Giessen (1808-69; cf. p. 516, note), Johannes Huber (died 1879), Moritz Carriere[4] (born 1817), both in Munich, K. Steffensen of Basle (1816-88; Collected Essays, 1890), and Karl Heyder in Erlangen (1812-86; The Doctrine of Ideas, vol. i. 1874). Chalybaeus at Kiel (died 1862), and Friedrich Harms at Berlin (died 1880; Metaphysics, posthumously edited by H. Wiese, 1885), who, like Fortlage and I.H. Fichte, start from the system of the elder Fichte, should also be mentioned as sympathizing with the opinions of those who have been named.
[Footnote 1: Weisse: System of Aesthetics, 1830; The Idea of the Godhead, 1833; Philosophical Dogmatics, 1855. His pupil Rudolf Seydel has published several of his posthumous works; H. Lotze also acknowledges that he owes much to Weisse. Rud. Seydel in Leipsic (born 1835), Logic, 1866; Ethics, 1874; cf. p. 17.]
[Footnote 2: K. Ph. Fischer: The Idea of the Godhead, 1839; Outlines of the System of Philosophy, 1848 seq.; The Untruth of Sensationalism and Materialism, 1853.]
[Footnote 3: I.H. Fichte: System of Ethics, 1850-53, the first volume of which gives a history of moral philosophy since 1750; Anthropology, 1856, 3d ed., 1876; Psychology, 1864.]