HEGEL, GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH, one of the greatest German philosophers, was b. Aug. 27, 1770, at Stuttgart, and became, in 1788, a student in the Tubingen theologi cal institute, where his speculative abilities, however, were outshone by his younger companion, Schelling. After leaving the university in 1793, he was a family tutor at Bern and Frankfort-on-the-Main for six years, during which period lie devoted himself chiefly to the study of Christ's life and the philosophy of religion. In the beginning of 1801 he left Frankfort for Jena, where he published his first work, Giber d. Diferenz Fichteschen u. Schelling'schen Systems (1801), and entered the university as prirat-docent. Next year. he joined Schelling, to whose philosophy he seems at this time to have adhered, in the editorship of Das Krztische Journal pi,. Philosophic. His lectures in Jena did not attract much notice, but it was at this place, while the din of the battle in 1806 was sounding through the town, that lie completed his first important work, Die Plainomenologie eGlistes (1807), which he used afterwards to. call, his voyage of dis covery. Shortly before ‘lie battle, he had been made extraordinary professor of philosophy; but the disaster which that event brought upon Jena Compelled him to seek means of subsistence elsewhere, and he went, accordingly, at Niethammer's request, to Bamberg., where he edited a political paper for two years. In 1808 he was appointed rector of the gymnasium at Nuremberg, and there he had just completed his Wissenschaft d. Logik Bdc. 1812-16), when he was called in 1816 to it professorship of philosophy in Heidelberg. where he published his Encyldopadie d. philassiphischen Wissen chaftem (1817; Ste Aufl. 1830), in which he first developed his complete system. In 1818, however, he was called to Fitchte's place in Berlin, and it was here that he first began to gather around him a new philosophical school. His lectures, which were delivered in a stammering voice, and without rhetorical ornament, yet with the impres siveness of being the expression of laborious. thought, attracted hearers from all ranks and professions. He rose to considerable political influence through his official connec tion with the Prussian government, and his philosophy in some respects lost credit from the generally conservative tendencies of his administration. Still, in his Rechtlphiloca phie (1821), lie demands representation of the people, freedom of the press, publicity of judicial proceedings, trial by jury, and the administrative independence of corporations. In the midst of an active life he was suddenly cut off by cholera. Nov. 14, 1831, and buried beside Fichte. A. complete collection of his works was published in 18 vols.
(Berlin, 1832-41), and his life written by Rosenkranz (1844).
At first, as has been intimated, Hegel's philosophy started from the same position a-s Schelling's—the principle of the identity of knowing and being; but at an early period he departed from Schelling's theory, that this identity can be apprehended only through an intellectual intuition, of which the understanding can render no account. Carrying out rigorously the principle from which both started, as embodied in the proposition of Spinoza, that the order and connection of thoughts are the same as the order and con nection of things, IIegel sought to find the universal form which characterizes the pro cess both of existence and thought. This universal form he recognized as the process of becoming (Werdeit). But the process of becoming is only the union of position and negation; for all that becomes at once posits, and, by passing into something else, removes itself. Identical with this process is the process of thought; for every thought involves its contradictory. But the contradictory is not a mere negation; it is in itself positive; the conception of unity, e.g., is not more positive than its contradictory, the conception of plurality. Every thought therefore, as it involves its contradictory, adds to its own contents, and by the combination of the two contradictories, we rise to absolute knowl edge. This process, involving in it the three stages of position, negation, and the union of both, determines the method of Hegel; for according to this method, his entire system is organically necessitated in all its parts to a threefold division corresponding to the three stages in the process of thought and existence. The point front which alt knowledge must start is thought simply and in itself, the science of which, logic forms, therefore, the first part of this system. But thought passes into something other than itself, exists out of itself in nature, and the philosophy of nature accordingly ranks as the second part. Returning again from its estrangement in nature, thought becomes conscious of itself in mind. and consequently the philosophy of mind forms the third part. It would be profitless to give a mere enumeration—and nothing more could he attempted here—of the various subdivisions, in their degrees of subordination, into which these three grand divisions are separated. For an account of the system, con sult, besides the ordinary histories of philosophy, `era's Introduction et la Philosophie de Hegel (Paris, 1855), and Haym's Hegel u. seine Zeit (Berlin, 1858). For the English student of Hegel, Dr. Hutchison Stirling's Secret of Hegel is invaluable.