HERMES, GEoric,n, a Roman Catholic philosopher and divine of Germany, whose system has been the occasion of a long and acrimonious controversy, was b. at Dreyer walde, in the diocese of Paderborn, in Westphalia, April 22, 1775. Having received Ids early education from his parish priest, Hermes entered the gymnasium of Rheina, and thence was transferred. in 1792, as a theological candidate, to the university of Munster, where he speedily distinguished himself, as well by his ability and acuteness, as by Ins piety and exemplary life. In 1798 he was appointed professor in the gymnasium of Munster; and after nine years, lie was named professor of in the university of the same place. His lectures being of a popular character, and addressed mainly to the examination of the modern philosophical systems, and thus bearing on revelation, attracted many hearers, and established for Hermes a high reputation in Germany; and when, in 1819, the new mixed university of Bonn was established, Hermes was appointed to a professorship of theology. His early reputation attended him here, and students flocked to his lectures from all parts of Germany, and even from the low countries. In this office he continued until his death, which occurred May 26, 1831.
The great object which Hermes appears to have proposed to himself was to counteract the influence of the philosophical systems, which, when lie entered on his career as a profes sor, were in the enjoyment of their full popularity, and especially that of Kant; and with this view, he sought to deduce the foundations of all philosophical inquiry from the same first principles from which the Kantian philosophy takes its departure. His sys tem, therefore, presupposes in the mind, as the starting-point of all rational inquiry, a blank condition, which, as variously described by friends and enemies, is either simply the absence of all previous conviction, or a state of positive doubt, analogous to the so called pyrrhonism of the ancient schools. The Hermesian method of investigation, in like manner discards, in thefirst stages, and so far as investigation is permitted to extend, all principle of authority; and in the details of metaphysical inquiry, in the selection of the arguments of the existence of God, and of the nature of divine attributes, lie departed widely from the old text-books of the schools; although in the general sum of the doc trines of the Roman Catholic church, Ids orthodoxy does not appear to have been in any degree called into question. The objections which arose lay rather against his method than against its actual doctrinal results.
It is remarkable, too, that although his work, Einleitung in die Christian-Oatholic was published in 1819, and again in 1831, it was not until after Hermes's death that the controversy regarding his system took a definite form, and eventually, at the instance of Clement Augustus Droote-Vis uherieg, archbishop of Cologne, was referred to Hume. It would be out of place here
to enter into the particulars of the controversy which ensued, the chief assailant of the system being a learned Italian professor of the eollegio Romano, the Jesuit, father Perrone; while its defenders were almost exclusively- Germans, most of them Hermes's own friends and pupils. The controversy was a very protracted one; and a very large, although, it must be confessed, excessively dull and misty literature, has grown out of the subject. It will be enough to say, that after a protracted examination, the doctrine of llermes was condemned by a brief, dated Sept. 26, 1835. The- German partisans of llermes, who had at their command a theological journal of considerable circulation. the ,Journal of Bonn, protested from the first against this condemnation, to which they rhppNed, at least practically, the well-known distinction of "fact" and "right," which had been long ago employed by the Jansenists; contending, that although the doctrines contemplated by the brief were rightly condemned, as being unsound and untenable, yet no such doctrines were taught by Hermes, or contained in his book. Two of the leaders of the party, profs. Braun and Elvenieh, went to Rome to urge a rcconsideratipn of the condemnatory decree; but their mission was unavailing, amid the decision was ordered to be enforced without reserve. The archbishop of Cologne accordingly insisted on unqualified submission; and the troubles which arose from the opposition which he encountered, tended much to complicate the difficulties of a conflict which arose between him and the Prussian government, as to the question of ''mixed marriages," and which led eventually to his arrest and deprivation by the crown. The controversy was con tinned, as well in Rome as in Germany, for a considerable time; by degrees, however, the party fell away. The professors of various universities, individually or in bodies, accepted the papal condemnation; and although some have still persevered in their resistance down to a comparatively* late period, they have been almost exclusively of that extreme party, many of whom openly' seceded from Rome, under the name of the German Catholic church, and whose principles go even beyond orthodox Lutheran isni, and may be regarded as verging on the most advanced borders of rationalism.