HEBERT
HELMHOLTZ
HEBERT, Professor Marcel, French
philosopher. In his Evolution de la foi
catholigue (1905) he studies the Church
from outside, without hostility, and con
cludes that it will last, " but without any
effective authority on all that thinks, acts,
and advances in Humanity " (p. 3). He
believes that man has a sense of " the
Divine," but he is Agnostic as regards
personal immortality (pp. 250-51).
HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich,
German philosopher. B. Aug. 27, 1770. Ed. Stuttgart Gymnasium and Tubingen University. He was a private tutor at Berne (1793-96) and Frankfort (1797- 1800). In 1800 he became teacher of philosophy at Jena, and with Schelling he edited the Kritische Journal der Philosophic. In 1804 he began to write his most impor tant work, Die Phanornenologie des Geistes (published 1807), and to diverge further from Schelling. His second principal work, Die Wissenschaft der Logik, appeared 1812- 16 (3 vols.). In 1816 he became professor at Heidelberg, and in 1818 at Berlin. Hegel (whose collected works were published in 18 vols., 1834-45) has probably proved the most influential philosopher of modern times. Like a few of his modern followers, he professed to be in a sense a Christian, but he did not believe even in a personal God or personal immortality, much less in the doctrines of the Church. See the dis cussion of his religious views in Mr. Benn s History of English Rationalism (1906, i, 380). D. Nov. 14, 1831.
HEINE, Heinrich, German-Jewish poet. B. Dec. 13, 1797. Ed. Diisseldorf Lyceum, and Bonn, Gottingen, and Berlin Univer sities. He had studied law, and in 1825, in order to get an official position (from which Jews were excluded), he formally adopted Christianity. He wrote at the time to his friend Moser: "I assure you that if the law had allowed me to steal silver spoons I would not have been baptized " (quoted in C. Puetzfeld s H. Heines Verhdltniss zur Religion, 1912, 335
p. 50). He was then, and remained until
1848, an Atheist. His " conversion "
proved of no avail, and he travelled and
won a high literary repute by the descrip
tion of his wanderings (Reisebilder, 1826-
27). In 1827 he collected his scattered
poems in an exquisite volume (Buch der
Lieder), and in 1831 he settled at Paris.
From 1848 onward he was bed-ridden with
spine disease, and he began again to believe
in God (though never in a future life).
He cynically remarked that his new con
version might be due " to morphia or
poultices." To the end he scorned both
Christianity and orthodox Judaism (see
Puetzfeld). D. Feb. 17, 1856.
HEINZEN, Karl Peter, German writer. B. Feb. 22, 1809. Ed. Bonn University. He was expelled from Germany while still a university student, but returned and entered business. In 1845 he was again expelled, for a work on the Prussian bureaucracy, and fled to Switzerland, then America. He returned to Germany to take part in the revolutionary movement of 1848, and at its failure settled in America, where he edited the Pioneer and \vrote a number of Rationalist and other works. D. Nov. 12, 1880.
HELMHOLTZ, Hermann Ludwig Fer dinand von, German physiologist. B. Aug. 31, 1821. Ed. Berlin University. In 1842 he was appointed assistant surgeon at Berlin, in 1843 military surgeon at Potsdam, in 1848 teacher of anatomy at Berlin, in 1849 professor of physiology at Konigsberg, in 1855 professor of anatomy and physiology at Bonn, in 1858 professor of physiology at Heidelberg, in 1871 pro fessor of physics at Berlin, and in 1888 President of the Physico-Technical Insti tute at Charlottenburg. These appoint ments, at the highest seats of learning in Germany, show the remarkable range of Helrnholtz s erudition. He was one of the earliest writers to determine the conserva tion of energy (Die Erhaltung der Kraft, 1847), and he did remarkable work on the 336
