so long an absence. I had indeed experienced many trials in Saxony, and my parents were by this time dead; but the amor patria still burned within me, and the hope of rendering some service to the interests of education in my own country, now animated me to greater zeal and activity in my calling.
About this time, that disease which has since got to such a head in the world of philosophy, was just beginning to break out, or at least to make itself generally and perceptibly felt. I know not whether to call it a fever, vertigo, or the pip; but one or all of these complaints it appeared to me to be. Matters of the plainest and most commonplace significance, being disguised in an uncouth and high-sounding phraseology, were passed off as the sublimest discoveries of a new and recondite science. People philosophized with the imagination instead of with the reason—not, however, with that serene and creative faculty which, in ancient and in modern times, has given birth to so many pictures of grandeur and of grace; but with that dark and grovelling power which leads the mind astray after the phantoms of falsehood.
Against this perverted method of philosophizing, commenced a most determined opposition. The consequence was, that I was every where spoken of by the transcendental high-flyers as a cold commonplace and prosaical barbarian. I must admit that two grievous faults abound in my writings, which are no where to be found in theirs. In the first place, I have written, on all occasions, too clearly for my readers. I have made it too easy for them to understand me: and I did so in the simple belief, that before a man could teach others, he must be able to express his meaning in perfectly intelligible terms. But it appears that I was wrong in thinking so. I have lived to learn that philosophical genius never more strikingly manifests itself, and is never more ardently admired, than when it involves its thoughts in clouds of vapour, and baptizes them with a necromantic nomenclature. In the second place, I have erred, in so far as I have always entertained far too high a respect for the common sense of my fellow-creatures. Had I, instead of Hegel, been the man fortunate enough to give utterance to the pompous proposition, that "whatever is rational is real, and whatever is real is rational;" with what devotion would my doctrines have been hailed by a sect of enthusiastic followers! What gratitude should I not have been entitled to from the Turkish sultan and his minions, for letting them know that all their atrocities, because they really happened, were therefore, ex necessitate, reasonable and just! Or, if it had been my good fortune, instead of Schellings, to proclaim that "philosophy was a true science only in so far as it was opposed to the common sense of all mankind," with what applause would I have been listened to by myriads of madmen!—for in this country, there are thousands of cracked head-pieces that were never within the walls of bedlam.
But I was soon called upon to take part in a different and more important warfare. In 1812, the news reached us that Moscow had been burned to the ground. My unhappy country had long lain prostrate under French. oppression; but in that dreadful event, I read that the hour of her deliverance was nigh. "The Russians have set fire to their holy city in order to rid themselves of the swarms of French locusts, whose legions are now in disastrous and disgraceful retreat. The hand of God is upon them. They and their cause are given over to destruction, and Germany shall again be free." I was filled with patriotic ardour, and nothing but my appointment to the rectorate of the university—an honour which was at this time conferred upon me—prevented me from doffing the professorial gown, and taking the field against the foe. The halls of learning, no less than the palaces of kings, were endangered, and I thought that I could not, with propriety, desert my proper post at so critical a period.
During my rectorate, many and grievous were the annoyances I suffered from the insolence of the French. At one time, instructions were sent to me, that I must give orders to the students to cut off their mustaches, and deliver up their arms, as they were frequently in the habit of brawling with the officers of the imperial army. At another time, I was ordered to convert part of the university buildings into an hospital for the French sol-
