ntury. The new, or rather renewed,
doctrine is the adoration of man by man. We are now going to cross the
Rhine.

A powerful thinker, Hegel, had supreme sway in the last movement of
speculative thought in Germany. Hegel's system of doctrine is enveloped
in clouds. It is so ambiguous in regard to the questions which most
directly concern the conscience and human interests, that it has been
pretended to deduce from it, on the one hand a Christian theology, and
on the other a sheer atheism. There is a story, whether a true one or
not I cannot say, that this philosopher when near his end uttered the
following words: "I have only had one disciple who has understood
me--and he has misunderstood me." A man distinguished in metaphysical
research by taste, genius, and science, and who has, in that respect,
devoted particular attention to Germany, M. Charles Secretan, writes
with reference to the fundamental principle of the entire Hegelian
system: "If you ask me how I understand the matter, I will give you no
answer; I do not understand it at all, and I do not believe that any one
has ever understood it."[55] You will excuse me, Gentlemen, from here
undertaking the scientific study of so difficult a system. It will be
enough for us to render the darkness visible, that is to say, to
understand well what it is which the doctrine of the Berlin Professor,
in a certain sense, renders incomprehensible.

The foundation of his theory is that the universe is explained by an
eternal idea, an idea which exists by itself, without appertaining to
any mind. The Hegelians say that the existence of an infinite Mind is an
inadmissible conception. They reject this mystery, and prefer to it the
palpable absurdity of an idea which exists in itself, without being the
act of an intelligence. This idea-God we have already encountered in the
writings of M. Vacherot. We shall find it again more than once as we go
on. In Germany, as in France, the theory only becomes popular by
undergoing a transformation. The eternal idea manifests itself in the
mind of man, and exists nowhere else. Above this idea there is nothing.
Man is therefore the summit of things; it is he who must be adored. And
thus it is in fact that Hegel has been understood. In the spring of
1850, Henri Heine wrote as follows in the _Gazette d'Augsbourg_: "I
begin to feel that I am not precisely a biped deity, as Professor Hegel
declared to me that I was twenty-five years ago." The deificat