Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia: Das Allgemeine Brouillon

Notes to Appendix

Notes to Appendix  1. This selection is drawn from the almost 170 pages of notes found in the section “Freiberger Naturwissenschaftliche Studien 1798/99” in HKA III, pp. 34–203. Samples from each of the seventeen different studies are provided. The majority of these notes and fragments were only published in German in 1968. They now appear here in English for the first time. 2. See Encyclopaedia entries 269 and 270 and their corresponding notes. 3. A reference to Peter Simon Laplace’s (1749–1827) System of the World. Novalis used the German edition (Frankfurt, 1797). Cf. Novalis’s fragments 35 and 36 in “The Theory of Gravitation” section in this Appendix. 4. John Brown, Scottish physician. See Encyclopaedia entry 24 and its accompanying note. 5. Cf. Laplace, System of the World, pt. 2, p. 313. 6. Translation: because of the harmony. 7. Cf. Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, and “Novalis: Kant Studies.” 8. Cf. the autobiographical reflections in Encyclopaedia entry 603, wherein Novalis suggests that a spiritual contact with Sophie might be possible through “faith and morality.” 9. Perhaps inspired by the conclusion to Lessing’s The Education of the Human Race: “Why shouldn’t I return to the earth so long as I’m capable of attaining new knowledge , and new skills?” (Aphorism 98). Cf. Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1994, p. 31). 10. See Hemsterhuis, “Alexis ou de l’âge d’or” (Alexis, or on The Golden Age), in Œuvres Philosophiques, vol. 2, p. 126–185. 11. Cf. Encyclopaedia entries 601 and 633. 12. Another reference to Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, the second part of which is entitled “Dynamics.” 13. Cf. Friedrich Gren, Grundriss der Naturlehre (Outline of the Theory of Nature; Halle, 1797). Also see fragments 91–94 in this section of the Appendix. 14. Cf. note 3. 15. C. A. Eschenmayer, Versuch, die Gesetze magnetischer Erscheinungen aus Sätzen der Naturmetaphysik zu entwickeln (Experiment to Develop the Laws of Magnetic Phenomena from Out of the Propositions of Natural Metaphysics; Tübingen, 1797). 265 16. J. S. T. Gehler, Physikalisches Wörterbuch (Dictionary of Physics; 4 vols., Leipzig, 1787–1791; 2 vols., Leipzig, 1794–1795). 17. George Louis Le Sage attempted to explain physical laws using mathematics as a basis. By “irrational,” Novalis is referring to the so-called irrational numbers found in differential and integral calculus. 18. In the summer of 1798 Friedrich Schlegel sent Novalis his recently commenced manuscript “On Physics.” The following notes are marginalia Novalis made after reading the text. 19. F. W. Schelling, German idealistic philosopher, and early member of the Romantic Circle in Jena. His book Von der Welt-Seele, eine Hypothese der höhern Physik zur Erklärung des allgemeinen Organismus (On the World-Soul, a Hypothesis of Higher Physics for Explaining the General Organism) was first published in Hamburg in 1798. 20. These excerpts are taken from volume 1 of Charles Bossut’s book. The text in small type are Novalis’s translations, or paraphrases from the French into German. 21. Friedrich Murhard (1779–1853), System der Elemente der allgemeinen Größenlehre (Lemgo, 1798). 22. The Kant book cited is the Critique of Pure Reason (see “II Transcendental doctrine of method—chapter 1: The discipline of pure reason, section: The discipline of pure reason in dogmatic use” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 630–643). “Intuitions” ⫽ “Anschauungen”—a Kantian term (also employed by Murhard) that is notoriously difficult to translate. The English word “intuition” stems from the fact that Kant also uses the Latin word “intuitus.” Cf. ibid., p. 757. 23. Regarding Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, cf. Encyclopaedia entry 50 and its accompanying notes. 24. Francis Bacon, English philosopher and statesman. A reference to his Novum Organum Scientiarum (1620). 25. These more or less word for word excerpts from Dieterich Tiedemann’s Geist der Spekulativen Philosophie, vol. 5 (Marburg, 1796), were written parallel to the Romantic Encyclopaedia in October 1798. The classificatory headings in boldface stem from Novalis, and were presumably added when carrying out his revision of the Encyclopaedia in November 1798. The notes concerning Paracelsus, Pordage, etc. stem from chapter 14, “Platonists , Cabbalists, Theosophists and Rosicrucians”; and concerning Bruno and Montaigne, from chapter 15. 26. Theophrast Paracelsus (1493–1541), German physician, alchemist, and mystical philosopher. 27. John Pordage (1607–1681), English theosophist and follower of Jakob Böhme. Cf. Tiedemann: “Among [Jakob] Böhme’s numerous successors, John Pordage is especially distinguished” (Geist, p. 530). 28. A reference to Pordage, the...