Hegel on Hamann

The Writings of Hamann by G. W. F. Hegel

The Writings of Hamann By G. W. F. Hegel First Article The public is most greatly indebted to the esteemed editor for the fact that he now, through his promotion and perseverance, delivers into our hands the writings of Hamann, previously accessible in their entirety only to a few and with great difficulty, and after so many prospects of their complete reprinting had fallen through. Hamann himself did not give satisfaction (R 1:x, prologue) to various invitations to organize a collection of his writings. Only a few possessed a complete collection of them; Goethe (From My Life, book 12) had had the idea to attend to the editing and publication of Hamann’s works, but did not carry it out.1 Jacobi, who made serious arrangements toward such an undertaking, was not granted that good fortune. A younger friend of Hamann, Real Privy Superior Government Councilor Herr L. Nicolovius in Berlin,2 declined the task and instead called upon our editor, an intimate friend of Jacobi’s in the later part of Jacobi’s life, whom Jacobi had chosen to assist him with the publication. Thus our editor carried out the bequest of his dear, esteemed friend and satisfied the wishes of the public, exceptionally favored at the same time by the additional fortune (R 1:xii) of having received from friends or heirs of Hamann a large number of letters to be printed, including some in a succession spanning several years, so that he was able to furnish this edition with them, which means that only a few circumstances or complications of Hamann’s life will remain about which we have not been informed. To that which is brought together in this collection, we should add the third section of the fourth volume of Jacobi’s works, in which is found the extremely interesting correspondence between Hamann and this intimate friend, but whose publisher did not permit a new printing of this correspondence to be made for the present collection.3 For a number of years we have looked forward, in vain, to the promised eighth volume of this edition, which shall contain commentaries, in part by Hamann himself, perhaps supplements from letters, and an index; since its appearance can apparently be expected to be delayed for a considerable time, we shall not postpone any longer this long intended review, as desirable as it would have been to have the promised commentaries already in hand.4 One feels the dire need for these commentaries when reading Hamann’s works; but the hope of receiving elucidation from the promised volume is in any case greatly diminished when one reads, on page x of the prologue, that it was the impossibility , acknowledged by Hamann himself, of elucidating all which is dark in his writings, that prevented him from organizing their publication . Jacobi as well had been impeded in this task by the formidability of this demand, and the current editor says on page xiii that the commen3 taries which are to follow in the eighth volume will satisfy only a very moderate expectation, and that the chronological order of the writings, primarily the many letters regarding Hamann’s authorship, must provide the principal facilitation of understanding. In addition, one soon learns that mysteriousness itself belongs to the characteristic temperament of Hamann’s writing and individuality, and constitutes an essential current thereof. The primary obscurity, however, which lay over Hamann generally , has already disappeared now that his writings are before us. The Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek [Public German Library]5 had of course concerned itself much with him, but not in such a manner as to provide public recognition and access. Herder, on the other hand, and especially Jacobi (as witnessed in Goethe’s singular comment, cited on page x of the prologue, which however must be qualified by Goethe’s more elaborate and thorough appraisal of Hamann [loc. cit.])6 speak of him in such a manner that they seemed to invoke him as one who should have come, one in full possession of the mysteries in whose reflection their own revelations merely played, just as the members of Freemason lodges are to be directed primarily to higher authorities located at the center of all the depths of the secrets of God and of nature. Thus, a nimbus had enshrouded the Magus from the North—this had become a sort of title for Hamann.7...