ABSTRACT

Here we have to ignore all the petty treacheries and human frailties that one finds in the life of the political romantic. The rootlessness of the romantic, his incapacity to hold fast to an important political idea on the basis of a free decision, his lack of inner resistance to the most powerful and immediate impression that happens to prevail at the time — all these things have their individual reasons. If they are to be relevant for a definition of political romanticism, then they must not be psychologically or sociologically derived, but rather placed in the context of the intellectual situation. Then it will become evident what a foreign element is and what is essential to the romantic movement. The romantics took an interest in all conceivable historical, political, philosophical, and theological themes, and they participated ardently in the philosophical discussions of their time. This is why Fichte’s philosophy of science and Schelling’s philosophy of nature are frequently classified as romanticism. The reciprocal personal and intellectual influences 52are well known and have often been investigated. The result was ever new connections, new dependencies, new sources, and new confusions. Romanticism became the philosophy of nature, mythology, and irrationalism, without placing the distinctiveness of its intellectual situation in relief in a pregnant fashion. The elucidation of romanticism, like that of every important situation of modern intellectual history, must begin with Descartes.