A Guide to *On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany*

Engels points out in *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*: “Just as in eighteenth-century France, so in nineteenth-century Germany, a philosophical revolution ushered in political changes. […] Hegel’s system, to a certain extent, had even been elevated to the status of the state philosophy of the Prussian kingdom! Could revolution really be hidden behind these professors, behind their pedantic and obscure words, behind their clumsy and dry sentences? […] But what neither the government nor the liberals saw, at least one person had already seen in 1833, and that person was Heinrich Heine.” [1]1 old Lampe: Kant’s longtime servant, referenced in Heine’s text to illustrate Kant’s practical need to restore the idea of God for the sake of common morality and happiness. Thus, in Engels’s view, Heine was the first to discover the revolutionary character of Hegel’s philosophy. And the exposition of this revolutionary force is mainly expressed in some of Heine’s views on the German philosophical revolution in his work *On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany*. *On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany* helps to better understand Engels’s work, and to better understand why Marx wrote in the 1843 Introduction to *A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*: “For Germany, the critique of religion is essentially complete, and the critique of religion is the prerequisite of all critique.”

恩格斯在《路德维希.费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》一书中指出：“正像十八世纪的法国一样，在十九世纪的德国，哲学革命也作了政治变局的前导。......黑格尔的体系，甚至在某种程度上已经被推崇为普鲁士王国的国家哲学！在这些教授后面，在他们的迂腐晦涩的言词后面，在他们笨拙枯燥的语句里面竟能隐藏着革命吗?......但是不论政府或自由派都没有看到的东西，至少有一个人在1833年已经经看到了，这个人就是亨利希.海涅。”可见，在恩格斯看来，海涅是发现黑格尔哲学革命性的第一人。而这种革命性力量的阐述主要表现在海涅的著作《论德国宗教和哲学的历史》中关于德国哲学革命的一些观点。《论德国宗教和哲学的历史》有助于更好地理解恩格斯的著作，更好地理解为什么马克思在1843年《黑格尔法哲学批判》导言中写道“就德国来说，对宗教的批判基本上已经结束，而对宗教的批判是其他一切批判的前提。”

*On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany* was completed in 1834. Its original intention was to introduce German religion and philosophy to the French, so that the latter could better understand German literary works. Because only in this way could the French better understand German literary works; otherwise, “our literary works would remain for them silent flowers, and all German thought would remain for them an aloof and impenetrable riddle.”

《论德国宗教和哲学的历史》成书于1834年，其初衷是为了向法国人介绍德国宗教和哲学，以便使前者更好地理解德国的文学作品。因为唯有如此，法国人才能更好地理解德国的文学作品，要不然“我们的文学作品对他们仍是一些默默无言的花朵，整个德国思想对他们仍是一个拒人于千里之外的哑迷。”

The work is very short in length, and its table of contents is extremely simple. It is hailed as an introductory work for studying Marxist theory, and is also a representative work among the polemical writings of the great German poet Heine. Since it is the work of a poet, a very obvious characteristic lies in its language: it uses aesthetic literary diction to express the most profound philosophical thoughts. This is uncommon in general philosophical works, and even rarer in the works of German philosophers in particular.

著作篇幅极小，目录也极其简单，被誉为马克思主义理论学习的入门之作，也是德国大诗人海涅论战性作品中的代表作。既是诗人的作品，非常明显的特点在于其文字，用美文学的词藻表达着最深刻的哲学思想，这是一般哲学作品中不常见的，特别在德国哲学家的作品中更为少有。

Let me add a viewpoint here: It is generally acknowledged in philosophical circles that Kant’s *Critique of Pure Reason* is one of the most difficult works to read in the history of philosophy. The reason for its difficulty lies in Kant’s obscure and convoluted expression. But is this due to Kant’s own habits of expression? Actually, it is not, because many of Kant’s other works demonstrate his ability to express himself in a popular and understandable way. The root cause lies precisely in the fact that Kant did not want to express himself clearly, or could not express himself clearly, in order to protect himself from the persecution of the religious forces of the time.

这里补充一种观点：哲学界公认的，康德的《纯粹理性批判》是哲学史上最难读的作品之一，其难读的原因在于康德晦涩拗口的表达。但这缘于康德自身的表达习惯吗?其实不是，因为康德的很多其他作品中显示了他的通俗易懂的表达能力。其根源恰恰在于康德不想表达清楚，或者不能表达清楚，为了保护自己免于当时宗教势力的迫害。

Back to the main content of the text.

言归文本主要内容

First Part: Heine introduces the great religious revolution in Germany represented by Martin Luther. The logic of the narrative is: What is Christianity? How did it become Roman Catholicism? And how did Protestantism emerge from Roman Catholicism? And from Protestantism emerged German philosophy.

第一篇：海涅介绍了德国以马丁.路德为代表的伟大的宗教革命，叙述的逻辑为：什么是基督教?它怎样变成罗马天主教?又怎样从罗马天主教中出现新教?并从新教中出现了德国哲学。

What is Christianity? To understand this question, one must first understand what religion is. According to Marx’s view, religion is created by humans; it is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of humans who have either not yet found themselves or have already lost themselves again. Why does religion arise? Marx states: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Marx found the fundamental basis for the emergence of religion in the real world. Heine had already recognized that Christianity is an idea, and believed that all the witticisms Voltaire dug up from church history, and the entire dictionary of philosophical arrows he used to attack the clergy, only damaged the body of Christianity, which was destined to die sooner or later, but did not touch the inner essence of Christianity, its spirit and soul.

什么是基督教? 这一问题的理解首先得了解什么是宗教? 按照马克思的观点，宗教是人所创造的，是还没有获得自身或已经再度丧失自身的人的自我意识和自我感觉。为什么会产生宗教?马克思讲：“宗教是被压迫生灵的叹息，是无情世界的情感，是人民的鸦片。”马克思为宗教产生找到了现实世界的根本依据。海涅也已经认识到基督教是一种观念，并认为伏尔泰从教会史中挖掘出来的所有诙谐，以及他用来攻击僧侣阶层时所射出的那一整部哲学利箭的辞典，只不过损伤了基督教迟早要死的肉体，并没有触伤基督教的内在本质，它的精神和灵魂。

The core idea of Christianity, which Heine calls its purest flower, is God’s incarnation, the overcoming of carnal desire, spiritual self-introspection, and thus the constitution of an ascetic, contemplative monastic life. Because the flesh belongs to the material world, the fiefdom of Satan, it must be tormented so that the soul can ascend to the bright heavenly kingdom. This Christian idea almost imprisoned the thought of people throughout the entire Middle Ages. Humanity can be said to have existed in a state of prostration; they could neither speak directly with God (with the clergy in between), nor could they establish achievements in the secular world, because they were born with sin, and the entire mission of their lives was atonement. The more people could purify their desires, the more they could overcome the temptations of the evil Satan’s nature, the more they could atone, and the more they could help their souls ascend to heaven. The problem lies in the fundamental contradiction between the Christian ideal of annihilating carnal desire and human nature, which can never be fully realized in actual life. Thus, between spirit and matter, while in theory spirit gained dictatorial rule, it also provided an outlet for matter: it acknowledged that pursuing bodily desires was sinful, but spiritual rule also provided a means of redemption for this desire, namely, self-redemption through the purchase of indulgences. To a certain extent, Catholicism completed this compromise between matter and spirit (between sensualism and spiritualism [2]2 Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811): A German writer, bookseller, and publisher of the Enlightenment, known for his rationalist and anti-romantic stance. He was a prominent figure in the Berlin Enlightenment and a frequent target of criticism from the Romantic and Idealist schools. — the former attempts to restore the natural rights of matter by usurping spirit, the latter beautifies spirit by destroying matter). That is to say, the church allowed people to pay a fine in exchange for various kinds of physical pleasures; all sins had a price.

基督教的核心观念，海涅称其为最纯正的花朵，即上帝道成肉身，克服肉欲，精神的自我内省，进而构成禁欲的、沉思的僧侣生活。因为肉体属于物质世界，是撒旦的采邑，必须加以折磨，才能使灵魂上升到光明的天国。这一基督教观念几乎禁锢着整个中世纪人们的思想，人类可以说是匍匐着生存，既不能跟上帝直接对话，中间有僧侣阶层，又不能在俗世建立功业，因为生而有罪，一生全部的使命就是赎罪。人们越能清心寡欲，越是克服邪恶撒旦的特质引诱，就越能赎罪，越能为自己的灵魂升到天国助益。问题在于基督教消灭肉欲的理想和人类本性之间的根本矛盾，在实际生活中永远不可能完全实现。所以，精神与物质，一边在理论上精神获得了独裁统治，一边又为物质提供了出口，承认追求肉体欲望有罪，但精神统治又为这种欲望提供了救赎的方式，即通过购买赎罪券的方式实现自我救赎。在某种程度上讲，天主教完成了这种物质与精神之间（感觉主义与唯灵主义，前者试图通过对精神的篡夺，归还物质的自然权利，后者通过毁灭物质来美化精神）的妥协。这就是说，教会通过让人支付一笔罚款来换取种种肉体的享乐，所有的罪都有价。

Who was Martin Luther? In Heine’s eyes, Luther was a perfect man, an absolute person in whom spirit and matter had not been separated internally. He was both a dreamy mystic and a man who sought truth from facts (实事求是).

马丁.路德何许人也?在海涅眼里，路德是个完人，是一个精神与物质在其内部未曾分离的绝对的人，他既是个富于梦想的神秘主义者，又是个实事求是的人。

Martin Luther’s religious reform began with a protest against indulgences. This protest was in fact an attack on the entire church system. He declared: “One must refute his (the Roman Pope’s) teachings using the words of the Bible or rational arguments.” [3]3 This is a paraphrase of Luther’s position at the 1521 Diet of Worms, where he refused to recant his teachings unless convinced by scripture or plain reason. With this, Germany began a new era, that is, human reason was granted the right to interpret the Bible and was recognized as the supreme arbiter in all religious disputes. From then on, evangelical Christianity was born. The most pressing demands of matter were not only taken into consideration but also legalized. Religion became truth again, and from this point on, it embarked on the path of using reason to verify the truth of its doctrines. Thus, spiritual freedom or freedom of thought arose in Germany. An important flower of freedom of thought with world significance, Heine calls it German philosophy. Luther’s contribution was not only giving us freedom of action, but also giving us the means for action. He gave spirit a body, and gave thought a language; he created the German language.

马丁.路德的宗教改革开始于对赎罪券的抗议，这种抗议实际上就是对整个教会制度的攻击，他声称：“人们必须用圣经里的话或用理性的论据来反驳他（指罗马教皇）的教义”，德国由此开始了一个新时代，也即人类的理性被授予解释圣经的权利，而且被认为是一切宗教论争中最高的裁判者。从此，福音主义的基督教产生了，物质最迫切的要求不仅被考虑到了，而且也被合法化了，宗教又变成了真理，并至此走上了用理性来证实教义的真理。于是德国产生了精神自由或思想自由。思想自由开出的一朵重要的具有世界意义的花朵，海涅称其为德国哲学。路德的贡献不仅给我们行动的自由，而且也给我们行动的手段，他给精神一个肉体，也给思想一种语言，他创造了德语。

In the First Part, Heine vividly describes the different beliefs of various European peoples, vividly depicts the various legends of spirits and goblins in different regions, and reveals how Christianity, from a soil full of pantheistic tendencies, replaced a divine nature with a demonic nature, provoked an artificial discord between flesh and soul, and thereby triggered the religious revolution of Dr. Martin Luther.

在第一篇中，海涅浓墨重彩地描述了欧洲各个不同民族的不同信仰，生动形象地描绘出不同地区精灵与妖怪们的各种传说，并揭示出基督教如何从充满着泛神论倾向的土壤中用一个魔鬼的自然代替神灵的自然，并在肉体与灵魂之间挑起人为的不和，进而引发马丁.路德博士的宗教革命。

The Second Part is a transitional chapter, revealing the entire process of friction and dispute between philosophy and religion, culminating in the rise of the former and the decline of the latter, thereby preparing the ideological groundwork for the Third Part, which truly narrates the process of the philosophical revolution initiated by Kant. Fundamentally, all disputes revolve around the nature of human thought, that is, the ultimate source of spiritual knowledge. One view holds that our spirit is merely an empty container, in which various intuitions absorbed by the senses are digested and formed into knowledge; this view is called sensualism or empiricism or materialism (although there are differences, they can be considered analogous). Another view holds that ideas are innate to humans, that the human spirit is the source of various ideas, and that experience is merely the means or medium for awakening ideas; this view is called spiritualism or rationalism or idealism. (It should be noted that in the First Part, spiritualism refers to the exclusive exaltation and trampling of matter pursued by the spirit in Christianity; sensualism refers to the attempt to restore the sacred status of matter.)

第二篇为过渡篇章，揭示出哲学与宗教在不断的摩擦、争执中最终走向前者兴起后者落幕的整个过程，为第三篇章真正叙述由康德发难的哲学革命的过程做好思想准备。从根本上讲，所有的争议归根结底围绕人类思维的性质，即关于精神的认识的最后根源。一种观点认为我们的精神只是一个空的容器，感官吸收的各种直观在其中消化吸收并形成认识，这种观点被称为感觉主义或经验主义或唯物主义（虽有区别，但可类同）；一种观点认为观念是人们生来就有的，人类的精神是种种观念的本源，经验只是唤醒观念的手段或媒介，这种观点被称为唯灵主义或唯理主义或唯心主义。（需要注意的是，在第一篇中提到唯灵主义指基督教中精神所追求独占的颂扬，践踏物质；感觉主义则企图恢复物质的神圣地位。）

Using the appearance of characters in the text as a clue, we can better grasp this transitional stage, the relationship between religion and philosophy in a specific historical period.

以文本中人物出场为线索，我们可以较好地把握这个过渡阶段，宗教与哲学在特定历史阶段的关系。

René Descartes, a Frenchman who moved to the Netherlands, which is suitable for philosophy, is the father of modern philosophy and established the independence and autonomy of philosophy. He delved into the depths of thought, grasped thinking at the bottom of self-consciousness, borrowed neither faith nor experience, and created a complete system of philosophy in pure thought. It is evident that the idealist aspect of Cartesian philosophy was not suited to the actual conditions of France at the time. The French, at the end of the 18th century, were already on the path toward an impending political revolution; spiritualism or idealism was clearly inappropriate.

勒奈.笛卡尔，法国人，迁居适合哲学的荷兰，近代哲学之父，确立了哲学的独立自主性。他沉潜到思维的深处，在自我意识的底层抓住思维，既不借用信仰，也不借用经验，在纯粹的思想中创立出一套完整的哲学。很明显，笛卡尔哲学中唯心主义的一面并不适合法国当时的现状。法国人在18世纪末已经走向了即将爆发政治革命的道路，唯灵主义或唯心主义显然不适合。

John Locke, an Englishman who was once a student of Descartes, inherited his teacher's materialist tendency, advocating that knowledge is obtained from the external world through experience. He compared the human spirit to a kind of computer, turning the entire person into an English machine. His *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding* was the gospel of French philosophers. Together with Locke's students, Heine called them materialists, among whom *Man a Machine* can be said to be the most thorough representative work of French philosophy at the time, embodying the conclusion of their entire worldview.

约翰.洛克，英国人，作过笛卡尔的学生，继承了老师唯物主义倾向，主张认识是通过经验从外界获得的。他把人的精神比作一种计算机，整个人变成了一架英国机器。他的《人类理解论》是法国哲学家的福音书。和洛克的学生们一起，海涅称其为唯物主义者，其中《人是机器》可以说是当时的法国哲学最为彻底的代表作品，体出了他们全部世界观的结论。

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a German, also took Descartes as his teacher and inherited his teacher's idealist tendency. His *New Essays on Human Understanding* refuted Locke, awakened people's spirit, and set off a huge upsurge in philosophical research in Germany. In Heine's view, Leibniz's monadology is a concentrated expression of this thinker's courage, the most striking hypothesis ever conceived in a philosopher's mind, providing a relatively clumsy expression for the understanding of some important laws known to modern philosophy. Although his *Theodicy* is his least important work, it brought him much malicious slander and unpleasant misunderstandings. However, as Heine said, he defended the whole of Christianity by opposing half of it. His method was to stand on his harmonious heights, recognizing that different systems are merely different aspects of the same truth, and that both the orthodox and the opposition are different aspects of the whole of Christianity. Leibniz also wanted to reconcile Plato and Aristotle using the same method. Of course, he did not succeed.

哥特弗利德.威廉.莱布尼茨，德国人，同样以笛卡尔为师，继承了老师的唯心主义倾向，他的《人类理解新论》驳斥了洛克，唤起了人们的精神，在德国掀起了巨大的哲学研究热潮。在海涅看来，莱布尼茨的单子论是这个思想家勇气的集中表现，是一个哲学家头脑中想出来的一个最引人注目的假设，为现代哲学所知道的一些重要规律的认识提供了相对笨拙的表达。他的《神正论》虽是他最不重要的作品，给他招致了很多恶毒的诽谤和不愉快的误解，但如海涅所言，他用反对半个基督教而为整个基督教作了辩解。他的方法是站在他那和谐的高处，认识到不同的体系只是同一真理的不同方面，无论是正统派还是反对派都是整个基督教的不同方面。莱布尼茨还想用同样的方法调和柏拉图和亚里士多德。当然，他没有成功。

Plato and Aristotle represent not only two systems but also two types of human nature. What are the two systems? Idealism and materialism. Plato was a thorough idealist, only acknowledging innate ideas, i.e., those born with, and recalled through postnatal learning as memories from before birth, which in epistemology is called the theory of recollection. In contrast, Aristotle, who believed "I love my teacher, but I love truth more," was a model for empiricists, emphasizing deriving everything from experience and being able to classify everything precisely. What are the two types of human nature? Take the internal struggles within Christianity as an example, such as the disputes between the Pietists and the Orthodox within Protestantism. People of the Platonic type, with their inherent mysticism, often reveal Christian ideas and their corresponding symbols from the depths of their hearts; while practical, Aristotelian-natured people often build a solid system, a doctrine, and a sect from these ideas and symbols. Heine commented thus: "Pietists are mystics without imagination, while the Orthodox are dogmatists without a soul." Behind the disputes between the two Protestant factions lies the long-standing struggle between the two systems and two types of human nature, which has inspired generations of thinkers to strive to resolve this fundamental contradiction.

柏拉图和亚里士多德，既是两种体系，又是两种不同人性的典型。何谓两种体系?唯心主义与唯物主义。柏拉图是一个彻底的唯心主义者，只承认天赋观念，即与生俱来的，并通过后天的学习唤起出生前的记忆，这在认识论中被称为回忆说。相反，信奉“吾爱吾师，吾更爱真理”的亚里士多德是经验论者的楷模，强调从经验中吸取一切，并能对一切进行确切的分类。何谓两种不同的人性? 用基督教内部的斗争为例，诚如新教的虔诚派和正统派之间的纷争。自带神秘色彩的柏拉图式的人们往往从内心深处显示出基督教的观念以及相应的象征；而实践的、亚里士多德气质的人们往往从这些观念和象征中建立起一种牢固的体系，一种教义和一个教派。海涅这样评价：“虔诚派是没有想象力的神秘主义者，而正统派则是没有灵魂的教条主义者。”新教两个派别纷争背后则是由来已久的两种体系、两种人性的斗争，并且激发着一代又一代思想家们前赴后继地试图解决这一根本矛盾。

Benedict de Spinoza, Descartes' third disciple, whose philosophy is neither the materialism of his fellow disciple Locke nor the idealism of his other fellow disciple Leibniz, gave us a great synthesis, mainly embodied in his work *Ethics*. Spinoza proposed that there is only one substance, which is God. This substance is infinite and absolute. All finite substances are derived from this substance and are contained within it; finite substances are merely relative, temporary, and contingent existences. The absolute substance manifests itself to us both in the form of infinite thought and in the form of infinite extension. Infinite thought and infinite extension are merely two, but not the only, attributes of this absolute substance. This absolute substance is everything that exists, both matter and spirit, both equally sacred.

别涅狄克特.斯宾诺莎，笛卡尔的第三位弟子，他的哲学既不是他的师兄洛克的唯物主义，也不是他的另一位师兄莱布尼茨的唯心主义，他给了我们一个伟大的综合，主要体现在他的著作《伦理学》中。斯宾诺莎提出，只有一个实体，那就是上帝。这一实体是无限的，也是绝对的。一切有限的实体都从这一实体衍生出来，都被包含在这一实体之中，有限的实体只是相对的、暂时的、偶然的存在。绝对的实体既在无限思维的形式下，也在无限广延的形式下向我们显示它自己。无限的思维和无限的广延只是这个绝对实体的两种且不是唯一的属性。这一绝对的实体是存在在那里的一切，既是物质又是精神，两者同等神圣。

Why was Spinoza, who expounded on divinity so solemnly, solemnly excommunicated from the synagogue to the sound of a ram's horn called a "shofar," and stripped of his title as a Jew?

何以如此庄严地阐述神性的斯宾诺莎在一种叫“绍法”的山羊角吹响中被庄严地逐出教门，并被剥夺犹太人这个称号?

To answer this question, one must first understand the difference between the God of the pantheist and the God of the deist. The God of the pantheist exists within this world; He does not permeate the world with His divinity from outside. The God of the deist exists outside or above this world, ruling the world from above, and the world is separate from Him. For the deist, only spirit is sacred, the breath of God.

回答这一问题首先需要理解泛神论者的上帝与自然神论者的上帝之间的区别。泛神论者的上帝存在于这个世界里，他并不以他的神性渗透着世界；自然神论者的上帝存在于这个世界之外或之上，由上而下地统治世界，世界与其分离。对于自然神论者来说，只有精神是神圣的，是上帝的气息。

Therefore, the Jews regarded the flesh as something inferior, a poor shell for the Holy Spirit, the divine breath, or spirit. In such an ideological context, Spinoza, who was also a Jew and believed matter and spirit to be equally sacred, was inevitably unacceptable to them. On the square in front of the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam, they had even attempted to assassinate Spinoza with a longsword.

所以犹太人把肉体看作是某种劣等的东西，看作是圣灵、神圣气息或精神的可怜的躯壳。在这样的思想语境下，同为犹太人且认为物质与精神同等神圣的斯宾诺莎必然不为其所容。在阿姆斯特丹西班牙式的犹太教堂前的广场，他们曾用长剑行刺过斯宾诺莎。

The Jews merely despised the flesh; Christians regarded the flesh as something evil, even a scourge. They once wanted to achieve absolute dominion for the spirit on earth, but ultimately, because their ideal was too pure, too noble, it could only remain at the theoretical level and could not be put into practice. Christianity handed over matter to the emperor and his Jewish servants, and the result was that the representatives of the spirit had to compromise with the emperor and his servants, who had obtained supreme power, forming a union that Marx called the "Holy Alliance." [1]1 old Lampe: Kant’s longtime servant, referenced in Heine’s text to illustrate Kant’s practical need to restore the idea of God for the sake of common morality and happiness.

犹太人只是轻视肉体，基督徒则把肉体看作是某种邪恶的东西，甚至是祸害，他们曾想在大地上给精神夺取绝对的统治权，终究因为理想过于纯洁、过于高贵而只能停留在理论层面，不能付诸实践。基督教把物质交给了皇帝和他的犹太仆从，结局则是精神的代表们不得不同获得了最高权力的皇帝及其仆从妥协，形成被马克思称为“神圣同盟”的结合。

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Spinoza's most rampant enemy, was called a "marmot" by Heine, a hypocrite cloaked in the garb of philosophy. He could not see the radiance of reason, believing that reason only leads people into the dark labyrinth of error and contradiction, and that only faith can guide people correctly.

弗里德里希.亨利希.雅科比，斯宾诺莎最猖狂的敌人，被海涅称为“土拨鼠”，披了哲学外衣的伪善者。他看不见理性的光辉，认为理性只会把人们带到错误与矛盾的黑暗迷宫里，只有信仰才能正确引领人们。

Christian Wolff, a student of Leibniz and a philosophical grandson of Descartes. His greater merit lies in inspiring Germans to philosophize in their own language; his lesser merit lies in systematizing and popularizing his teacher's ideas. However, in Heine's view, this work of systematization was extremely unsuccessful because it sacrificed the most important parts of Leibniz's philosophy. He left us the *Encyclopaedia of Philosophy*, which fully demonstrates his encyclopedic mind; he inherited his philosophical grandfather's form of mathematical proof, and ultimately followed this path to a frenzy for certainty, ceasing all in-depth research. This spirit dominated Germany for over half a century, leading Kant into the slumber of dogmatism. He very kindly draped a mathematical, demonstrative cloak over poor religion, which, being ill-fitting, made religion appear very ridiculous. Heine's assessment was: "The moment religion seeks help from philosophy, the decline of religion is inevitable."

克利斯提安.伏尔夫，莱布尼茨的学生，笛卡尔的徒孙。他的较大功绩在于激励德国人用本国的语言进行哲学思考，较小功绩在于把自己老师的思想体系化与通俗化。然而，这种体系化的工作在海涅看来是极不成功的，因为他牺牲掉了莱布尼茨哲学中最重要的部分。他给我们留下了《哲学百科全书》，充分显示了其百科全书式的头脑；他继承了祖师的数学证明形式，并且最终沿着这一道路走向了追求明确的狂热，而停止了一切深入的研究，这种精神统治了德国半个世纪以上，引着康德进入独断论的迷梦；他很仁慈地把数学的、论证的外衣套在可怜的宗教上，因为不合适，使宗教变得非常可笑。海涅的评价为“当宗教向哲学求援的那一刻起，宗教的没落就无法避免。”

Nicolai, [2]2 Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811): A German writer, bookseller, and publisher of the Enlightenment, known for his rationalist and anti-romantic stance. He was a prominent figure in the Berlin Enlightenment and a frequent target of criticism from the Romantic and Idealist schools. a martyr for reason, a publisher who tried to clear the way for thorough revolution by destroying tradition in the German spirit but lacked the ability. He fought windmills as if they were giants, and also mistook real giants for windmills. He founded the *Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek* [General German Library], and through this journal fought against superstition, the Jesuits, and court lackeys, but his method was to plug his comrades' ears so they could not hear the song of the water nymphs, without considering that they would henceforth also be unable to hear the song of the nightingale. Just as Feuerbach, in criticizing Hegel, threw out the dialectic along with the bathwater, Nicolai, in clearing weeds from nature, also pulled out the flowers.

尼古拉，为理性殉难，试图摧毁德国精神中的传统为彻底的革命开辟道路却又没有能力的出版家。他把风车当成巨人进行搏斗，还会把真正的巨人当成风车。他创办了《德意志大众文丛》，并通过这个杂志与迷信、耶稣会和宫廷仆役进行斗争，但其方法则是塞住伙伴的耳朵使他们听不见水妖的歌唱，不考虑他们今后也同样听不见夜莺的歌声。就像费尔巴哈在批判黑格尔时把辩证法也一起倒掉了，尼古拉在为自然消除杂草时把鲜花也一起拔掉了。

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a man of wit and integrity, truthful, steadfast, plain, and graceful, the most outstanding German since Luther. Beyond his deeds, his greatness lies in how he inspired the German nation from the depths of his soul and provoked a healthy spiritual movement through his critiques and controversies. Luther liberated us from tradition, making the Bible the sole source of Christianity, after which people fell into stubborn worship of the letter; Lessing made the greatest contribution to freeing people from the tyranny of the letter. In Lessing’s view, the letter was the last skin of Christianity; only by destroying this skin could the spirit emerge. This spirit was the pure deism that prevailed in various forms in Germany at the time.

哥特霍尔德.埃夫拉伊姆.莱辛，机智与诚实为一体的人，真实、坚定、质朴、优美，路德之后最卓越的德国人，除了他做的事情，他的伟大更在于他从灵魂深处鼓舞了德国民族，并通过他的批判和争论引起了一次健康的精神运动。路德把我们从传统中解放出来，把圣经当作基督教唯一的源泉，之后人们又进入了顽固的字句崇拜；莱辛则为了使人们从专横的字句中解放出来作出最大贡献。在莱辛看来，字句是基督教最后的一层皮，只有摧毁这层皮，精神才会出现。这种精神即是当时在德国以各种形式盛行于世的信仰纯粹的自然神论。

Lessing passed away in 1871, and in the same year Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was published in Königsberg, thus Germany initiated another spiritual revolution. We shall see how deism was overthrown in Germany!

1871年莱辛离世，同年康德的《纯粹理性批判》在哥尼斯堡出版，德国由此开启了又一次精神革命。我们将看到自然神论在德国如何被推翻！

In the “Third Book,” Heine opens with an English legend, introducing a serious and terrifying question: the flesh we create demands a soul from us, and the soul we create demands flesh from us; if the former is terrible, the latter is chilling. Human thought is the soul created by humans; once generated, it demands flesh, that is, it can only be satisfied by obtaining the perceptual existence on which thought depends.

海涅在《第三篇》中以一个英国的传说开场，引出一个严肃又可怕的问题，即我们创造的肉体向我们索要灵魂，我们创造的灵魂向我们索要肉体，如果前者是可怕，那后者则令人战栗。人类的思想便是人类创造的灵魂，一旦产生，就要索求肉体，即得到思想所依之感性的存在才能满足。

In Heine’s view, thought is the precursor of action. Robespierre was merely the practitioner of Rousseau’s thought. Compared to the world-shaking impact of Robespierre, who killed a king who had already lost his head, the world-shaking impact of Kant’s Copernican revolution in the realm of thought seemed to be concealed for quite some time by his seemingly plain and monotonous life. After all, his most important work, the Critique of Pure Reason, was published in 1781 and was not widely known until 1789. Heine called this book the broadsword that cut off the head of deism.

在海涅看来，思想是行动的先行者。罗伯斯比尔不过是卢梭思想的践行者。而相比于杀死了一个已经失去头脑的国王的罗伯斯比尔所产生的震撼整个世界影响，康德在思想领域产生哥白尼式革命所引发的世界震撼似乎被其表面平淡且单调的生活掩盖了挺长时间。毕竟他一生最重要著作《纯粹理性批判》出版于1781年，直到1789年才被人们普遍知晓。海涅称这部书是砍掉了自然神论头颅的大刀。

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant pronounced the death sentence of the mathematical form in philosophy, because there cannot be any definition in philosophy like those in mathematics; mathematical definitions are not inferential but intuitive, demonstrable in intuition; definitions in philosophy can only be tentative and hypothetically proposed in advance; the truly correct definition can only emerge as the final conclusion. Thus, in Kant’s view, the mathematization of philosophy is not feasible, and the philosophization of mathematics is equally problematic. However, philosophers seem to have a strong preference for expressing philosophy in mathematical forms, a practice traceable back to Pythagoras. In a number, all perceptual and finite things are discarded; numbers are used to represent certain determinate things and their relationships with other determinate things. Numbers are like ideas; ideas have the same character and relationships among themselves, but numbers can only be symbols of ideas, not ideas themselves. Because thought can neither be calculated by numbers, nor measured or weighed. In fact, the entire turn of modern and contemporary Western philosophy, namely the rise of scientific philosophy signifying the overall decline of speculative philosophy, can to some extent be attributed to the origin and resurgence of the mathematization of philosophy.

康德在《纯粹理性批判》中宣告了哲学中数学形式的死刑，因为哲学中不可能有任何一个像数学中那样的定义，数学中的定义不是推理的，而是直觉的，是能够在直观中被证明的，哲学中的定义只能是试探性的、假设性地事先提出来的，真正正确的定义只能是最后作为结论才出来的。可见，在康德看来，哲学数学化不可行，数学哲学化同样有问题。然而，哲学家们似乎非常偏爱用数学的形式来表达哲学，其源头可以追溯到毕达哥拉斯。在一个数中，一切感性的和有限的东西都被舍弃了，用数来表示某种确定的东西及其和另外某种确定的东西的关系。数如同观念，观念与观念之间有同样的性格与关系，但数还只能是观念的符号，不是观念本身。因为思想既不能用数计算，也不能衡量与测量。其实，整个近现代西方哲学的转向，即科学哲学的兴起意味着思辨哲学的整体衰落，其根源在某种程度上也可以归结到哲学数学化的源起与复归。

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason focuses on the scope or limits of human cognitive ability, answering the most fundamental question: how is human knowledge possible? Because humans have twelve innate categories, which guarantee that humans can cognize phenomena, but the noumenon, i.e., the thing-in-itself, is beyond human grasp. God is a noumenon; one can neither prove its existence nor its non-existence. Kant attacked the existence of God using three methods: ontological, cosmological, and physico-theological. As an impartial philosopher, Kant assaulted heaven, killed the entire garrison of heaven, and the supreme ruler of this world fell bleeding without proof.

康德的《纯粹理性批判》聚焦于人类认识能力的范围或界限，回答的最根本的问题是人类的认识何以可能?因为人类有先天的12对范畴，保证了人类可以认识现象，而本体，即自在的自为的事物是人类不能把握的。上帝就是一个本体，既不能证明它存在，也不能证明它不存在。康德用三种方法攻击上帝存在，包括本体论的、宇宙论的、物理神学的。康德作为铁面无私的哲学家袭击了天国，杀死了天国全体守备部队，这个世界的最高主宰未经证明便倒在血泊中。

As Engels pointed out, the first aspect of the fundamental question of philosophy is the question of the primacy of thinking or being, i.e., does thinking determine being, or does being determine thinking? Regarding the answer to this question, anyone who has studied Marxist philosophy knows that the materialist stance is clearly that being determines thinking, that matter has primacy. In fact, in the first chapter of Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Engels clearly states that “philosophy in the old sense was brought to completion in Hegel,” and the truly practical path to understanding the world was also revealed; this path is the positive, scientific path of understanding, not the speculative, conservative one.

诚如恩格斯所言，哲学的基本问题第一方面是思维与存在谁具有第一性的问题，即思维决定存在还是存在决定思维的问题?关于这一问题的回答，学过马克思主义哲学的人都知道唯物主义的立场显然是存在决定思维，物质具有第一性。其实，恩格斯在《路德维希.费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》第一章中就明确指出，“以往那种意义上的哲学在黑格尔那里完成了”而真正切实地认识世界的道路也呈现出来，这一道路即是实证的，科学的认识道路，而不是思辨的，保守的道路。

Returning to Heine’s text, Kant’s task lay in probing human cognitive ability, exploring its full depth, and determining all its limits. The so-called Copernican revolution of Kantian philosophy can be understood as a cognition of reason: previously, reason revolved around the phenomenal world like the sun, trying to illuminate it; but Kant made reason, this sun, stationary, letting the phenomenal world revolve around reason, and making the phenomenal world illuminated each time it entered the range of this sun.

回到海涅的文本，康德的课题在于对人类认识能力的探测，探测其全部深度，并为其确定了一切界限。所谓康德哲学哥白尼式的革命，可以理解为对理性的认知：以前理性像太阳一样围绕着现象世界旋转并试图去照耀它，但康德却让理性这个太阳静止下来，让现象世界围绕着理性旋转，并使现象世界每次进入这个太阳的范围内，就受到照耀。

Kant created a tragedy, proclaiming the death of deism within the scope of speculative reason. However, in Heine’s view, a comedy must follow the tragedy. To solve the problem of old Lampe’s happiness, Kant, by distinguishing theoretical reason from practical reason, used practical reason, like a magic wand, to resurrect the corpse of deism that theoretical reason had killed.

康德制造了悲剧，宣告了自然神论在思辨理性范围内的死灭。然而，在海涅看来，悲剧之后要来一出笑剧。为了解决老兰培的幸福问题，康德通过区分理论理性与实践理性，并用实践理性，像用一根魔杖一般使得那个被理论理性杀死了的自然神论的尸体复活了。

The great spirit Kant aroused lies in the critical spirit manifested in his works, a spirit that permeated all sciences. Germany was thus led onto the path of philosophy, and philosophy became a national enterprise. As Marx and Engels pointed out, in the context of their era, what led the world were German philosophy, French socialism, and English political economy. The so-called German philosophy was precisely classical German philosophy, originating with Kant and ending with Hegel.

康德引起的巨大的精神在于他的著作中显现出来的批判精神，这种精神渗透到一切科学之中。德国因而被引入到哲学的道路，哲学变成一件民族的事业。诚如马克思，恩格斯指出的，马恩所处的时代背景下，当时领先世界的是德国的哲学、法国的社会主义、英国的政治经济学。所谓的德国哲学，正是源起于康德，终结于黑格尔的德国古典哲学。

Kant’s student, Fichte, whose thought and conviction were unified, and through this great unity, he influenced his contemporaries. His task was: what reason do we have to assume that our representations of things correspond to things outside us? All things have reality only in our spirit. His Science of Knowledge was considered by Heine to be a sequel to the Critique of Pure Reason.

康德的学生，费希特，他的思想和信念是统一的，并且以这种伟大的统一性作用于同时代的人们。他的课题是：我们有什么理由来假定，我们关于事物的表象符合于我们身外的事物?一切事物只在我们的精神中有实在性。他的《知识学》被海涅认为是《纯粹理性批判》的续篇。

Fichte’s self is not the individual self, but the conscious, universal world-self, the universal thinking that may manifest itself in an individual. This omnipotent self could only take root in his unyielding, stubborn character. In Fichte’s view, the Science of Knowledge knows no existence other than perceptual existence; since existence can only be attributed to empirical objects, this predicate should not be applied to God.

费希特的自我不是个体的自我，而是意识的，普遍的世界自我，是否显现在一个个体之中的普遍的思维。这种全能的自我只能生根于他那不屈的、顽强的性格相一致。在费希特看来，除了感性的存在之外知识学不知道有其他任何存在，由于只能对经验的诸对象赋予一个存在，所以这个谓语不应当用于上帝。

Fichte and his student Schelling: the former was merely a philosopher, dialectics being his strength, skilled in argumentation; the latter was a fusion of poet and philosopher, fond of following the spirit, calling himself a prophet, good at construction, fond of poetry, but not skilled in logic. The former, in the Science of Knowledge, attempted to construct reality from ideas through the structure of the intellect; the latter attempted to explain ideas from reality. Starting from the fundamental proposition that thought and nature are the same thing, the former reached the phenomenal world through spiritual operations, creating nature from thought, reality from ideas; in the latter, the phenomenal world became pure ideas, nature became thinking, the real became the ideal.

费希特和他的学生谢林，前者只是哲学家，辩证法是他的力量之所在，长于论证，后者是诗人和哲学家的融合，喜欢听从精神，自称预言家学派，善于构成，喜欢诗，而不善逻辑。前者在《知识学》中试图通过智力的结构由观念构成现实，后者企图从现实解释出观念来。他们从思想和自然是同一个东西这一根本命题出发，前者通过精神的操作达到了现象世界，从思想创造了自然，从观念创造了现实；在后者那里，现象世界变成了纯粹的观念，自然变成思维，实在的东西变成理想的东西。

Overall, Mr. Schelling’s God is essentially Spinoza’s cosmic God; God is nature and thinking, matter and spirit absolutely identical, neither opposed nor divided, and can only be known under the two attributes of thinking and extension. Thus, Mr. Schelling did not surpass Spinoza. Heine stated that when Mr. Schelling attempted to intuit the Absolute intellectually, his philosophical career ended.

总体上，谢林先生的上帝本质上就是斯宾诺莎的宇宙上帝，上帝是自然和思维，物质和精神绝对同一，既不对立也没有分裂，只有在思维与广延两个属性的形式下面才能被认识。可见，谢林先生的未能超过斯宾诺莎。海涅称当谢林先生企图以智力直观绝对者的时候起，他的哲学生涯就结束了。

But philosophy will not stop there; Schelling’s student, the great Hegel, appeared. He was the greatest philosopher Germany had produced since Leibniz, surpassing Kant and Fichte, and of course also surpassing his teacher Schelling. He was as acute as Kant, as resolute as Fichte, and possessed the tranquil harmony of Schelling’s constructive power. Hegel constructed natural philosophy into a complete system, used the synthesis of natural philosophy to explain the entire phenomenal world, supplemented the great thoughts of his predecessors with even greater ideas, and carried these great ideas through to all disciplines.

但哲学不会因此而停止不前，谢林先生的学生，伟大的黑格尔出现了。他是德国自莱布尼茨以来所产生的最伟大的哲学家，超远了康德与费希特，当然也超过了他的老师谢林。他像康德那样敏锐，又像费希特那样刚毅，还具有谢林那般构成力的宁静与和谐。黑格尔把自然哲学构成为一个完整的体系，用自然哲学的综合说明了整个现象世界，用更伟大的思想来补充他的先辈们的伟大思想，并把这些伟大的思想贯彻到一切学科中。

In Heine’s view, Germany, as a methodical and step-by-step nation, was bound to begin with the Reformation, then engage in philosophy on this basis, and only after philosophy was completed could it transition to political revolution. Germany’s revolution would by no means become milder because Kant’s critique, Fichte’s transcendental idealism, and even natural philosophy occurred first. The power of revolution was precisely developed within these doctrines; once it erupted, it was bound to shock the world. This passage can fully illustrate what Engels said in "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy": "Just as in eighteenth-century France, so in nineteenth-century Germany, a philosophical revolution served as the prelude to political change. [...] Hegel’s system, to a certain extent, was even elevated to the status of the state philosophy of the Kingdom of Prussia! Could revolution be hidden behind these professors, behind their pedantic and obscure words, behind their clumsy and dry sentences? [...] But what neither the government nor the liberals saw, at least one person had already seen in 1833, and that person was Heinrich Heine."

在海涅看来，德国作为一个有计划有步骤的民族必定从宗教改革开始，然后再在这个基础上从事于哲学，并且只有在哲学完成之后才能过渡到政治革命的。德国的革命决不因康德的批判、费希特的先验唯心主义，以至自然哲学发生在先就会变得温和一些。革命的力量恰恰是在这些学说发展起来的，它一旦爆发，必定震惊世界。这段话可以充分说明恩格斯在《路德维希.费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》说的：“正像在十八世纪的法国一样，在十九世纪的德国，哲学革命也作为政治变革的前导。......黑格尔的体系，甚至在某种程度上已经被推崇为普鲁士王国的国家哲学！在这些教授后面，在他们迂腐晦涩的言词后面，在他们笨拙枯燥的语句里面竟能隐藏着革命吗?......但是不论政府或自由派都没有看到的东西，至少有一个人在1833年已经看到了，这个人就是亨利希.海涅。”

Reading Heine not only helps to understand the relationship between German religion and philosophy, and how philosophy broke free from religion to become independent and burst forth with world-shaking revolutionary power, but also helps to understand the prehistory of the birth of Marxism and the historical continuity of Marxism.

读海涅不仅有助于了解德国宗教与哲学的关系，以及哲学如何摆脱宗教走向独立，并爆发出惊世的革命性力量，而且有助于理解马克思主义诞生的前史，以及马克思主义的历史传承性。

Author: Associate Professor, School of Marxism, Dalian Minzu University

作者：大连民族大学马克思主义学院副教授

Online Editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心