Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

102 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

only person who can fail to recognize this is the man who looks at history, as

he looks at everything else, with preconceived notions; or the man who only

sees in the history of the world an aggregate of individual events, to whom

the random succession of diverse events is a mere source of amusement, and

for whom only bloody battles, bold conquests, and miraculous coincidences

of fate are of importance.... But events are only manifestations of the mov-

ing and developing spirit and it is indeed the gradual unfolding of the living

spirit which constitutes the instructive element in world history, which alone

makes possible a true understanding of the past and the present. History,

considered from this point of view, would be just as instructive and as mean-

ingful if it were to give us a complete record of the dreams of the greatest men

of every age, as these could tell us just as much as their actions about the

development of the spirit.

An idea, such as Judaism, which has developed and remained in existence

for so many centuries, which has been alive and productive for such a long

period in the history of the world must for this very reason be founded on

the essence of humanity itself and thus be of the greatest significance and

importance for the thinking spirit.^44

Wolf ’s passages and Heine’s anecdote are evidently linked, but one can only

speculate as to the nature of the link. Does each passage have a common source

in a never published remark made by Hegel at a lecture that Heine and Wolf

both attended? Or that one attended and told the other about? Or that a third

party attended and told one or both of them about?

Another intriguing possibility is that what Heine remembers as a remark

by Hegel is in fact this passage by Wolf. It is noteworthy that Wolf does not

refer to Hegel to support his thesis about the world-historical significance of

dreams. Had Wolf been inspired directly by a remark by Hegel, we might expect

him to nod to his teacher.^45 However we interpret it, the relationship between

Wolf ’s defense of Judaism’s world-historical significance via an interpretation

of dreams and Heine’s recollection of Hegel’s purported remark illuminates

aspects of the Vereinler’s Hegelianism. If we heuristically assume the remark

to stem from Wolf and not Hegel (a proposition for which there is admittedly

only weak support), then Heine would in 1843 have been remembering Wolf

as Hegel, suggesting that Heine remembered Hegel’s discourse and that of the

Verein as so similar that he could conflate them.

If, alternatively, we suppose Wolf ’s passage and Heine’s anecdote to have a

common source in an oral remark by Hegel, Wolf ’s use of this remark is also

revealing. On this interpretation, Wolf ’s silent appropriation of Hegel’s com-