with the peaceful study of agriculture, publishing various works by himself, and printing at his own expense several treatises by others on the subject. In 1652 he issued a second edition of the Discourse of Flanders Husbandry by Sir Richard Weston (1645); and in 1651 Samuel Hartlib, his Legacy, or an Enlargement of the Discourse of Husbandry used in Brabant and Flanders, by Robert Child. For his various labours Hartlib received from Cromwell a pension of £100, afterwards increased to £300, as he had spent all his fortune on his experiments. He planned a school for the sons of gentlemen, to be conducted on new principles, and this probably was the occasion of his friend Milton’s Tractate on Education, addressed to him in 1644, and of Sir William Petty’s Two Letters on the same subject, in 1647 and 1648. At the Restoration Hartlib lost his pension, which had already fallen into arrears; he petitioned parliament for a new grant of it, but what success he met with is unknown, as his latter years and death are wrapped in obscurity. A letter from him is known to have been written in February 1661–1662, and apparently he is referred to by Andrew Marvell as alive in 1670 and fleeing to Holland from his creditors.
A Biographical Memoir of Samuel Hartlib, by H. Dircks, appeared in 1865.
HARTMANN, KARL ROBERT EDUARD VON (1842–1906), German philosopher, was born in Berlin on the 23rd of February
1842. He was educated for the army, and entered the artillery
of the Guards as an officer in 1860, but a malady of the knee,
which crippled him, forced him to quit the service in 1865.
After some hesitation between music and philosophy, he decided
to make the latter the serious work of his life, and in 1867 the
university of Rostock conferred on him the degree of doctor of
philosophy. He subsequently returned to Berlin, and died at
Grosslichterfelde on the 5th of June 1906. His reputation
as a philosopher was established by his first book, The Philosophy
of the Unconscious (1869; 10th ed. 1890). This success was
largely due to the originality of its title, the diversity of its
contents (von Hartmann professing to obtain his speculative
results by the methods of inductive science, and making plentiful
use of concrete illustrations), the fashionableness of its pessimism
and the vigour and lucidity of its style. The conception of the
Unconscious, by which von Hartmann describes his ultimate
metaphysical principle, is not at bottom as paradoxical as it
sounds, being merely a new and mysterious designation for the
Absolute of German metaphysicians. The Unconscious appears
as a combination of the metaphysic of Hegel with that of Schopenhauer.
The Unconscious is both Will and Reason and the
absolute all-embracing ground of all existence. Von Hartmann
thus combines “pantheism” with “panlogism” in a manner
adumbrated by Schelling in his “positive philosophy.” Nevertheless
Will and not Reason is the primary aspect of the Unconscious,
whose melancholy career is determined by the primacy
of the Will and the subservience of the Reason. Precosmically
the Will is potential and the Reason latent, and the Will is void
of reason when it passes from potentiality to actual willing.
This latter is absolute misery, and to cure it the Unconscious
evokes its Reason and with its aid creates the best of all possible
worlds, which contains the promise of its redemption from
actual existence by the emancipation of the Reason from its
subjugation to the Will in the conscious reason of the enlightened
pessimist. When the greater part of the Will in existence is so
far enlightened by reason as to perceive the inevitable misery
of existence, a collective effort to will non-existence will be made,
and the world will relapse into nothingness, the Unconscious into
quiescence. Although von Hartmann is a pessimist, his pessimism
is by no means unmitigated. The individual’s happiness
is indeed unattainable either here and now or hereafter and in
the future, but he does not despair of ultimately releasing the
Unconscious from its sufferings. He differs from Schopenhauer
in making salvation by the “negation of the Will-to-live”
depend on a collective social effort and not on individualistic
asceticism. The conception of a redemption of the Unconscious
also supplies the ultimate basis of von Hartmann’s ethics. We
must provisionally affirm life and devote ourselves to social
evolution, instead of striving after a happiness which is
impossible; in so doing we shall find that morality renders life
less unhappy than it would otherwise be. Suicide, and all other
forms of selfishness, are highly reprehensible. Epistemologically
von Hartmann is a transcendental realist, who ably defends his
views and acutely criticizes those of his opponents. His realism
enables him to maintain the reality of Time, and so of the process
of the world’s redemption.
Von Hartmann’s numerous works extend to more than 12,000 pages. They may be classified into—A. Systematical, including Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie; Kategorienlehre; Das sittliche Bewusstsein; Die Philosophie des Schönen; Die Religion des Geistes; Die Philosophie des Unbewussten (3 vols., which now include his, originally anonymous, self-criticism, Das Unbewusste vom Standpunkte der Physiologie und Descendenztheorie, and its refutation, Eng. trs. by W. C. Coupland, 1884); System der Philosophie im Grundriss, i.; Grundriss der Erkenntnislehre. B. Historical and critical—Das religiöse Bewusstsein der Menschheit; Geschichte der Metaphysik (2 vols.); Kant’s Erkenntnistheorie; Kritische Grundlegung des transcendentalen Realismus; Über die dialektische Methode; studies of Schelling, Lotze, von Kirchmann; Zur Geschichte des Pessimismus; Neukantianismus, Schopenhauerismus, Hegelianismus; Geschichte der deutschen Ästhetik seit Kant; Die Krisis des Christentums in der modernen Theologie; Philosophische Fragen der Gegenwart; Ethische Studien; Moderne Psychologie; Das Christentum des neuen Testaments; Die Weltanschauung der modernen Physik. C. Popular—Soziale Kernfragen; Moderne Probleme; Tagesfragen; Zwei Jahrzehnte deutscher Politik; Das Judentum in Gegenwart und Zukunft; Die Selbstzersetzung des Christentums; Gesammelte Studien; Der Spiritismus and Die Geisterhypothese des Spiritismus; Zur Zeitgeschichte. His select works have been published in 10 volumes (2nd ed., 1885–1896). On his philosophy see R. Köber, Das philosophische System Eduard von Hartmanns (1884); O. Plümacher, Der Kampf ums Unbewusste (2nd ed., 1890), with a chronological table of the Hartmann literature from 1868 to 1890; A. Drews, E. von Hartmanns Philosophie und der Materialismus in der modernen Kultur (1890) and E. von Hartmanns philosophisches System im Grundriss (1902), with biographical introduction; and for further authorities, J. M. Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology (1901–1905).
HARTMANN, MORITZ (1821–1872), German poet and author, was born of Jewish parentage at Duschnik in Bohemia on the 15th of October 1821. Having studied philosophy at
Prague and Vienna, he travelled in south Germany, Switzerland
and Italy, and became tutor in a family at Vienna. In 1845 he
proceeded to Leipzig and there published a volume of patriotic
poems, Kelch und Schwert (1845). Fearing in consequence
prosecution at the hands of the authorities, he abided events in
France and Belgium, and after issuing in Leipzig Neuere Gedichte
(1846) returned home, suffered a short term of imprisonment,
and in 1848 was elected member for Leitmeritz in the short-lived
German parliament at Frankfort-on-Main, in which he sided
with the extreme Radical party. He took part with Robert
Blum (1807–1848) in the revolution of that year in Vienna, but
contrived to escape to London and Paris. In 1849 he published
Reimchronik des Pfaffen Mauritius, a satirical political poem in
the style of Heine. During the Crimean War (1854–56) Hartmann
was correspondent of the Kölnische Zeitung, settled in
1860 in Geneva as a teacher of German literature and history,
became in 1865 editor of the Freya in Stuttgart and in 1868 a
member of the staff of the Neue Freie Presse in Vienna. He
died at Oberdöbling near Vienna on the 13th of May 1872.
Among Hartmann’s numerous works may be especially mentioned Der Krieg um den Wald (1850), a novel, the scene of which is laid in Bohemia; Tagebuch aus Languedoc und Provence (1852); Erzählungen eines Unsteten (1858); and Die letzten Tage eines Königs (1867). His idyll, Adam und Eva (1851), and his collection of poetical tales, Schatten (1851), show that the author possessed but little talent for epic narrative. Hartmann’s poems are often lacking in genuine poetical feeling, but the love of liberty which inspired them, and the fervour, ease and clearness of their style compensated for these shortcomings and gained for him a wide circle of admirers.
His Gesammelte Werke were published in 10 vols, in 1873–1874, and a selection of his Gedichte in the latter year. The first two volumes of a new edition of his works contain a biography of Hartmann by O. Wittner. See also E. Ziel, “Moritz Hartmann” (in Unsere Zeit, 1872); A. Marchand, Les Poètes lyriques de l’Autriche (1892); Brandes, Das junge Deutschland (Charlottenburg, 1899).
