The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Michelet, Karl Ludwig

MICHELET, Karl Ludwig, a German philosopher, born in Berlin, Dec. 4, 1801. He was educated at the university of Berlin, receiving the degree of Ph. D. in 1824. The principles contained in his inaugural dissertation were developed in his System der philosophischen Moral (Berlin, 1828). In 1825 he was appointed professor of philology and philosophy in the French gymnasium, which post he held till 1850; and in 1829 he became professor of philosophy also in the university of Berlin. He published Die Ethik des Aristoteles (Berlin, 1827), an edition of the Nicomachean ethics with a Latin commentary (2 vols., 1829-'35), and a memoir entitled Examen critique du livre d'Aristote intitulé Metaphysique (Paris, 1836), which was crowned by the academy of moral and political sciences of Paris. From 1832 to 1842 he was engaged as one of the editors of Hegel's works, in illustration of whose system he wrote Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philosophie in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel (2 vols., Berlin, 1837-'8); Entwickelungsgeschichte der neuesten Deutschen Philosophie mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den gegenwärtigen Kampf Schelling's mit der Hegelschen Schule (1843); and a controversial dissertation, Schelling und Hegel (1839). In 1840 appeared his Anthropologie und Psychologie, in which in many respects he diverged from Hegelian principles. His own tendency is most decisively shown in his Vorlesungen über die Persönlichkeit Gottes und die Unsterblichkeit der Seele, oder die ewige Persönlichkeit des Geistes (1841), and Die Epiphanie der ewigen Persönlichkeit des Geistes (1844-'52). He has also published Eine italienische Reise in Briefen (Berlin, 1856); Die Geschichte der Menschheit in ihrem Entwickelungsgange seit dem Jahre 1775 bis auf die neuesten Zeiten (2 vols., 1859-'60); and Naturrecht, oder Rechtsphilosophie als die praktische Philosophie (3 vols., 1866). Since 1860 he has edited and largely contributed to Der Gedanke, the organ of the philosophical society of Berlin.