Schubert, Gottlieb Heinrich Von

Schubert, Gottlieb Heinrich Von a German philosopher and mystic, who for more than half a century exerted a very extended and beneficent popular influence in almost every field of thought, was born in Saxony, April 26, 1780. His parents were pious and peculiar. In his fifth year he learned from his mother such a lesson on the death of Christ as remained a benediction to him to his latest hour. He studied at Greiz and Weimar, and at the latter place was taken into the house of Herder. He also came into contact with Goethe and Jean Paul. In 1799 he began to study theology at Leipsic, but in 1801 he changed theology for medicine, and went to Jena. Here he came under the personal and scientific influence of Schelling — an influence that lasted during life — as also under that of the naturalist William Ritter. In 1803 he married, and began the practice of medicine at Altenburg, supplementing his scanty fees by private lessons and other makeshifts. Here he wrote a romance, Die Kirche und die Götter. In 1805 he removed to Freiburg, where he began his great work Ahndungen einer allgemeinen Geschichte des Lebens, in which he endeavored to reduce to uniform laws the whole field of nature and humanity. Schelling applauded, but many shook their heads in doubt. In 1807 he went to Dresden and gave some public lectures, from which arose his strange and able work Ansichten von der Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft. In 1809, by the help of Schelling, he was made rector of a scientific school at Nuremberg. Here he wrote his Symbolik des Traumes, also Altes und Neues aus dem Gebiet der inneren Seelenkunde (1815). This last work made a great sensation, and occasioned congratulations from Harms and Neander. Works in the same warmly religious vein are, Erzahlungen (4 vols.): — Biographien und Erzahlungen (3 vols.): — and Der Erwerb (an autobiography, 3 vols.). His last work was Erinnerungen an die Herzogin Helene von Orleans. Schubert left Nuremberg in 1816; in 1819 he became professor at Erlangen; in 1827 he went to the new University of Munich. His latter years were passed in peace and affluence. He died July 1, 1860. See Evangel. Kirchenzeitung, 1860, No. 62; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. (J.P.L.)