Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher, born at Breslau in 1768, is aptly described as the father of modern theology. Protestant thought, on the continent of Europe if not in this country, has again and again revealed his influence, whether directly or indirectly. In this he is comparable to Immanuel Kant in the realm of philosophy—Schleiermacher chose always to speak of himself as a theologian—but his characteristic emphasis on the afFective or emotional significance of religion marks him out as a portent of the new ‘Romantic’ age and not as a continuator of the rationalistic principles of the Aufkldrung, of which Kant himself was in many ways a signal representative. In his lifetime, however, he was overshadowed by the then dominant figure of his colleague Hegel, and it was not until the waning of Hegelianism in Germany that his work made the full impact of its originality.

The son of a Reformed army chaplain, Schleiermacher was educated at the Moravian Herrenhütter Brethren's college at Niesky and afterwards at their seminary at Bar by. But finding the narrow sectarianism of their teaching oppressive he betook himself in 1787 to the university of Halle, where for the first time he encountered the philosophy of Kant. Three years later he became tutor to a noble family in West Prussia, but on his ordination to the ministry in 1794 he was appointed Reformed preacher at the Charité in Berlin. It was now that he began to sense the appeal of the new Romantic tendencies, especially in the work of Friedrich Schlegel, whose personal acquaintance he had made.