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JAMES HUTCHISON STIRLING, (1820-1909), Scottish philosopher, was born at Glasgow on the 22nd of June 1820. He was educated at Glasgow University, where he studied medicine and philosophy. For a short time he practiced as a doctor in Wales, but gave up his profession in order to Continue his philosophical studies in Germany and France. From 1888 to 1890 he was Gifford lecturer at the university of Edinburgh and published his lectures in 1890 (Philosophy and Theology). He was an LL.D. of Edinburgh University, and foreign member ofthe Philosophical Society of Berlin. He died in March 1909. His principal works are: The Secret of Hegel (i86; new ed. 1893); Sir William Hamilton: The Philosophy of Pence p- lion; a translation of Schwegler’s Goschichte der Philosophic (1867; 12th ed., 1893); Jerrold, Tennyson and Macaulay, &c. (1868); On Materialism (x868); As Regards Protoplasm (1869; 2nd ed., 1872); Lectures on the Philosophy of Law (1873); Burns in Drama (1878); Text-Book to Kant (1881); Philosophy in the Poets; Darwinianism; Workmen and Work (1894); What IS Thought? Or the Problem of Philosophy; By Way of a Conclusion So Far (1900); The Categories (1903). Of these the most important is The Secret of Hegel, which is admitted, both in England and in Germany, to be among the most scholarly and valuable contributions to Hegelian doctrine and to modern philosophy in general. In the preface to the new edition he explains that he was first drawn to the study of Hegel by seeing the name in a review, and subsequently heard it mentioned with awe and reverence by two German students. He set himself at once to grapple with the difficulties and to unfold the principles of the Hegelian dialectic, and by his efforts he introduced an entirely new spirit into English philosophy. Closely connected with the Secret is the Text-Book to Kant, which comprises a translation of the Critique with notes and a biography. In these two works Dr Stirling endeavoured to establish an intimate connection between Kant and Hegel, and even went so far as to maintain that Hegel’s doctrine is merely the elucidation and crystallization of the Kantian system. "The secret of Hegel," he says in the preliminary notice to his great work, "may be indicated at shortest thus: Hegel made explicit the concrete universal that was implicit in Kant." The sixth part of the Secret contains valuable criticisms on the Hegelian writings of Schwegler, Rosenkranz and Haym, and explains by contrast much that has been definitely stated in the preceding pages. Of Dr Stirling’s other works the most important is the volume of Gifford Lectures, in which he developed a theory of natural theology in relation to philosophy as a whole. As Regards Protoplasm contains an attempted refutation of the Essay on the Physical Basis of Life by Huxley.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907:21).Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two has this to say about Stirling ...
"The first English work directly due to the influence of Hegel was The Secret of Hegel (1865) by James Hutchison Stirling. Educated as a physician, he first heard of Hegel in accidental conversation. Hegel was described as the reconciler of philosophy and religion, and Stirling, fascinated by the thought, soon afterwards threw up his practice, settled for some years on the continent-in Germany and in France-and devoted himself with ardour to philosophical study, especially to the mastery of Hegel’s system.
He returned to publish the results of his work; and, although he wrote many books afterwards-especially an important Text-Book to Kant (1881)-The Secret of Hegel remains his greatest work. It consists of translation, commentary, introduction and original discourse; and it shows the process by which the author approached and grappled with his subject. Sometimes it is as difficult as its original; more frequently, it illuminates Hegel both by a persistent effort of thought and by occasional flashes of insight.
Its style is characteristic. Altogether lacking in the placid flow of the academic commentator, and suggesting the influence of Carlyle, it is irregular, but forceful and imaginative, a fit medium for the thinking which it expressed. What Stirling meant by the 'secret' of Hegel was presumably the relation of Hegel’s philosophy to that of Kant.
In Hegel’s construction he found a method and point of view which justified the fundamental ideas of religion, and, at the same time, made clear the one-sidedness of the conceptions of the 'age of enlightenment,' at the end of which Kant stood, still hampered by its negations and abstractions. And Stirling’s favourite and most lively criticisms were directed against the apostles of the enlightenment and their followers of the nineteenth century."
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