Hermes

Hermes, GEORG, a Roman Catholic philosopher and divine, was born at Dreyerwalde, in Westphalia, April 22, 1775. He studied at Münster, became theological professor there in 1807, and in 1819 at Bonn. At Bonn he died, May 26, 1831. In his chief works, Die Innere Wahrheit des Christentums (1805), Philosophische Einleitung in die Christkatholische Theologie (1819), and Christkatholische Dogmatik, he sought to base the Catholic faith and doctrines on a critical theory of knowledge like Kant's. The Hermesian method of investigation in like manner discards, in the first stages, and so far as investigation is permitted to extend, all principle of authority; and in the details of metaphysical inquiry, in the selection of the arguments of the existence of God, and of the nature of divine attributes, he departed widely from the old text-books of the schools; although in the general sum of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church his orthodoxy does not appear to have been in any degree called into question. Soon many theological and philosophical chairs were filled by Hermesians; and it was not till after the death of Hermes that his doctrines were condemned by the pope (1835), and some professors deprived of their chairs. The controversy was continued, as well in Rome as in Germany, for a considerable time; by degrees, however, the Hermesian party fell away. See works on Hermes and his movement by Esser (1832), Elvenich (1836), Niedner (1839), and Stupp (1845).