Krause, KARL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH, a German philosopher, born 6th May 1781 at Eisenberg, studied philosophy at Jena under Fichte and Schelling, qualified as a privat-docent in that university in 1802, but removed in 1805 to Dresden, where he lived till 1813. His learned work on the doctrines of Freemasonry (1810), advocating their rational reform, drew upon him the resentment of the German Freemasons. After residing for a time in Berlin, lecturing in the university, he settled in Göttingen, where he lectured on all the branches of philosophy (1823-30), and drew around him a number of enthusiastic disciples, including the philosophical jurist, H. Ahrens. He never obtained a professorship, notwithstanding his success and popularity as a docent, his incessant industry, and the versatility and fertility of his genius. In 1831, after an amelioration in his circumstances, he removed to Munich, where Baader befriended him, but Schelling treated him with coldness, and in the midst of further disappointments and struggles, he suddenly died there of apoplexy, 27th September 1832. Krause is deservedly ranked with Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Herbart, and Schopenhauer, as one of the masters of the German philosophical movement inaugurated by Kant. His earlier works (1803-14) are written in an elegant and flowing style, but he limited the circulation and popularity of his later writings by the excessive purism of his German terminology, which eschewed all foreign terms and revelled in the most elaborate native compounds. This literary idiosyncrasy has made Krause for the novice the most unreadable of all philosophical writers, and even Zeller declares his German to be at times 'as unintelligible to Germans as if it were Sanskrit.' The most popular of his writings is his sketch of the Ideal of Humanity (Das Urbild der Menschheit, 1812). His system of philosophy is expounded in various sketches and outlines of the philosophical sciences (Logic, 1803, 1828; Ethics, 1811; Philosophy of
Right, 1803, 1828; Sketch of the System of Philosophy, 1828), and most fully and definitely in his 'Lectures on the System of Philosophy' (1828) and his 'Lectures on the Fundamental Truths of Science' (1829). Since his death many of his works have been edited by Leonhardi, Ahrens, Röder, Wünsche, and Hohlfeld. The Ideal of Humanity has been summarily rendered into Spanish (by Del Rio, 1860) and Italian, and an English translation by Hastie appeared in 1890. Professor Tiberghien of Brussels has ably summarised and illustrated Krause's philosophy in French. Professor Flint has given an admirable summary of Krause's philosophy of history in his Philosophy of History, and Professor Lorimer shows appreciation of Krause's philosophy of law in his Institutes of Law. The translation of Pfeiderer's Philosophy of Religion contains a sketch of Krause's Absolute Philosophy of Religion. But Krause's system of philosophy, as a whole, which, as regards his view of the relation of the world to God, he called Pantheism ('all-in-God'), in contradistinction to the Pantheism of the other schools and the Dualism of the deistic tradition, has not yet obtained adequate expression in English. Froebel, the founder of the Kindergarten system, followed Krause's doctrines. There are monographs in German by Hohlfeld (1879), Procksch (1880), and Martin (1881).