Đuro Arnold

As a philosopher, he was influenced by Leibniz, Johann Friedrich Herbart and Hermann Lotze, representing the "spiritualist positivism" movement and the view that the knowledge of the world can be reached only by the combined efforts of science, art and religion. He wrote on the fundamental questions of philosophy, which he defined as the science of "final causes and purposes of being". In the treatise Zadnja bića ("Last beings", Rad JAZU, 1888, 93) he conceived a world composed from the variety of simple, immutable soullike "last beings" that are connected by the feeling of touch and hierarchically arranged according to different levels of awareness, with absolute consciousness, the God, occupying the peak of the hierarchy. According to Arnold, faith represents the supreme stronghold of a man and the basic principle of harmony of his spiritual functions. According to some opinions, in his later works such as O psihologiji bez duše and Monizam i kršćanstvo (Rad JAZU, 1909, 176 and 178) Arnold has abandoned his earlier philosophical views. Others such as Pavao Vuk-Pavlović, Stjepan Matičević and Blaženka Despot however maintain that Arnold's philosophical view was uniform and consistent - spiritualist pluralism which doesn't completely exclude spiritualist monism. Arnold is one of the founders of the Croatian philosophical terminology, having authored two influential high school textbooks (Logika and Psihologija) that were standard textbooks for more than thirty years. At Arnold's proposal, in 1896 the Pedagogical Seminar for theoretical and practical training of future secondary school teachers was founded at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. As a teacher, organizer of educational system, the first Professor of Pedagogy at the Faculty of Philosophy and the first head of the Pedagogical Seminar, has influenced many generations of teachers. Arnold died in Zagreb.

As a writer, his work is a continuation of Croatia's romantic poetry in the tradition of August Šenoa and Franjo Marković. His first appearance as a writer was the song Pri povratku ("On the way back", Vienac, 1873, 49). He mostly published patriotic songs, romances and ballads with themes from Croatian history and folklore (Krapinske elegije, Damjan Juda, knez dubrovački, Kata Lovićeva etc.), as well as reflexive lyricism in publications such as Vienac (1873–1886, 1888–1891, 1893–1902), Hrvatska lipa (1875), Hrvatski dom (1876), Obzor (1898, 1900, 1901, 1904), Prosvjeta (1904–1913), Hrvatsko kolo (1905, 1906, 1908, 1930), Katolički list (1906, 1915, 1916), Hrvatska smotra (1907–1910, 1933), Hrvatsko pravo (1908, 1924), Koledar hrvatskoga katoličkoga narodnoga đaštva (1909, 1910), Serafinski perivoj (1909–1913), Književni prilog (1911, 1912, 1913–1915), Hrvatska (1912, 1914, 1915), Hrvatska prosvjeta (1914–1918), Naša misao (1914, 1915), Jeka od Osijeka (1918, 1919), Vijenac (1923, 1925, 1927), Hrvatsko pravo (1924, 1925), Omladina (1924, 1925), Hranilovićeva spomenica (1925), Selo i grad (1928/1929, 1930, 1931), Hrvatski list (1939), Novo doba (1940) and others. He wrote a single short story Samo četvrt sata (Vienac, 1880, 15–18). He signed his works in codes and pseudonyms: A., G. A., Gj. A., Gj. A-d, Gj. Ar., O. D., R. R., Ivančanin, Georg Arnold. He published several books of poems, and the poem Domovina has gained him popularity. His works were published in many anthologies, calendars and almanacs. The selection of his poetry was translated to Czech, Esperanto, German, Slovak and Italian. He expressed his views on literature in talks at the Matica hrvatska conferences: Umjetnost prema znanosti, Može li umjetnost zamijeniti vjeru, Jedinstvena hrvatska narodna kultura (Glas Matice hrvatske, 1906, 1908, 1909).