514 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



not square with the results of speculation, so much the worse for the 

 facts. Although Hegel does not wholly depreciate experimental knowl- 

 edge, he too lays chief stress on the d priori method.* Knowledge is 

 boundless in its possibilities; no limit can be set to man's faculty of 

 truth. Basing themselves upon such conceptions as these, Fichte, 

 Schelling and Hegel undertook the construction of an edifice, which 

 though grand and daring in plan and execution, had no foundation on 

 the earth. And when philosophy loses its footing on the ground, it 

 must Antaeus-like perish in mid-air. 



While the German metaphysicians and their following were prov- 

 ing by all the rules of logic what the world really ought to be, the exact 

 sciences were modestly finding out what it actually was. The whistle 

 of the locomotive suddenly awakened the speculator from his dreams, 

 and called his attention to the wonderful progress of natural science 

 with its fruitful methods and useful results. A reaction soon set in 

 against Hegelianism, and its star sank. Men grew aweary of fanciful 

 speculations and longed to return from the clouds to the realities of 

 the material world. Eailroads were built. Trade and commerce took 

 enormous strides forward, commercial and polytechnical schools were 

 founded. All energies were directed toward the discovery, explanation 

 and application of material laws, and the exact sciences took the place 

 in the public confidence once held by philosophy. Liebig, the great 

 chemist, introduced the laboratory into German universities. Alex- 

 ander von Humboldt made a reputation for himself as a scientist. Im- 

 portant discoveries were made in France and Germany by physiologists 

 like Miiller, Weber, Flourens, Magendie, Leurct, Longet.f Philosophy 

 lost her crown ; despised and forsaken by a world that was now as ex- 

 treme in its contempt as it had formerly been extravagant in its praise, 

 there was none so poor to do her reverence. The philosopher was de- 

 scribed as one speaking of things of which he knew nothing, in words 

 which no one could understand. The mistake lay in identifying all 

 philosophy with a temporary one-sided phase of it. The hue and cry 

 was raised against the persecuted queen. The natural sciences, of 

 course, renounced their allegiance and established an antiphilosophical 

 republic of their own. They deluded themselves into believing in the 

 possibility of excluding philosophical conceptions from their realm; 

 they simply succeeded in introducing loose, illogical notions into their 

 explanations, notions that careful thinkers had long ago rejected as un- 

 satisfactory. Materialism, the simplest and most insufficient solution 

 of the world-problem, became the order of the day. 



Conditions like these could not fail to intimidate philosophy. Mis- 



• Hegel, Vol. VI., pp. 53 and 78. 



t See Lange, History of Materialism. 



