2.74 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



Wiirttemberg in 1775. He was the son of a clergyman and from childhood was 

 destined for the same calling. He developed early; after a brilliant career at 

 school he matriculated at the age of fifteen and in his twentieth year had taken 

 his doctor's degree in both philosophy and theology. His first philosophi- 

 cal studies had dealt with Spinoza, Kant, and Fichte. He afterwards spent a 

 couple of years as a private tutor at Leipzig and there studied natural science, 

 chiefly chemistry and physics. At the age of twenty-two he published a 

 work which at once brought him fame — Ideen zu einer Philosofhie der Natur. 

 Thanks to this work, he was appointed assistant professor at Jena — Goethe, 

 who was much interested in the book, had recommended him to the Saxe- 

 Weimar Government for the post — and there he came in contact with a 

 circle of men and women of genius with pronounced romantic views on 

 science and art. There was one who exercised special influence on him — 

 Caroline Michaelis, a gifted and energetic woman, who, although she was 

 twelve years older than he and had had a somewhat adventurous past, 

 became his wife and highly influenced his work as an author. After her 

 death, in 1809, Schelling's influence actually came to an end. Six years be- 

 fore, however, he had already left Jena, where, through his extraordinary 

 insolence, he had acquired many enemies — with one or two of these he 

 entered into a dispute that ended by their all being condemned for libel. 

 After this he was for a time professor at Wiirzburg. He then spent a long 

 time in Munich as secretary to the Academy, but he was finally summoned 

 to Berlin (in 1841) for the purpose of using his romantic philosophy to 

 counteract the increasing radicalism. In spite of the support of the Govern- 

 ment, however, he was utterly defeated; his enemies published his lectures 

 with insolent comments, with the result that he withdrew altogether from 

 public life. He died in 1854. His character was conspicuous for ostentatious 

 egotism and uncurbed violence by the side of a devoted faith in the doctrines 

 he expounded. Early successes spoiled him, and when later he was confronted 

 by opponents who did not allow themselves to be frightened by his over- 

 bearing manners and scornful polemics, his creative power vanished entirely. 

 The work that brought him fame was completed before his thirtieth year; 

 the half-century that he lived after that added nothing to his renown. 



As a thinker Schelling based his ideas on Spinoza and Fichte. With Kant, 

 on the other hand, he had but little sympathy; the doctrine of the strict 

 limitation of the capacity of human reason that Kant taught was really the 

 direct opposite of what Schelling desired and thought himself able to pro- 

 duce. His relations with Fichte, however, were at first those of a loyal pupil, 

 though he later broke entirely with him. It was from this master of his that 

 Schelling borrowed the principle of the ego as the basis of everything, both 

 in the spiritual and in the material world. The greatest influence on Schelling, 

 however, was exercised by Spinoza, with his doctrine of spirit and matter 



