618 Dr. WHEWELL'S SECOND MEMOIR ON THE 



from its nature as knowledge ; and held that (3) all our knowledge is a developement of the ideal 

 conditions of knowledge existing in our minds, (one of our next following sentences). But when 

 the ideal element of our knowledge was thus exclusively dwelt upon, it was soon seen that this ideal 

 system no more gave a complete explanation of the real nature of knowledge, than the old sensa- 

 tional doctrine had done. Both elements, Ideas and Sensations, must be taken into account. And 

 this was attempted by Schelling, who, in his earlier works, taught (as we have also stated above) that 

 (4) Ideas and Facts are different aspects of the same thing : — this thing, the original basis of truth 

 in which both elements are involved and identified, being, in Schelling's language, the Absolute, 

 while each of the separate elements is subjected to conditions arising from their union. But this 

 Absolute, being a point inaccessible to us, and inconceivable by us, as our philosophy teaches 

 (as above), cannot to any purpose be made the basis of our philosophy : and accordingly this 

 Philosophy of the Absolute has not been more permanent than its predecessors. Yet the philosophy 

 of Hegel, which still has a wide and powerful sway in Germany, is, in the main, a developement 

 of the same principle as that of Schelling ; — the identity of the idea and the fact ; and HegeFs 

 Identity System, is rather a more methodical and technical exposition of Schelling's Philosophy 

 of the Absolute than a new system. But Hegel traces the manifestation of the identity of the idea 

 and fact in the progress of human knowledge; and thus in some measure approaches to our doctrine 

 (above stated), that (5) the way in which we approach to truth is by gradually and successively, 

 in one instance after another, that is, historically, advancing from the perception to the idea, from 

 the fact to the theory : while at the same time Hegel has not carried out this view in any compre- 

 hensive or complete manner, so as to show that (6) this process constitutes the history of science : 

 and alike with Schelling, his system shews an entire want of the conviction (above expressed as part 

 of our doctrine), (7) that we can never, in our speculations reach or approach to the central unity 

 of which both idea and fact are emanations. 



This view of the relation of the Sensational School, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and of 

 the fundamental defects of all, may be further illustrated. It will, of course, be understood that 

 our illustration is given only as a slight and imperfect sketch of their philosophies ; but their 

 relation may perhaps become more apparent by the very brevity with which it is stated ; and the 

 object of the present note is not detailed criticism, but this very relation of systems to each other. 



The actual and the ideal, the external and the internal elements of knowledge, were called by 

 the Germans the objective and the subjective elements respectively. The forms of knowledge and 

 especially space and time, were pronounced by Kant to be essentially subjective ; and this view of 

 the nature of knowledge more fully unfolded and extended to all knowledge, became the subjective 

 ideality of Fichte. But the subjective and the objective are, as we have said, in their ultimate and 

 supreme form, one ; and hence we are told of the subjective-objective, a phrase wiiich has also 

 been employed by Mr. Coleridge. Fichte had spoken of the subjective element as the Me, (das 

 Ich) ; and of the objective element as the Not-me, (das Nicht-Ich) ; and has deduced the Not-me 

 from the Me. Schelling, on the contrary, laboured with great subtlety to deduce the Me from the 

 Absolute which includes both. And this Absolute, or Subjective-objective, is spoken of by Schelling as 

 unfolding itself into endless other antitheses. It was held that from the assumption of such a prin- 

 ciple might be deduced and explained the oppositions which, in the contemplation of nature, present 

 themselves at every step, as leading points of general philosophy : — for example, the opposition of 

 matter as passive and active, as dead and organized, as unconscious or conscious ; the opposition of 

 individual and species, of will and moral rule. And this antithetical developement was carried 

 further by Hegel, who taught that the absolute idea developes itself so as to assume qualities, 

 limitations, and seeming oppositions, and thus completes the cycle of its developement by returning 

 into unity. 



That there is, in the history of Science, much which easily lends itself to such a formula, the views 

 which I have endeavoured to expound, show and exemplify in detail. But yet the attempts to carry 



