36 



INTRODUCTION. 



on the science of method prefixed to the ' Encyclopaedia 

 Metropolitana ' ; but the result has shown, what was not 

 evident to Lord Bacon, that neither a systematic division 

 of learning according to some logical principle, nor the his- 

 torical identity of the beginnings of all branches of know- 

 ledge, can in the end preserve the real unity and integrity 

 of thought. The work of the advancement of learning, 

 if it be once handed over to different sciences and in- 

 trusted to separate labourers, does not proceed in a cycle 

 which runs back into itself, but rather in the rings of an 

 ever-increasing spiral, receding more and more from the 

 common origin. Such is the impression we get if we 

 contemplate the unfinished l rows of Ersch and Gruber's 



613 ; vol. iii. pp. 188, 212 ; vol. v. 

 p. 312 (Rosenkranz's edition), especi- 

 ally the two following : " Philos- 

 ophy is the only science which can 

 procure for us inner satisfaction, 

 for she closes the scientific cycle, 

 and through her only do the scien- 

 ces receive order and connection." 

 And : " Mere ' iroXviffropia ' is a 

 cyclopeau learning which wants one 

 eye the eye of Philosophy and 

 a cyclops among mathematicians, 

 historians, naturalists, philologists, 

 and linguists, is a scholar who is 

 great in all these lines, but having 

 these considers all philosophy as 

 superfluous." Still, with Kant 

 Philosophy is not an "instrument 

 for the extension," but merely a 

 study of "the limits of knowledge" ; 

 she does not "discover truth," 

 but only "prevents error." This 

 modest definition was given up in 

 the systems of Fichte, Schelling, 

 and Hegel, who maintained that a 

 certain kind of and this the highest 

 knowledge could be attained by 

 starting from one highest principle 

 deductively : the all - embracing, 

 encyclopaedic character of philoso- 



phical, speculative knowledge was 

 increasingly emphasised, and this 

 not only in special lectures on the 

 subject, as in Fichte's lectures on 

 "The Nature of the Scholar," in 

 Schelling's on "The Method of 

 Academic Study," in Hegel's 'Ency- 

 clopaedia of Philosophy,' but also 

 in the regeneration and reform of 

 many older and in the foundation 

 of new universities and academies 

 throughout Germany. The great 

 ' Encyclopaedia ' of Ersch and Gruber 

 was planned in a similar spirit, as 

 the reform of university teaching 

 and of academic learning. This 

 reform has been of the greatest im- 

 portance to the German nation and 

 to the interests of science and 

 knowledge. The Encyclopaedia, on 

 the other hand, has remained 

 incomplete, a huge but abortive 

 attempt to combine not only the 

 principles of knowledge, but also 

 the colossal and growing volume of 

 it, into a systematic whole. 



1 The promoters of it were evi- 

 dently not sufficiently impressed 

 with the two very essential con- 

 ditions which make a work of this 



