GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 155 



to write the history of Greece down to the end of the 

 classical period. It is an artistic conception, born in 

 the mind of a poetical nature, and it is embodied in 

 language the beauty of which has few rivals in modern 

 German prose literature. Details of this poetical con- 

 ception, which may be compared with that of a great 

 landscape painter, had been given to the world in 

 Curtius' earliest work on the Peloponnesus, and were 

 subsequently further elaborated in a series of addresses 

 which he, as " professor eloquentise," delivered at Got- 

 tingen and Berlin. There, with the touch of an artist, 

 he showed the finer mouldings of the Grecian mind as 

 it appeared tfo a loving and enthusiastic admirer of the 

 noble side of Grecian culture. That such a work as 



history of the human race" (0. 

 Peschel, ' Geschichte der Erd- 

 kunde,' 2nd ed., Munich, 1877, 

 p. 16, &c. ) "He revealed to us 

 that the ancient world, in which 

 all continental phenomena appear 

 sharpened, exhibits more powerful 

 outlines than the New World, 

 which is poor in contrast, like all 

 creatures of the ocean, for water, 

 he remarks, removes individuality. 

 Europe, on the other side, slim and 

 delicately formed, with stretching 

 out members and deep penetrating 

 water - courses, appears as a con- 

 tinent with higher organisation, as 

 a thoughtfully planned nursery of 

 human society " (Ibid., p. 812). 

 Ideas similar to these lived in the 

 mind of Ernst Curtius. With Ritter 

 he had also in common the religi- 

 ous point of view ; for the method 

 of the latter "did not lie," as he 

 himself says, "in the truth of a 

 logical notion but in the totality 

 of all truths, i.e., in the domain of 

 faith. It rests on an inner intui- 

 tion which is formed during his 

 life in nature and the human 



world " (Bogekamp, ' Karl Ritter,' 

 1860, p. 8). If Curtius, on the 

 one side, assimilates much of 

 Ritter's conception, on the other 

 side he had also a full appre- 

 ciation of that artistic and poetical 

 view which the study of the ancient 

 world of Greece had produced in 

 many of the leading thinkers of 

 the classical period, and which 

 found expression in a transient 

 phase of Schelling's philosophy. 

 Though Curtius had as little sym- 

 pathy with the logical systems of 

 contemporary speculation on the 

 one hand as he had with extreme 

 criticism on the other, he never- 

 theless admired Schelling's view as 

 laid down, e.g., in his celebrated 

 Discourse (1807) " On the Relation 

 of the Plastic Arts to Nature." 

 We may also trace an intellectual 

 kinship between Curtius and a 

 thinker of a very different order, 

 the eminent naturalist, Karl Ernst 

 von Baer, for some of whose 

 writings Curtius expressed much 

 appreciation. 



