110 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



The inexorable law of duty, the Categorical Imperative, 

 had been made by Kant not only the basis of practical 

 philosophy, but as it were also the expression of the 

 truly Keal, the only and the sufficient means of insight 

 afforded to us human beings into the ultimate ground 

 and essence of the existing world. In this conception, 

 support had also been found for the belief in God, 

 in Freedom, and in Immortality. Art and the Beautiful 

 were not required for the solution of the moral 

 problem ; they were looked upon by Schiller as orna- 

 ments, as the adornment of life, as the introduction to 

 the sterner demands of reason and duty. When, a 

 century later, Guyau approached the problems of the 

 Spirit, the Good and the Beautiful, which, according to 

 Lotze's terminology, constitute the region of values or 

 worths, the independent foundations of religious faith 

 and of moral doctrine had been profoundly shaken by 

 the scientific and historical criticism of the century ; 

 notably the supreme obligation contained in the moral 

 law, as it was understood by Kant, and the sanction 

 derived from religious or metaphysical convictions, ap- 

 peared doubtful. Yet Guyau was not a pessimist or a 

 materialist; the teachings of Schopenhauer and von 

 Hartmann did not satisfy him, nor did he share in the 

 despair with which both Lange and Strauss took refuge 

 in the ideals that had found expression in art and 

 poetry, in literature and music. Guyau was animated 

 by a great faith and hope which amounted almost to 

 inspiration. Like Schelling, eighty years earlier, he was 

 both a philosopher and a poet ; he had, more than 

 Schelling, something of the prophet in him he lived in 



