OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 23 



To show all this more fully is not my object at present, 

 as Goethe's activity belongs to the sphere of poetical and 

 subjective rather than to that of philosophical thought. 

 An adequate appreciation of his surpassing greatness and 

 influence would properly belong to a different section of 

 this history. In the region of philosophical thought his 

 presence, nevertheless, made itself continually felt, though 

 from outside or from depths which lie hidden below those 

 speculations which found expression in the actual litera- 

 ture or the academic teaching of the age. 



It is, however, important for our present purpose to 

 note how the ethical idealism moved away from its birth- 

 place at Jena and Weimar into a larger sphere of action, 

 and became ultimately centred in Berlin and the Prussian 

 State, whence emanated, under the leadership of Prussia's 

 greatest minister. Stein, the anti-Napoleonic revolution of 

 Europe, followed by the wars of Liberation, and later on 

 by the age of Eestoration and Eeaction. Philosophical 

 thought through this migration did not escape the temp- 

 tation of allying itself in later years with the aims and 

 doctrines of political and ecclesiastical parties, a circum- 

 stance which did not work for its true interests, but 

 contributed much to pull it down from the high level 

 which it had occupied in the earlier years of the 

 century. 



Through the severance which thus took place between lo. 



IT T • • 1 p 1 • Severance 



the literary and artistic work oi the nation on the one of art and 



literature 



side and the practical work on the other, the former was f'^™ . 



^ practice. 



left free to follow its own independent course. This had 

 its advantages as well as its disadvantages. Among the 

 former must be reckoned the unhindered pursuit of 



