Sebiller, 



156 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



ideas were taken up, assimilated, and transformed, in the 

 minds of other original thinkers, and this not always in 

 the true Kantian spirit. But through this Kant became, 

 on the continent of Europe, a far greater reformer than 

 Bentham had been in England ; for whereas Bentham 

 devoted himself to practical and applied philosophy, 

 Kant attacked the fundamentals, the inner sources of all 

 our thoughts. Nor was it the Kantian school in the 

 narrower sense of the word, comprising those who, like 

 Reinhold, attempted to explain and popularise the 

 Kantian philosophy, that brought about the great change 

 in philosophical thought ; this was rather effected by 

 original intellects, by reformers and poets who had 

 started on their career before they had become acquainted 

 with Kant's teaching and who were in a state of ferment 

 and unrest, which had its origin in quite different 

 quarters. 



21. The first of these who was deeply stirred by Kant's 



doctrine, especially by his ethical views, was the poet 

 Schiller. To this I have had occasion to draw 

 attention, in the last chapter, in treating of Schiller's 

 ^sthetical theories ; ^ there I also emphasised the fact 

 that Schiller had given utterance to his views in im- 

 portant poetical and prose writings before he became 

 acquainted with Kant's philosophy. He had then already 

 come under the influence of what may be termed the Hel- 

 lenic or Classical ideal, the ideal of humanity expressed 

 in the harmony of the Beautiful and the Good. He had 

 conceived of Art as the great portal through which hu- 

 manity rises out of a purely physical material existence, 



^ See supra, p. 16 sqq. 



