OF THE SPIRIT. 



317 



succeeded in formulating a definite method absorbed 

 gradually the attention of learners and teachers, whilst 

 others, though possibly not less original, fell into neglect. 

 Only two among the leading thinkers of the age stood 

 out prominently in this respect. They were Hegel and 

 Herbart. Both published Treatises in which method 

 and system were conspicuous. Schleiermacher was not 

 one of these so far as his published philosophical Works 

 were concerned. The groundwork of his philosophy 

 was elaborated in his Lectures, which became generally 

 known only in a posthumous publication at a time when 

 the interest in abstract philosophy had waned. Fichte 

 never arrived at a definite exposition of Wissenschaftslehre, 

 and as to Schelling he kept the public in uncertainty 

 and expectancy, having retired from academic teaching, 

 his only methodical Treatise being an ethical tract 

 highly commended by Schopenhauer.^ When, after his 

 call to Berlin in 1841, he re-entered the Lecture Eoom,. 

 literary and scholarly tastes had, under the influence 

 of the critical and of the exact scientific spirit — power- 

 fully represented in Berlin through Wolf's school and 



^ This treatise is entitled * Philo- 

 sophical Discussions on the Nature 

 of Human Freedom and connected 

 Subjects ' ; it appeared in the year 

 1809. In it Schelling broke with 

 Jacobi and with Spinoza as repre- 

 sented by Jacobi. He himself says 

 that it is one of the most impor- 

 tant of his writings, that it repre- 

 sents the entire ideal side of his 

 system "in which together with 

 the immanence of things in God, 

 Freedom, Life, Individuality, as 

 well as Good and Evil, co-exist " 

 (see ' Aus Schelling' s Leben in 



Briefen ' vol. ii. p. 156). Kuno 

 Fischer considers it as the transition 

 to the latest, the theosophical, 

 phase of his philosophy, but says : 

 " If we count among the character- 

 istics of Theosophy a dim and un- 

 clear depth, we cannot apply this 

 to Schelling 's Tract on Freedom ; 

 for it is precisely in the defini- 

 tion and explication of this most 

 difficult of all problem a master- 

 piece of clearness and depth " 

 ( ' Geschichte der Neueren Philo- 

 sophic,' vol. vi., 1872, p. 894). 



