GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. Ill 



19. 

 From the 



Of these three periods the last interests us at this 

 moment. As mentioned above, its representatives took 

 the word " criticism " in the widest sense, and it .may he 

 said that in length of duration it has far exceeded any 

 earlier critical period. It has now lasted more than a 

 century, and we cannot say that we have yet emerged last we have 

 from it. The critical movements of former times were emer g ed - 

 quickly followed by renewed creative activity, by novel 

 constructive efforts, by the dogmatism of new systems 

 and schools of thought. 1 It is true that the critical move- 

 ment so splendidly represented in Germany by Lessing 

 (1729-81) and Kant (1724-1804) was followed by the 

 great productive era of classical literature and a brilliant 

 succession of speculative systems of philosophy which 

 for the greater part of half a century forced into the 

 background the workings of the critical spirit. These 

 workings, nevertheless, proceeded without interruption, 

 and became so much the more evident and effective 

 when the productive powers of German poetry, literature, 

 .and philosophy had exhausted themselves. Although 

 therefore the beginning of the great critical movement 

 in Germany may be placed in the middle of the eigh- 

 teenth century, its full effect upon the whole of German 

 thought and culture did not become evident before the 

 :middle of the nineteenth century. Since then it has 

 reigned supreme, leaving almost the whole of the con- 

 structive work of thought to the workers in the fields of 



1 Matthew Arnold, in the Essay 

 quoted above (p. 97 note 3), looked 

 in this manner upon the critical 

 spirit as paving the way for the 

 creative spirit. This statement is 

 borne out by the experience of 



former periods of criticism, but, as 

 I mentioned in the text, the criti- 

 cal movement which still prevails 

 has not as yet shown any signs of 

 making room for a creative era of 

 thought. 



