GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 125 



and followers, who soon filled to a large extent the 

 philosophical chairs at the German Universities, were 

 less interested in studying and promulgating his peculiar 

 method than in expounding a few characteristic points 

 or doctrines which for a long time became the watch- 

 words of the Kantian School in a very uncritical fashion. 

 Such were, e.g., the doctrine of the Ideality of Time and 

 Space, of the Noumena (or things in themselves) as 

 opposed to Phenomena, of the difference of the theoretical 

 and the practical Reason, of the supremacy of the latter, 

 and of the Categorical Imperative as the fundamental 

 principle of Ethics. The really critical work which 

 Kant began, and which he only carried out to a very 

 limited extent, was followed up by such men as Reinhold 

 and Fries, and later by Herbart ; to some extent also by 

 Schopenhauer, but in the case of the latter, as well as of 

 Herbart, from original and independent points of view 

 which they had gained. The exclusively critical task of 

 deciding as to the powers and limits of the human 

 intellect and the nature of scientific knowledge was 

 taken up as a definite problem much later on, partly as 

 a continuation and confirmation of Kant's views, partly 

 also in opposition to them. The solution of this problem 

 was very much assisted and influenced by two independent 

 lines of research. The first of these was the analysis of 

 the methods of science, of which John Stuart Mill was 

 the great representative ; the second was the revival of 

 Aristotelian studies, in which Trendelenburg of Berlin 

 was the principal leader. It was only after these 

 different lines of research had been pursued for some 

 time that the new critical discipline of Epistemology 



