OF KNOWLEDGE. 



truly ideal is alone the truly real. He admits that even 

 in philosophy this essential unity cannot be strictly proved, 

 as it rather furnishes the entrance to all that can be called 

 science, 1 the only possible proof consisting in this, that 

 what claims to be science aims just at realising this 

 identity, at merging the real in the ideal, and vice versd 

 at converting the ideal into reality. Such announce- 

 ments, which to us nowadays sound oracular and 

 rhetorical, would no doubt have had only a passing and 

 deterrent effect had the majority of German students 

 been aiming (as they do nowadays) at becoming scientific, 

 professional, or industrial experts. To such, in however 

 noble a light their vocation might present itself, it would 

 soon have become evident that this doctrine of the Immed- 

 iate and of the Identity of the ideal and the real did not 

 condescend to indicate the practical ways and means of 

 research. They would have sooner or later turned away 



1 " The appropriate training for 

 a special profession must be pre- 

 ceded by a knowledge of the organic 

 whole of science. He who wishes 

 to devote himself to a special 

 pursuit must know the place which 

 it occupies in the whole and the 

 special spirit which enlivens it, as 

 also the kind of culture through 

 which it fits into the harmonious 

 structure of the whole ; the way 

 also by which he has to approach his 

 science, that he may not be a slave 

 but free to move in the spirit of 

 the whole. It will therefore be 

 seen that an academic study can 

 only proceed out of a genuine in- 

 sight into the living connection of 

 all sciences, that without it every 

 precept would be dead, soulless, 

 and narrow. But perhaps this 

 demand has never been more press- 

 ing than in the present age when 



VOL. III. 



everything in science and art seems 

 more strongly to aim at unity, 

 when even things most distant 

 come into contact, when every 

 movement which takes place in 

 the centre spreads more immedi- 

 ately into the different parts, and 

 when a new organ of intuition is 

 everywhere being created. Such 

 an age cannot pass without the 

 birth of a new world which leaves 

 those who have no part in it buried 

 in nothingness. It must be left 

 mainly to the fresh and unspoiled 

 powers of a youthful generation to 

 preserve and develop this noble 

 endeavour, &c., &c. . . . No one 

 is excluded from co-operating. . . . 

 He must contemplate his science 

 as an organic member and recognise 

 in advance its task in this new-born 

 world." 



2 A 



