OF REALITY. 457 



central problem of philosophy, the problem of Eeality, 

 the continued object of his speculation. His philosophy 

 is, more than any other, an attempt to fix the truly 

 Eeal, to find an expression for the highest form of 

 Eeality, for the ultimate ground and essence of things. ;< 

 It is pre-eminently a philosophy of the Absolute. This 

 term he again introduced and made familiar in German 

 philosophical literature. By this more than by any other 

 term i.e., as a theory of the Absolute has this philo- 

 sophy been praised and extolled on the one side, vilified 

 and ridiculed on the other. And Schelling's philosophy is, 

 more than any other, the living proof for the correctness 

 of the view which has been held in various forms and 

 will again and again recur, that the Absolute or the 

 truly Eeal is the highest object of our search, yet, at 

 the same time, that for which we shall never find a 

 lastingly satisfactory philosophical expression. But 

 Schelling has enriched philosophical language and 

 literature with many valuable suggestions which give 

 us, if not a full view, at least glimpses of the truly 

 Eeal. 



In the first period of his philosophical career, when 

 he saw in Fichte the greatest philosopher of modern 

 times, Schelling conceived the idea of supplementing the 

 one-sided emphasis which Fichte laid upon the subjective 

 side of the truly Eeal or the Absolute, by a more 

 appreciative treatment of the objective side i.e., of the 

 phenomena of nature, of the external world which 

 surrounds us. Fichte had seemingly reduced this to a 

 secondary position, looking upon nature, which he 

 defined by a pure negation as the Not-self, merely as the 



