OF REALITY. 



469 



According to Hegel, the essence of the Absolute as 

 Spirit was not revealed only by intellectual or artistic 

 intuition; it was to be reached by a process of severe 

 thought. And this process was at the same time con- 

 ceived not to be merely a logical scaffolding by which 

 the human mind rises to an eminence from which it 

 comprehends the truly Keal, the Spirit of things; the 

 process was considered at the same time to exhibit the 

 different stages in and through which the Spirit itself 

 unfolds its reality in the regions of nature and mind, of 

 history, art, and religion. It was accordingly not only a 

 process of thought ; it was also a process of actual develop- 

 ment. In this way, what were in earlier systems con- 

 sidered to be merely logical forms and categories were 

 elevated in Hegel's doctrine to be the successive stages of 

 the development or evolution of the ultimate Eeality or 

 Spiritual ground of things. Logic, with Hegel, meant 

 not merely the laws and forms of thought ; it meant 

 the development of the Logos, the living and moving 



27. 



Logical pro- 

 cess identi- 

 fied with 

 world-pro- 

 cess. 



certainly the least independent of 

 external influences. Fichte came 

 under the influence of Jacobi and 

 Schleiermacher and, though not 

 avowedly so, under that of Schel- 

 ling. With all three he had, for a 

 time, intimate personal intercourse, 

 living and moving in the same 

 circle. Hegel did not move in this 

 circle, his contact with it was 

 maintained mainly through his 

 correspondence with Schelling. He 

 had carried on deep studies mainly 

 in the history of ancient classical 

 and Christian thought and religion ; 

 had written elaborate dissertations 

 upon historical and theological sub- 

 jects, among these a ' Life of 

 Jesus.' An analysis of these un- 

 published remains which were to 



some extent accessible already to 

 Rosenkranz and Haym, is given 

 fully in Dilthey's work. After 

 reading this we are driven to the 

 conclusion that from Kant and 

 Fichte there emanated four toler- 

 ably distinct developments of ideal- 

 istic thought in Germany, viz. : 

 Schelling's later philosophy, that 

 of Hegel, that of Schleiermacher, 

 and that of Schopenhauer. They 

 are historically co-ordinated and 

 cotemporaneous. The old formula 

 of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, 

 which even by Kuno Fischer was 

 only awkwardly broken up by a 

 somewhat incongruous Introduction 

 of Schopenhauer, must, so far as the 

 deeper History of Thought is con- 

 cerned, be abandoned. 



