OF NATURE. 557 



of research, in the course of which only gradually some 

 definite features of the underlying scheme could 

 reveal themselves, some traces of the enwoven cipher 

 could become visible. For development, in the sense 

 of Schelling, implied two further conceptions, the con- 

 ception of a process according to which the development 

 takes place, and the conception of an end or purpose 

 towards which it was directed. Neither the one nor 

 the other of these two conceptions could at the time be 

 clearly defined so far as things natural were concerned. 

 But in the course of the century which followed, the 

 first of these conceptions, that of an automatic and con- 

 tinuous process of evolution, was discovered ; whereas 

 the question as to the end or purpose still haunts the 

 mind of the naturalist : perhaps with even less hope of 

 receiving a definite answer than seemed to exist in the 

 beginning of the century. For as I have " had occasion 

 to state before, the age and surroundings of Schelling 

 were actuated by a definite idea : the modern form of 

 the classical Ideal of Humanity. This humanistic ideal 

 inspired, created, and governed all historical research : 

 it did more, for, since the time of Herder, it led to 

 various attempts to show how the beginnings of mental 



way. Whatever we may consider j came before. The dialectic develop- 

 to be the highest creative principle, , ment in which modern systems re- 

 it will always be, on the other side, cognise how the creative principle 

 a natural assumption that in its j manifests itself in an ascending 

 creative activity an actual connec- j and orderly succession of stages 

 tion exists ; not only that all its , does not fully afford what we mean 

 products, as co-ordinated examples, j by this expected connection, for 

 bear the same stamp in various | every single stage serves here only 

 forms, but also further that every i as a new and increased exertion of 

 single reality which emanated from I the creative virtuosity of the Abso- 

 it becomes the necessary condition j lute, &c. , &c. " (' Kleine Schriften,' 

 of something that is to follow and I vol. iii. p. 216). 

 is a partial result of something that 



