OF NATURE. 613 



be expressed in Goethe's words : " Nature is neither 

 kernel nor shell ; She is everything at once." To this 

 view the distinctions of external and internal, and of the 

 different parts of any natural object, or of nature as a 

 whole, disappear. This view lies on the borderland of 

 poetry and science; of the intuitive grasp of the artist 

 on the one side and of the combined analytic and syn- 

 thetic processes of the naturalist on the other. It pro- 

 duces, in some instances, the inspired creations of the 

 poet and artist, and in others the ingenious contrivances 

 of the artificer and mechanic. 



But let it not be supposed that science, with all its 46. 



This view 



analytical and synthetical devices, can, for any length of j^Pf 118 " 

 time, dispense with this synoptic view. New trains of' scier 

 reasoning, leading to new scientific theories, to fruitful 

 generalisation and extensive applications, begin not 

 with thought but with Sight. And if, by patient 

 watching and observation, some small trace of the en- 

 woven cipher is discovered and the scientific mind is 

 tempted to follow this up by itself and to forget that it 

 forms but an element of the whole, it nevertheless only 

 as such enables us to take one new step in the com- 

 prehension of nature and the world in their actual 

 reality. 



It was under the immediate influence of Goethe's 

 synoptic view of nature and its intimate connection 

 with his poetical genius that Schelling strove to make it 

 more immediately fruitful for that philosophical compre- 

 hension of nature which, during the most striking phase 

 of his progressive speculations, saw also in art its final 

 consummation. This attempt was doomed to failure ; 



