THE VOCATION OF PHILOSOPHY 49 



science and against science. Once more phil- 

 osophy bowed the neck to letters, and it is at 

 best as literature that the productions of that 

 movement can be regarded. The conceptions 

 of science were explained as symbols, and in 

 their stead was devised a philosophy of meta- 

 phors in this case veritable symbols. The 

 place of clear and definite thoughts that could 

 be grasped was taken by interpretative feel- 

 ing, "intellectual sympathy." Here was the 

 power to transplant us into the inwardness 

 of things, to enable us to lay hold upon the 

 Absolute. This new philosophy of Intuition 

 is in truth nothing but a return of Roman- 

 ticism to life. Like the former, this Romanti- 

 cism was a reaction of feeling and imagination 

 against reason and clearness. It was. the sub- 

 jugation of philosophy by poetry. Its signifi- 

 cance is that of a genuinely literary epoch. 

 "Creative evolution" is a legend which 

 breathes the very spirit of Romanticism. 

 Against this kind of a philosophy of nature, 

 which is neither philosophy nor natural science, 

 the last word was spoken at a later point in 

 his career by Fichte: "Incapable of basing its 



