14 GUSTAV MAGNUS. 



natural philosophers who, like Ok en, rejoiced in 

 poetical philosophical conceptions, who found willing 

 auditors. 



Far be it from me as a one-sided advocate of scien- 

 tific interests to blame this period of enthusiastic ex- 

 citement ; we have, in fact, to thank it for the moral 

 force which broke the Napoleonic yoke; we have to 

 thank it for the grand poetry which is the noblest 

 treasure of our nation ; but the real world retains its 

 right against every semblance, even against the most 

 beautiful ; and individuals, as well as nations, who wish 

 to rise to the ripeness of manhood must learn to look 

 reality in the face, in order to bend it to the purpose of 

 the mind. To flee into an ideal world is a false re- 

 source of transient success ; it only facilitates the play 

 of the adversary ; and when knowledge only reflects 

 itself, it becomes unsubstantial and empty, or resolves 

 itself into illusions and phrases. 



Against the errors of a mental tendency, which cor- 

 responded at first to the natural soaring of a fresh youth- 

 ful ambition, but which afterwards, in the age of the 

 Epigones of the Romantic school and of the philosophy 

 of Identity, fell into sentimental straining after sub- 

 limity and inspiration, a reaction took place, and was 

 carried out not merely in the regions of science, but 

 also in history, in art, and in philology. In the last 

 departments, too, where we deal directly with products 



