36 



INTRODUCTION. 



on the science of method prefixed to the ' Encyclopaedia 

 Metropolitana ' ; but the result has shown, what was not 

 evident to Lord Bacon, that neither a systematic division 

 of learning according to some logical principle, nor the his- 

 torical identity of the beginnings of all branches of know- 

 ledge, can in the end preserve the real unity and integrity 

 of thought. The work of the advancement of learning, 

 if it be once handed over to different sciences and in- 

 trusted to separate labourers, does not proceed in a cycle 

 which runs back into itself, but rather in the rings of an 

 ever-increasing spiral, receding more and more from the 

 common origin. Such is the impression we get if we 

 contemplate the unfinished 1 rows of Ersch and Gruber's 



613 ; vol. iii. pp. 188, 212 ; vol. v. 

 p. 312 (Rosenkrauz's edition), especi- 

 ally the two following : " Philos- 

 ophy is the only science which can 

 procure for us inner satisfaction, 

 for she closes the scientific cycle, 

 and through her only do the scien- 

 ces receive order and connection." 

 And : " Mere ' iroXviffropla. ' is a 

 cyclopeau learning which wants one 

 eye the eye of Philosophy and 

 a cyclops among mathematicians, 

 historians, naturalists, philologists, 

 and linguists, is a scholar who is 

 great in all these lines, but having 

 these considers all philosophy as 

 superfluous." Still, with Kant 

 Philosophy is not an "instrument 

 for the extension," but merely a 

 study of "the limits of knowledge" ; 

 she does not "discover truth," 

 but only "prevents error." This 

 modest definition was given up in 

 the systems of Fichte, Schelling, 

 and Hegel, who maintained that a 

 certain kind of and this the highest 

 knowledge could be attained by 

 starting from one highest principle 

 deductively : the all - embracing, 

 encyclopaedic character of philoso- 



phical, speculative knowledge was 

 increasingly emphasised, and this- 

 not only in special lectures on the 

 subject, as in Fichte's lectures on, 

 "The Nature of the Scholar," in 

 Schelling's on "The Method of 

 Academic Study," in Hegel's 'Ency- 

 clopaedia of Philosophy,' but also 

 in the regeneration and reform of 

 many older and in the foundation* 

 of new universities and academies 

 throughout Germany. The great 

 ' Encyclopaedia' of Ersch and Gruber 

 was planned in a similar spirit, as 

 the reform of university teaching 

 and of academic learning. This 

 reform has been of the greatest im- 

 portance to the German nation and 

 to the interests of science and 

 knowledge. The Encyclopaedia, on 

 the other hand, has remained 

 incomplete, a huge but abortive 

 attempt to combine not only the- 

 principles of knowledge, but also 

 the colossal and growing volume of 

 it, into a systematic whole. 



1 The promoters of it were evi- 

 dently not sufficiently impressed 

 with the two very essential con- 

 ditions which make a work of this- 



