PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 207 



Identical Basis of Differences, the reconciliation was to be accom- 

 plished. 



But the constructive idealistic movement, in which Fichte and 

 Schelling bore so important a part, could not be satisfied with the 

 positions reached by either of these two philosophers. Neither the 

 physical and psychological sciences, nor the speculative interests of 

 religion, ethics, art, and social life, permitted this movement to stop 

 at this point. In all the subsequent developments of philosophy dur- 

 ing the first half or three quarters of the nineteenth century, undoubt- 

 edly the influence of Hegel was greatest of all individual thinkers. His 

 motif and plan are revealed in his letter of November 2, 1800, to 

 Schelling, namely, to transform what had hitherto been an ideal 

 into a thoroughly elaborate system. And in spite of his obvious 

 obscurities of thought and style, there is real ground for his claim to 

 be the champion of the common consciousness. It is undoubtedly in 

 Hegel's Phdnomenologie des Geistes (1807), that the distinctive fea- 

 tures of the philosophy of the first half of the last century most 

 clearly define themselves. The forces of reflection now abandon the 

 abstract analytic method and positions of the Kantian Critique, and 

 concentrate themselves upon the study of man's spiritual life as an 

 historical evolution, in a more concrete, face-to-face manner. Two 

 important and, in the main, valid assumptions underlie and guide 

 this reflective study: (1) The Ultimate Reality, or principle of all 

 realities, is Mind or Spirit, which is to be recognized and known in its 

 essence, not by analysis into its formal elements (the categories), 

 but as a living development; (2) those formal elements, or cate- 

 gories to which Kant gave validity merely as constitutional forms 

 of the functioning of the human understanding, represent, the rather, 

 the essential structure of Reality. 



In spite of these true thoughts, fault was justly found by the par- 

 ticular sciences with both the speculative method of Hegel, which 

 consists in the smooth, harmonious, and systematic arrangement 

 of conceptions in logical or ideal relations to one another; and also 

 with the result, which reduces the Being of the World to terms of 

 thought and dialectical processes merely, and neglects or overlooks 

 the other aspects of racial experience. Therefore, the idealistic 

 movement could not remain satisfied with the Hegelian dialectic. 

 Especially did both the religious and the philosophical party revolt 

 against the important thought underlying Hegel's philosophy of 

 religion; namely, that "the more philosophy approximates to a 

 complete development, the more it exhibits the same need, the same 

 interest, and the same content, as religion itself." This, as they 

 interpreted it, meant the absorption of religion in philosophy. 



Next after Hegel, among the great names of this period, stand 

 the names of Herbart and Schopenhauer. The former contributes 



