300 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Effect of the 



French 



Revolution. 



10. 



Later 

 dominance 

 of exact 

 scieuce. 



broke out in France, and brought with it more definite 

 social and political problems. Fichte's first writings of 

 importance referred to the religious problem and to the 

 social problem. It was only after he had gained a 

 considerable reputation through these writings that he 

 found it necessary to lay a deeper foundation for his 

 speculations by dealing with the fundamental problems 

 approached by Kant. This was the origin of the Wissen- 

 schaftdekrc. But what Fichte would have called the 

 purely scientific and logical treatment of the fundamental 

 question of knowledge was very soon interrupted by the 

 influence of the creative, in opposition to the critical, 

 spirit which sprang up in German literature, poetry, and 

 art, and attained its greatest sway during his Jena 

 period. 



When, half a century later, the general interests of 

 literature and science had undergone a great change in 

 the direction of Eealism, when the creative spirit had 

 exhausted itself, we find philosophical thinkers approach- 

 ing once more the problem of knowledge. But this time 

 it is not the belief in an ideal world which strives for 

 philosophical grasp and expression, but rather the new 

 and rapidly growing region of knowledge opened out by 

 the natural sciences and their exact mathematical treat- 

 ment. It is no more the logic of the autonomous, nor 

 that of the creative human mind, but the logic of patient 

 observation and mathematical reasoning that is required ; 

 in fact, the ideas of knowledge have undergone a great 

 change. The exact sciences begin to assume the position 

 of types and models of the most perfect human know- 

 ledge, which the philosophical theory tries to understand, 



