366 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Schelling. 



who do not penetrate to the fundamental questions. It is 

 the doctrine with which Descartes started and with which 

 Spinoza ended, — the reliance on the certainty afforded by 

 intuition or vision, be this physical or intellectual. 



Still less did Schelling, Fichte's immediate successor 

 and disciple, make any important contribution to what 

 we nowadays call the theory of knowledge ; but he 

 laboured, as did Fichte, at imparting a definite kind of 

 higher knowledge which he believed he possessed, with- 

 out being able in the course of the many phases which 

 his philosophy traversed to satisfy himself that he had 

 found the right and adequate expression. There is no 

 doubt that he saw the task of the philosopher in his 

 age to consist in the formation of a philosophical creed ; 

 but whereas Fichte was essentially a strong character 

 and a man of action who taught and inspired the youth 

 of the nation, Schelling was more of an artist and a poet. 

 Addicted to symbolical expressions and to reasoning by 

 analogies, he possessed a finer insight into the workings 

 of the poetical genius and the mind of the artist. This 

 led to, and was sustained by, his intimacy with Goethe; 

 in fact, he seems to have been the only one among the 

 great philosophers of the idealistic school for whom 

 Goethe preserved a lasting interest and appreciation. 

 Some of his deliverances embody, as it were, a few of 

 Goethe's favourite ideas.'^ Thus he occupied a position 



^ One example instead of many 

 may suffice. It shows the ab- 

 stract form which Schelling gave 

 to such ideas, and his assimilation 

 and appreciation of the latest 

 philosophy in Goethe's poetical 

 creations. It refers, as Kuuo 

 Fischer has pointed out, to Goethe's 



' Faust ' in its earliest rendering. 

 " As in consequence of their 

 common origin, the inner nature 

 of all things must be one, and as 

 this may be seen to be necessary, so 

 likewise this necessity lives in any 

 construction which is founded 

 thereon. Such, therefore, does not 



