OF KNOWLEDGE. 



367 



47. 

 Want of 



to the philosophical problem of the age entirely unlike 



that of his master, from whom he separated when it 



became evident that the philosophy of the latter had 



but little love of nature. 



One of the reasons which prevented the great thinkers 



with whom I am now dealing from contributing anything criticism 



° o J a anfi exact- 



appreciable, beyond occasional brilliant suggestions, to a °*^^^- 



truly scientific theory of knowledge, was that they pos- 

 sessed neither the critical spirit of Kant nor the sceptical 

 spirit of Hume, and that they had not, what Kant pos- 

 sessed, a personal acquaintance with what we now call 

 exact or mathematical knowledge. One of the prevalent 

 notes of their teaching was indeed the endeavour to coun- 

 teract the scepticism of Hume and Voltaire, and the 

 sceptical consequences of Kant's criticism ; and further, 



require to be confirmed by experi- 

 ence, but is sutticient of itself, and 

 can be continued beyond the limits 

 which experience cannot transcend, 

 as, for instance, into the innermost 

 mechanism of organic life and of 

 universal motion. Fate does not 

 exist only for action ; Knowledge 

 also is confronted by the essence of 

 the totality of nature as an un- 

 conditional necessity ; and if, ac- 

 cording to the dictum of an ancient 

 thinker, the strong man in conflict 

 with circumstances is a drama 

 on which even the gods look 

 with pleasure, so likewise the 

 struggle of the mind for a sight of 

 the real nature and the eternal 

 essence of the phenomenal is a not 

 less inspiring spectacle. As in the 

 tragedy, the conflict is not solved 

 by the downfall of either necessity 

 or freedom, but only through 

 elevating each to a complete equal- 

 ity with the other ; so also the 

 mind can only step victoriously out 



of its conflict with nature in so far 

 as nature becomes identical with 

 mind and transfigured in the ideal. 

 To this conflict, which arises 

 through an unsatisfied longing for 

 a knowledge of things, the poet has 

 attached his creations in the most 

 characteristic poem of Gei'manj', 

 and opened an ever fresh source of 

 enthusiasm which alone was suffi- 

 cient to rejuvenate science in this 

 age, and to throw over it the 

 breath of a new life. Whoever 

 desires to penetrate into the sacred 

 interior of nature may nourish 

 himself with these tunes out of a 

 higher world, and imbibe in early 

 youth the power which emanates, 

 as it were, in solid rays of light 

 from this poem and moves the 

 innermost centre of the world " 

 (Schelling, 'Werke,' sec. i., vol. v. 

 p. 325, &c. ; Kuno Fischer, ' Ge- 

 schichte der Neueren Philosophie,' 

 vol. vi. (1872) p. 836). 



