444 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



mankind, those who are termed philosophers par excel- 

 lence, the paramount question would be : What is the 

 essential reality of the moral life of man and mankind ? 

 and what is its relation to the physical world ? No 

 doubt either of the two types of thinkers would in due 

 course be led to the consideration of the other or opposite 

 reality ; the natural philosopher would have to ascend 

 from matter to mind or to penetrate from the outer to the 

 inner phenomena ; the moral philosopher would try to 

 gain an understanding of the outer world, of the environ- 

 ment upon which the development of mind and character 

 depends. But there is a third position possible, a point 

 of view suggests itself which, if attainable, would tran- 

 scend or supersede equally the two aspects just mentioned. 

 It is a view which has naturally suggested itself at all 

 times to youthful and ardent minds when first confronted 

 with the problem of reality. It is the attempt to assume 

 at once that the two realities are essentially one, that 

 they have, as Fichte says, a common root. This finds 

 confirmation in the fact that, in the higher spheres of 

 mental activity, notably in poetry, art, and religion, this 

 higher unity is presupposed, and that the greatest work 

 in these regions emanates from a belief in it. 



To those of my readers who have realised the import- 

 ance which the Ideal of Humanity, in an elevated sense of 

 the word, had acquired in German culture at the end of 

 the eighteenth century, how it was upheld and repre- 

 sented at Weimar and Jena by leaders of thought such 

 as Herder, Goethe, and Schiller, and how from there, as 

 a centre, a new spirit and a new life spread all over 

 Germany, it will not be surprising that, of the three 



