OF REALITY. 



459 



centres in the idea of the eternal substance, Schelling 

 conceived the Absolute after the fashion of Fichte, not 

 as a substance but as a process, as activity ; an idea 

 which has also been revived in many shades in quite 

 recent speculation. Schelling's idea of the process of 

 the Self-realisation of the Absolute is, however, more 

 akin to that of Leibniz, who introduced into philosophy 

 the ideas of development and continuity. We may 

 therefore say that Schelling's philosophy was much more 

 a reconciliation of Spinoza's and Leibniz's views than 

 a development of the critical philosophy of Kant, or the 

 ethical of Fichte. From Leibniz, Schelling also inherited 

 the tendency which is inevitably connected with the 

 idea of continuity, that of reducing qualitative differences 

 to those of quantity ; the latter having the property of 

 a continuous flow, a gradual and imperceptible transition 

 from one to another. 



The correct and valuable ideas which underlie 

 Schelling's earliest philosophy are twofold. They have 

 asserted themselves in recent times in a more definite 

 form, having become divested of that admixture of the 

 fanciful element by which they attracted, and also 

 misled, many of Schelling's contemporaries. And I may 

 here remark that it is hardly correct to speak of 

 disciples of Schelling, inasmuch as he began to publish 

 his ideas when quite young and only put into language 

 conceptions which were at the time common to many, 

 though in a much less developed form.-^ Of the two 



^ In many passages of his His- 

 tory Kuiio Fischer has pointed to 

 the fundamental difference which 

 separates the philosophical attitude 



both of Fichte and Schelling from 

 that of Kant before, and of Hegel 

 after. The two former philosophies 

 represent a continual unsatisfied 



