468 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



and by the earlier lectures of Fichte was gradually 

 being relaxed, thus rendering philosophy unfit to be 

 a training school for the youthful minds of the nation. 

 This suspicion that the philosophy of romanticism con- 

 tained dangerous elements which would unfit it to be a 

 definite subject of University teaching, was significantly 

 confirmed by Schelling's subsequent career when, for 

 various reasons, he ceased to give regular courses of 

 lectures, confining his utterances to casual discourses and 

 dissertations ; which, however, rose to great distinction 

 and had a deserved influence on thought in very wide 

 circles. Inter alia, it may be noted that in the year 

 in which Hegel's ' Phenomenology ' appeared, Schelling 

 delivered his celebrated address at Munich " On the 

 relation of the fine arts to nature." ^ 



^ See supra, p. 42, note 2. 

 Through the labours of Kuno 

 Fischer and Windelband as con- 

 tained in the Works frequently 

 referred to, and to a large extent 

 also through the appearance in 

 1905 of W. Dilthey's 'Jugendge- 

 schichte Kegels,' a new and altered 

 view has been gained of the histori- 

 cal succession of the idealistic 

 systems of German philosophy. 

 Earlier historians, both those who 

 looked upon Hegel's System as the 

 last word of idealism and those 

 others who, like Zeller and Ueber- 

 weg, had thrown olF the traditions 

 of Idealism and given entry to the 

 spirit of exact research, were in the 

 habit of representing Hegel as a 

 follower of Schelling and his philo- 

 sophy as the last act in the 

 speculative drama in which Kant 

 represented the first act. This 

 view was also introduced and ac- 

 cepted in this country through the 

 earlier writers, beginning with J. 

 H. Stirling, who introduced Hegel 



to English students. The result 

 has been that the philosophies of 

 Fichte and Schelling have never 

 received adequate attention in this 

 country. It is now quite evident 

 that Hegel's philosophy stands in 

 as immediate a connection with 

 Fichte, and through him with Kant, 

 as that of Schelling. A close 

 friendship existed between Schel- 

 ling and Hegel, both having received 

 at Tubingen the same training 

 within the same intellectual sur- 

 roundings ; both studied Fichte's 

 philosophy and were, for a time, 

 fascinated by it ; both experienced 

 the necessity of transcending the 

 subjectivism of Fichte's earlier 

 speculation — as indeed Fichte did 

 himself. But the courses they took 

 were very different, and of the three 

 courses that of Hegel was the most 

 independent, the most thorough, 

 hence also the latest to reveal 

 itself. Schelling's was the earliest, 

 his mind was the most receptive 

 and, though not the least original. 



