318 THE AESTHETICS OF 



nowhere bounded, nowhere finished, endless, i. e. incapable 

 of being completed ; that which exists in Time, obeys the 

 laws of change, or the distinct sequence of different con- 

 ditions. Therefore in Time and Space we may not seek 

 That which shall satisfy the longing of our hearts, the truly 

 Existing, Completed ; the only actual world of God is not 

 the Nature which encompasses us. What then if all that 

 intuitively suggests itself to us be but a teazing delirium, 

 an empty, unreal Appearance ? There have, indeed, been 

 people who have come to this strange conclusion, which 

 however, from what we have been discussing seems to have 

 much Appearance on its side. But Appearance is only 

 valid to the man who imperfectly understands himself. 

 For if we seek further, we soon come to the discovery, that 

 Space and Time do not at all belong to the Things them- 

 selves, but only to the Manner and Way in which our limited 

 human capacity comprehends the things, and, so long as we 

 remain Men, will be obliged to comprehend them. Space 

 and Time are, as it were, the coloured spectacles, which we 

 all wear from the cradle to the bier, never able to remove 

 them ; the power even of the most cultivated being useless 

 here. But the truly cultivated can indeed go so far as 

 to see that he does wear spectacles, which do not and 

 cannot show him the things as they actually exist. Now, 

 we then conclude farther : it is still the Kingdom of God 

 which surrounds and harbours us, and only to our humanly 

 limited stand-point, to our dust-blinded eyes, is it to be 

 ascribed, that we, with the Semblance of the greatest truth, 

 that is, with mathematical certainty, perceive this world as 

 though it were estranged from the eternal and holy Author 

 of all things. A cloud- veil, which we cannot lift, renders 

 the intuition of the Divine in Nature , impossible, but a 

 condition will, it must come, where Time and Space, those 



