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should not exist. But since it exists, the “ idea” goes to work 
to redeem it from its evil This it is that operates everywhere 
as organic force, instinct, as the “ inspiration in man ” the 
founder of societies, &c. It develops on the earth the various 
species of animals in ascending series, to the end that at last 
consciousness may come into being with man. In human 
thought idea is emancipated from the embrace of will and 
consciousness is “the surprise and confusion of the will in view 
or this emancipation” (!). 
In the various consciousnesses of men the original (meta- 
physical, ante-cosmic) will is dispersed and robbed of somewhat 
of its tyrannical power for evil; for the exertion of will is 
followed according to Hartmann, by a preponderance of evil 
(or pain) over good (or pleasure). Hence the benevolent- 
idea (the logical element in the Unconscious) which seeks 
only the good of the world, can only seek by indirect means to 
destroy will, or, in other words, to bring back the world into 
its original nothingness. To this end the race of mankind is 
now progressing in the direction of a more perfect development 
ot consciousness, i.e. to a more complete emancipation of idea 
from will or to the completed ascendancy of reason. When 
this end shall have been attained, it is presumed that the 
universal recognition of the pessimistic results of willing will 
lead to the final act in the drama of the world, the complete 
suppression of will, which is the same thing as annihilation of 
the world. (There is, in Hartmann's opinion, nothing in the 
concrete universe but force. But all force is will. Manifesta- 
tions of force are acts of will. The annihilation of will is 
lerefore, the annihilation of the universe.) Then space, the 
creation of the will of the “ Unconscious,” will be no more • 
time will be no more and not God, but the “ metaphysical 
essence, which inhabiteth eternity,” will be all in all. 
the speculative views of Hartmann (rudis indigest auue 
moles) are in part the result of the attempt to combine in one 
synthesis what is supposed to have been true in the philo- 
sophical systems of predecessors. Hartmann expressly inti- 
mates the belief that he is a truer Hegelian than Hegel himself 
Schelling he reveres, and cites often with approval from his 
earlier works. Schopenhauer he would correct. But the 
positive (negative ?) conception of the Unconscious and its 
speculative application are that on which he founds his special 
claim to originality. This conception he derives partly from 
the observation of well-known and admitted facts, and defends 
and amplifies on the ground of abstract arguments. The facts 
simply show that there is more reason in man and in all the 
