Influence of Science Upon German Literature. 
59 
ment, in Voltaire and Rousseau. It is seen in Germany in the re- 
lation of the so-called school and popular philosophy to the emotional 
philosophy and passes into the literary contrast between the conven- 
tional and the unconventional writers. Note the writers of the storm 
and stress period -and those of the early romantic period. 
Kant was the man to carry out the rational feature of the leading 
thinkers of the age of enlightenment to their logical conclusions, to 
raise life from its stupid indifference to conscious clearness and sig- 
nificance, but the deep earnestness and great fidelity of his character 
showed him the boundaries between rational and irrational reality. 
Thus his life work was critical philosophy. He settled the boundaries 
of the rational value in the world and life, of the rational and irra- 
tional. He established the critical laws of the transcendental method 
and made reasoning a mathematical problem. 
His critique left no basis for a scientific establishment of religion. 
The moral consciousness was not sufficient to solve this problem sci- 
entifically. Kant was quite conscious that the religious life possessed 
a transcendental element which surpassed all reality of the theoretical 
reasoning and of the practical, rational life. The essence of religious 
conviction consists in observing the moral law. The consciousness 
of the individual forms the basis of the Kantian critique, the mature 
consciousness of a highly developed culture. 
Upon this relation rests the central position of Kant in the his- 
tory of modern philosophy. In his contemplation, which was just as 
broad and comprehensive as it was profound and impressive, appear 
the features of the unusually rich, intellectual movements of the 
eighteenth century, which unite to form a completely modern philoso- 
phy, the so-called critical philosophy, and the sum of which we call 
German idealism. 
The age of enlightenment had proclaimed the self-glorification of 
the individual and Fichte found in the spread of modern poetry and 
philosophy the beginning of rationalism. He was and remained real- 
ly the leader of the intellectual movement, who with full conscious- 
ness, as Schiller from the aesthetic side, expected from science and 
poetry the introduction to a higher and better condition of society. 
This principle was energetically developed among the poets and 
the aesthetic life produced the richest fruit of reason. The most 
worthy part of the romantic movement was that it showed the inti- 
mate relationship of poetry and actual life, the deep conviction which 
sought in the depths of reality the pulse-beat of the popular heart. 
The education of the individual was the foremost thought of the lead- 
ers of the day. A rich and mature personal life was wrought with full 
^ msciousness out of the intellectual community-life of man, and, in- 
