Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/415

Rh S C H S C H 393 an unsolved problem which receives satisfaction only in the prac- tical, the individualizing activity. The practical, again, taken in conjunction with the theoretical, forces on the question of the reconciliation between the free conscious organization of thought and the apparently necessitated and unconscious mechanism of the objective world. In the notion of a teleological connexion and in that which for spirit is its subjective expression, viz., art and genius, the subjective and objective find their point of union. (2) Nature and spirit, Naturphilosophie and Transcendcntalphilo- sophie, thus stand as two relatively complete, but complementary parts of the whole. It was impossible for Schelliug, the animating principle of whose thought was ever the reconciliation of differences, not to take and to take speedily the step towards the conception of the uniting basis of which nature and spirit are manifestations, forms, or consequences. For this common basis, however, he did not succeed at first in finding any other than the merely negative expression of indifference. The identity, the absolute, which underlay all difference, all the relative, is to be characterized simply as neutrum, as absolute undifferentiated self-equivalence. It lay in the very nature of this thought that Spinoza should now offer himself to Schelling as the thinker whose form of presentation came nearest to his new problem. The Darstellung meines Systems, aud the more expanded and more careful treatment contained in the lectures on System der gesammten Philosophic und der Natur- philosophie inslesondere given in "Wurzburg, 1804 (published only in the Sdmmtliche IVerke, vol. vi. p. 131-576), are thoroughly Spinozistic in form, and to a large extent in substance. They are not without value, indeed, as extended commentary on Spinoza. With all his efforts, Schelling does not succeed in bringing his conceptions of nature and spirit into any vital connexion with the primal identity, the absolute indifference of reason. No true solution could be achieved by resort to the mere absence of distinguishing, differencing feature. The absolute was left with no other function than that of removing all the differences on which thought turns. The criticisms of Fichte, and more particularly of Hegel (in the " Vorrede " to the Phanomenologie des Geistes), point to the fatal defect in the conception of the absolute as mere featureless identity. (3) Along two distinct lines Schelling is to be found in all his later writings striving to amend the conception, to which he re- mained true, of absolute reason as the ultimate ground of reality. It was necessary, in the first place, to give to this absolute a char- acter, to make of it something more than empty sameness ; it was necessary, in the second place, to clear up in some way the relation in which the actuality or apparent actuality of nature and spirit stood to the ultimate real. Schelling had already (in the System der ges. Phil. ) begun to endeavour after an amalgamation of the Spinozistic conception of substance with the Platonic view of an ideal realm, and to find therein the means of enriching the bare- ness of absolute reason. In Bruno, and in Philos. u. Religion, the same thought finds expression. In the realm of ideas the abso- lute finds itself, has its own nature over against itself as objective over against subjective, and thus is in the way of overcoming its abstractness, of becoming concrete. This conception of a differ- ence, of an internal structure in the absolute, finds other and not less obscure expressions in the mystical contributions of the Menschliche Freiheit and in the scholastic speculations of the Berlin lectures on mythology. At the same time it connects itself with the second problem, how to attain in conjunction with the abstractly rational character of the absolute an explanation of actuality. Things, nature and spirit, have an actual being. They exist not merely as logical consequence or development of the absolute, but have a stubbornness of being in them, an antagonistic feature which in all times philosophers have been driven to recog- nize, and which they have described in varied fashion. The actu- ality of things is a defection from the absolute, and their existence compels a reconsideration of our conception of God. There must be recognized in God as a completed actuality, a dim, obscure ground or basis, which can only be described as not yet being, but as con- taining in itself the impulse to externalization, to existence. It is through this ground of Being in God Himself that we must find explanation of that independence which things assert over against God. And it is easy to see how from this position Schelling was led on to the further statements that not in the rational conception of God is an explanation of existence to be found, nay, that all rational conception extends but to the form, and touches not the real, that God is to be conceived as act, as will, as something over and above the rational conception of the divine. Hence the stress laid on will as the realizing factor, in opposition to thought, a view through which Schelling connects himself with Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, and on the ground of which he has been recognized by the latter as the reconciler of idealism and realism. Finally, then, there emerges the opposition of negative, i. e., merely rational philosophy, and positive, of which the content is the real evolution of the divine as it has taken place in fact and in history and as it is recorded in the varied mythologies and religions of man- kind. Not much satisfaction can be felt with the exposition of either as it appears in the volumes of Berlin lectures. Schelling's works were collected and published by his sons, in 14 vols., 1856-61. For the life good materials are to be found in the three vols., Avs Schelling's Lebcn in Brief en, 1869-70, in which a biographic sketch of the philosopher's early life is given by his son, and in Waitz, Karoline, 2 vols., 1871 An interesting little work is Klaiber, Holderlin, Hegel, u. Schelling in iliren Schwdbischen Jugend- jahren, 1877. The biography in Kuno Fischer's volume is complete and admir- able. Apart from the expositions in the larger histories of modern philosophy, in Michelet, Erdmann, Willm, and Kuno Fischer, and in Haym's Romantische Schule, valuable studies are Rosenkranz, Schelling, 1843; Noack, Schelling und die Philosophie der Romantik, 2 vols., 1859; Frantz, Schelling' s positive Philosophie, 3 vols., 1879-80; Watson, Schelling' s Transcendental Idealism, 1882. (B. AD.) SCHEMNITZ (Hung. Selmeczbdnya a mining town iu the Cis-Danubian county of Hont, Hungary, lies about 65 miles north from Budapest, in 48 27' N. lat., 18 52' E. long., on an elevated site, 2300 feet above the level of the sea. Its institutions include a Koman Catholic and a Protestant gymnasium, a Mgh school for girls, a court of justice, a hospital, and several benevolent and scientific societies. Schemnitz owes its chief importance to the fact of its being the mining centre of the kingdom. Con- nected with this local industry are important Government institutions, such as various mining superintendencies, a chemical analytical laboratory, and an excellent academy of mining and forestry (with a meteorological observa- tory and a remarkable collection of minerals), attended by pupils from all countries of Europe and also from America. The mines are chiefly the property of the state and the corporation ; the average yield annually is gold, 232 Eb; silver, 45,000 Bb; lead, 11,600 cwt.; copper, 180 cwt. Iron, arsenic, &c., to the value of about 150,000 are also produced. There are also flourishing potteries where well-known tobacco pipes are manufactured. With Schemnitz is conjoined the town of Belabanya ; their united population in 1884 was 15,265, chiefly Slovaks, of whom nearly 3000 were engaged in mining. Schemnitz, which was already noted for its mines in the time of the Romans, has played considerable part in the history of Hungary. The archives of the town contain many interesting documents. After the Tartar invasion in the 12th century it was colonized by Germans, but had become quite Slavonized before the academy of mining was founded by Maria Theresa (1760). The school of forestry was added in 1809. The corporation is wealthy, having received special commercial privileges from the crown in considera- tion of pecuniary aid afforded in times of emergency. SCHENECTADY, a city of the United States, county seat of Schenectady county, New York, in the valley of the Mohawk river, 1 7 miles by rail north-west of Albany, with which it is also connected by the Erie Canal. It is best known as the seat of Union College, an institution founded in 1795 by a union of several religious sects, and now possessed of large endowments, extensive buildings, and a valuable library, and along with the Albany medical and law schools, &c., forming the Union University. Besides manufacturing locomotives, iron bridges, and agricultural implements, Schenectady has shawl, hosiery, carriage, and varnish factories. The population was 9579 in 1860, 11,026 in 1870, and 13,655 in 1880. Occupying the site of one of the council grounds of the Mohawks, Schenectady was chosen as a Dutch trading post in 1620, was chartered in 1684, and became a borough in 1765 and a city in 1798. In 1691 it was burned by the French and Indians, and sixty-three of its inhabitants massacred. SCHETKY, JOHN ALEXANDEB (1785-1824), a younger brother of J. C. Schetky (see below), studied medicine in Edinburgh university and drawing in the Trustees' Academy. As a military surgeon he served with distinc- tion under Lord Beresford in Portugal. He contributed excellent works to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and of the Water-Colour Society, and executed some of the illustrations in Sir W. Scott's Provincial Antiquities. He died at Cape Coast Castle, 5th September 1824, when preparing to follow Mungo Park's route of exploration. SCHETKY, JOHN CHRISTIAN (1778-1874), marine painter, descended from an old Transylvanian family, was born in Edinburgh on the llth of August 1778. He studied art under Alexander Nasmyth, and after having XXI. 50