Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/560

550 universally intelligible is the primary aim of every true philosophy—an aim which, though often missed, ought yet never to be lost sight of, and ought to be the ruling and guiding principle of every system. This does not imply that works of speculative thought are chiefly to be weighed in the critic's scales as mere exercises of style; but it does imply that a philosophy whose contents cannot be made intelligible to every well-educated people, and expressed in every cultivated language, cannot be the true and universal philosophy." Such were Schelling's words in 1834, in passing sentence on the speculations generally of his countrymen. Their severity is not greater than their truth. Would that Schelling and his compeers had profited more largely by the advice! Since Schelling's death in 1854 a complete edition of his writings has been published by his son. It is comprised in fourteen volumes, and contains many works now printed for the first time. Of these the principal are 'Historico-critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology;' 'The Philosophy of Mythology;' 'The Philosophy of Revelation.' This vast theosophic system fills four large volumes.

In each of the four periods during which Schelling poured forth so many publications, his philosophy assumed a different phasis or aspect. It is not possible, within the limits of this sketch, to give any account of even the simplest of these varying and incomplete manifestations. The last and posthumous form in which the system has appeared, and in which