Page:The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892).djvu/197

Rh everywhere the mark of his friendships; they are the work of a restless and artistic soul, who loved the universe with a sort of tender passion, and whose philosophy is, even in its most technical subtleties, as much the confession of a fiery heart as it is the outcome of a brilliant imagination and a wonderfully skillful wit. I have preferred rather to discuss the philosophy of the romantic school under this name than to confine my title or my survey to Schelling, the representative philosopher of the little group, because it is here the movement that expresses itself in the man, not the man who masters the movement. Schelling was himself, always, even as philosopher, a creature of the moment. His moments were indeed often very great ones and might need each a whole volume to express itself. But Schelling is not, like Kant, a systematic and long-plotting thinker; nor yet, like Fichte, a man who, after many adventures, is completely overwhelmed and thenceforth possessed by a single idea. No, Schelling possesses directly the wavering passion of his romantic friends. His kaleidoscopic philosophy, which changed form with each new essay that he published, was like their whole scheme of life and of art. Trust your genius; follow your noble heart; change your doctrine whenever your heart changes, and change your heart often. Such is the practical creed of the romanticists. The world, you see, is after all the world of the inner life. Kant cut us off from things in themselves; Fichte showed us that it is the I, the self, that makes the world. Let us accept this lesson. The world is essentially what men of genius make it. Let us be men of genius, and make what we choose. We shall then be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Herein, as you see, lies at once the great difference between the romantic school and Fichte. Fichte had said: The world is the world as self-consciousness builds it; but the essence of self-consciousness is the moral will, the