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406 CEITICAL NOTICES: testing it and trying it on every side, have failed to shake its hold upon the mind. To criticise Hoffding in his judgment of Kant would be a difficult task, and would lead us far beyond the limits of a review. Indeed w^e are, for our part, more disposed to admire than to find fault with one whose sane and balanced judgment appreciates alike the weakness and the strength of a writer to the study of whom he must have devoted a large portion of his life-work. Proceeding from Kant to the Eomanticists, we read that the spirit in which Kant's philosophy was extended in Germany was equally determined by the objections of its opponents and the attempts at its rectification made by its disciples. It seemed to lack totality. What prevented Kant from completing his philo- sophy was his assumption of a thing per se which led to contradictions. This is connected with his untenable distinction of the form and matter of knowledge. The cry arose abandon this assumption ! Then philosophy can be consistently carried out on the basis of Kant's thought of the essence of mind as Synthesis. Young thinkers grew enthusiastic over the prospect thus opened up. All externality, isolation, dividedness of spiritual life would disappear. If the unity of all things could be thus shown ; if all living forms could be treated as grades, or phases, through which one and the same Infinite Life extended; not only the life of the individual man, but that of the race in history, and even the life of Nature, could be reconsidered, and presented in a new and satisfactory light. The lines which separate science, religion and art would disappear, and all the discords of the soul would be harmonised or abolished. Such an ideal of cognition, however, says Hoffding, may well be called romantic. "With this preface he ushers in his treatment of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc. It will serve to give our readers an idea of the way in which he regards them. The history of these romantic systems only makes him turn once more to their great source the philosophy of Kant. Positivism comes next to be considered. This and Romanticism form the lines of speculation characteristic of the nineteenth century. Hoffding's account of their relative aims and methods is interesting and instructive. Romanticism and Positivism, the one starting from the ideal, the other from the actually given, seem to be the anti- theses of one another. Their standpoints are opposed. Yet both are derived from the same interest, and have the same pre- supposition. The one as well as the other strives to apprehend actuality, only that Romanticism thinks it can grasp this subjectively, while Positivism prefers to build on objective facts. Their common presupposition is that any ideal which stands outside the sphere of actuality is false. In both the idea of evolution is dominant. Both take a deep interest in tracing the continuity of history. The attempt to reach a profounder under- standing of the past and of the conditions under which spiritual life is developed forms an essential part in the problem of both.