RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Idealism
the basis of the universal validity of certain principles of explanation. Space and time, and the categories of the understanding are subjective, ideal. Taken together they form a mold in which we shape the impressions coming from the transcendent reality. Thus, the principles of science and the laws of nature are universally valid because they are in the subject, not in the object. Knowledge of ultimate reality comes through the practical reason, particularly through the a priori moral law in us. Kant's idea of inner freedom became the inspiration of the creative genius. The phase of German Idealism manifested in the art and poetry of the period has been called esthetic-ethical idealism. The leaders of this artistic movement, who really popularized idealism and made it part of the life of the time, were not intent upon solving the old philosophical problems. For conceptual thought they substituted the creative imagination.
Klopstock and Wieland mark the turning-point toward idealism, though their contemporary, Lessing, was the first representative of 4. Lessing, the movement to liberate himself corn- Herder, pletely from conventional theology and and Others, all that was arbitrary and external in German culture and find in the inner esthetic and ethical development of the mind the ideal to be followed. Idealism in the sense in which the word is here used became even more effective in the work of Herder. His break with the Enlightenment was complete. In his large application of the idealistic method to the interpretation of science, art, and history, he practically reformed all the intellectual sciences. He, too, proceeded from an analysis of the poetic and artistic impulse, and in the creative activity of the mind he found the key to ethics, esthetics, and religion. From this subjective, or idealistic, view-point ne saw the panorama of history as a spiritualistic development. If Lessing's great work was to introduce idealism into esthetics, particularly the esthetics of dramatic poetry, Herder's greatest service to the idealistic cause was his application of idealism, as a method, to the interpretation of history. What Wieland, Lessing, and others had done for poetic art, this Winckelmann did for plastic art. He too found in the conception of the free creative mind the basis of ethics, esthetics, and religion.
The great representatives of the idealistic type of mind in German poetry were Goethe and Schiller. Against the exclusive claims of the 5. Goethe, esthetic view of nature, and a morality Schiller, essentially classical, Goethe emphasized and Others, the moral and religious worth of the individual, thus approaching the rigorous ethical teachings of Kant. Schiller combined the epistemology of Kant with the pantheism of Goethe. With him esthetic values were the chief types of intellectual norms; and his ethics and religion might be regarded as a phase of esthetics. However, the esthetic harmony that he found in the universe reacted on his ethical and religious nature; and, despite his esthetic view-point, he must be classed with Kant and Fichte as one of the great moral teachers of Germany. Schiller's only consistent follower was Wilhelm von Humboldt,
who was instrumental in bringing about the neo- Humanistic reform, on the basis of the new estheticethical culture. Jean Paul was a brilliant representative of the anti-classical type of idealism.
The basis of the esthetic-ethical movement was
Kant's transcendental idealism; but, while Kant
had made the idealistic position secure,
6. Early he had not accounted for the reality of
Views of the world of nature, with all that it Fichte and means to the poet as the expression of
Schelling. some divine purpose. In order to get at the bottom of the matter it was felt that the human consciousness as a starting-point would have to be abandoned and an absolute consciousness posited, from which reality could be deduced in a manner analogous to that employed by Kant for human consciousness. The first to attempt such a comprehensive solution of the problem was Johann Gottlieb Fichte (q.v.). Starting from Kant's idealistic position he endeavored to overcome the dualism involved in Kant's doctrine of a " thing in itself " by bringing this mysterious reality into consciousness. To do this he dropped the Kantian distinction between the practical and the theoretical reason, and conceived of the absolute mind, or ego, as the moral reason. In his view all existence is psychical, and the human mind is only a manifestation of the absolute ego. Thus, the last trace of a transcendent reality is obliterated. The absolute ego has divided itself into a large number of relative egos, and through these it is moving progressively toward its own destiny. The core of reality lies in human personality, in the finite mind, but this is caught up in an endless process of development; and, hence, in order to transcend his own consciousness and explain the progress of history, with reference to the past and the future, the philosopher must look at existence from the point of view of the absolute ego. In this way Fichte developed his subjective idealism, bringing into this scheme of idealistic evolution every phase of human experience. Under his treatment ethics, sociology, esthetics, and religion become a part of the history of the Absolute. The dualism between mind and nature he overcame by dissolving nature in mind. Schelling, starting from the Kant-Fichte point of view, extended the conception of the Absolute to objective nature. His system may be characterized as a sort of spiritualized pantheism. The world is a continuous process from inorganic unconscious nature to organic conscious nature, and then from organic nature back to inorganic nature. While in man the Absolute reaches consciousness, nature remains essentially objective, but not in a materialistic sense, of course. Nature with Schelling is a system of spiritual forces similar to the monads of Leibnitz. Extending to the absolute consciousness the view that in consciousness subject and object are identical, Schelling worked out his so-called Identitdtsphilosophie. The sum total of existence then becomes the Absolute as perceived by itself. Naturally all distinctions and qualities, which are created by a finite relational consciousness, disappear in this self-contemplation of the Absolute by itself, and existence becomes neutral. If Fichte had interpreted existence ethically, Schel-
Idealism