The Star in the West

THE NEW WINE 237 thought , thinking at appointed hours according to appointed books . FICHTE , SCHELLING , AND HEGEL Close on the heels of Kant came Fichte with his un knowable appulse as the only potency of the not -self, which assuaged the raging thirst of inquiry as would a bottle of wine long since dry. Behind him Schelling , who leaping into the clouds , grasped at object and subject as existing actualities , calling the bastard child ren of his brain manifestations of the Absolute . Then Hegel who , instead of sitting out on the universal stairs with Berkeley's “ Bishop ," waltzed wildly with some ethereal Absolute , which , whether object or sub ject , was in no case existence , merely the skeleton of some phantom appearance , having no life in itself , but solely in the absolute mirror of its reflection . Each of these Titans , in his own manner , threw fresh fuel on to the Berkeleyan conflagration , so hoping that , by piling up the blazing mass , they might illumine the entire universe . And how they failed the last five decades have only too directly shown , by their stag nation in the realms of a certain and unknowable Absolute ; and in the parasitic growths of Scientific Agnosticism , Scientific Positivism , Scientific Monism , and the general overwhelming materialization of pre sent - day thought . Yet the self per se remains just as unknowable in a positive degree , as it would have , had all the ages forever held their peace . Neverthe less the arguments which they set forth , ideal or material , have in their frantic efforts to support it, forced the whole gigantic structure to the ground . o