the doctrinaire in his destructive analysis of that which
is given, so, also, he hopes to play the dictator by overturning existing
institutions and establishing a new order of things,--only his courageous
endeavor flags as soon in the region of practice as in that of theory.

The German lacks the happy faculty, which distinguishes the two nations
just discussed, of isolating a problem near at hand, and he is accustomed
to begin his system with Leda's egg; but, by way of compensation, he
combines the lofty flight of the French with the phlegmatic endurance of
the English, _i.e._, he seeks his principles far above experience, but,
instead of stopping with the establishment of points of view or when he
has set the note, he carries his principles through in detail with loving
industry and comprehensive architectonic skill. While common sense turns
the scale with the English and analytical thought with the French, the
German allows the fancy and the heart to take an important part in the
discussion, though in such a way that the several faculties work together
and in harmony. While in France rationalism, mysticism, and the philosophy
of the heart were divided among different thinkers (Descartes, Malebranche
and Pascal, Rousseau), there is in every German philosopher something of
all three. The skeptical Kant provides a refuge for the postulates of
thought in the sanctuary of faith; the earnest, energetic Fichte, toward
the end of his life, takes his place among the mystics; Schelling thinks
with the fancy and dreams with the understanding; and under the broad cloak
of the Hegelian dialectic method, beside the reflection of the Critique of
Reason and of the Science of Knowledge, the fancies of the Philosophy of
Nature, the deep inwardness of Boehme, even the whole wealth of empirical
fact, found a place. As synthesis is predominant in his view of things, so
a harmonizing, conciliatory tendency asserts itself in his relations to his
predecessors: the results of previous philosophers are neither discarded
out of hand nor accepted in the mass, but all that appears in any way
useful or akin to the new system is wrought in at its proper place, though
often with considerable transformation. In this work of mediation there is
considerable loss in definiteness, the just and comprehensive consideration
of the most diverse interests not always making good the loss. And since
such a philosophy, as we have already shown, engages the whole