n human
nature; the contradictions lying at their basis, when cleared in thought
from the poetical faculty, are realism and idealism. These also are
sides of human nature, which, when unconnected, bring forth disastrous
results. Their opposition is as old as the beginning of culture, and
till its end can hardly be set aside, save in the individual. The
idealist is a nobler but a far less perfect being; the realist appears
far less noble, but is more perfect, for the noble lies in the proof of a
great capacity, but the perfect in the general attitude of the whole and
in the real facts.

On the whole it may be said, taking a survey of these labors, that if
Schiller had developed his ideas systematically and the unity of his
intuition of the world, which were present in his feelings, and if he had
based them scientifically, a new epoch in philosophy might have been
anticipated. For he had obtained a view of such a future field of
thought with the deep clairvoyance of his genius.

A few words may be desirable on Schiller's religious standpoint,
especially in connection with his philosophical letters.

Schiller came up ten years later than Goethe, and concluded the cyclus of
genius that Goethe had inaugurated. But as he was the last arrival of
that productive period of tempestuous agitation, he retained more of its
elements in his later life and poetry than any others who had passed
through earlier agitations, such as Goethe. For Goethe cast himself free
in a great measure from the early intoxication of his youthful
imagination, devoting himself partly to nobler matter and partly to purer
forms.

Schiller derived from the stormy times of his youth his direction to the
ideal, to the hostility against the narrow spirit of civil relations, and
to all given conditions of society in general. He derived from it his
disposition, not to let himself be moulded by matter, but to place his
own creative and determining impress on matter, not so much to grasp
reality poetically and represent it poetically as to cast ideas into
reality, a disposition for lively representation and strong oratorical
coloring. All this he derived from the genial period, though later on
somewhat modified, and carried it over into his whole life and poetry;
and for this very reason he is not only together with Goethe, but before
Goethe, the favorite poet of the nation, and especially with that part of
the nation which sympathizes with him in the choice of