philosophy at Jena when the Schlegel brothers made their home there
in 1796, and that it was while there that he published his _Doctrine
of Science_, the charter of independence of the Romantic School,
announcing the annihilation of physical values, proclaiming the soul
as above things perceived, the inner spirit as that alembic in which
all objects are produced. With almost insolent freshness Fichte
asserted a re-valuation of all values: what had been "enlightenment"
was now to be called shallowness; "ancient crudities" were to be
reverenced as deeper perceptions of truth; "fine literature" was to be
accounted a frivolous thing. Fichte made a stirring appeal to young
men, especially, as being alone able to perceive the meaning of
science and poetry.

To take part in the contagion of these ideas, there settled in Jena in
1796 the two phenomenal Schlegel brothers. It is not easy or necessary
to separate, at this period, the activities of their agile minds. From
their early days, as sons in a most respectable Lutheran parsonage in
North Germany, both had shown enormous hunger for cultural
information, both had been voracious in exploiting the great libraries
within their reach. It is generally asserted that they were lacking in
essential virility and stamina; as to the brilliancy of their
acquisitions, their fineness of appreciation, and their wit, there can
be no question whatever. Madame de Staël called them "the fathers of
modern criticism," a title which has not been challenged by the best
authorities of our time.

Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829), the younger of the two, is counted
to be the keener and more original mind. He had a restless and
unsettled youth, mostly spent in studies; after various
disappointments, he determined to make classical antiquity his