knowledge, which gives so peculiar a romance, not only to the poetry, but
the philosophy of the German people. But if he rejected the
superstitions, he did not also reject the bewilderments of the mind. He
loved to plunge into the dark and metaphysical subtleties which human
genius has called daringly forth from the realities of things:--

"To spin

A shroud of thought, to hide him from the sun

Of this familiar life, which seems to be,

But is not--or is but quaint mockery

Of all we would believe;--or sadly blame

The jarring and inexplicable frame

Of this wrong world: and then anatomize

The purposes and thoughts of man, whose eyes

Were closed in distant years; or widely guess

The issue of the earth's great business,

When we shall be, as we no longer are,

Like babbling gossips, safe, who hear the war