the absence of practical bearing. I may fairly be
permitted to ask the public prosecutor--and it is a Schelling whose
signature this indictment bears--where he has learned all this. From
his father? Assuredly not. Schelling the elder assigns philosophy no
less serious a task than that of transforming the entire cultural
epoch. "It is conceived to be too much," says he in formulating an
anticipated objection, "to expect that philosophy shall rehabilitate
the times." To this his answer is: "But when _I_ claim to see in
philosophy a means whereby to remedy the confusion of the times, I
have, of course, in mind not an impotent philosophy, not simply a
product of workman-like dexterity, but a forceful philosophy which can
face the facts of life, philosophy which, far from feeling itself
impotent before the stupendous realities of life, far from confining
itself to the dreary business of simple negation and destruction,
draws its force from reality and, therefore, reaches effective and
enduring results."

The public prosecutor, with his brand-new and highly extraordinary
discovery, will scarcely find much comfort with the other men of the
science.

In his Address to the German People, Fichte tells us: "What, then, is
the bearing of our endeavors even in the most recondite of the
sciences? Grant that the proximate end of these endeavors is that of
propagating these sciences from generation to generation, and so
conserving them; but why are they to be conserved? Manifestly only in
order that they in the fulness of time shall serve to shape human life
and the entire scheme of human institutions. This is the ulterior end.
Remotely, therefore, even though it may be in distant ages, every
endeavor of science serves to advance the ends of the State."

Now, Your Honor and Gentlemen of the Court, if I were to spend further
speech in the refutation of this discovery of the public
prosecutor--that impracticability is the test of science--I should be
insulting your intelligence.

In the pamphlet in question my aim was the thoroughly practical one of
bringing my readers to a comprehension of the times in which they
live, and thereby permanently to affect their conduct throughout the
course of their life and in whatever direction their activity may lie.

Now, then, what characteristic of scientific work is it which the
public prosecutor finds wanting in all this? Is it, perhaps, that it
falls short in respect of bulk? Is it the circu