ABSTRACT
ARE the two trends which we have so far considered—the romantic flight from reality into pure spirituality, and the subordination of man in the name of heroism to a reality which excludes the spiritual—disastrous only if they remain single and isolated? Do they become fruitful if we consider them in a wider context, as opposite tendencies which influence each other and which, by their very opposition, make each other productive? Are they opposites which further the development of mankind by making possible new and more adequate orientations towards life than the former beliefs? The philosophy of Hegel, which is so influential in the first half of the 19th century, would appear to make such an interpretation possible, for he discovers in dialectics a law which seems to reconcile the opposites and to transform them into a principle from which a higher unity can spring. 1
