no one was to blame.

When I began my career, Hegelianism was the foundation of every
thing. It was floating in the air; it was expressed in newspaper
and periodical articles, in historical and judicial lectures, in
novels, in treatises, in art, in sermons, in conversation. The man
who was not acquainted with Hegal had no right to speak. Any one
who desired to understand the truth studied Hegel. Every thing
rested on him. And all at once the forties passed, and there was
nothing left of him. There was not even a hint of him, any more
than if he had never existed. And the most amazing thing of all
was, that Hegelianism did not fall because some one overthrew it or
destroyed it. No! It was the same then as now, but all at once it
appeared that it was of no use whatever to the learned and
cultivated world.

There was a time when the Hegelian wise men triumphantly instructed
the masses; and the crowd, understanding nothing, blindly believed
in every thing, finding confirmation in the fact that it was on
hand; and they believed that what seemed to them muddy and
contradictory there on the heights of philosophy was all as clear as
the day. But that time has gone by. That theory is worn out: a
new theory has presented itself in its stead. The old one has
become useless; and the crowd has looked into the secret sanctuaries
of the high priests, and has seen that there is nothing there, and
that there has been nothing there, save very obscure and senseless
words. This has taken place within my memory.

"But this arises," people of the present science will say, "from the
fact that all that was the raving of the theological and