Chapter II

“Nothing in the world wants to go backwards,” an old lizard said to me, “Everything strives forward, and, in the end, a great advancement of nature will occur. Stones will become plants, plants will become animals, animals will become people, and people will become Gods.”

“But,” I cried, “What will become of those good people, of the poor old Gods?”

“That will take care of itself, dear friend,” the lizard answered, “Probably they will abdicate, or be placed into retirement in some honorable way.”

I learned many other secrets from my hieroglyph-skinned Naturphilosoph; but I gave my word to reveal nothing. I now know more than Schelling and Hegel.

“What do you think of these two?” the old lizard asked me with a derisive smile when once I mentioned these names to him.

“If you consider,” I answered, “That they are only people and not lizards, their knowledge must astound you. At bottom, they teach one and the same doctrine, the philosophy of identity, which is well known to you; they differ only in how they present it. When Hegel sets up the basic principles of his philosophy it is like a skillful schoolmaster who knows how to arrange all kinds of numbers artistically to make a lovely figure, which the ordinary observer sees only superficially, as a little house or boat or simply the mosaic formed from those numbers, whereas a thinking schoolboy sees in the figure itself, rather, the solution of a complicated numerical calculation. Schelling's expositions are much more like those Indian animal pictures which are composed of all sorts of other animals, snakes, birds, elephants and other such living ingredients intricately entwined. This manner of presentation is much more charming, bright, pulsating, and warm; everything is alive in it in contrast to the abstract Hegelian ciphers which stare at us in such a cold, grey, and dead manner.”