SOURCE: "The Year 1800 in the Development of German Idealism," in The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. I, No. 4, June, 1948, pp. 1-31.

In the excerpt that follows, Kroner recounts the history of German Idealism, focusing "on the year 1800 in which the period of Kant and Fichte waned and the period of Schelling and Hegel began."

I

The general import of the year 1800 as the turning point in the development of German Idealism

1. Introduction

The year 1800 was a fateful year in the philosophical movement which we are wont to call "German Idealism." "O'er what place does the moon hang to your eye, my dearest Sara? To me, it hangs over the left bank of the Elbe . . ."¹ Coleridge wrote to his wife on September 19 in 1798. His famous visit to Germany in this and the following year has not only a biographical but also a general historical significance. Coleridge and through him the...