Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Phenomenology of Spirit, Preface, paragraph 14

Science at its commencement, which thus has been brought neither to detailed completeness nor to perfection of form, is exposed to blame on that account. But it would be as unjust to suppose this blame to attach to its essence as it is inadmissible not to recognize the demand for that further development in fuller detail. This opposition appears to be the major knot that scientific development [Bildung] at present struggles to loosen, and which it does not yet entirely understand. One side parades the wealth of its material and its intelligibility; the other pours contempt on the latter at least, and makes a parade of immediate rationality and divinity. Although the first is reduced to silence, either by the force of truth alone or by the noisy bluster of the other side, and feels itself overwhelmed with regard to the reason of the matter, yet it does not therefore feel satisfied as regards those demands for greater development; for those demands are just, but still unfulfilled. Its silence is only half due to the victory of the other side; it is half due to that weariness and indifference which usually follow when expectations are constantly being awakened by promises which are not followed up by performance.

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