Roused by Chamberlain, Hermann Keyserling goes in the aims of his thinking far beyond Bergson. He wants to reach clear ideas not only about knowledge of the world, but also about life and work in the world. From the pinnacle, however, to which he mounts, he sees only the field of wisdom; that of ethics is veiled in mist. The highest idea, so he declares at the conclusion of his work _The Structure of the World_, is that of truth. We want to know, because knowledge, “whether it visibly serves life at present or not, already implies in itself a purposive reaction to the outer world.” In correct knowledge the [pg 200] human spirit enters into reciprocal relations with the universe. Life carries within itself its own purposive character. Keyserling finds it quite in order that the world-view of great men should be superior to ordinary moral standards. One must not reproach Leonardo da Vinci for working as willingly in the service of the French king, Francis I., as he had done previously in that of the Sforzas whom Francis expelled. “Almost every great spirit is a complete egoist.” If any one has experience of life in its full extent and depth and living force, and works in reciprocity with the universe, interest in the human race is for him a kind of specialization which is no longer incumbent on him. In the Preface to the second edition of _The Structure of the World_ (1920), Keyserling admits that he has not reached a decision about the ethical problem. In his _Philosophy as Art_ (1920), he declares it to be the foremost duty of our time to “make the wise man a possible type, to draw him out by education, and give him all necessary publicity and scope for his activities.” The wise man is the one man who is capable of veracity, the man who lets all the tones of life sound in him, and seeks to be in tune with the fundamental bass-note which is given in him. He has no universally valid world-view to impart to others. He has not even for himself one that is definite and final; he has only one which is liable to constant alteration for the better. He himself is unalterable only in this, that he wants to live his life in its entirety and in the most vital co-operation with the Universe, and at the same time ever strives to be himself. Veracious and emphatic life-affirmation is therefore the last word of this philosophizing about the world and life. . . . Thus does nature-philosophy admit that it cannot produce an ethic.