An inexorable development of thought, then, brings it about that the philosophy of the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, either advances to a supra-ethical world-view, or finds itself living in an ethical ruin. What happens in the great German speculative philosophy of the beginning of the nineteenth century is a prelude to the _dénouement_ of the drama. In that philosophy an ethical world-view tries to find itself a foundation in speculative nature-philosophy, and in doing so becomes, as stands confessed in Hegel, supra-ethical. Later, ethics believe themselves capable of providing a “scientific” conception of themselves, thanks to the results reached by psychology, biology, and sociology, but in proportion as they effect this, their energy decreases. Later still, when through the growth of science and the inward changes in thought a nature-philosophy which is in harmony with scientific observation of nature becomes the only possible philosophy, ethics have once more to make a real attempt to found themselves in a nature-philosophy which is directed upon the universe. There is nothing, however, but the enhancement and perfecting of life which nature-philosophy can give as the meaning of life. Hence ethics must struggle to conceive the enhancement and perfecting of life as something which comes to pass within the field of ethical ideas, and it is this that the most modern thought is striving for, on lines of development which are often apparently irreconcilable, without ever attaining its goal. Whenever ethics really rely in any way upon nature-philosophy for the production of the convincing, ethical world-view which the age is longing for, they get wrecked [pg 203] upon it in one way or another. Either they actually attempt to give themselves out to be somehow a natural enhancement of life and thereby so alter their character that they cease to be really and truly ethics. Or they abdicate; perhaps, as with Keyserling, leaving the field free to supra-ethical world-view, perhaps, as with Bergson, leaving nature-philosophy and ethical questions with it, to rest in peace. Thus the sun of ethics becomes darkened for our generation, nature-philosophy pushing forward like a wall of cloud. Just as an inundation overwhelms pastures and fields with its water-borne _débris_, so do the supra-ethical and the unethical ways of thinking break in upon our mentality. They bring about the most terrible devastations without anyone having any clear idea of what the catastrophe means, or indeed being conscious of anything wrong beyond that the spirit of the time is rendering all ethical standards powerless.