This conception of truth determines also the nature of the effort to attain truth. The task cannot be to subordinate one side of life to the other, and to derive one side as far as possible from the other; that is, to transform the given condition of life as far as possible into free activity, or to adapt activity to the given condition in such a way that activity is merged into it; but the task is one of pressing forward to a transcendent active whole which unites the two sides, and develops them both; and in mutual relation gives to activity a content and to the given condition a soul. We have seen how a movement to attain such a unity runs through history and extends into the soul of the individual. That life is in general able to unify and raise itself is the presupposition of all striving after truth: the proof of this, however, is to be found in the actual furtherance of life, in the new contents which are thus obtained. Such a way of regarding truth, that is, as an upward endeavour of life to its own unity, a unity not forced upon it but immanent, exhibits its unique nature especially in its opposition to the intellectualistic conception of truth, which, notwithstanding that it has been rejected and attacked so often, still continues to assert a mighty power. According to the intellectualist, cognition should treat the problem and solve it of its own capacity; it seems that the synthesis that is sought must be found in the first place in the realm of thought, and thence imparted to the rest of life. As a fact, however, knowledge itself is affected with particular severity by the division of free activity and fixed given condition; and from its own capacity thought cannot attain to a state of full creative activity which alone is able to overcome the division, but for the attainment of this is referred to an advance of life as a whole which alone can reach an essentially new position. To be sure, cognition has particular fundamental logical principles which regulate all its work. But to regulate and to produce are two different things. The most scrupulous adherence to these principles does not lead beyond reflection to an inner relation to the object, to an inner transcendence, a penetration, and an appropriation of the object; it leaves us still in the position of simply attempting to know, in a state of mere reflection and search. All real knowledge involves a spiritual creation, an advance, and a self-formation of life as a whole. The chief epochs of culture have therefore given a distinctly unique character to the inner nature and the fundamental texture of knowledge; the character given to it by one epoch being entirely different from that given to it by another. Modern knowledge does not differ from earlier knowledge only in a quantitative way: as soon as its connection with the chief synthesis characteristic of modern life is revealed, it can no longer be regarded as absolute knowledge, but only as a particular kind of