The Modern Age, too, which has conceded so much to utilitarian striving, is in the innermost essence of its effort far removed from the spirit of mere utility. For, from the two poles of its life, from the subject as from the object, it breaks through all that is simply "given" and forms a new, self-existent world. In modern times the subject frees itself from the environment, places itself proudly over against it, and finds its securest experience in the self-certainty of its own life. At the same time it in no way renounces the surrounding world; but through the activity of thought it reconstructs that world, and in this conceptualises and idealises all its magnitudes. The more the subject becomes assured of seeing all things spiritually and scientifically by means of its own organisation, the more true is it that all sense experience is sustained and modified by spiritual power. Natural self-preservation cannot possibly satisfy the striving of the subject. For this striving can never be reduced to a mere means, but finds its power, as its joy, in becoming a world in itself; in the proud maintenance and establishment of its own nature in face of every opposition; in the impression of its particularity upon the infinity of things. On the other hand, over against the circumstantiality of man, great systems of thought are formed; evolve a characteristic content and independent powers; and, as forces in the life of universal history, press forward their consequences with inevitable necessity. These systems seek to bring reality under their sway, and do not manifest the least concern with regard to the continuance and the interests of man. Science and art and the political and economical aspects of life afford examples of what we mean. Accordingly, in the modern world and in the modern man, two movements towards infinity clash together, and from these there arise great commotion and violent unrest. Whatever may remain enigmatical in this, the fact of the transformation of the first, the sense experience of things, is beyond doubt. It is also beyond doubt that man, regarded spiritually, does not find himself a member of a given world, but must first seek and make clear his fundamental relations to the world. From this position Naturalism, with its naïve assertion of the finality and permanence of the sense impression, appears to be an intolerable dogmatism.