His powers were as yet inadequate to the task of producing a complete work, and he was obliged to lay the tragedy aside. In the discouragement produced by the failure of this attempt he turned to philosophy. His desire was to find, not truths, but the truth. With the naïve confidence of the self-taught man he expected to discover at once the full, perfect truth which would guide him both in life and death. It was the philosophy of Kant which he set himself to study, and the impression it made upon him was distinctly depressing. He had expected to find a religion in philosophy, and Kant's Theory of Cognition taught him that we cannot attain to the truth, can never know what things are in themselves, but only see them as our own organs show them to us--that is to say, he who has green spectacles sees things green, and he who has red, sees them red. When he recognised that knowledge of the truth, as he had represented it to himself, was not possible, it seemed to the young man as if his highest, his only aim were gone. In this state of spiritual disorganisation he, like other Romanticists, felt the inclination to seek the support of a system of dogmas, either that of orthodox Protestantism or that of the older and more authoritative Catholic Church. He writes from Dresden: "Nothing could have been better calculated to entice me away from the melancholy domain of science than the treasures of art collected in this town.... But nowhere did I feel so deeply moved as in the Catholic church, where the most sublime music leagues itself with the other arts to touch the heart. Our divine service is nothing at all in comparison; it only appeals to cold reason, but a Catholic festival appeals to all the senses.... Oh, for one drop of forgetfulness! then I should with joy become a Catholic." Though he overcomes these fancies, he is unable to force himself to work, now that he has made the discovery that truth is not to be found upon earth. To put an end to this painful aimlessness, he determines, though with no particular object in view, to go to Paris. His letters from Paris show how fruitless this new attempt at discovering his real vocation in life proved. He breaks off his engagement, because his _fiancée_ will not blindly and obediently follow him to Switzerland, there to live the life of a peasant's wife. His pride will not permit him to return to his native town before he has accomplished something in the way of fulfilment of his ambitious projects. He goes to Weimar with the intention of completing _Robert Guiscard_ there, is much in Wieland's society, and finally takes up his abode in his house. The old man's goodness and his daughter's quiet tenderness keep him there, but he remains reserved and absent-minded. At last he confesses to the lovable, sympathetic old poet that he is at work upon a tragedy, but that his ideal is so high that he has as yet found it impossible to transfer his conception to paper.