[The reader will perceive by the positions here assumed that Schopenhauer has a truly speculative stand-point; that he holds self-determination to be the only substantial (or abiding) reality. But while Aristotle and those like him have seized this more definitely as the self-conscious thinking, it is evident that Schopenhauer seizes it only from its immediate side, i. e. as the _will_. On this account he meets with some difficulty in solving the problem of immortality, and leaves the question of conscious identity hereafter, not a little obscure. Hegel, on the contrary, for whom Schopenhauer everywhere evinces a hearty contempt, does not leave the individual in any doubt as to his destiny, but shows how individuality and universality coincide in self-consciousness, so that the desire for eternal existence is fully satisfied. This is the legitimate result that _Philalethes_ arrives at in his last speech, when he makes the individuality a product of the will; for if the will is the essential that he holds it to be, and the product of its activity is individuality, of course individuality belongs eternally to it. At the close of his _Philosophy of Nature_, (Encyclopædia, vol. II.,) Hegel shows how death which follows life in the mere animal—and in man as mere animal—enters consciousness as one of its necessary elements, and hence does not stand opposed to it as it does to animal life. Conscious being (_Spirit_ or _Mind_ as it may be called,) is therefore immortal because it contains already, within itself, its limits or determinations, and thus cannot, like finite things, encounter dissolution through external ones.—ED.] GOETHE’S THEORY OF COLORS. From an exposition given before the St. Louis Philosophical Society, Nov. 2nd, 1866. I.—Color arises through the reciprocal action of light and darkness. (_a._) When a light object is seen through a medium that dims it, it appears of different degrees of yellow; if the medium is dark or dense, the color is orange, or approaches red. Examples: the sun seen in the morning through a slightly hazy atmosphere appears yellow, but if the air is thick with mist or smoke the sun looks red. (_b._) On the other hand a dark object, seen through a medium slightly illuminated, looks blue. If the medium is very strongly illuminated, the blue approaches a light blue; if less so, then indigo; if still less, the deep violet appears. Examples: a mountain situated at a great distance, from which very few rays of light come, looks blue, because we see it through a light medium, the air illuminated by the sun. The sky at high altitudes appears of a deep violet; at still higher ones, almost perfectly black; at lower ones, of a faint blue. Smoke—an illuminated medium—appears blue against a dark ground, but yellow or fiery against a light ground.