And yet this is exactly the problem of our age, and herein alone shall we find the solution of the great enigma of the times. For from this hasty review of the whole course of the intellectual development of humanity, from its beginning to its close, the result, for the sake of and with a view to which alone I ventured so cursorily and in such faint outline to sketch all the leading epochs of the history of philosophy, must at least be evident. As in the beginning, and in the center thereof, science and life lovingly co-operated together and were fully in unison; and as in the intermediate epochs and intervals among the Greeks in civilized antiquity, and in the middle ages among ourselves, they became more and more estranged, so at the end will they be at one again. And already, even in our own days, every thing is tending to bring about such a consummation. But who shall say whether it shall be in a good or an evil sense? Ere long, life shall either, under the influence of the true and good and divine knowledge, be again restored, permanently regulated, and receive a new shape and fresh vigor, or, by a false and delusive science, be completely destroyed, and involved in eternal ruin. Having, in this hasty review, considered, under its historical aspect, the problem of the relation of science--the true and divine, as well as the false and delusive--to both private and public life, it now remains for us to examine and to answer this same question from the side of theory. Regarded from this point of view, it would appear that whenever science fails to exercise an influence on life, or when they withdraw and are estranged one from the other, the fact may be always accounted for and explained by accidental causes and purely local influences, such as have their origin in the several periods of the world’s history, or flow from certain imperfections on one side or the other. For, considered in itself, science in general is nothing but this unity of thought and life, and consequently its living operation and influence are involved in the very idea of a higher science, provided only it be true and properly regulated. Either, therefore, science is life elevated into a thought, and consequently transformed into a thinking, or else it is a thought carried into reality, that has passed and been transmuted into life, and therein fully attested and certified by life itself--consequently a thinking become life.