THE GREAT PHILOSOPHIC SYSTEMS, such as Fichte's idealism, Schelling's
romantic philosophy of nature, and above all Hegelianism, had domi-
nated German science and philosophy in the years before 1870, and the
same was to some extent true in Scandinavia. But about this time a
change took place in European thinking. The philosophic systems began
to crumble and lost their hold on people's minds. It grew more difficult
to organize facts into systems, to build bridges between pure thought
and reality, to harmonize faith and science.

For Idé og Virkelighed (For Idea and Reality) was the characteristic
tide of a Scandinavian periodical which a well-known representative of
the dualism of his times, the Danish philosopher Rasmus Nielsen, edited
together with his pupil Rudolf Schmidt, Bjørnson being the Norwegian
member of the editorial board. Many new attempts to build philosophic
systems represented a desperate effort to save the abstract mode of thought.
There was a neo-Kantian and a neo-Hegelian trend, and there was the
Swedish Boström's "rational idealism." Monrad tried to be a Norwegian
Hegel, while G. V. Lyng wished to unite Hegelianism with what he
called "realism." But Marx's application of Hegelian ideas to social
development awakened no interest in Norway at this time.

In general terms the development was away from idealistic modes
of thought to more materialistic ones. Instead of bold metaphysical con-
structions there arose various views of life having a closer association
with the natural sciences.

The teachings of Charles Darwin led to a new conception of nature.
The poets of romanticism had thought of nature as good and beneficent,
very different in this respect from mankind. This was one of Wergeland's
favorite ideas. But this conception was destroyed by the doctrine of the
struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. Nature was no longer

-196-