Since Aristotle’s leading thought has penetrated all spheres of consciousness, and this isolation in the determination through the Notion, because it is likewise necessary, contains in every sphere the profoundest of true thoughts, Aristotle, to anticipate here the external history of his philosophy as a whole, for many centuries was the constant mainstay of the cultivation of thought. When in the Christian West science disappeared amongst the Christians, the fame of Aristotle shone forth with equal brilliance amongst the Arabians, from whom, in later times, his philosophy was again passed over to the West. The triumph which was celebrated upon the revival of learning, on account of the Aristotelian philosophy having been expelled from the schools, from the sciences, and specially from theology, as from the philosophy which deals with absolute existence, must be regarded in two different aspects. In the first place we must remember that it was not the Aristotelian philosophy which was expelled, so much as the principle of the science of theology which supported itself thereon, according to which the first truth is one which is given and revealed—an hypothesis which is once for all a fundamental one, and by which reason and thought have the right and power to move to and fro only superficially. In this form the thought which was awakened in the Middle Ages reconstructed its theology more especially, entered into all dialectic movements and determinations, and erected an edifice where the material that was given was only superficially worked up, disposed and secured. The triumph over this system was thus a triumph over that principle, and consequently the triumph of free, spontaneous thought. But another side of this triumph is the triumph of the commonplace point of view that broke free from the Notion and shook off the yoke of thought. Formerly, and even nowadays, enough has been heard of Aristotle’s scholastic subtleties; in using this name, men thought that they had a right to spare themselves from entering on abstraction, and, in place of the Notion, they thought that it justified them in seeing, hearing, and thus making their escape to what is called healthy human understanding. In science, too, in place of subtle thoughts, subtle sight has commenced; a beetle or a species of bird is distinguished with as great minuteness as were formerly conceptions and thoughts. Such subtleties as whether a species of bird is red or green in colour, or has a more or less perfect tail, are found more easy than the differences in thought; and in the meantime, until a people has educated itself up to the labour of thought, in order to be able thus to support the universal, the former is a useful preparation, or rather it is a moment in this course of culture.