Buddhist Romanticism

could develop a consistent view of the universe from it. For this reason, he
composed systematic treatises, trying to explain all knowledge—everything
from concrete scientific facts to abstract philosophical principles—in line
with the principle of the Oneness of all Being.
The primary feature of these systems was that they were dynamic,
explaining not a static universe, such as Newton’s, but an evolving one.
Each of his systems was aimed at explaining how the Oneness of Being, as a
thesis, produced its contradictory antithesis, and then through the tension
between the two created a higher synthesis, which then, as a new thesis,
produced a new antithesis, and so on, thus providing the impetus for
continued evolution. The fact that Schelling was never satisfied with his
efforts, producing and then discarding system after system, may have been
what deterred his fellow Romantics from attempting to create philosophical
systems themselves.
But they had other reasons for avoiding system-building, too. Schlegel,
in his early writings, maintained that the drive to provide a systematic
explanation of all reality was both necessary and impossible: necessary in
that the mind by nature wants to see things whole; impossible in that its
finitude keeps it from ever succeeding. Thus he took a novelistic approach
to system-building—i.e., he looked at the system-builder as a novelist
might present a character in a novel. The source of system-building, he
maintained, was to be found not in abstract first principles, but in the
system-builder’s psychological drive for unity of knowledge. As he put it,
all philosophy begins with the principle, “I strive after unity of
knowledge.” 12 In an honest philosophical system, everything should be
aimed at exploring the implications of the philosopher’s psychological
motivation. Truth was to be found, not in the system, but by turning back to
look into the mind that wants to create it. As with art, the truth of
philosophy lay not in a coherent representation of the universe, but in
expressing and understanding the desire to represent it coherently.
Novalis also recommended focusing on system-building primarily as an
issue of the psychological development of the system-builder, but his
judgment of the underlying motivation was harsher than Schlegel’s. He saw
it as pathological, a “logical sickness.” “Philosophy,” he said, “is actually
homesickness—the urge to be everywhere at home.” 13 In his eyes, to be at
home was to be away from the cutting edge of change. The desire to have
everything explained and familiar was an attempt to close oneself off from
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