Thus, what has been considered since time immemorial as utterly contemptible and unworthy–i.e. to renounce the knowledge of truth–was glorified before our time as the supreme triumph of the spirit. Before it reached this point, this despair in reason had still been accompanied by pain and melancholy; but religious and ethical frivolity, along with that dull and superficial view of knowledge which described itself as Enlightenment, soon confessed its impotence frankly and openly, and arrogantly set about forgetting higher interests completely; and finally, the so-called critical philosophy provided this ignorance of the eternal and the divine with a good conscience, by declaring that it [i.e., critical philosophy] had proved that nothing can be known of the eternal and the divine, or of truth. ~ G.W.F. Hegel, Inaugural Address, Delivered at the University of Berlin