The reason passes, like the heart, through certain epochs and transitions, but its development is not so often portrayed. Men seem to have been satisfied with unfolding the passions in their extremes, their aberration, and their results, without considering how closely they are bound up with the intellectual constitution of the individual. Degeneracy in morals roots in a one-sided and wavering philosophy, doubly dangerous, because it blinds the beclouded intellect with an appearance of correctness, truth, and conviction, which places it less under the restraining influence of man's instinctive moral sense. On the other hand, an enlightened understanding ennobles the feelings, -the heart must be formed by the head. The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then. Under these circumstances it may not be unprofitable to call attention to certain periods of the awakening and progress of the reason, to place in their proper light certain truths and errors, closely connected with morals, and calculated to be a source of happiness or misery, and, at all events, to point out the hidden shoals on which the reason of man has so often suffered shipwreck. Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom

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Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) was a German poet, dramatist, philosopher and historian. Schiller wrote philosophical papers on aesthetics and ethics. He developed the concept of Schone Seele which translates to beautiful soul. Schiller said that a human being whose emotions have been educated by his reason view beauty and inclination as no longer in conflict with each other. Beauty is not merely sensual but moral as well. Schiller is considered to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He created new forms, such as the melodrama and the bourgeois tragedy. His most famous works are Love and Intrigue (1784), Don Carlos (1787), The Minister (1796), The Death of Wallenstein (1799), The Piccolomini (1800) and Mary Stuart (1800).

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) was a German poet, dramatist, philosopher and historian. Schiller wrote philosophical papers on aesthetics and ethics. He developed the concept of Schone Seele which translates to beautiful soul. Schiller said that a human being whose emotions have been educated by his reason view beauty and inclination as no longer in conflict with each other. Beauty is not merely sensual but moral as well. The Ghost Seer or the Apparitionist and Sport of Destiny begins with these words. I am about to relate an adventure which to many will appear incredible, but of which I was in great part an eye-witness. The few who are acquainted with a certain political event will, if indeed these pages should happen to find them alive, receive a welcome solution thereof. And, even to the rest of my readers, it will be, perhaps, important as a contribution to the history of the deception and aberrations of the human intellect. The boldness of the schemes which malice is able to contemplate and to carry out must excite astonishment, as must also the means of which it can avail itself to accomplish its aims. Clear, unvarnished truth shall guide my pen; for, when these pages come before the public, I shall be no more, and shall therefore never learn their fate.