Through 'longing for the infinite,' Friedrich Schlegel translated the ancient Greek "philosophia" somewhat freely but expressively: The infinite is only the goal of our yearning; it is never attained or possessed. Indeed, strictly speaking, it can only be regarded as an idea in the Kantian sense, whose real pursuit, as Novalis says, would 'lead into the realms of nonsense.' Thus, the thought of infinite approximation replaces an evidentially secured principle from which philosophy either believed it could take its departure (as Reinhold and at least for a time Fichte assumed) or which it could confidently anticipate as the endpoint of the entire endeavor (as Hegel suggested). In this way, the philosophizing early Romanticism is formed—especially in the guise of its main representatives Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel (similarly, but also with Hölderlin and his friends).