 The emphasis on understanding others does not involve a relativization of history and intercultural understanding. Like Schleiermacher and Schlegel, Novalis takes a strong interest in philology and demands that every author and reader must be philologically minded (Teplitz Fragments #42). Philology, for the romantic philosopher, is, among other things, about the reader taking into account the original context in which the text was produced. Hence, according to Novalis, “[p]hilologizing is the true scholarly occupation. It corresponds to experimenting” (AB #724). Philologizing—and note again, as in the case of philosophizing, the active form philologisiren and the reference to experimenting—is about breaking through illegitimate prejudices, trying to understand a symbolic expression on its own terms rather than reducing it to a familiar position, which would minimize its capacity to challenge the reader’s system of beliefs and values. Conceived in this way, philology challenges every scholastic passing down of authoritative interpretations. It curbs the threat of the dead letter and counteracts the tendency of modern society to steward the tradition in such a formalistic way that it overlooks the meaning of the hieroglyph, as Novalis at one point puts it. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, he wishes to challenge and critically reflect on prejudices handed down from tradition. But unlike the enlightenment philosophers—at least in their most undialectical championing of progress—Novalis believes that the past can itself offer resources for a critical-reflexive discussion of and stance towards the present. In this sense, Novalis can claim that “The theory of the future belongs to history” (AB #425). Even if the past cannot be immediately retrieved and even if it is neither desirable nor rational to long for a revival of times long gone, the past, providing an alternative to the intellectual framework of the present, can aid the philosopher, the artist, the scientist, or the politician in developing a critical attitude to the beliefs and assumptions he or she had previously left unanalyzed. The past should in other words be reconstructed on its own terms, but precisely such a reconstruction, Novalis argues, will ensure its relevance for the present.