 The affiliation with empirical science is another point at which Novalis’s understanding of the fragment differs from that of Friedrich Schlegel. Whereas Schlegel establishes a close link between philosophy and poetry—at times he even dismantles the distinction between them—Novalis is convinced that if human reason seeks everywhere for the unconditioned (das Unbedingte) but finds nothing but things (Dinge) (MO #1), then we better study these things closely and try to make sense of them. That is, in his view, reason is inevitably driven towards the idea of an infinite, pre-reflexive, and pre-subjective ground or first principle, an unconditioned, which it itself can never grasp; what it can grasp, though, are the manifestations of such a ground in the world to which it has access through experience and science. Thus Novalis claims that “Idealism is nothing but genuine empiricism” (AB #402). Novalis also defines philosophy as a science of science (AB #886); it explores the conditions for the study of nature, human nature included.