Eduard Von Hartmann (1842-1906) Author of Philosophie des Unbewussten (Philosophy of the Unconscious, 1869), Hartmann became interested in philosophy after becoming disabled by a nervous disease that forced him to lie on his back while serving as an officer in the Prussian army. Hartmann tried to form a synthesis of Leibniz, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer with the results of modern natural sciences. What Hartmann called 'Unconscious' combined the concept of Hegel's absolute spirit and Schopenhauer's blind will. He proclaimed it the "thing in itself" which was the origin of cosmic order and the mental life of the human individual. Hartmann termed his system "transcendental realism" which he claimed to have constructed as the reliable bridge to metaphysics and at the same time "the only possible bridge to natural science."