The study examines the thoroughgoing re-evaluation of the foundations of human knowledge that set in around the year 1830. Of crucial significance in structural terms is the relation between ideas on the soul and natural science. In the context of the 'atomization' of knowledge following the collapse of Romantic nature philosophy, Herbart, Lotze and Fechner developed strategies for a 'concentration' of all branches of knowledge in a unified model not only accelerating the modernization process but also fulfilling a compensatory function. Their debates on the origins and processing of knowledge represents a highly influential redefinition of the epistemological function and cultural relevance of the aesthetic.