354 Postscript 



clear even from my meager acquaintance with the history of 

 philosophic thought. Thus we read in Windelband (A His- 

 tory of Philosophy, Eng. by Tufts,) : "For the decisive fac- 

 tor in the philosophical movement of the nineteenth century 

 is doubtless the question as to the degree of importance 

 which the natural-science conception of phenomena may 

 claim for our view of the world and life as a whole." (624). 

 Then after speaking of the sharp antithesis between the 

 Weltanschauung elaborated by the "Highly strained idealism 

 of the German Philosophy" of the early nineteenth century, 

 and the "materialistic Weltanschauung" of the later decades 

 of the same century, the author writes : "If we are to bring 

 out from the philosophical literature of this century and 

 emphasize those movements in which the above characteristic 

 antithesis has found its most important manifestation, we 

 have to do primarily with the question, in what sense the 

 psychical life can be subjected to the natural-science mode 

 of cognition." (p. 625). 



That Part II of this book of mine, especially Chaps. 20 

 to 24, go a long way toward answering the cardinal question 

 formulated by Windelband appears to me certain. And, I 

 may add, it also seems quite clear to me that the gigantic 

 struggle at arms which that philosopher's nation has now 

 brought upon the world, is one of the strongest proofs that 

 philosophic thought and, following this, social and political 

 leadership in Germany have failed miserably to discover the 

 Via Media between the Weltanschauung of the "highly 

 strained idealism of the German Philosophy" and the mate- 

 rialistic Weltanschauung which has finally reached its nat- 

 ural climax in militaristic brutism, and is almost certainly 

 (Sept., 1918) approaching its overthrow. 



Nothing could more fittingly end this book, devoted as it 

 is to demonstrating the operative nature of organic unity 

 in one of its great segments, than a reference to the fact 

 that the philosophy of life now determining German morals, 



