IV 



LOTZE S MONISM 1 



ARGUMENT 



Lotze s proof of Monism fails because (i) he was not entitled to postulate an 

 underlying unity of things ; (2) his argument for it is unsound and con 

 tradictory ; (3) it has no scientific value, nor (4) can it be equated with 

 God ; nor (5), even when it has been, does it contribute anything to 

 religious philosophy. (i) A Unity of the Universe or Absolute, on 

 Lotze s own showing, is not needed to explain the interaction of things, 

 and in its sole tenable form is insufficient to refute Pluralism. Lotze s own 

 view of Substance refutes his Absolute. (2) Lotze not entitled to hypos- 

 tasise his unity, nor is its immanent causality more intelligible than the 

 transeunt causality of things. The argument from commensurability 

 invalid. Can commensurability be conceived as a fortuitous growth ? 

 (3) The Absolute guarantees neither causality, nor orderly succession, 

 nor change, nor rationality, nor the existence of spiritual beings. (4) Its 

 identification with God assumed and not proved, and really impossible. 

 (5) It aggravates the problem of Freedom, Change, and Evil. A real 

 God must be a moral being and provable a posteriori from the facts of 

 our actual world. All the a priori proofs worthless because too wide. 



LOTZE S reputation as a sound and cautious thinker 

 deservedly stands so high that any attempt to question 

 the cogency of his argument is naturally received with 

 suspicion, and needs to be fully and clearly established 

 before its conclusions can win acceptance. As, however, 

 no true view is in the long run strengthened by stifling 

 the objections against it, and no false view can in the end 

 be considered beneficial to the highest interests of man 

 kind without thereby implying a profoundly pessimistic 

 divorce between Truth and Goodness, I will venture 

 to set forth my reasons for denying the success of Lotze s 

 proof of Monism. And while I trust that my criticism 



1 Reprinted (with some additions) from The Philosophical Review of May 1896. 



62 



