iv LOTZE S MONISM 67 



Similar conclusions may be extracted from Lotze s 

 theory of substantiality. He tells us ( 37, Trans, p. 

 100) that the notion of a kernel of substance is a useless 

 superstition, that &quot; it is not in virtue of a substance con 

 tained in them that things are, they are when they are 

 able to produce an appearance of there being a substance 

 in them.&quot; All this is excellent and most important. For 

 it marks the abandonment of the unknowable substrate 

 view of substance and the return to the older and truer 

 conception of Aristotle, that a thing is what it does, 

 that substance is actuality (evepyeia*) and not potentiality 

 (Svvafju,?}. 1 But presumably that declaration is applicable 

 also to &quot;the single truly existing substance&quot; (Trans. 70, 

 p. 167), and we ought then to say it is not in virtue of 

 a single substance underlying them that things are ; they 

 are when they are able to produce the appearance of there 

 being such a substance. In other words, we have no real 

 right to infer that there is a substantial One underlying 

 the interactions of the Many. 2 The unity which is 

 involved as a conceptual possibility in the actual plurality 

 is a unity in the Many and of the Many, and must not 

 be hypostasised into anything transcendent or more truly 

 existent. If it is, the problem of the relations of the One 

 and the Many at once becomes insoluble, simply because 

 by calling it existent we are compelled to construe its 

 existence as analogous to that of the Many, which it 

 cannot be if its function is to be that of uniting the 

 Many. Is not then the necessity of the One as the 

 world-ground an illusion of the same order as that of an 

 underlying substance ? 



It appears, then, that Lotze sets out to find a unity 

 which, on his own showing, he did not need to find, and 

 finds it in a way which conflicts with the implications of 

 his own doctrine of the self-evidence of the world s exist 

 ence and of his own view of substantiality. 



II. In tracing the further development of Lotze s 

 conception of the Unity of Things, the point of capital 



1 See the essay on Activity and Substance, i, 7. 

 2 Cp. p. 224, note. 



