iv LOTZE S MONISM 75 



to its subsequent course. The caprice of the Absolute 

 cannot be controlled even by its own past. 



(5) The foregoing will have shown, I hope, that 

 Lotze was not very successful in avoiding the besetting 

 sin of all Monism, whenever it is sincerely scrutinised, 

 viz. that of reducing the Many to mere phantoms, whose 

 existence is otiose and impotent. But a disregard of 

 the practical absurdities that might result from too rigid 

 a theory was not one of Lotze s weaknesses, and so when 

 we come to the last sections of his ontology we find him 

 saving the significance of the Many by a volte-face 

 which is assuredly more creditable to his heart than to 

 his head. He recognises that beings which are merely 

 immanent in the Absolute have no raison d etre, and so 

 denies the existence of things. Spiritual beings, on the 

 other hand, in virtue of their consciousness, detach 

 themselves from and step out of the Absolute ; they stand 

 as it were on their own feet and become independent 

 members of the cosmos. I heartily agree ; but I am at 

 a loss how to reconcile this with the previous course of 

 his argument. What use was there in emphasising the 

 one ground of all existence, if finally everybody that is 

 anybody is to escape and detach himself from the 

 underlying unity of the Absolute ? Doubtless Lotze s 

 doctrine is here completely in accord with the facts, 

 doubtless it is true, as Professor Pringle Pattison says, 

 that a spiritual being preserves its own centre even in 

 its dealings with the Deity ; no doubt also Lotze s 

 own doctrine required such quasi-independent spirits to 

 provoke Providence by the freaks of their free will and 

 to generate the necessary friction in order to make the 

 Absolute s maintenance of its identical meaning something 

 more than child s play ; but how is the incomprehensible 

 feat accomplished ? 



The points mentioned should, I believe, suffice to prove 

 my contention that the Absolute is not a principle of 

 explanation that has any scientific or philosophic value. 

 It resolves no difficulties, it aggravates many, it creates 

 some of an utterly insoluble character. And by undoing 



