iv LOTZE S MONISM 79 



it re-arouses scruples about the Absolute which had only 

 with difficulty been quieted. 



It is not until we come to 71 that the Unity of 

 Things intervenes again in Lotze s discussion, and then it 

 intervenes with disastrous effect For it is appealed to 

 only to refute the attempt to account for the existence of 

 Evil by the limitations of the divine activity by the original 

 nature of the world s constituents. But, Lotze remarks, if 

 so, it would be necessary to assume a second superior 

 deity in order to account for the action of the first upon 

 such a world. And if we admit that the Deity is to be 

 identified with the unity which makes interaction possible, 

 it must be admitted that his objection is quite sound. But 

 with this rejection of a Deity who can have an intelligent 

 purpose, and a need to guide the course of the world just 

 because he is not unlimited in the choice of his means, 

 vanishes the last hope of solving the problem of Evil. 



The magnitude of that problem and the futility of all 

 the solutions he mentions is quite frankly confessed by 

 Lotze both in Philosophy of Religion ( 70-74) and in the 

 Microcosm (Trans, ii. pp. 716 ff.). He admits that 

 pessimistic inferences might quite well be drawn from this 

 failure of philosophy, and does not believe that pessimism 

 can theoretically be refuted. But pessimism is merely a 

 cheap and easy way of getting rid of the problem, and he 

 himself prefers to cling to the belief in a solution he can 

 not see, and to persevere in a search which is nobler and 

 more difficult. Thus in Lotze also knowledge finally has 

 to take shelter with faith and to return dejected to the 

 home whence it set out with such sanguine hopes of 

 making clear the riddle of existence. Lotze s language is 

 certainly frank enough, and if frankness were all that is 

 needed his honest declaration of his insolvency might be 

 condoned. But one has a right to expect that a philo 

 sopher whose arguments lead him into such manifest 

 bankruptcy should be prompted thereby to re-examine 

 and possibly to revise his premisses ; and this Lotze fails 

 to do. The suspicion that the nature of the Absolute 

 which he has identified with the Deity may have something 



