198 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



was called at the time " Die Seelenfrage " occupied the 

 foremost place in philosophical discussions carried on 

 both by philosophers and by naturalists. Psychology 

 (in German " Seelenlehre ") formed a kind of reaction 

 in the writings of Herbart and Beneke against the then 

 ruling philosophy of the mind, and, on the other side, it 

 embodied, as notably in the writings of Lotze, the 

 matured discussion of the materialistic hypothesis ad- 

 vanced by Vogt, Moleschott, and Blichner. As the 

 stormy discussions which were then carried on in 



fluences together was Lotze, who 

 early recognised quite as much the 

 necessity of purifying the prin- 

 ciples of the biological and medical 

 sciences as of gaining an indepen- 

 dent foundation for an idealistic or 

 spiritual view of things. In the 

 former endeavour he went further 

 than contemporary French thinkers 

 by combating the conception of 

 vital forces current among them. 

 His connection with Rudolph 

 Wagner as a contributor to the 

 physiological dictionary edited by 

 the latter, and as his colleague at 

 the University of Gottingen, made 

 this side of his writings accessible to 

 medical students, whereas his sim- 

 ultaneous metaphysical and logical 

 treatises (see p. 6 note, supra) re- 

 mained unknown. The result has 

 been that Lotze may be considered 

 as having, in a way, both suggested 

 and combated the extreme materi- 

 alistic conception, being, later on, 

 its most competent and thorough- 

 going critic and opponent. The 

 principal writings in which Ger- 

 man materialism found expression 

 are Moleschott (1822-93), ' Der 

 Kreislauf des Lebens' (1852, fre- 

 quently re-edited and enlarged) ; 

 Karl Vogt (1817-95), 'Physiolo- 

 gische Briefe' (1845-47), 'Bilder 

 aus dem Thierleben' (1852), and 



' Kbhlerglaube und Wissenschaft ' 

 1854). The former was provoked 

 by and opposed certain passages in 

 Liebig's 'Chemical Letters,' the lat- 

 ter bore a similar relation to Wag- 

 ner's 'Physiologische Briefe' (1852). 

 The whole question led to a celebrat- 

 ed discussion at the German Natur- 

 forscher-Versammlung at Gottingen 

 in 1854, where Wagner expressed 

 himself in favour of a dualistic con- 

 ception of nature, allowing both for 

 mechanism and spiritualism a view 

 ridiculed by Vogt as a kind of 

 philosophical "book-keeping by 

 double entry." It created a flood 

 of literature on both sides. Lud- 

 wig Biichner (1824-99) followed 

 in 1855 with his well-known, fre- 

 quently republished and translated 

 treatise, ' Kraft und Stoff,' which 

 held its own in Germany as the 

 gospel of materialism till it was 

 followed, and to some extent super- 

 seded, by Ernst Hackel's 'Welt- 

 rathsel ' (1899, and many following 

 editions). There is no doubt that 

 these two books have successfully 

 originated and perpetuated among 

 the middle class intellect of Ger- 

 many not only philosophical mater- 

 ialism, but also a material as opposed 

 to an ideal and spiritual view of the 

 world and life. 



