OP THE SOUL. 265 



ments of thought are very marked. It is true that he 

 was not a great student of modern French or English 

 thought. We have seen, however, that the position 

 taken up by the English school had already, in Lotze's 

 time, been reached in the writings of Herbart and 

 Beneke; and so far as the researches of French physi- 

 ologists and medicals are concerned, they were at that 

 time followed with the greatest interest in Germany, 

 in the schools of Berlin, Leipzig, and Vienna, between 

 which and the medical schools of Paris there existed a 

 lively intercourse of students and studies. 



In fact, Lotze himself came to philosophy from the . 



Approaches 



side of the study of medicine ; some of his earlier writings j^^the 117 

 having the object of counteracting the vagueness of medical medicine. 

 philosophy in Germany by introducing the clearer defini- 

 tions of mechanical science. But Lotze was quite as 

 much interested in the transcendental movement, and 

 from the beginning of his literary career urged the 

 necessity of approaching all philosophical problems 

 from the point of view of a definite creed, a central 

 conception. His training was also equally balanced by 

 realistic and classical studies, and his spiritual home was 

 in the classical ideals of the great period of German 

 literature headed by Goethe and Herder. Next to 49. 



Connection 



Herbart, from whom he acknowledges having received 

 much stimulation, he was the first systematic philo- penod - 

 sopher of Germany who gave psychology a prominent 

 and foremost place in his speculations, and who made 

 important contributions to empirical psychology. 1 Psy- 



1 The broad view which Lotze 

 took of psychological problems has 

 hardly been sufficiently recognised 



by historians of philosophy, and 

 this for several reasons. His first 

 elaborate tract ( ' Seele und Seelen- 



