OF KNOWLEDGE. 



409 



be the highest object of philosophy to show forth the 

 realisation of these higher interests and values through 

 human thought and action in the world of things. With 

 this object before him, he conceived that the processes 

 of thought which, working by the methods of scientific 

 research, are more and more impressing on us the exist- 

 ence of an intellectual order, the so-called laws of nature, 

 must be studied with a renewed interest. The philosophic 

 mind is not contented to trace merely the formal connec- 

 tions of ideas, but desires to show also how, in ascending 

 from the lower to the higher regions of thought, those 

 supreme interests are consciously or unconsciously always 

 at work. In this connection he introduces two other 

 conceptions defined by the terms, the validity of our 

 notions and the meaning or significance of thoughts and 

 things. Around these three terms of validity, meaning, 

 and value, 1 a new logic has sprung up which, suggested 



osophy are coming again victoriously 

 forward. This indeed shows itself 

 in an assimilation of these ideas by 

 the critical movement. . . . It is 

 in the spirit of Lotze that the 

 knowledge of the Actual is handed 

 over to other sciences, while the 

 recognition of values is claimed for 

 philosophy. The elaboration of 

 these principles, due to their origin 

 in the critical movement, has shown 

 itself mainly in the province of 

 logic. Here it is that, through the 

 researches of Rickert and Lask, the 

 conception of validity, coined by 

 Lotze, has in its relation to em- 

 pirical and metaphysical reality 

 been made the central philosophical 

 problem." 



1 The philosopher who has most 

 prominently put forward the pro- 

 blem of value is Prof. Hoffding, 

 who, I believe, has coined a new 



term : Das\ Wertungsproblcm. See 

 his latest writings:. ' Religions- 

 Philosophic' (1901) ; 'Philosophische 

 Probleme' (1903); and ' Moderne 

 Philosophen' (1905). It is, how- 

 ever, remarkable that in this, his 

 original development of a distinctly 

 Lotzian idea, he expresses no allegi- 

 ance to Lotze, and that the treat- 

 ment of Lotze in Hoffding's ' His- 

 tory of Modern Philosophy ' does 

 not emphasise what to us seems 

 the most important conception of 

 his system. When the writer of 

 this History came to Gottingen 

 in the year 1860, the principal 

 writings through which Lotze's 

 central philosophical views became 

 known (the third vol. of the ' Micro- 

 cosmus' and the two vols. of the 

 ' System of Philosophy ') had not 

 appeared, and it was extremely 

 difficult really to understand what 



