OF REALITY. 



497 



Nevertheless what is seen by them in such moments is 

 deposited in the various products of art and life and in 

 external creations such as the laws of the State, the 

 rules of society, the doctrines of religion, and the rituals 

 of the Church. All these put together form what we 

 call culture : the objective manifestations of the truly 

 Keal, in which it finds a changing and fluctuating embodi- 

 ment. But inasmuch as this great body of thought, art, 

 and life is created by an automatic fusion of an infinite 

 number of casual, momentary, and fragmentary individual 

 experiences, it is not an harmonious whole, but merely an 

 aggregate wanting everywhere in consistency, complete- 

 ness, and unity. Now it is, according to Lotze, the 

 object of philosophy or of philosophical thought to im- 

 part unity and completeness to this existing aggregate of 

 ideas, which are supplied by general culture, by the special 

 sciences, by poetry, art, and the interests of life. But 

 he is careful to add a further caution. Philosophy is a 

 science in the wider sense of the word, but only a science ; 

 it appeals only to the intellect, not to the whole 

 soul; it has indeed the task to exhibit to the thinking 

 mind as a definite possession the truth which is con- 

 tained in existing meanings, opinions, and aspirations, 

 to present to the soul the content of its own self, to 

 interpret the dream by which it is haunted; 1 it is, as it 



1 "The object of philosophy is 

 not to start from an unmediated 

 position, but to convert into a 

 general possession that truth 

 which, in an elemental form as 

 opinion and intuition, is common 

 to all ; to show to the soul what is 

 the content of its own self and to 

 enlighten it regarding the dream 



VOL. IU. 



by which it is haunted. Whilst 

 philosophy, therefore, appeals to 

 the free movement of the think- 

 ing mind without forcing upon 

 it a ready-made doctrine, on the 

 other side it appeals only to the 

 thinking, not to the whole mind ; 

 the result is that possession of the 

 general mind in the fixing of which 



2 i 



