562 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



as was probably intended, because it appeals to familiar 

 ideas and employs current phrases ; but also, as it turned 

 out in the sequel, because it is easily translated into other 

 civilised tongues. It was published at a time when the 

 materialistic controversy was at its height, with Carl 

 Vogt and Jacob Moleschott on the one side, and Eud. 

 Wagner and Liebig on the other. It is important to 

 note that this controversy arose within the regions of 

 the newly developed science of physiology, which at that 

 time, through the labours of chemists and anatomists, was 

 just adopting the experimental methods and mechanical 

 conceptions which had been elaborated and firmly estab- 

 lished in the sciences of dynamics and mathematical 

 physics. It was especially the vague idea of a vital 

 force which had to be combated and expelled from 

 physiological inquiries. This was done in a masterly 

 manner by Lotze 1 in his articles on "Vital Force" 



1 Although Lotze is by far the involuntary service to Materialism, 



most thorough critic of the prin- The article 'Vital Force' in Wag- 



ciples which lie at the foundation ner's ' Handworterbuch,' and his 



of the materialistic view, his writ- ' General Pathology and Thera- 



ings (see a list of them supra. peutic as Mechanical Sciences,' 



p. 6, note) did not create at annihilated the phantom of a vital 



the time the impression they de- force, and introduced some degree 



served. He was frequently mis- of order into the lumber - room 



understood, and only that part of of superstition and confusion of 



his criticism was assimilated by ideas that medical men called 



contemporary thought in which Pathology. Lotze had trodden 



he successfully combated the con- the right path ; for, in fact, it is 



ception of a vital force. Accord- amongst the tasks of philosophy, 



ingly we find that in the ' History while making a critical use of the 



of Materialism ' of F. A. Lange facts supplied by the positive 



(first edition, 1866) already fre- sciences, to react upon them, and 



quently referred to little notice to exchange for the gold of special 



is taken of the important part . research the results of a wider 



which Lotze's writings played in j survey and a more rigid logic, 



that controversy. " It is Lotze ' He would no doubt have met with 



one of the acutest, and in scientific more recognition in this course if 



criticism one of the surest, philo- i Virchow had not simultaneously 



sophers of our day who did this ' appeared as practical reformer of 



