522 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



kind of epoch, and is one of the principal channels through 

 which Darwinian ideas and the English philosophy of 

 evolution, in the larger sense of the word, found entrance 

 into German philosophical literature. In some respects 

 he develops Spencerian ideas 1 in an independent manner. 

 Thus he points to the analogy between human and animal 



1 The first edition of Schaffle's 

 work was published in 4 vols. 

 1875-1878. From the preface to 

 this it appears that the author is 

 less of a Spencerian than might be 

 supposed from the title of his 

 work. He came to sociology from 

 the side of economics, which taught 

 him the necessity of studying the 

 phenomenon of society by an 

 analytical process similar to that 

 which firmly established biology 

 upon the analytical labours of 

 histology, anatomy, and physiology. 

 These were to form the prelimin- 

 aries to larger generalisations, such 

 as had been attempted by Comte 

 and Spencer, both of whom were 

 imperfectly known to the author 

 when he started on his independent 

 researches. It is especially inter- 

 esting to note that his philosophical 

 view is largely influenced by Lotze, 

 from whose ' Microcosmus ' the 

 only comprehensive anthropological 

 work which at the time Germany 

 could place alongside of Comte in 

 France and Spencer in England 

 he quotes extensive passages, inter 

 alia, one in which the universal 

 but subordinate role which mech- 

 anism plays in the universe is 

 specially dwelt on. He also in 

 the Introduction (2nd condensed 

 edition in 2 vols., 1896), intro- 

 duces the Lotzian term Value as 

 indicating the element of free 

 mental intelligence not to be found 

 in the Metabolism of the animal 

 organism. And yet it does not 

 seem as if Schaffle had appreciated 

 the true Lotzian position, which 



implies an inevitable dualism, for 

 he was evidently drawn away into 

 a movement which thought took 

 at the time in the Xeo-Kantian 

 school headed by F. A. Lange, who 

 aimed at establishing a- monistic 

 view, and who, like so many others, 

 had an understanding only for one 

 side of Lotze 's speculations and 

 none for his metaphysics (see 

 tupra, vol. iii. pp. 562, 563). The 

 result is that Schaffle, like so many 

 others, has a difficulty in intro- 

 ducing the spiritual or mental 

 factor into his sociological scheme. 

 As this was pointed out by some 

 of his critics, who seem to have 

 taken offence at the extreme em- 

 ployment of biological analogies, 

 he wrote in the Preface to the 

 second edition : " After all even 

 the first edition never operated for 

 the purposes of the social problem 

 with the notion of the organic, 

 always considering the social body 

 as a living connection not of 

 a physiological but of a higher 

 independent mental order which 

 raises itself above the organic and 

 inorganic existences." And as a 

 proof of this he refers to a special 

 point of his doctrine, the discovery 

 of the family as the sustaining and 

 mentally improving factor in the 

 social body, i.e., as the sociological 

 unit. We have accordingly here, 

 as indicated in the text, an analogy 

 with Herbert Spencer's search in 

 his data of biology for the physio- 

 logical unit as the characteristic 

 factor of the living as contrasted 

 with the inanimate creation. 



