580 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



93. 

 Dilthey. 



peculiar direction of thought which has been given to 

 historical, philosophical, and aesthetic studies by the late 

 Professor Wilhelm Dilthey of Berlin. It is extremely 

 difficult to give to an English reader any adequate idea 

 of the drift of Dilthey 's philosophical speculations. 

 None of his works are translated into English, and 

 many of his smaller but important deliverances are 

 hidden away and inaccessible to the ordinary reader 

 in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Berlin 

 Academy. 1 



1 The first importaiit work in 

 which Dilthey introduced his special 

 views, referring to the subject of 

 this chapter, was his ' Einleitung 

 iu die Geisteswissenschaften,' of 

 which only the first volume ap- 

 peared in 1883. The sub-title 

 defines it as an attempt to give a 

 foundation for the study of society 

 and history. This work had been 

 preceded by the even more im- 

 portant first volume of his well- 

 known ' Life of Schleiermacher ' 

 (1870). It must be a source of re- 

 gret to all students of philosophy 

 that these two highly original and 

 suggestive works have been allowed 

 to remain incomplete, and are, in 

 addition, at present unprocurable. 

 The later development of Schleier- 

 macher's thought, both in the 

 direction of theology and philo- 

 sophy, is so interesting, so original, 

 and so little known, even in Ger- 

 many, that the further narrative 

 and analysis in Dilthey's Biography 

 would have been something like a 

 revelation to the historian of Ger- 

 man thought during the nineteenth 

 century. And a still keener ex- 

 pectation is created when, after 

 reading Dilthey's criticism and re- 

 jection of the naturalistic methods 

 of thought as inadequate for the 

 treatment of mental phenomena, 

 we are led to wonder how, in the 



sequel of his book, the new founda- 

 tion was to be laid. Whether a 

 posthumous publication of Dilthey's 

 own writings, which seems to be 

 in view now, together with the 

 work of his many disciples and 

 admirers, will be able to satisfy, 

 to some extent, the expectations 

 which these writings must have 

 awakened in every thoughtful 

 reader, remains to be seen ; it is, 

 in any case, earnestly to be hoped 

 for. What has been given to us 

 so far in short summaries, such 

 as that by B. Groethuysen (in 

 ' La Philosophic Allemande au 

 XIXe Siecle,' pp. 1-23), or by 

 Prof. Anna Tumarkin (in 'Archiv 

 fur Geschichte der Philosophic,' 

 xxv. pp. 143-153), does more to 

 increase than to satisfy these 

 expectations. Among the many 

 Articles and Memoirs which are 

 a sequel to the philosophical 

 works just mentioned, one of the 

 most important is a Memoir in 

 the ' Berlin Academy of Sciences ' 

 (1910), ' Philosophisch - historische 

 Classe,' pp. 1-123. Helpful for 

 finding out the rationale of Dil- 

 they's thought are also his own 

 publications on the " Essence 

 of Philosophy " in ' Systematische 

 Philosophic' (1907), and still more 

 so one of his latest publications 

 in a volume entitled ' Weltan- 



