OF SOCIETY. 



581 



As every important new departure in philosophical 

 thought has invented its own terminology in which it 

 deposits its leading ideas, so we also find that Dilthey 

 has his own vocabulary through which he introduces 

 his subject and defines his method. To begin with, he 

 considers philosophy to be an inner reflection or intro- 

 spection, what he terms eine Selbstbesinnung ; for only 

 through introspection do we become aware of and ex- 

 perience that unity which we try to find and to grasp 

 in the world as a whole. It is thus by introspection 

 and psychological analysis through the inner sense that 

 we reach, or at least approach, the foundation and 

 ground. As it is the aim of scientific inquiry to dis- 

 cover regularities and uniformities in the outer world, 

 so it is also the first task of psychology to trace such 

 regularities in our inner or psychical life. Such regu- 



schauung' (1911), which he intro- 

 duces in an article on ' ' Metaphy- 

 sical Systems" (pp. 1-77). For 

 the special subject of this chapter 

 the best summary of Dilthey's 

 views known to me is contained 

 in Dr Earth's frequently quoted 

 work (pp. 364-377). This I would 

 recommend specially to English 

 readers, as it is written with as 

 much appreciation of the important 

 task defined by Dilthey as of the 

 work done by representatives of 

 other schools of thought mentioned 

 in the foregoing pages, such as 

 Comte, Wundt, and Lamprecht, 

 and as the author aims at fulfilling 

 himself, to some extent, that task. 

 Professor Ludwig Stein has devoted 

 a special chapter in his work en- 

 titled ' Philosophische Stromungen 

 der Gegenwart' (1908), to Dilthey 

 as the representative of what he 

 terms Die Geisteswissenschaftliche 



Bewegung (pp. 243-270). He does 

 not conceal his surprise that so 

 learned an author as Robert Flint, 

 in his well-known works on the 

 philosophy of History, takes no 

 note of Dilthey, though Flint's later 

 work appeared ten years after 

 Dilthey's ' Einleitung, &c.' And 

 still more to be regretted is the 

 absence of the name of Dilthey in 

 a quite recent work by G. P. Gooch 

 on ' History and Historians in the 

 Nineteenth Century,' especially 

 because Dilthey himself, in the 

 Memoir of 1910 just mentioned, 

 dilates in various passages very 

 fully on the origin, growth, and 

 characteristics of the historical 

 school in Germany, referring also 

 specially to contemporary his- 

 torians in other countries, such as 

 Tocqueville in France and Carlyle 

 in England. 



