676 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



philosophy. He also clearly recognised and explained 

 the dualism which, in spite of assertions to the con- 

 trary, lurked in the background of Hegel's as well as 

 of Schopenhauer's system : the logical formalism which 

 did not descend to reality and could not comprehend the 

 contingent in the former system, the duality of the Will 

 and the Intellect in the latter. According to von Hart- 

 mann, there must be an underlying spiritual unity of 

 which the Will and the Intellect are merely attributes 

 or manifestations. In defining this as the " Unconscious," 

 he reminds us of the position taken up already by Fichte, 

 which formed the starting-point of Schelling's speculation, 

 that the first reality is the unity of subject and object 

 prior to the appearance of Consciousness. Having arrived 

 at this negative definition of the underlying ground or 

 essence of reality, he proceeds to demonstrate its exist- 

 ence by resorting to an elaborate interpretation of 

 physical as well as mental facts, of cosmical phenomena 

 as well as individual experience. In all these regions, 

 observation, the inductive study of nature and mind, 

 show that there remains a hidden factor, an unknown 

 principle which, as it does not present itself and rise 

 into the clear light of consciousness and is accordingly 

 undefinable, he characterises by the name of the 

 " Unconscious." Still more than Schopenhauer, who in 

 his later writings gathered much material from the 

 accumulated knowledge of the natural sciences, does 

 von Hartmann stand on the foundation of the latter, 

 and, being later in time, he is able to make larger 

 use of recent discoveries than either Schopenhauer 

 or even Lotze was able or willing to do. There is 



