THE RATIONALE OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 751 



as firmly as those of philosophical and historical 

 criticism. 



Perhaps the only other thinker, in recent times, 

 who was equally qualified by his training, knowledge, 

 and sympathies to hold the balance evenly between the 

 scientific and religious interests of the age, was Fechner ; 

 but his general philosophical views were too little 

 systematic to impress his contemporaries. Behind both 

 him and Lotze there stood, however, an influence greater 

 and more powerful than that of either : this was the 

 influence of Goethe, which in philosophy made itself felt 

 mainly through Schelling. From this source Fechner 

 inherited the poetical and mystical features of his scien- 

 tific as well as of his religious and his humorous writ- 

 ings, but he was also much impressed by the promising 

 methods of exact research, which led him safely out of 

 the labyrinth of the Natur-Philosophie. Lotze, on his part, 

 had none of the mysticism and poetry of Fechner, but he 

 had also less reverence for the mathematical formula, the 

 power as well as the limitations of which he estimated 

 correctly. He was also quite averse from those shallow 

 compromises between the scientific and the religious 

 aspects so common and popular in this country, such 

 as found a well-meant expression, e.g., in the Bridgewater 

 Treatises and in some more recent apologies of Theistic 

 Thought, which, though seemingly helpful for the 

 moment, lose their meaning with every new aspect 

 revealed by the progress of natural research and histori- 

 cal criticism. 



Some of his earlier writings were devoted to the 

 extension of what he termed the mechanical sciences, 



