iv LOTZE S MONISM 63 



will always remain sensible of the extent of my obligations 

 to the author criticized, I feel it would be useless to try 

 to conceal on that account the extent of my divergence 

 from him, and so will commence by stating the proposi 

 tions which I hope to establish in the course of this 

 paper. 



They are as follows : 



I. That Lotze had not on his own principles any ground 

 for seeking an underlying unity of things. 



II. That his argument in reaching it is unsound, and 

 conflicts with his own truer insight. 



III. That, when reached, it throws no light on any 

 of the problems it is supposed to explain. 



IV. That it is not essentially connected with the religious 

 conception of a God, nor with Lotze s treatment of that 

 conception. 



V. That even when it is so connected, it does not 

 contribute anything of value to religious philosophy. 



I am aware that these propositions do not mince 

 matters, and that I shall probably be called on to explain 

 how a thinker of Lotze s eminence should have laid 

 himself open to such sweeping censure. I may therefore 

 fittingly preface my remarks by a theory of the way 

 in which such lapses are psychologically explicable. The 

 theory I would advance is in brief that the elaborate 

 thoroughness and detail of Lotze s discussions occasionally 

 avenge themselves on Lotze also, by generating a readiness 

 finally to accept the first clue out of the labyrinth which 

 offers itself, so that at the end of a chapter full of the 

 subtlest and minutest criticism he sometimes consents 

 to adopt views which certainly would not have passed 

 muster at the beginning. A similar effect produced on 

 the reader, who is loth to believe that the display of 

 so much acumen should be followed by momentary 

 relapses into untenable positions, relaxes his critical atten 

 tion, and so possibly explains his acquiescence in Lotze s 

 conclusions. I have sometimes felt that the process 



