iv LOTZE S MONISM 65 



something very like self-contradiction, inasmuch as it 

 seems to assert that spiritual beings are ipso facto 

 independent of the Absolute, after inferring the existence 

 of that Absolute from the fact that things (in which 

 spiritual beings are presumably included, even if they do 

 not constitute the whole class) could not be independent. 1 

 But it may be shown that verbal contradictions are not the 

 only nor the most serious flaws to be found in Lotze s 

 argument. 



I. It is in the first place by no means clear that a 

 unity of things must be specially provided to account for 

 the fact that things act on one another. This necessity 

 only exists if the problem it is to solve is a valid one, i.e. 

 if the fact of interaction really requires explanation. If it 

 does not, there is no basis for any further argument. 

 And it may be plausibly contended that it does not. 



For interaction is essential to the existence of the 

 world in a more fundamental manner than even Lotze 

 suggests. It is the. condition of there being a world at all. 

 Without it there could be no things, no plurality, and 

 hence no assemblage of things, no world. For each of 

 the possible constituents of a world, holding no sort of 

 communication with any other, would remain shut up in 

 itself. It is easy to illustrate this by showing that in 

 every case in which we predicate the coexistence of 

 several things, we imply that they, directly or indirectly, 

 act on one another. E.g. in the case of the gravitation 

 of all the bodies in the universe, the interaction is direct ; 

 in the case, e.g., of Hamlet and the Chimera it takes place 

 through the medium of a mind which connects them. 

 But interaction in some way there must be, if coexistence 

 is to be recognized. We may therefore confidently 

 affirm that without interaction there is no coexistence, and 

 without coexistence there is no world. The existence of 



1 Lotze generally prefers to use unabhdngig when proving that there must 

 be an all-embracing unity, selbstandig when showing that the unity cannot 

 embrace the conscious centres of experience. But he sometimes, as e.g. in 

 Outlines of Philosophy of Religion, 18, uses selbstandig also in the first case, so 

 that the verbal conflict is complete. The English translation obscures the point 

 by rendering selbstandig by self-dependent in 98 and by independent in 

 69- 



F 



