66 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



nothing that is defined or particular ; second, the realm 

 of actual matter and forces which appear to us not as 

 necessary but only as actually existing, which, acting 

 under definite conditions according to those laws, pro- 

 duce the manifold phenomena ; third, a definite and 

 specific plan, according to which the elements of reality 

 are gathered together in such a way as to realise by 

 following those general laws a definite end or purpose.^ 

 Lotze then goes on to say that, for common- sense and 

 to the popular mind, these three regions or principles 

 appear to be disconnected and independent, and only 

 casually and accidentally interwoven. It does not 

 appear at all clear why the general laws should be 

 realised only in the existing examples, and even the 

 general plan or the purposes of existence — if we knew 

 them — would not appear realisable only by the laws 

 and things which actually exist. But neither the 

 common -sense of life nor the demands of science can 

 rest satisfied with this threefold aspect, and it has 

 always been the main object of speculation to unite 

 the three in a highest principle. " Now in general 

 we may say that this task has never been, and never 

 will be, completely solved. But between speculative 

 knowledge, which vainly searches for a complete under- 

 standing of this connection, and practice, which seeks 

 in an equally partial way to make things subservient to 

 the unity of a purpose — i.e., between the regions of the 

 True and the Good — there arises a peculiar feeling 

 or sensation. This is the impression of the Beautiful, 

 which, standing in the middle [between the True and 



1 ' Grundziige der Aesthetik,' p. 10. 



