OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 85 



consciousness or personality, it is better to call it simply 

 the Unconscious. After having reached this position, 

 Hartmann's philosophical work may be looked upon as 

 fulfilling two main tasks. The first task is to trace the 

 unconscious through the whole realm of existing things 

 in nature, mind, and history, in individual and in social 

 life. The analysis of any and every phenomenon in all 

 these different regions, the attempt to understand any and 

 every form of existence, leads us always and everywhere 

 to the acknowledgment of some undefinable remainder, 

 of some hidden principle which lies above and beyond 

 knowledge, the undefinable background of all. This is 

 identified with the Unconscious which appears to us 

 separately as the unconscious Will and as the uncon- 

 scious Intellect. In carrying out this task Hartmann 

 has spent an enormous amount of fruitful labour, and 

 the reading of the sections of his works which deal with 

 this side of his philosophy is highly suggestive and 

 instructive. The second main task was to establish 

 some theory of the drift of the historical development in 

 the actual world, in which the only increasing factor 

 seems to be the rational principle, the ever-increasing 

 mastery of the intellect over the blind forces (the Will). 

 Hartmann's solution of this second or practical problem 

 is pessimistic as is that of Schopenhauer, though in a 

 somewhat different sense. It does not interest us at 

 the moment, and^^may be disregarded by those who, in 

 studying Hartmann's writings, desire to gain the useful 

 information which they abundantly afford. 



So far as the first side of Hartmann's philosophy is 

 concerned, it will be readily seen that the idea of the 



