90 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



various forms in modern philosophical thought in Ger- 

 many, to the writings of Schiller and Lessing. It 

 received an extreme and one-sided expression in the 

 50. philosophy of Fr. Albert Lange. It is expounded at the 

 end of his well-known work, ' The History of Material- 

 ism,' which appeared in 1865 and ran through many 

 editions. Lange is looked upon as one of the main 

 representatives, if not the originator, of Neo-Kantianism 

 in Germany. He considers that the attempts of idealism 

 to solve the metaphysical problem of reality and to 

 arrive at a philosophical creed have failed, but not less 

 so the materialistic systems which for a moment occupied 

 the position in public estimation which the idealistic 

 systems had occupied before. To prove this Lange 

 wrote his great historical work. Having thus shown 

 that neither idealism nor materialism had succeeded 

 in solving the problem it had set itself, he asks at 

 the end of his history : How are the higher aspira- 

 tions of human nature to be satisfied ? The answer 

 to the question is : By the culture of the " Ideal " 

 and its creations. Everywhere the " Ideal " interposes 

 in our work, be it in science or in art or in life. All 

 attempts, even those of the materialist, to bring his 

 knowledge into a system, to show its unity in one har- 

 monious conception, are dictated by the Ideal. In art 

 and poetry the Ideal is not tied to the data of empirical 

 knowledge, as it is in science, but is free to create its 

 own world. Philosophical speculation occupies an inter- 

 mediate position between science and poetry. In specu- 

 lation the formal element gains the upper hand over the 

 material element — i.e., over the mass of facts, events, 



