92 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



has crept in, disappointment through the failure of 

 efforts in the past plays a greater part than confidence 

 in the success of efforts in the future ; but the latter 

 was just the characteristic temper, the governing feature 

 with the thinkers and poets of the age of the Revolu- 

 tion.^ 



and treats of the influence of 

 Spinoza ; and again in the last 

 cliapter of the whole work, which 

 deals with a similar reaction setting 

 in in more recent times. Whereas 

 in the former period the construc- 

 tive metaphysical philosophy of 

 Spinoza, assimilated as we have 

 seen {supra, vol. iii. p. 119 sqq.) by 

 Goethe, led the reaction in phil- 

 osophy and poetry, the reaction 

 which again set in against the re- 

 newed materialism after the lapse 

 of a century, dropped the specu- 

 lative confidence and hope con- 

 tained in Spinozism and its more 

 recent pantheistic and theistic de- 

 velopments and returned, not to 

 Spinoza, but to the destructive 

 criticism initiated by Kant and 

 revived by the Neo-Kantians. The 

 difference is significant. In the 

 former instance philosophy, which 

 included science, was considered 

 capable of reaching the highest 

 content, or the Absolute, through 

 methodical thought. Art also and 

 poetry were considered to be a 

 distinct expression of the Divine. 

 In the later reaction both phil- 

 osophy and art were considered to 

 be incapable of attaining to these 

 heights. Nevertheless, scientific 

 or realistic thought remained, and 

 the creations of art, the work of 

 imagination, remained ; but the 

 former was limited to mere ap- 

 pearance, unable to grasp the truly 

 real, and the latter were not con- 

 sidered to represent the idea as the 

 truly real. This position was not 

 that of Hartmann, although it was 



only a short step to take from the 

 Unconscious to the Unknowable. 

 The diilterence then, so far as beauty, 

 art, and the Ideal is concerned, 

 may be stated in this wise. For 

 Lessing, Winckelmann, Schiller, 

 and others, as likewise for Schelling 

 and Hartmann, the Ideal was a 

 revelation, though a transient and 

 momentary one, of tiie truly Real ; 

 for Lange and his followers the 

 Ideal was not a revelation but a 

 product of the human imagination, 

 which by some mysterious impulse 

 — biologically explained as a neces- 

 sary propelling force in the struggle 

 for existence — invented the fanciful 

 world of beauty and the beautiful. 

 In the former case the Beautiful 

 was a revelation of the truly Real ; 

 in the latter, a mere invention, a 

 cunning device, of the human soul. 

 ^ Towards the end of the century 

 the view expressed by Lange has 

 been more or less adopted by many 

 thinkers, and quite recently (1911) 

 there has appeared a remarkable 

 Treatise by Prof. H. Vaihinger, a 

 friend and disciple of Lange's. It 

 bears the title, ' Die Philosophie 

 des Als Ob,' and is explained on 

 the title-page as a " system of the 

 theoretical, practical, and religious 

 fictions of mankind founded upon 

 an idealistic Positivism," and it 

 introduces itself by a motto (being 

 one of the last utterances of Lange 

 himself) : "I am convinced that 

 the point herein dwelt on will some 

 day become a corner-stone of phil- 

 osophical epistemolog}\ " The work 

 has an author as well as an editor 



