OF THE GOOD. 207 



Platonic idea : that there exists an independent and 

 higher reality which may be most adequately defined 

 as the region of values, the realm of Goods or of ' The 

 Good.' 



In his earliest writings, Lotze had already made the 48. 



Metaphysics 



idea of the Good the ultimate thought of his meta- based on 



° ethics. 



physics ; not, however, as if it were a logical outcome of 

 metaphysical reasoning, but rather as the necessary pre- 

 supposition, as the prms which we must place at the 

 entrance and uphold as the background of all speculation. 

 It not only, according to him, denotes the end towards 

 which the world-process tends ; it also forms the only 

 conception through which we can, to some extent, 

 comprehend and interpret this process itself, — it comes 

 even before Truth. " Truth is not the prius, but 

 depends upon this, that the realm of the Good produces 

 it as a necessary condition alike in its existence and 

 its definition." ^ The key to the world of things that 

 are, is the conception of that which ought to he. Thus 

 the beginning of metaphysics does not lie in meta- 

 physics itself, but in Ethics.'^ This view expressed in 

 the year 1841 was repeated by Lotze nearly forty 

 years later, in the second part of his system. Students 

 of Lotze's philosophy must regret that he was prevented 

 from writing the concluding volume. There they 

 might have hoped to find what indeed is missing — 



1 'Metaphysik' (1841, p. 328). | Excusiug the aphoristic statement 

 ' Ibid. (p. 329). It is significant i of his views he maintains "that 



that in this connection Lotze points 

 to a task which has always been 

 prominently before thinkers in this 

 country, and which is characteristic 

 of some of their most recent work. 



psychology with its mystery of the 

 Self and the unity of its move- 

 ments must lead to more perfect 

 clearing up." 



