OF THE SPIRIT. 285 



more modern of Spencer, and think it necessary to 

 revert to a deeper psychological analysis. The last is 

 probably the position now most generally accepted, but 

 it was not the position which found favour in the 

 great systems of philosophy which succeeded Kant in 

 Germany. There, the second way out of the difficulty 

 was taken in two characteristic attempts to get out 

 of the dilemma which had been created by Kant. In 

 both instances a direct answer is given to the question : 

 What is the " thing in itself," the kernel of all reality ? 

 But this answer is not arrived at by a logical process 

 or by demonstration, nor is it maintained that such a 

 demonstration is possible. The answer is gained by 

 what Lotze has termed a resolution of the character, 

 by a moral or an intellectual effort. 



Fichte expressed this clearly when he said that the 20. 



Fichte's and 



choice of any man's philosophy depends upon what schopen- 

 kind of man he is. Thus it is with him an intellectual solution. 

 intuition. 



With Schopenhauer, who was certainly much influ- 

 enced by Fichte, it becomes a scientific hypothesis. 

 In stating boldly that the principle of reality is " the 

 will," he professes to have taken the last and only 

 step which is possible when one has once gained the 

 Kantian position. 



The whole of Schopenhauer's philosophy becomes 

 then an illustration or a series of illustrations through 

 which the hypothetical answer he has given is made 

 plausible, brought home to his readers, and after the 

 nature of any and every scientific hypothesis, made 

 useful in explaining the manifold phenomena of 



