764 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



28. 

 Pr. 

 Nietzsche. 



Contrast 

 with other 

 thinkers. 



another and opposite tendency in philosophy which 

 emphasised the importance of the active principle 

 in the human mind had to recognise — sometimes un- 

 willingly — that Schopenhauer had, thirty years earlier, 

 come forward with a bold solution of Kant's unsolved 

 enigma by stating that the " Thing in Itself " is Will. 

 Critics were not slow, however, to point out that both the 

 " active principle " of Schopenhauer and the Unconscious 

 of V. Hartmann could be traced back to the philosophy 

 of Fichte and Schelling. 



The names of Schopenhauer and v. Hartmann are 

 both identified with distinct philosophical problems. 

 The same cannot be said of another brilliant writer 

 who was much influenced by Schopenhauer, whose writ- 

 ings have had a still greater popular success, but whose 

 philosophical importance seems limited to his being 

 the champion not of quietism and the negation of the 

 Will, but of its forceful self-assertion. This is Friedrich 

 Nietzsche, who has in his own personality placed before 

 thoughtful minds an interesting psychological problem. 



One can hardly avoid contrasting with this philosophy 

 which moves in brilliant aphorisms and concentrates 

 itself in an enigmatic personality, equally devoid of 

 consistency and logic, the dignified flow of thought, the 

 uneventful lives and unobtrusive personalities of some 

 of the foremost leaders of the thought of the period. 

 To one of these we must now return if we wish to 

 understand a very large part of the philosophical labours 

 of the latter part of the century. It was Lotze who, 

 during the period of apparently the smallest philosophi- 

 cal productivity, did much to introduce two habits of 



