OF THE SOUL. 



249 



very real meaning, and that they refer to a definite 

 though logically undefinable something which underlies 

 all external events, alone making them subjects of 

 general and lasting interest. It is true that in the 

 writings of Kant, and still more so in those of Fichte, 

 Schelling, and Hegel, we do- not meet with any sustained 

 effort towards that painstaking psychological analysis 

 which we find in the writings of the English and French 

 introspective schools : they were, as stated above, intro- 

 duced in Germany by the opposition thinkers like Her- 

 bart and Beneke ; but in the whole of the literature 

 which followed the appearance of Kant's works, or which 

 accompanied it, we meet with one of the most remark- 

 able psychological phenomena in the history of human 

 thought. The fact that speculations of such an abstract 

 nature, frequently expressed in uncouth and forbidding 

 terms, should have attained a firm and lasting hold 

 on the great intellects of a great people for a long period , 

 is a psychological phenomenon well worthy to be pon- 

 dered. Nor is it likely that this phenomenon would 

 ever have actually occurred had the movement been a 

 purely individual l and academic one. The causes 

 which brought it about are to be found as much in the 



1 " At a time when the universal 

 nature of spiritual life has become 

 so very much emphasised and 

 strengthened, and the mere indi- 

 vidual aspect has become, as it 

 should be, correspondingly a matter 

 of indifference, when, too, that 

 universal aspect holds, by the entire 

 range of its substance, the full 

 measure of the wealth it has built 

 up, and lays claim to it all, the 

 share in the total work of mind 



that falls to the activity of any 

 particular individual can only be 

 very small. Because this is so, the 

 individual must all the more forget 

 himself, as in fact the very nature 

 of science implies, and requires that 

 he should ; and he must, moreover, 

 become and do what he can " 

 (Hegel, ' Phenomenology,' end of 

 the Preface, J. B. Baillie's trans- 

 lation, 1910, vol. i. p. 72). 



