OF KNOWLEDGE. 



393 



meaning according to which force is the hidden cause or 

 spring of motion. For, in the same degree as the modern 

 definition of energy has brought clearness into physical 

 science, where the tendency is to look upon all natural 

 processes as transformations of energy or of various 

 modes of motion, it has been found more and more 

 impracticable to comprise in this attempt, in the same 

 way, a definition of life and an explanation, or even an 

 adequate description, of vital phenomena. 



Accordingly, this first great step 1 by which the 

 physical sciences have been more completely elevated 

 into the region of exact research would have left the 

 biological and psychological phenomena at a comparative 

 disadvantage, inasmuch as, the older sense (the duplex 

 meaning) of the word force being destroyed, the connec- 



1 The dualism which, according 

 to the modern conception, attaches 

 to the term knowledge, and which 

 differs from that which was char- 

 acteristic of the middle ages, which 

 distinguished divine and human 

 knowledge, may in one aspect 

 be defined by looking at the mean- 

 ing of the term force. In the 

 older and popular use of the term 

 there lurks a reference to the sub- 

 jective element, that connected 

 with volition and conscious exer- 

 tion, what we may term the active 

 principle as known to us through 

 personal experience or introspection. 

 If on the one side the clarifying and 

 simplifying process in scientific 

 thought consists in removing this 

 subjective element, then, on the 

 other side, we may say that a 

 parallel movement in philosophical 

 thought consists in the increasingly 

 distinct recognition how this sub- 

 jective factor of volition enters into 

 all mental phenomena. A one- 



sided and extreme expression of 

 this fact is to be found in the 

 philosophy of Schopenhauer, who, 

 in his first great work (1819), 

 influenced, no doubt, not only by 

 Kant but also by Fichte and 

 Schelling, identified the unknown 

 "Thing in itself" of Kant with the 

 Will. It is interesting to note 

 that, when materialistic philosophy 

 in the middle of the century had 

 emphasised the purely mechanical 

 aspect of the forces of nature, 

 at a time when the conception of 

 vital forces was banished from 

 German physiology, many of those 

 who still longed for the spiritual 

 view of things were powerfully 

 attracted by the philosophy of 

 Schopenhauer, the fundamental 

 idea of which in endless different 

 forms permeates the whole of 

 modern philosophy, as we shall have 

 occasion to see in subsequent chap- 

 ters. 



