432 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



s. And here it is well to note that the word real was 



The problem 



of Reality, already in ancient philosophy, notably in that of Plato, 

 used to denote that which is opposed to the merely 

 apparent, and that it received an even greater accentu- 

 ation by the introduction of the term, the truly real. In 

 the first instance, then, if we speak of Eeality, we do not 

 merely place it in opposition to that which is non-extant, 

 the nothing which is the negation of existence, but we 

 place it in opposition to that which seems to exist, but 



during the 'Seventies. In the 

 'System,' Logic precedes Meta- 

 physic, but the treatment of both 

 subjects is much enlarged, the 

 Logic by the treatment of applied 

 Logic, the Metaphysic by an ap- 

 plication of ontological principles 

 to cosmological and psychological 

 problems. This elaboration of the 

 original programme, from which 

 Lotze did not materially deviate, 

 is contemporaneous with the clearer 

 definition of the principles and 

 methods of the exact and natural 

 sciences to which the philosophi- 

 cal literature in all the three 

 countries contributed during the 

 fifth, sixth, and seventh decades of 

 the century. The change also in 

 the position of Logic and Meta- 

 physics in the arrangement of 

 Lotze's ' System ' indicates the de- 

 cline of the influence of Hegel, 

 which was more prominent in 

 Lotze's earlier writings. It is to 

 be regretted that Lotze never gave 

 an adequate treatment of the 

 ethical problem to which he points 

 back in his earlier Metaphysics, and 

 forward as intended to form a 

 portion of the third and concluding 

 part of the 'System.' In many 

 earlier works on Metaphysics we 

 meet with a section entitled 

 Rational Theology. This has 

 dropped out of Lotze's 'Meta- 

 physik.' His attitude to such ques- 



tions may be gathered from the 

 introduction to his ' Diktate ; Re- 

 ligionsphilosophie ' (1882) : "Could 

 religious truth be found entirely 

 through human reasoning, philo- 

 sophy would be the organ for its 

 definition and exposition. Could 

 it, on the contrary, not be found 

 through reasoning, but required an 

 outer or inner revelation, philo- 

 sophy would still have a task to 

 perform : it would have to show 

 in what connection the revealed 

 content stood with other of our 

 opinions, demands, and duties. 

 Lastly the hopeless view, that 

 religion is only a psychologically 

 explainable error, could only then 

 be held if philosophy could first 

 give us the truth about the super- 

 sensuous world ; for then only 

 could it be shown why psycho- 

 logical processes, in consequence of 

 the course they take, must neces- 

 sarily miss such truth. For itself 

 alone, however, the historical origin 

 of any conception can never decide 

 as to its correctness. The object 

 of our investigations will thus be : 

 first to find out how much reason 

 by itself can tell us regarding the 

 supersensuous world ; further, to 

 what extent a revealed religious 

 content can be brought into con- 

 nection with these fundamental 

 positions." 



