486 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



principle as the kernel and source of reality ; and the 

 further attempt of Schopenhauer to show how this 

 principle manifests itself in nature, rising from blind 

 impulses and instincts through many stages to the 

 height of conscious life, reminds us in altered terms of 

 Schelling's expositions in his ' Philosophy of Nature ' ; 

 also the ideas of the two thinkers on the function of 

 art have much in common. 



Schopenhauer's writings remained without influence 

 on the main currents of thought till after the middle of 

 the century. In the meantime a great change was 

 taking place in philosophical thought in Germany, a 

 change which brought it nearer to the currents in which 

 philosophical thought was moving in the neighbouring 

 countries, notably in England and France. We may 

 define the purport of this movement by saying that the 

 tendency of thought was in the direction of positivism. 



whereinto such a philosophy will 

 resolve itself. But whether Plato, 

 or Spinoza, or the Indians should 

 be admitted ? As good friends we 

 shall always have them near us ; 

 whether they gain influence over 

 the system depends upon in- 

 dividuality. A thinker so accu- 

 rate, so valiant and independent as 

 .Fichte was, at least in his earlier 

 years, does not permit them to 

 come along. They have too many 

 foreign features ; they do not agree 

 amongst each other. But the 

 majority does not take matters so 

 minutely ; every plausible testimony 

 is welcome ; the oldest and the 

 remotest witnesses count as the 

 most valid ; how could one despise 

 Plato and the Indians?" (See 

 Herbart's 'Sammtliche Werke,' 

 ed. Hartenstein, vol. xii. p. 369 

 qq.) Further on Herbart objects 



to what Schopenhauer has in com- 

 mon with Kant viz. , " the secret 

 effect of practical needs which show 

 themselves in every system in which 

 the practical and the theoretical 

 are not most carefully and distinctly 

 separated as completelj' indepen- 

 dent, and to be kept from mutual 

 influence" (p. 378), and he repeats 

 (p. 379) " what no doubt will appeal- 

 very strange to Schopenhauer, that 

 to the Reviewer he seems only to 

 repeat Fichte, though in a new and 

 formally improved edition." The 

 analogies with Fichte are followed 

 up with considerable detail in the 

 sequel (p. 382) of this interesting 

 document, in which many diffi- 

 culties are referred to which later 

 historians of philosophy have dis- 

 covered and criticised in the writ- 

 ings of Schopenhauer as well as in 

 those of Herbart. 



