OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 



103 



Nevertheless he stimulated in his disciples a genuine 

 interest in sesthetical problems from the psychological 

 point of view, and this not only through his untiring 

 and strenuous opposition to the metaphysical treatment, 

 but quite as much by pointing out how assthetical, as 

 well as ethical, interests originate in and come under 

 one and the same psychological principle. This is the 

 principle of approval or disapproval with which we 

 contemplate things as well as human actions. Thus 

 Herbart puts at the entry of his practical philosophy 

 the conception of value. Judgments or estimates as to 

 the value of things, phenomena, events or actions, are 

 termed by Herbart sesthetical, and are distinguished 

 from those referring to truth or correctness. ^Esthetical 

 judgments, again, divide themselves into those which 

 refer merely to the approval which .we experience in 

 contemplation these are the sesthetical judgments in 



stein ; further, in the sixth and 

 following chapters of the ' Encyclo- 

 pedia ' (1831), ' Works,' vol. ii. The 

 best exposition of the whole of Her- 

 bart's philosophy, and also especi- 

 ally of his ^Esthetics, will be found 

 in Lotze's writings. That referring 

 to the general principles and the 

 originality of his position is given 

 in the Lecture Syllabus on the 

 ' History of German Philosophy 

 since Kant' (1882), chap. 6; that 

 on his Ontology in a long critical 

 article (1843) reprinted in the first 

 volume of the ' Kleine Schriften ' 

 (p. 109) ; that referring to his 

 ^Esthetics in the ' History of ^Es- 

 thetics in Germany ' (pp. 225-246). 

 Considering that Lotze does not 

 agree with Herbart in his funda- 

 mental treatment of ^Esthetics, he 

 is remarkably just and appreciative 

 of Herbart's merit in having for 



the first time clearly introduced into 

 philosophical discussions the distinct 

 idea and helpful term of Value or 

 Worth, as more expressive and ser- 

 viceable than the term Purpose used 

 by Kant. Lotze's own position is best 

 understood if we note how he from 

 the beginning (cf. his'Metaphysik,' 

 1841) introduces this term, and how 

 he retains it and enlarges its mean- 

 ing in all his subsequent writings. 

 It is surprising that the philosopher 

 who first, after Lotze, made this 

 idea of Value one of the central 

 pointsof his speculation, H.Hoffding, 

 has not referred on this point to 

 Lotze in his somewhat unsympath- 

 etic account of the latter. (See 

 ' History of Philosophy,' vol. ii. 

 p. 508 ; see also a short Tract by 

 Otto Ritschl, 'UeberWerthurtheile,' 

 1895.) 



