220 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



their help and guidance, after a metaphysical foundation 

 for his religious and moral convictions. Thus we find 

 that he started, as Kant did, with the study and refuta- 

 tion of Hume's doubts, and that, in the ' Prolegomena,' 

 he founded the solution of the ethical problem on a 

 metaphysical basis. 



If we now look at Lotze's attitude we find externally 

 some similarity, inasmuch as Lotze published various 

 treatises on Metaphysics, Logic, and Psychology before 

 he ventured on a treatment of the central philosophical 

 problem which to him presented itself as the problem of 

 the " Connection of Things," not as the specially ethical 

 problem, which, in fact, was never adequately discussed 

 by him. But if we regard more closely Lotze's position, 

 we really find that he had advanced a step beyond the 

 position taken up by German idealism, that he had in 

 fact arrived at the conviction suggested already by Kant 

 and still more by Fichte, that a firm moral conviction 

 must precede metaphysical inquiry, that Ethics or a 

 moral conviction is not a conclusion to be drawn from 

 theory, but that it is the sine qua, non of such a theory 

 itself that, as he expresses it, the world that is must 

 find its interpretation, its raison d'etre, in the world 

 that ought to be. I need only further point out that a 

 similar step beyond the position of Green has been taken 

 up in English speculation since his time. 1 



1 "There is one thing which all 

 reasoning about morality assumes 

 and must assume, and that is 

 morality itself. The moral con- 

 cept whether described as Worth, 

 or as duty or as goodness cannot 

 be distilled out of any knowledge 

 about the laws of existence or of 



occurrence. Nor will speculation 

 about the real conditions of experi- 

 ence yield it unless adequate re- 

 cognition be first of all given to 

 the fact that the experience which 

 is the subject-matter of philosophy 

 is not merely a sensuous and think- 

 ing, but also a moral, experience. 



