OF SOCIETY. 



583 



life also not only manifests certain regularities and 

 uniformities, but to the special structure of individual 

 life there corresponds a similar structure of social life. 

 This structure Dilthey finds in various and succeeding 

 " cultural systems," and among these systems or products 

 of culture philosophy occupies a special position. It is 

 of interest to recognise what position philosophy occu- 

 pies in the general economy of human society. This 

 leads Dilthey to an investigation of the relation of 

 philosophy to religion and art. 1 



1 The exposition in the text is 

 mainly taken from the article on 

 the " Essence of Philosophy " men- 

 tioned above (p. 31 sqq.). Dil- 

 they's view is essentially synoptic, 

 and at the same time essenti- 

 ally psychological or introspective. 

 Looking at the outer world his 

 glance is fixed upon the great sys- 

 tematic developments, the struc- 

 tures, as he calls them, in which 

 the human mind has, in the course 

 of history, embodied its own nature 

 and life, and arrived at an under- 

 standing of the same. It is essenti- 

 ally a study of the objective mind, 

 in the sense of Hegel, though 

 Dilthey fully explains (Berlin Acad., 

 1910, p. 79 sqq.) that with him 

 the term has an empirical, not a 

 metaphysical, meaning, and is also 

 used in a wider sense than by 

 Hegel, including, indeed, what the 

 latter conceived as stages in the 

 development of the absolute mind, 

 art, religion, and philosophy. On 

 the other side he maintains that 

 this comprehensive view of histori- 

 cal creations cannot be understood 

 by the abstract and dissecting 

 method of the natural sciences ; 

 that it can only be grasped by in- 

 dividual minds in whom it is re- 

 flected, in whom it has become 

 actual and a living power. Through 

 their individual grasp they become 



representative of their age in larger 

 or narrower regions, which they at 

 the same time reveal to the glance 

 of their contemporaries, to the mass 

 of mankind, acquiring in this way 

 collective importance. Thus, as it 

 seems, Dilthey's interest oscillates 

 between two mutually complemen- 

 tary problems the problem of so- 

 ciety in its historical development 

 and the problem of individual life 

 as it appears in great personalities. 

 With the latter interest is com- 

 bined a delicate pyschological in- 

 sight into the life and development 

 of artistic, poetical, and mystical 

 natures. This is specially manifest 

 not only in his larger works on 

 Schleiermacher and Hegel, but also 

 in his four psychological studies in a 

 volume entitled ' Das Erlebnis und 

 die Dichtung' (1906), in which he 

 sympathetically enters into the in- 

 nermost recesses of such delicate 

 souls as those of Holderlin and No- 

 valis. We have also from his pen 

 an interesting essay entitled ' The 

 Imagination of the Poet,' with the 

 sub-title 'Bausteine fur eine Poetik,' 

 in a jubilee volume of philosophi- 

 cal essays dedicated to Ed. Zeller 

 (1887). On the relation of collec- 

 tive historical phenomena or cul- 

 tural systems to individuals, see 

 especially the explanations in the 

 Memoir just quoted (p. 77 s^.)- 



