OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 



599 



but I shall have an opportunity of showing later on to 

 what extent they characterise likewise the development 

 of philosophical thought in France and in this country. 



So far as Lotze's own position is concerned, we may 

 see it defined in many passages of his writings and 

 lectures : most concisely in the published Notes of his 

 lectures on " Encyclopaedia of Philosophy." l It is as 

 follows : " General culture as well as the separate sciences 

 contain a number of assumptions, the origin of which is 

 obscure, because they have been gradually formed by the 

 comparison of many experiences, or have at least become 

 conscious to us only through such experience. Since they 



that this conception of an inter- 

 pretation of reality as distinguished 

 from a mere description was prob- 

 ably in the mind of Plato, and con- 

 stituted also the real intention of 

 Hegel's dialectic. Readers of the 

 ' Microcosmus ' will be inclined to 

 see in it the first attempt to solve 

 this problem on lines more in har- 

 mony with modern thought, dis- 

 carding the metaphysical formalism 

 of Hegel, of which Dilthey approves 

 as little as Lotze did in his time. 

 In fact, the words of Lotze are 

 prophetic of the philosophical 

 movement forty years after his 

 time, as represented in the writings 

 and the school of Dilthey. To what 

 extent Dilthey seems to go beyond 

 the position of Lotze I shall have a 

 future opportunity of pointing out 

 (see infra, p. 772). On Lotze's con- 

 nection with modern thought in 

 Germany see the very interesting 

 Address by Prof. R. Falcken- 

 berg (April 1913), published in the 

 ' Zeitschrift fur Philosophic und 

 Philosophische Kritik ' (vol. 150, 

 pp. 37-56). 



1 This Course of Lectures was, 

 according to the historical data 

 given by Rhenisch (see the Ap- 



pendix to the ' Grundziige der 

 ^Esthetik,' 1884, p. 108), delivered 

 for the first time under the title 

 " Logic and encyclopaedic Intro- 

 duction to other parts of Philo- 

 sophy," in the year 1845, the 

 number of hearers being given as 

 sixty. Considering that the num- 

 ber of students at that time at the 

 University of Gottingen was prob- 

 ably not more than seven hun- 

 dred, the proportion attending 

 these lectures does not seem to 

 have been much less than the 

 proportion of those who attend 

 the much more frequented philo- 

 sophical lectures in German uni- 

 versities at the present day. A 

 decline in numbers took place short- 

 ly after that time, but they rose 

 again considerably after the war 

 of 1870, the Lectures on Psychology 

 and Philosophy of Religion increas- 

 ing in popularity. It is also worth 

 noting that in the earlier years of 

 Lotze's Gottingen career the term 

 Encyclopaedia of Philosophy alter- 

 nates with that of Theory of Know- 

 ledge, and that in the later period 

 the term Encyclopaedia disappears 

 altogether, the lectures being ad- 

 vertised merely as "Logic." 



