OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 667 



on the borderland of matter and mind and seemed to 

 promise an entry into the phenomena of consciousness. 



As I stated in an earlier chapter of this work, 

 physiology, and especially the physiology of the sense 

 organs and of sensation, was essentially a German 

 science. It was natural that the hopeful spirit which 

 animated thinkers of that age should hasten to 

 attack the philosophical problem by resorting to the 

 methods and the supposed new principles of biological 

 science. Indeed, Lotze's earlier writings themselves 

 preached the doctrine of the all-pervading mechanism 

 of nature, physical and psychical alike, and led the 

 campaign against the fictions of vitalism. His warning 

 that these important writings represented only one side 

 of his philosophy were disregarded. Moreover, so far 

 as the other and philosophically more important side 

 was concerned, he did not speak with that hopefulness 

 which had characterised the idealistic systems. In fact, 

 we find in his more esoteric deliverances the first signs 

 in German speculation of that spirit which later on in 

 this country received the title of Agnosticism. He 

 warned his readers not to expect too much, and spoke 

 in accents very different from the aspiring note which 

 resounded in Fichte and Hegel, who ever led their 

 readers and hearers onward to greater expectations. 

 Those who, in diminishing numbers, still took a hopeful 

 view of the powers of the human intellect, turned on the 

 other side to such later achievements of the idealistic 

 and romantic spirit as had ripened in the minds of a 

 few solitary thinkers. During the third quarter of the 

 century these acquired sudden celebrity and an influence 



