766 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



some he has afforded a clue, whilst he has driven away 

 others to seek their salvation elsewhere. 



What Lotze has done for Logic and Metaphysics but 

 has left undone for Ethics was to a large extent supplied 

 by Henry Sidgwick in his ' Methods of Ethics ' ; and the 

 importance of this work, the study of which is indispens- 

 able as an introduction to the moral philosophy of the age, 

 stands out, at the moment, even more prominently than 

 that of the ' System ' of Lotze. The latter has been fol- 

 lowed by the elaborate and original treatises of Brentano 

 and Husserl (to mention only two foremost representa- 

 tives) in Germany, of Bradley and Bosanquet in this 

 country. French thinkers will more readily go back 

 to Eenouvier's ' Essais de Critique Ge'nerale,' now again 

 so. republished. On the other side the lesson contained 



The lesson of 



the ' Micro- m the ' Microcosmus has not yet been fully recog- 



cosmus.' 



nised in recent philosophic thought. To this I must 

 now direct the attention of my readers. 



It is the first attempt to take a comprehensive and 

 synoptic view of the world and life from an introspective 

 and anthropological standpoint. Whereas nearly all 

 philosophies before Lotze started from some definite 

 metaphysical or methodical principle, and aimed at 

 constructing systems and gaining a unity of thought 

 by applying such principles in many directions, Lotze 

 spreads out before his readers in orderly arrangement 

 the great world of facts with the reflections suggested 

 by them, and finally attempts to bring them together 

 and connect them in a few finishing strokes which 

 constitute the main features of his philosophical creed. 



The task of philosophy becomes, from this point of 



