LATER GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 121 



ing to do battle, at least on field of paper and under 

 fire of ink, for the high privilege of a general self- 

 annihilation in the considerably distant future. 



It is true, however, and encouraging, that this class 

 of minds does not form the whole of the German or 

 other public ; that authority goes by weight and not 

 by numbers ; and that Germans of the higher and 

 more thorough order of culture early discerned the 

 bubble, and pricked it without ado.^ On the other 

 hand, it would be materially unjust to take leave of 

 Hartmann and Schopenhauer without emphatically 

 acknowledging the service they have both rendered 

 by so completely unveiling the pessimism latent in 

 any theory that represents the Eternal as impersonal. 

 They cast a light far back of their own work, and 

 illuminate for our instruction the void which confronts 

 us, in the systems of their greater predecessors, when 

 we look for a doctrine of the Real that answers to our 

 need of a Personal God. 



II 



When wc turn now to Duhring, we find ourselves 

 suddenly in the opposite extreme of the emotional 

 climate. Duhring is materialist, but he is optimist 

 still more. Indeed, it seems not unlikely that he is 

 optimist before he is materialist, just as Hartmann 



^ Compare Professor Wundt's article on " Philosophy in Germany," 

 in Mind, July, 1877. 



