LATER GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 145 



of romancing with notions {Begriffsromaiiiik), in- 

 volves, with scarce an exception worth naming, a 

 strictly natural-scientific treatment of everything 

 given us by sense. . . . Every falsification of fact 

 is an assault upon the foundations of our intellectual 

 life. As against the metaphysical poetising that 

 arrogates the power to penetrate to the essence of 

 Nature, and determine from mere conceptions that 

 which experience alone can teach us, materialism 

 as a counterpoise is therefore a real benefaction." 

 But on the other contrary again, idealism met a 

 want that mere empiricism cannot supply. " The 

 endeavour," he adds, "is almost as universal to over- 

 come the one-sidedness of the world-view arising 

 from mere fact. . . . Man needs a supplementing 

 of this by an ideal world created by himself, and in 

 such free creations the highest and noblest functions 

 of his mind unite." 



In these words Lange's general position already 

 reveals itself. If Hartmann calls his view the PJii- 

 losophy of tJie Unconscious^ and Dlihring his the PJii- 

 losophy of the Actual, Lange's might in analogy be 

 named the PJiilosophy of the Ideal. He prefers, 

 however, to speak of the Ideal not as a philosophy, 

 but only as a standpoint ; because he wishes to 

 include in philosophy not only the means for satis- 

 fying the craving after ideality, but the means for 

 closing with the demand for certainty. The aim of 



L 



