INTRODUCTION. 



49 



belonging to human thought can this unity be grasped, 

 by what words of human speech can it be expressed ? 



Both Mr Herbert Spencer's 'System' and Lotze's 'Micro- 

 cosmus ' are written with the object of establishing the 

 unity of thought, of preserving the conviction that things 

 exist and that events happen in some intelligible connec- 

 tion, and especially that the religious and the scientific 

 views of the world and life are reconcilable. But whereas 

 JVir Spencer is content to point to the underlying unity as 

 the Unknowable, and then betakes himself to the study 

 and exposition of the manner in which events follow and 

 things develop, Lotze considers the whole of this part of 

 philosophy as merely an introduction to the solution of_; 

 the real problem. To him a process of development is 

 merely the outer form in which some real substance pre- 

 sents itself, a mechanical method by which something of 

 higher value is accomplished. He admits the all-pervad- 

 ing rule of such a mechanism, but he urges the necessity 

 of finding the substance itself, and of gaining a view of 

 the end and aim which is to be attained by this array of 

 processes, by this parade of mechanical means, of the in- 

 terest that attaches to them, and the result which is to be 

 secured.^ Knowing the mechanism by which a certain 

 object is accomplished, we may be able to calculate pheno- 

 mena and events, but to understand^ them requires a 



1 The earliest passage in which 

 Lotze gives us a pretty complete 

 idea of his philosophical methods 

 and aims is to be found in his pol- 

 emical pamphlet against Fichte the 

 younger ('Streitschriften,' Leipzig, 

 1857, p. 52 sqq.) He there also 

 reviews his attitude to the ideal- 

 istic school of German Philosophy 



VOL. L 



and to Herbart, whose follower he 

 refuses to be called {ibid., p. 5 sq.) 

 It is evident that at that time his 

 system was not yet definitely set- 

 tled in his mind (p. 58). 



" The difference between calcula- 

 ting and understanding phenomena 

 is probably to be traced to Leibniz. 

 Lotze emphasises this difference. 



D 



