74 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



59. 

 Influence of 

 Schopen- 

 hauer. 



vented Zeller from becoming too exclusively logical and 

 critical, whilst, no doubt, the ideal side of Fechner's 

 philosophy, which exerted an increasing influence upon 

 Wundt, helped him to recognise that exact methods alone 

 would lead only to one - sided results, that philosophy 

 meant a Unification of thought ; it resulted in his in- 

 creasingly pronounced endeavour to find a formula in 

 which the spiritual side of things should be adequately 

 expressed. 



About the same time a third influence began to make 

 itself felt in philosophical circles in Germany. This was 

 the belated influence of the philosophy of Schopenhauer, 

 whose principal work had been more than forty years 

 before the world.^ It had remained unappreciated, and 



1 Of all the leading philosophers 

 of Germany the personality of 

 Schopenhauer has created the 

 greatest interest. His philosophy 

 was so much an outcome of his sub- 

 jective character and experience, 

 and so little influenced by the 

 necessities and considerations of 

 academic teaching, that he resem- 

 bles rather independent thinkers 

 like Descartes, Spinoza, and 

 Lpibniz, than the leaders of the 

 phik)Sophy taught at the German 

 universities from Wolff down to 

 Hegel and Herbart. Among these 

 he only recognised Kant as his 

 immediate predecessor, and carried 

 on a lifelong protest against the 

 official philosophy at the universi- 

 ties. The unique and solitary life 

 which he led, away from intercourse 

 with any of the leading thinkers or 

 scholars of his age, gave him the 

 reputation of a philosophical curio- 

 Rity, and added much to the 

 popular interest which surround- 

 ed his eccentric teaching. After 

 llie publication of a volume of 

 Essays in 1851 with the title of 



' Parerga and Paralipomena,' 

 and of the ' Letters on Schopen- 

 hauer's Philosophy ' by Julius 

 Frauenstadt (1854), Schopenhauer 

 began to be known to a wider 

 circle of philosophically interested 

 readers. Three important earlier 

 notices of Schopenhauer's system 

 by Herbart (1820, 'Works,' voh 

 xii. pp. 369-91), Rosenkranz in his 

 ' History of the Kantian Philosophy ' 

 (1840), 'Kant's Works' (vol. xii.), 

 and Erdmann ' Geschichte der 

 Neueren Philos. (vol. iii., part 2), 

 as well as some notices by less 

 well-known authors, failed to at- 

 tract due attention. W^hen the 

 writer of this History came to 

 Gottingen in 1860 Schopenhauer's 

 name was hardly known even 

 amongst students of philosophy, 

 no reference being made to him in 

 philosophical lectures ; and it was 

 only after his death, in Septemljer 

 of that year, that through various 

 obituary notices and througli a bio- 

 graphy by his persontfl friend, W. 

 Gwinner (1862), Schopenhauer be- 

 came for a time the most interesting 



