126 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



(Erlceomtnisstheorie) was established and named by 

 Eduard Zeller (1862). Since that time it has become 

 and remained a favourite subject for lectures at the 

 German Universities.-^ 



II. 



The great influence of the critical spirit in Germany, 

 of which we have considered Lessing to be the first and 

 most liberal representative, did not emanate either from 

 him or from the great heroes of the classical period in 

 German literature, but made itself felt only when it 

 became introduced into academic teaching as a definite 

 method, when it became domiciled at the German 

 Universities. This took place, about the time when 

 Lessing published his first critical writings, at the 

 University of Gottingen. It there met another im- 

 portant tradition, which assisted, and in many ways 

 strengthened it : the connection with English literature 

 and learning. Many academic teachers contributed 

 there to introduce and establish what mav still be con- 



1 It may here be mentioned that 

 Lotze forms in this respect an 

 exception among modern German 

 philosophers. In many passages of 

 his writings he has denounced 

 what, he maintains, has been falsely 

 considered to be Kant's real object, 

 by " drawing attention to the in- 

 evitable circle in which a theory of 

 knowledge must move." Most 

 clearly has he put this iu one of 

 his last deliverances (" Philosophy 

 in the Last Forty Years," 1880, 

 ' Contemporary Review'): " It is no 



matter whence our ideas come, and 

 how they form themselves within 

 us psychologically, but what is of 

 consequence is to know whether, 

 when we have them, we may halt 

 with them, or must go farther and 

 necessarily make judgment upon 

 them, in order to secure the com 

 plete harmony of our reason with 

 itself and with the given facts, the 

 only goal which is at all attain- 

 able by us " (reprinted in ' Kleine 

 Schriften,' ed. Peipers, vd. iii.) 



