OF THE SOUL. 



239 



cussion of philosophical questions in every instance where, 

 in the course of this History, we deal with other matters 

 than those pertaining to psychology or to the soul. It 

 will therefore be useful to state in as few and simple words 

 as possible wherein this radical change of aspect consists. 

 Perhaps it can be more readily understood in contrasting 

 the treatment which psychological phenomena received 

 in the idealistic schools with that which obtained in the 

 English and French schools during the eighteenth and the 

 early part of the nineteenth century. The latter had 

 collected a large amount of detailed knowledge of the 

 various sides which the inner life presented, but the 

 problem of the unity and essence of the soul had been 

 either neglected or kept in the background as belonging 

 to a different province, or it had been pronounced to 

 be insoluble. The first of these three positions was that 

 of Locke, the second that of the Scottish school, the 

 third that of Hume. Kant was induced to take up the 

 question in the course of the study of some of Hume's 

 later writings, and the problem which he fixed on was the 

 problem of the unity of thought.'^ He did not start 



and the philosophy of religion ; this 

 awkward circumstance throws its 

 shadow on his terminology. The 

 same word may in the beginning 

 and the end of a discussion mean 

 something very different, though a 

 clear explanation is wanting " (p. 

 149). The change in the philosophi- 

 cal language of Germany, wliich 

 Prof. Eucken brings out in this pass- 

 age, and in his further references 

 to post - Kantian terminology, be- 

 comes still more evident and is liable 

 to create still greater confusion for 

 those who approach the study of 

 this philosophy from outside. 

 ^ Looked at from the position 



at which psychology has arrived in 

 the course of the nineteenth century, 

 we now see that the difficulties 

 which presented themselves to 

 Locke and his followers may, to a 

 large extent, be traced to the 

 atomising habit of their mental an- 

 alysis, and that this is very likely 

 owing to the fact that they desired 

 to imitate the processes of observa- 

 tion and reasoning which had been 

 adopted in tlie natural sciences. This 

 atomising tendency of thought, so 

 successful, and yet, as we now know, 

 so one-sided in its application to 

 external nature, which readily sub- 

 mits to a disintegration into sep- 



