OF KNOWLEDGE. 407 



suggested already in the writings of Leibniz. He recog- 

 nised that a description of the phenomena of nature and 

 mind would not permanently satisfy our thirst for know- 

 ledge or our search after truth, but that the human 

 mind would look for an explanation in addition to a 

 description of things, and that the highest task of science 

 in the larger sense of the word — that is, of Wissenschaft 

 — would always consist in an attempt to interpret or find 

 out the hidden meaning of the phenomena which lay in 

 and around us. He distinctly formulated this idea by 

 emphasising the all-pervading, but also the subordinate, 

 role of mechanism, and the necessity of penetrating to 

 the deeper sense or meaning of this all -pervading 

 structure. In his largest and most popular work, the 

 ' Microeosmus,' he endeavoured to reconcile the view of 

 things which was being elaborated in the natural 

 sciences with the demands of the moral and emotional 

 side of our nature, by trying to fix the meaning and 

 significance which belongs to man and mankind within 

 the larger universe, the position of the microcosm in the 

 macrocosm. 



As in many other instances the progress of thought 

 has been dependent on, and assisted by, the introduction 

 of a new vocabulary, so again it is the merit of Lotze 

 that he has raised to the rank of leading conceptions 

 familiar terms which before him had only restricted 

 meanings. Appreciating as he did the growing import- 

 ance of the exact or mechanical treatment of all natural 

 phenomena, of the world of things and events which 

 surround us, he recognised, earlier probably than any 

 other thinker, how the growth and diffusion of 



