408 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



mechanical ideas would more and more leave out of 

 consideration the existence of a different world which 

 the idealistic systems had conceived as the world of 

 ideas uniting and culminating in the idea of the 

 Absolute. The importance of this other world which 

 contains all that is of supreme interest to the human 

 soul, the ideals of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, requires 

 to be placed on an independent foundation as the realm 

 of human interests appealing to the emotional and moral 

 M. side of our nature. To this he gave the designation of 



His doctrine ° ° 



of Values, the world of Values or Worths,^ and he conceived it to 



^ German philosophical litera- 

 ture, after having for a consider- 

 able time done but scant justice to 

 the originality and independence of 

 Lotze's position, has latterly made 

 partial amends for this neglect by 

 very generally absorbing at least 

 the terminology introduced by 

 him into current philosophical 

 language. In addition to the 

 appreciative references to his 

 philosophy, as the last important 

 philosophical system, which are to 

 be met with in the closing chapters 

 botli of Erdmanu's ' History of 

 Philosophy ' and of Kuno Fischer's 

 ' Exposition of Hegel's System,' we 

 are mainly indebted to Falckenberg 

 and Windelband for creating a re- 

 newed and deeper interest in 

 Lotze's writings. Shortly after the 

 writer of this History had, in the 

 year 1882, been obliged to state (in 

 an article contributed to the ' Ency- 

 clopaedia Britannica ' which has un- 

 fortunately been reprinted without 

 the necessary enlargement and re- 

 vision in the latest, the 11th, 

 edition, 1911) that Lotze's S5'stem 

 had met with little criticism, a 

 large literature on tlie subject 

 sprang up in Germany, and R. 

 Falckenberg wrote in 1886: "The 

 most important among the post- 



Hegelian systems, that of Lotze, 

 proves that the scientific spirit 

 does not refuse conciliation with 

 idealistic convictions on the highest 

 problems, and the esteem in which 

 it is everywhere held proves that a 

 strong desire exists in that direc- 

 tion " ('Geschichte der Neueren 

 Philosophic,' 1st ed., p. 471). More 

 specifically Windelband has drawn 

 attention to that side of Lotze's 

 teaching referred to in the text. 

 "Since Lotze emphasised forcibly 

 the conception of value, and placed 

 it at the head also of Logic and 

 Metaphysic, we meet with manifold 

 attempts in the direction of a 

 theory of values as a new and funda- 

 mental philosophical doctrine" 

 (' Geschichte der Neueren Philo- 

 sophic,' closing section). And in a 

 recent work ('Grosse Denker,' ed. 

 E. von Aster, vol. ii. p. 376) 

 Windelband still more emphatically 

 says : " Historical philosophy has 

 its most promising support in the 

 greatest thinker whom German lat- 

 ter day nineteenth century thought 

 has produced, in Lotze. During 

 the critical and empirical period 

 he was welluigh forgotten, as one 

 among the remaining metaphy- 

 sicians, and it is only recently that 

 the fundamental ideas of his phil- 



