492 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



which is only now beginning to be bestowed upon them. 

 We find in Lotze a full appreciation of the critical and 

 the scientific movements of thought, of the great aims, 

 if not also of the specific formulae, of the idealistic 

 systems, and we find an equally genuine understanding 

 of the methods of exact research, which he in fact 

 handled himself with conspicuous success. In addition 

 to all this his mind had a distinctly poetical and artistic 

 side, which shows itself nowhere more than in the ele- 

 gance and refinement of his style. 



Through Kant and Hegel, as also through some of 

 the purely systematic writings of Fichte, philosophical 

 style in Germany has, not undeservedly, acquired the 

 reputation of obscurity. Some of Schelling's writings, 

 as well as those of Jacobi, are characterised on the other 

 side by much simplicity and literary grace, and those of 

 Herbart by directness and clarity. But Schopenhauer 

 was the first great thinker of modern Germany who 

 raised philosophical style to the level of excellence which 

 literary style had attained through Lessing and Goethe. 

 Lotze's style is not marked by the same directness and 

 lucidity. Though his sentences are not as heavy as those 

 of Kant nor as enigmatical as many of Hegel's, there is in 

 them a certain round-aboutness and laboured structure 

 which makes the prolonged study of his works exacting 

 and sometimes fatiguing. In his reviews, criticisms, and 

 polemical writings^ he is as dignified as Kant and Herbart 



' Unfortunately one of the most I Lotze's first attempt to fix his 



mstructive writings of Lotze, the 

 ' Streitschriften ' (1857), has not 

 been reprinted in the collection of 

 his smaller works. It is directed 

 against Fichte the younger, and is 

 a model of decorous and dignified 

 polemic containing; moreover, 



own philosophical position with 

 reference to the idealism of Schel- 

 ling and Hegel on the one side and 

 to Herbart on the other, notifying 

 especially his indebtedness and al 

 legiance to Weisse. 



