OF EEALITY. 



493 



had been ; he is never impolite as Fichte and Sehelling 

 frequently were ; nor does he fasten upon his opponents 

 any stigma as Hegel frequently succeeded in doing ; ^ 

 he is quite above that virulent and unmannerly in- 

 vective by which Schopenhauer tries to crush, but 

 actually never damages, the arguments of thinkers whom 

 he chooses to regard as enemies. But the style of Lotze 

 reflects one characteristic trait of modern thought. The 

 confidence and self-assurance of Kant, llchte, Hegel, 

 Schopenhauer, and of the earlier Sehelling have dis- 

 appeared. It is the style of a period of transition and 

 uncertainty ; much of the light which the preceding age 

 thought it possessed has vanished and the new light has 

 not yet dawned.^ 



1 The ill-disguised contempt with 

 which Hegel treats contemporary 

 thinkers of eminence, such as 

 Jacobi, Fichte, and Schleiermacher, 

 in his contributions to the ' Critical 

 Journal,' is less objectionable, 

 though probably more effective, than 

 the unpardonable rudeness with 

 which Sehelling treated some of his 

 opponents and even friends, such as 

 Jacobi, Eschenmayer,and Windisch- 

 maun (see ' Aus Schelling's Leben '). 



But lasting harm was done to 

 the cause of philosophy by the an- 

 tagonism which existed between 

 Schleiermacher and Hegel. The 

 frequently quoted criticism in which 

 Hegel, in mature years (1822), 

 attacked Schleiermacher's con- 

 ception of religion, as arising out 

 of a feeling of absolute dependence 

 which would put it on the level of 

 " the feelings of a dog," was never 

 forgiven by Schleiermacher. It 

 appears that he prevented Hegel's 

 election as a member of the Berlin 

 Academy, and, on the other side, 

 Hegel threatened to leave Berlin if 

 the proposition to secure Schleier- 

 macher's co-operation in an in- 



tended philosophical Review was 

 persisted in : the result being that 

 this Review ('Jahrbiicher fiir 

 Wissenschaftliche Kritik,' 1827) 

 did not include, in the list of its 

 celebrated patrons, the important 

 name of Schleiermacher, and was 

 subsequently regarded as an ex- 

 clusive organ of the Hegelian party 

 (see Kuno Fischer, ' Hegel, &c.,' 

 vol. i. p. 180). 



2 With liotze as with all of the 

 best of recent thought the labour 

 and search seem to be much greater 

 than the achievement ; the criticism 

 quite out of proportion to the re- 

 sult. The latter consists frequently 

 merely in indications, in suggestions, 

 or in conclusions which are inten- 

 tionally termed subjective ; in fact, 

 Lotze seems to draw a sharp line 

 between knowledge and conviction, 

 and we are reminded of a dictum 

 of David Hume that arguments 

 may be logically unanswerable and 

 yet carry no conviction. In this 

 there is involved a psychological pro- 

 blem which no line of thought has 

 done more to force upon the presem 

 age than that initiated by Lotze. 



