OF REALITY. 513 



puts aside as unanswerable, the highest metaphysical 

 question — viz., What is the truly Eeal ? The first 

 is the position taken up by the foremost representative 

 of phenomenalism abroad, Professor Wilhelm Wundt ; 52. 



^ _ ' Wundt 



the latter is the position taken up by the foremost 

 representative of phenomenalism in this country, Her- 

 bert Spencer. This difference is fundamental. Herbert 

 Spencer has defined the philosophical task to be the 

 unification of knowledge. Science, according to him, is 

 partially unified knowledge, philosophy is completely uni- 

 fied knowledge. Many thinkers abroad, beginning with 

 Herbart and going on to Lotze, Fechner, Wundt, Paul- 

 sen, and others, would probably to a large extent 

 agree with this view. But there is a marked differ- 

 ence in the exact position which different thinkers take 

 up to this generally accepted definition of philosophy. 

 Herbert Spencer thinks it necessary to explain, at the 

 entrance of his system, that the unity which holds 

 together everything is an actual something, though a 

 knowledge of its essence is not possible for us ; Lotze 

 maintains that we have an intuitive, immediate, but not 

 a discursive knowledge of the truly Real, Per him 

 accordingly the unification of knowledge in the sense 

 of Spencer is only a formal enterprise : through the 

 examination of first principles we arrive at best only 

 at a formal unity. This empty form is in Spencer's 

 philosophy all that we can expect to attain to. His 

 highest principles, such as the principle of the " Insta- 

 bility of the Homogeneous," the alternation of the processes 

 of " differentiation " and " integration," &c., are merely 

 the most abstract descriptions of the ever -repeating 

 VOL. III. 2 K 



