562 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



as was probably intended, because it appeals to familiar 

 ideas and employs current phrases ; but also, as it turned 

 out in the sequel, because it is easily translated into other 

 civilised tongues. It was published at a time when the 

 materialistic 'controversy was at its height, with Carl 

 Vogt and Jacob Moleschott on the one side, and Eud. 

 Wagner and Liebig on the other. It is important to 

 note that this controversy arose within the regions of 

 the newly developed science of physiology, which at that 

 time, through the labours of chemists and anatomists, was 

 just adopting the experimental methods and mechanical 

 conceptions which had been elaborated and firmly estab- 

 lished in the sciences of dynamics and mathematical 

 physics. It was especially the vague idea of a vital 

 force which had to be combated and expelled from 

 physiological inquiries. This was done in a masterly 

 manner by Lotze ^ in his articles on " Vital Force " 



^ Although Lotze is by far the 

 most thorough critic of the prin- 

 ciples which lie at the foundation 

 of the materialistic view, his writ- 

 ings (see a list of them supra, 

 p. 6, note) did not create at 

 the time the impression they de- 

 served. He was frequently mis- 

 understood, and only that part of 

 his criticism was assimilated by 

 contemporary thought in which 

 he successfully combated the con- 

 ception of a vital force. Accord- 

 ingly we find that in the ' History 

 of Materialism ' of F. A. Lange 

 (first edition, 1866) — already fre- 

 quently referred to — little notice 

 is taken of the important part 

 which Lotze's writings played in 

 tha^ controversy. " It is Lotze — 

 one of the acutest, and in scientific 

 criticism one of the surest, philo- 

 sophers of our day — who did this 



involuntary service to Materialism. 

 The article ' Vital Force ' in Wag- 

 ner's ' Handworterbuch,' and his 

 ' General Pathology and Thera- 

 peutic as Mechanical Sciences,' 

 annihilated the phantom of a vital 

 force, and introduced some degree 

 of order into the lumber - room 

 of superstition and confusion of 

 ideas that medical men called 

 Pathology. Lotze had trodden 

 the right path ; for, in fact, it is 

 amongst the tasks of philosophy, 

 while making a critical use of the 

 facts supplied by the positive 

 sciences, to react upon them, and 

 to exchange for the gold of special 

 research the results of a wider 

 survey and a more rigid logic. 

 He would no doubt have met with 

 more recognition in this course if 

 Virchow had not simultaneously 

 appeared as practical reformer of 



