OF NATCRE. 575 



known to the unknown, from that which is visible to 

 that which is invisible, and constructs an artificial 

 picture or model in and through which the external 

 world can be mentally grasped and studied. 



But it took a long time before this was clearly 

 recognised by either naturalists or philosophers. The 

 thinker who in the middle of the century probably 

 represented the clearest views on the subject was, as I 

 mentioned above, Lotze himself. His interest, however, 

 did not lie in the direction of assisting the exact 

 sciences,^ but rather in defining the correct position of 

 the biological sciences and in preparing the way for 

 an idealistic conception of things by showing the in- 

 sufficiency of all purely mechanical or materialistic 

 reasoning. In the meantime a great variety of interests 

 combined to effect that change in our fundamental 23, 



New criti- 



notions which has taken place in the course of the latter cismof 



^ tundanieDtal 



half of the nineteenth century. Germany and England ^°^^°'^- 

 each made independent and original contributions ; 

 France, as we shall see, took up the subject much 

 later, but then likewise in an original spirit.^ 



To begin with this country : Mill had already in his '^*: 

 ' Logic ' analysed some of the fundamental notions eni- 



^ Lotze's earliest published tract, 

 his " inaugural dissertation," had 

 the title ' De futurte Biologite 

 principiis philosophicis.' 1838. 



^ It should, however, not be over- 

 looked that Charles Renouvier al- 

 ready in the first edition of his 

 ' Essais de critique generale' (1854- 

 1864), and still more in the second 

 edition (1875), gave a very clear 

 analysis and criticism of the funda- 



is significant of the age when he 

 wrote that his criticisms were as 

 little estimated at their true value 

 as were those of Lotze ten years 

 earlier in Germany. Both Lotze 

 and Renouvier seem to have been 

 entirely unknown to Mill as well as 

 to Spencer, whose writings, through 

 their influence on followers as well 

 as on opponents, effected a gradual 

 clearance of first principles in this 



mental notions employed in the country. There is, however, no 

 sciences of nature and mind, and it doubt that for a whole generation, 



