592 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



the Will and the Intellect are equally real attributes 

 of the Absolute, similar to Extension and Thought in the 

 systems of Descartes and Spinoza. And he arrived, 

 more than any of his predecessors, at his result through 

 inductive reasoning, based upon a wealth of material 

 gathered from the most recent discoveries in natural 

 science, psychology, and mental history. 



For our present purpose it may be noted that 

 Hartmann's principle of the Unconscious is the last 

 suggestive conception utilised for the solution of the 

 problem of nature in the sense in which this problem 

 existed for the older philosophies, and that it has, in 

 one form or another, found its way into the reasoning 

 of many modern schools. Hartmann was not slow to 

 detect this, and many of his subsequent writings had 

 the object of showing how the leading idea of his 

 system is more or less distinctly stated or implied in the 

 writings of earlier and contemporary German thinkers.^ 



1 



^ But also of showing how they 

 have failed in giving a definite ex- 

 pression to this principle. One of 

 Hartmann's latest deliverances 

 dates from the year 1900, when 

 he published in the ' Archiv ftir 

 Systematische Philosophic ' (vol. vi. 

 pp. 273-290) an instructive sum- 

 mary of the different ways in which 

 the conception of the Unconscious 

 has clearly or confusedly crept into 

 modern philosophical literature ; 

 whereupon it may be remarked that, 

 with the exception of Mill and 

 Spencer, hardly any but German 

 philosophers are referred to. He 

 there finds no less than nineteen 

 different uses of the term Uncon- 

 scious, which he groups under four 

 main headings : — 



(a) The epistemological Uncou- 

 sciuus ; 



(6) The physical Unconscious ; 



(c) The mental Unconscious ; and 



(d) The metaphysical Uncon- 

 scious ; 



thus indicating how the conception 

 makes its appearance in dealing 

 respectively with the problem of 

 Knowledge, the problem of Nature, 

 the problem of the Soul, and the 

 problem of Reality. In spite of the 

 infinite pains that Hartmann has 

 taken to drive home the funda- 

 mental idea of his philosophy, I 

 doubt wiiether he has succeeded in 

 making that idea generally intel- 

 ligible and useful. Some of the 

 fine distinctions which he makes, 

 e.g., between the Unhewusste and 

 the Bewusstlosc are hardly translat- 

 able into other languages. His 

 disciple Prof. A. Drews published, 

 shortly after Hartmann's death in 



