OF NATUKE. 615 



Germany the logical categories of Hegel's System 

 guided, in many instances, historical research before 

 the overwhelming volume and achievements of which 

 they themselves gradually vanished into the back- 

 ground. 



The two systems of philosophy, however, on which the pechne'rand 

 twofold aspect of reality suggested by Goethe and Schel- ^°*^^ 

 ling had the greatest influence were those of Fechner and 

 Lotze. The speculations of the former, as contained in 

 his earlier writings, had, as already stated, little or no 

 influence on contemporary philosophical thought, and 

 have only recently received the attention they deserve. 

 But in the writings of Lotze we find all through a distinct 

 appreciation of Schelling's endeavour as well as a very 

 definite and original expression of the truth which lay in 

 Schelling's repeated cry for a positive, as opposed to a 

 purely negative, philosophy. 



In many passages of his earlier writings, most clearly, 

 however, in the last book of his ' Microcosmus,' in which 

 he gathers up the different threads of his many-sided 

 reasoning, Lotze points out that, to the unbiassed human ^p- 

 observer, the world presents itself in three distinct beTwlTn 

 aspects. There is first of all the world of many individual fornfs%nd 

 things which are, to look at, bewilderingly intricate and 

 overpowering. Into this apparent chaos and unceasing 

 rush of phenomena the human intellect has, by degrees, 

 imported a certain amount of order, by discovering fixed 

 regularities termed " Laws of nature." The totality of 

 these we can oppose as the world of forms, a definite and 

 ever-growing complex, to that which we now term the 

 world of thing's or realities. 



