ON THE rSYCHO-PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATUKE. 503 



folluw ii[» the phil(js()i)hical reasonings of Lotze beyond 

 the limit of the psycho-physical mechanism, so little were 

 these at the time of their appearance heeded liy many of 

 his readers, some of whom he seems to have converted 

 to or confirmed in a purely materialistic conception of 

 the phenomena of the inner or mental world. Lotze had 

 banished " vital forces " from Ijiology ; why not follow 

 him, and banish all other higher principles, and revive 

 — as Carl Vogt did ^ — the dictum of Cabanis about 

 the analogy between the functions of the brain and 

 the kidneys ? AVhy should the " anima " of Stahl not 

 have the same fate as the " vital force " of Bordeu and 

 Bichat ? 



This was a misconception of what Lotze had intended. 

 He had, indeed, banished" the principle of life as a 

 factor useless in physiological explanations ; but not the 

 principle of organisation, which must have presided over 

 the beginning of all organic forms. This might he 

 neglected by physiologists, who had nothing to do with 

 origins but only with existing relations. It was (|uite 

 different with mental phenomena, which, manifesting 

 themselves alongside of physical processes, required to be 

 dealt with and recognised as actually existing and con- 

 current events.^ Herbart's psychical mechanism might 



^ On this, see the account given 

 in Lange's ' History of Materialism ' 

 (Engl, transl., vol. ii. p. 285) and 

 Lotze's reference to it in ' Med. 

 Psychol.,' p. 43. 



- " There is no doubt that a 

 legitimate attack upon ' vital force ' 

 has marked in our days that line of 

 reasoning, which has by the law of 

 inertia carried many of our cou- 

 temporaries far beyond the correct 



limit on to a negation of the exist- 

 ence of a soul" (ibid., p. 41). 



•' These various points are very 

 fully discussed in Lotze's earliest 

 philoso])hical work, ' Metaphysik ' 

 (Leipzig, 1841), pp. 2.">1, 2.');'), 259 ; 

 and again in the ' Med. Psychologie ' 

 (1852), p. 78. Referring to tiie 

 last chapter, in which I dealt with 

 the development of the theories of 

 life and organisation, two points 



