ON THE STATISTICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 585 



port of one of his favourite theses viz., that the 

 course of historical progress depends on the combined 

 action of the external physical surroundings and of 

 the intellectual side of human nature. Apart from 

 intellectual modifications the moral side is a con- 

 stant. In the course of the discussions following 

 the appearance of Buckle's History, especially in Ger- 

 many, it was conclusively shown that statistical 

 figures prove neither one view nor the other : indeed, 

 one of the most complete and exhaustive treatises 

 on moral statistics comes from the orthodox pen of 

 Alexander von Oettingen, a Professor of Theology, just 

 as we saw that the first great work on political arith- 

 metic in Germany came from the pastor Siissmilch 

 a century earlier. Philosophical writers like Lotze 1 



not received the attention merited : 

 "This reproach does not quite 

 hit the right point. . . . Wagner 

 might, in fact, have been led by 

 Buckle ... to see that German 

 philosophy in the doctrine of the 

 freedom of the will has for once 

 an advantage which permits it to re- 

 gard these new studies with equan- 

 imity ; for Buckle supports himself 

 above all upon Kant, adducing his 

 testimony for the empirical neces- 

 sity of human actions, and leaving 

 aside the transcendental theory of 

 freedom. Although all that ma- 

 terialism can draw from moral 

 statistics . . . for the practical 

 value of a materialistic tendency 

 of the age as against idealism has 

 thus been conceded by Kant, it 

 is by no means indifferent whether 

 moral statistics, and, as we may 

 put it, the whole of statistics, is 

 placed in the foreground of an- 

 thropological study or not ; for 

 moral statistics direct the view 

 outwards upon the real measurable 



facts of life, while the German 

 philosophy, despite its clearness as 

 to the nullity of the old doctrine 

 of freewill, still always prefers to 

 direct its view inwards upon the 

 facts of consciousness." 



1 Lotze's deliverances on this 

 subject will be found in the third 

 chapter of the seventh book of 

 the ' Microcosmus ' (Eng. trans, by 

 Hamilton and Jones, vol. ii. p. 200, 

 &c. ), and also in the ' Logik ' of 

 1874 (Book II. chap. 8). In the 

 former passage he says : " The dis- 

 like with which we hear of laws 

 of psychic life, whilst we do not 

 hesitate to regard bodily life as 

 subordinate to its own laws, arises 

 partly because we require too 

 much from our own freedom of 

 will, partly because we let our- 

 selves be too much imposed upon 

 by those laws. If *we do not find 

 ourselves involved in the declared 

 struggle between freedom and 

 necessity, we are by no means 

 averse to regarding the actions of 



