262 
holtz, lechner, and other German investigators, and to such 
monographs as Dr. Ludwig Strumpell’s on Dreams [Die Natur 
und hntstehung der Trdurne, Leipzig, 1874). 
e come now to Eduard von Hartmann. An account of the 
life and “ development” of this author, up to date, is furnished 
iy himself in the first three numbers of Die Gegenwart for 
1875 (Berlin : Paul Lindau, editor). Born February 23, 1842, 
he published his Philosophy of the Unconscious, a heavy 
volume of 678 pages, in 1869. It will be seen that the work 
could not be precisely the fruit of the ripest meditations. The 
book at once attracted unusual attention and became immedi- 
ately, in the “ land of thinkers,” the sensation of the hour. 
New editions followed each other in rapid succession, with ad- 
ditions, but “no changes,” the sixth edition (1874) containing, 
with the index, 846 pages. (Seventh edition, enlarged, with 
preface and a supplement on “ The Physiology of the Nerve- 
Centres, 2 vols., 1875.) Reasons for this extreme popularitv 
may be found in the writer’s unusually clear and facile style, 
and m his combination of idealism with what may perhaps be 
termed moral materialism. For in Germany the number of 
persons is, unfortunately, large, who, while they are too pene- 
tiating not to see that philosophical materialism (as a theory 
of the nature of things) is utterly superficial and untenable 
(the ‘ mechanism ” to which materialists reduce all, being, so 
far from opposed to teleology, the rather just what teleology im- 
plies, and denoting, as Hartmann himself forcibly points out in 
us ciitical work on Darwinism, not only etymologically, but 
also really and only, a system of means to ideal ends), are yet 
in bondage to a moral and religious scepticism, or to a sort of 
intellectual vanity, which largely blunts their spiritual and even 
their philosophic perceptions. Such persons welcome a theory 
whmh combines some sort of idealism with the negative results 
of religious criticism and of scientific research. The logic of 
the speculative portion of the Philosophy of the Unconscious 
is remarkably unlike the literary style, being neither clear nor 
cogent, but full of obvious fallacies. Hence the lament, amon- 
the more sober-minded Germans, at Hartmann’s popularitv, as 
at a sign of widespread degeneracy in the logical thought of 
Germany. 
Hie title-page of the Philosophy of the Unconscious bears 
as a motto the phrase, “Speculative results following the induc- 
tive method of natural science.” By this method the author 
natuially docs not claim to reach results having apodictical 
certainty. He only claims the ability to show the overwhelming 
probability, amounting to practical certainty, of his conclusions. 
