This influence, in the case both of Schopenhauer and Lotze, rests, aside from the fact of the universal character of their thought-creations, already referred to, pre-eminently in the circumstance that both made thoroughly their own the scientific theory of things and recognised that conception as one whose justification was contained in itself, and which, regarded from the standpoint of its own hypotheses, was irrefutable, though they were nevertheless far removed from perceiving in it the final and irreversible verdict of human knowledge. In this endeavor to fix the limits of scientific cognition Schopenhauer and Lotze form important pillars of the antimaterialistic movement in Germany, and are just in this respect also intimately related with the task of the modern Critical Philosophy or Neo-Kantianism. But while the latter movements came to a stop with predominantly negative or preparatory criticism, Schopenhauer and Lotze owe a great portion of their wide-spread influence on German culture to the circumstance that they undertook, from the point of view of the critical theory of knowledge already acquired, to sketch the plans of structures of the world which would furnish a general background and scheme of synthetic connection for the collective special results of the physical and mental sciences. That these sketches of world-construction have an individual coloring can only lessen their value in the eyes of those who believe they are privileged to apply to such a synthetic, constructive formulation of the highest ideas of all existence and thought, the standard of the exact determination of a single law. And so I shall only hastily point to the fact, that the contrariety and oppositeness that permeates the world and all our thought about the world also comes sharply to light in the case of these two philosophers, not to their mutual destruction, but to the heightenment of the effect by the contrast.
The fortunes of the two systems, which began about the same time to acquire influence, were dissimilar. The pessimistic element alone evinced itself fruitful, in the sense that it came immediately into contact with general culture through manifold forms of presentation and extensive discussion. The royal structure of the Schopenhauerian philosophy has given a host of dispensing draymen for thirty years an abundance to do. The leader of this army, EDUARD VON HARTMANN, has long since taken a place by the side of the sage of Frankfort, as independent master-builder, and presented a system planned and executed with the most diffuse architectural details. The nuclear idea of the Philosophy of the Unconscious (Die Philosophie des Unbewussten) has been amplified by the author himself in every direction, extended, exhibited in its historical relationships, and applied to the special departments of philosophical science. The theory of cognition, ethics, æsthetics, the philosophy of religion have all been treated of by Hartmann in the last two decades in voluminous works, and often repeatedly elaborated. In addition thereto, come several volumes of essays in which the philosopher has had something to say upon every conceivable topic, political, literary, æsthetical, pedagogical, and politico-economical. Hartmann's fecundity is only surpassed by his volubility. In him appears anew that union of philosophy and journalism that had remained disunited since the close of the period of illumination. The utility, nay the necessity, of this combination, with which, unfortunately, the academical philosophy of the passing century would have naught to do, Hartmann knew the value of, and skilfully exhibited his appreciation; though one often wishes that its popular character had, in places, been made to do service in behalf of different ideas.
The writings of no other philosopher have obtained so wide a circulation as those of Hartmann. His chief work, "The Philosophy of the Unconscious," first published in 1870, has long since been put in stereotype form, and from time to time passes through repeated new editions. Also his numerous other writings have for the greater part been repeatedly republished. We possess a collection entitled "Select Works," and have just received a "Popular Edition." And it is moreover generally known that it has only been since the appearance of the Philosophy of the Unconscious, that the sale of the writings of Schopenhauer has assumed great proportions. Through the mediation of Hartmann Schopenhauer's fundamental ideas first reached the general public.
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The philosophy of Lotze lacked an interpreter of like versatility and fecundity, although it had need of such a one in a much higher degree. Both thinkers were masters of the philosophical style. But Lotze's symmetrically rounded and intricate periods, with their inexhaustible influx of incident relations, makes very different demands upon the patient resignation of the reader than the lightly moving, epigrammatically pointed style of Schopenhauer. Lotze for this reason never really became popular. His influence has remained rather a scholastic and academic one. It has been fruitful in high degree in its effect on the special departments of philosophical science, particularly on psychology, whose present representatives in Germany almost without exception received from him incitation and a solid scientific view-point. Not unimportant, too, is his influence upon academic instruction in philosophy, through the "Dictations" to his lectures, published after his death, which are in every student's hands and serve in many ways as a substitute for the study of his principal work. Lotze's authority, finally, stands like a rock with all whose great concern it is to find ways of reconciling the claims of theology and of religious belief with the present state of science.
And their number is by no means inconsiderable. Official Germany has become pious, or, at least, would like to appear so; and although this is not to be understood exactly in the sense of especial dogmatic zeal, yet people adhere nevertheless with a certain tenacity to the religious background of the prevailing world-conception. Abroad it is the custom to regard the Germans upon the whole as a nation of atheists, because they have produced several curious fellows like Strauss and Feuerbach, enjoy having a good time on Sunday, and drink plentifully. Nothing can be more erroneous than this opinion. The average German has long since learned to place implicit confidence in the declaration of his teachers, that the great critical liberal movement of the later Hegelian school is not to be seriously taken but to be looked upon merely as the outcome of a "pathologically over-excited" epoch. Nowhere in the great civilised countries has freethought practically found so little footing; nowhere is its dependence upon the central powers of government greater; nowhere is it more impossible to wrest even a tittle from the authority of the old system of education with its foundation laid in the theological world-theory.
This condition of things, the obstinacy, the timidity with which state and public opinion hold fast to religion,—and now in times of imminent social danger more so than ever,—must be borne in mind if we wish to understand the comparatively great success that the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Hartmann has had in Germany. In the support of these two systems the philosophical opposition of freethought has simply found expression—the opposition that has arisen against the official philosophy, of which it cannot exactly be said that it theologises, but which carefully avoids coming into conflict with theology, and does not, in its aristocratic academic exclusion, endeavor to influence more extended circles. The factor that made this philosophy of opposition accord with the spirit of the times—its proximity, namely, to the scientific world-theory—has already been emphasised; and the fact that its pessimistic coloring has not been changed by its connection therewith will be found intelligible when we consider the turn that pessimism took in the hands of Hartmann. Only the quietistic Buddhism that Schopenhauer taught, could, in an age of the highest expansion and display of power both at home and abroad, appear as an incomprehensible riddle of the national mind. The evolutionistic pessimism of Hartmann, however, which demands of the individual complete and resigned submission to the struggle for existence, although it is able to offer him in the remotest background of time no better outlook than the ultimate annihilation of existence itself—is in its immediate practical commands too closely akin to an optimistic conception not to satisfy fully the needs of life, and is again too analogous to certain cosmological prophecies of natural science not to pass as the metaphysical expression of a truth otherwise accredited.
As opposed to this state of things Neo-Kantianism or the Critical Philosophy in its various forms has taken no firm position; no more than its master Kant himself did. To a great extent it makes use of the limitations of knowledge that have been critically determined, in order to leave open behind the same a realm of transcendent possibilities in which religion may lead a passably secured existence. Behind the greatest critical acumen theological prejudice is only too often concealed.
Few only of the intellectually eminent representatives of this movement like Alois Riehl and Ernst Laas exhibit in this respect perfect determination and the consciousness that the consequences of modern science unavoidably demand the laying aside of current religious conceptions and the substitution for them of more correct ones. Laas especially, in many passages of his principal work (Idealism and Positivism), as also in his readable little treatise Kant's Stellung im Conflicte zwischen Glauben und Wissen,[60] has emphasised strongly the view that there can be ideals only for the man who acts, and that so-called ideals where mingled with the function of pure cognition only falsify reality and lead to irresolvable conflicts. And Laas likewise belongs to the few who have laid prominent stress upon the educational task of modern philosophy as a substitute for systems of religious ideas.
[60] Kant's Position in the Struggle between Faith and Knowledge.