B UC-NRLF ( 5278 ^B MS bbfl CORNELL STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY No 4. THE ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS BY VIDA F. MOORE, M.S., Ph.D. Formerly Fellow of Cornell University. KetD ¥orfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1901 :••. ^ ■ -f Aii" mmmmmMmsm %z Digitized by the Internet Archive . in 2007 with funding from ^ :• IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/ethicalaspectoflOOmoorrich CORNELL STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY No 4. THE ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS BY VIDA F. MOORE, M.S., Ph.D. NeU) ¥ocft THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1901 -^-^t^ ^■^ • •• • • » "• • • », • • • ^y^wa^ ^1^52 PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY, LANCASTER, PA. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page. Chapter I. — Lotze's Philosophical Motives and Pre- suppositions I -1 3 Chapter II. — Lotze's Idea of the Good ; its Place IN his System i4-37 1 . Synthesis of the Good, ReaHty, and Truth .... 2. The Good that which has Value a. Value apprehended through Feeling b. Feeling the basis of Reason's determinations of Worth 3. Derivative Ethical Ideas — Unity, Teleology, Personality. Chapter III. — Conception of the World 38-55 1. The World as Teleological . a. The Mechanical View b. Extent of Mechanism c. Reconciliation of Mechanism and Teleology 2. The World as Spiritual a. The Metaphysical Argument b. The Ethical Argument Chapter IV. — Conception of God 56-76 1 . God as the World-Ground a. Argument for Unity of the World-Ground. b, Lotze's Monism discussed 2. God as Infinite Personality a. Passage from Metaphysical to Ethical Con- ception of God b. More precise determinations of the Absolute. c. The Absolute the only complete Person- ality 8*^6187 IV TABLE OF CONTENTS. Chapter V. — Conception of the Nature of Man.. . . 77-1 o] I . Man as a Mechanism a. Mechanism in the Body b. Mechanism in Mental Life c. The Mechanical versus the Ideal Views . . . Man as Personality a. Feeling the basis of Personality h. Reason ; Man's distinguishing characteristic its goal in Universal Truth and Worth. . . . c. Freedom d. The Problem of Evil e. Immortality '7 CHAPTER I. Lotze's Philosophical Motives and Pre-Suppositions. IN closing his earliest philosophical work, the Metaphysik of 1 84 1, Lotze gave expression to the conviction that the true beginning of metaphysics lies in ethics. After nearly forty years of philosophical activity, he re-affirmed this conviction in the closing words of the Metaphysik of 1 879, the latest of his works published during his lifetime. The expression, he admits, is not exact, but he still feels certain of being in the right in seeking the ground of that which should be in that which is} He further expresses the hope that what may seem unacceptable in this view may be justified in a future work. Unfortunately, his death, in July, 1 88 1, prevented the appearance of the third and last division of his System der Philosophies which was to have treated of the philosophy of religion, morals, and aesthetics. The little volumes of outlines from his lecture-notes in part make good this loss, yet Lotze's system must remain incomplete, and that too in what is, in a certain sense, the keystone of the structure. It is the writer's aim in what follows to show not merely that Lotze's system is pervaded by his ethical views, and by aesthetic ideals scarcely to be distinguished from ethical, but rather to show that his most characteristic metaphysical doctrines grow out of ethical conceptions, that these conceptions are an essential factor in his metaphysics, that without them his speculative theory of the universe lacks both completeness and coherence. Perhaps we can find no better way of approach to our subject than to consider in brief what were the motives which impelled Lotze to the study of philosophy, what were the conditions of the time which gave direction to his thought, and what the ideals which inspired it. Philosophy is always a piece of life, as Lotze himself has said,^ and thought can not be divorced from the per- ^ Met., Schluss, p. 604. ^ Kl. Schr., 3, p. 455. 2 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS, ... sonali'ty.pC tjip :thinker. We shall find this inquiry the more 'l ''fruitrHl'^fo^ t'hte'.Kfeason that we are not left to conjecture on these , : : •p{jihtS;*6!'dintit^d to*: the bare facts of Lotze's life, but have access " * 16 a sbmewliaf full'and frank confession from his own pen.^ Born^ May 21, 18 17, in Bautzen, Saxony, Lotze was a com- patriot of Lessing and the elder Fichte, a fact in which he felt much pleasure. He was the son of a physician, and determined in early youth to follow his father's profession. While very young he was brought by his parents to Zittau, and it was here that he received his early education. The gymnasium at Zittau was an old institution and under able direction. Its corps of teachers included men distinguished for scholarship, and the com- paratively small number of pupils was favorable for careful in- struction. It is remarked by Rehnisch that the fact that Lotze translated the Antigone of Sophocles into Latin, in an ele- gant and masterly manner and for the purpose of recreation, twenty years after leaving this school, comments favorably upon the thoroughness of the instruction he received there.^ In the register of the gymnasium at Zittau it is recorded of Lotze that " he studied philosophy and the physical sciences." * In his reply to I. H. Fichte, Lotze says that it was a strong inclination to poetry ^ and art which first led him to study phi- losophy ; and unto the end of his life the spectacle of the world was for him * everywhere wonders and poetry.' ^ It was a happy fortune indeed by which the poetic temperament was combined in Lotze with a taste and aptitude for the sciences. Keenly sensitive to the beauty of the world and to the moral import of life, his acute and analytic mind must needs explain and systema- * Philosophy in the last Forty Years, Contemp. Rev., Jan., 1880. Reprinted io Kleine Schriften, vol. 3. 2 1 have made use of an admirable brief sketch of Lotze' s life virritten by E. Reh- nisch, a colleague of Lotze's at GSttingen : «* Hermann Lotze, sa vie et ses 6crits," Rtvue Ph ilosoph ique, 1 8 8 1 . ^Riv. Ph., 1 881, p. 322. *-Rtv. Ph., 1881, p. 322. ^ It may not be known to all the readers of Lotze that among his earliest works was a little volume of poems, published in 1840. See Wm. Wallace : Lectures and Essays, p. 488. Kronenberg : Modeme Philosophen, pp. 50-55. ^ Mikr., 3 : p. 623. PHILOSOPHICAL MOTIVES AND PRESUPPOSITIONS. 3 tize. Speculative and practical demands were alike urgent upon him ; experience must be sifted, explained, and unified, in order to the justification and satisfaction of the ideals of the speculative no less than those of the practical reason. This keen speculative interest gave Lotze his bent towards scientific study and made of him a philosopher in place of a poet. Lotze entered the University at Leipzig at the age of seven- teen, with the purpose of studying medicine. In the courses preparatory to his medical studies he had for his teachers E. H. Weber, Volkmann, and Fechner, while at the same time he came under the influence of Weisse, whose views on the subject of aesthetics, especially, had a lasting effect upon him. To his scien- tific training are due in large part, no doubt, that scrupulous cau- tion, that painstaking care for details, and that reverence for facts which are so conspicuous in all Lotze's work. To quote from Rehnisch, "he will always be named among the masters who have made philosophy take 'the sure march of a science.'"^ In later life, to be sure, Lotze's interest in science seemed some- what to wane ; for when Darwin's theory was attracting the atten- tion of all thinking men, it met with seeming indifference from him. That a man of scientific training should be so little im- pressed by a hypothesis of so great import for natural science \^ somewhat surprising. It may be, as von Hartmann suggests, that in his later years Lotze was prevented by weariness from busy- ing himself with questions which for his personal assurance were finally settled.^ In March, 1838, Lotze obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy, and in July of the same year that of doctor of medi- cine. He returned to Leipzig as a member of the Faculty of Medicine in 1839, ^^^ ^ ^^^ months later became a member of the Faculty of Philosophy. He was made professor extraordi- nary at Leipzig in 1843, and in 1844 was called to Gottingen to fill the chair vacant since the death of Herbart. Though fre- quently called to other universities, Lotze remained at Gottingen until the spring of 188 1, when he finally accepted a call to Berlin. He had but entered upon his work there when his death occurred ^I?iv. Ph., 1 88 1, p. 336. * Lotzis Philosophies p. 42. 4 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS. in July of that year. His life was uneventful in incident, and his efforts were always in some measure restricted by ill health. Pfleiderer divides Lotze's literary career into three periods.^ These may be designated for convenience as the period of his scientific and early philosophical activity, the period of the Mik- rokosmuSy and of the System der Philosophie. During the first period (1840-18 5 2) Lotze's activity was chiefly scientific, yet the early Logik (1841) and the early Metaphysik (1843) ^"^^ within this period, testifying to his interest in philosophical spec- ulation, and anticipating not only the general direction which his later thought was to take, but many of the conclusions at which he later arrived. These earlier works seem to have made little impression upon his contemporaries, since his position as a thinker was very generally misunderstood. Moreover, the scien- tific works of this period are pervaded by a philosophical spirit, as is suggested by the titles even. Lotze's first work, De futurce biologi<2 principibus philosophicis, was a treatise presented for the degree of doctor of medicine. There followed a series of publications animated by one purpose, that of establishing the laws of mechanism as the principle of the scientific explanation of vital phenomena. The Allgemeine Pathologie ujid Therapie als Mechanische Naturwissenschaften appeared in 1 842 ; Lebenskraft, in 1 843 ; Seele und Seelenleben in 1 846 ; Allgemeine Physio- logie des Korper lichen Lebens in 185 1 ; and the Medicinische Psy- chologie oder Physiologie der Seele in 1852. It is noteworthy that the early period of Lotze's activity coin- cides in general with the transition to the new scientific era.^ The day of practical modern invention had dawned, the era of steam, of electricity, of the arrogance of power vested in material things. The Idealism of Fichte and of Hegel seemed but a vision of the night-time which fades in the light of day. Materialistic theories were wide-spread and triumphant. Men turned from metaphys- ical speculation with distrust and hailed science as the god of the new day. But science was just emerging from an obscure past, and was as yet uncertain of its province and its methods, ^ Lotze' s philosophische Weitsanschauung, pp. 7-9. « See Kronenberg : Moderne Philosophen^ pp. 8-10. PHILOSOPHICAL MOTIVES AND PRESUPPOSITIONS. 5 and was not a little hampered by tradition and prejudice. As a physician, Lotze first directed his efforts towards correcting and clarifying the physiological and medical science of his day. Physiology was at this time much dominated by Schelling's phi- losophy of nature. Schelling had sought to mediate between the mechanical explanation of nature and the old theory of a * vital force/ but had virtually re-instated the latter as the necessary ex- planation of phenomena in the organic world. Furthermore, the relation of mind and body — a long-vexed problem for philosophy — had assumed a new urgency for medical science, which, in com- mon with the other sciences of the day, was struggling after clearer conceptions of the facts and principles within its scope. More- over, a new mental science, having little in common with the old psychology save the name, was just beginning to differentiate itself from the physical sciences, and rendered imperative an investigation of the relation between mental and cortical pro- cesses. In his scientific writings of this period Lotze aimed to prove once and for all the untenability of the ' vital force ' theory as an explanation of the phenomena of living bodies. The body is a mechanism, he held; for the purposes of science its func- tions are wholly explicable by the mechanism of natural laws. Science need seek no ulterior explanation. The Medicinische Psychologies a pioneer work of the new psychology, extends the principle of mechanism to explain the interaction of mind and body. For this Lotze coined the term ' physico-psychical ' mechanism, but later gratefully accepted the less awkward phrase, ' psycho-physical,* an amendment suggested by Fechner. Appearing at a time when materialism was in the ascendancy, it is not perhaps altogether surprising that the purport of Lotze's scientific writings was misunderstood. He was warmly wel- comed by the materialists as a champion of that theory, while , by many he was classed as a follower of Herbart. In his reply to I. H. Fichte,^ Lotze denied both these assertions, referring to his published writings as affording ample refutation. Leav- ing the early philosophical works out of the question, the Medi- cinische Psychologic alone contains frequent and explicit state- ^ Streit-Schriften, 1857. 6 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS. ments as to the falsity and inadequacy of materialism as a metaphy- sical theory. Materialism is due to an apotheosis of natural science, Lotze declared ;^ in its desire for simplicity it seeks a false unity by ignoring the disparateness of physical and mental phenom- ena. In truth the last result of scientific analysis but serves to emphasize the sharp division between the two realms. ^ In- dications are not lacking, even in these earlier writings, that Lotze looked upon the mechanical explanation of natural pro- cesses as by no means final. For science, indeed, the explanation is final ; for the metaphysician it remains to explain the nature, origin, and meaning of mechanism itself. The second period^ of Lotze's life is that marked by the ap- pearance of the Mikrokosmus, in three volumes (1856, 1858, 1864). In this work Lotze sought to unite the two sides of one and the same Weltanschauung, to show "how absolutely univer- sal is the extent, and at the same time how completely subordi- nate the significance, of the mission which mechanism has to fulfil in the world." * It is now that Lotze definitely under- takes his life's labor as the vindicator of the ideal interpre- tation of life and nature against the materialistic drift of current thought. The task which he imposed upon himself was some- thing more than a reconciliation of faith and knowledge ^: He sought both to vindicate the reality of the spiritual needs of men, which find expression in religious beliefs and in moral and aes- thetic ideals, and to determine their significance for metaphysics. Rehnisch remarks that one can easily guess that the idea of such a work as the Mikrokosmus dates back to Lotze's student days at Leipzig, when the aesthetic of Weisse, the physiology of Weber, and the physics of Fechner were taking deep root in his mind. The convictions of the Mikrokosmus were born of conflicts waged in earlier days.^ It is interesting to notice to how great an extent Lotze's work ^Med. Psy., 1. i, g 3, p. 35. ^Med. Psy., I, I, I 5, pp. 55, 65. *To this period belongs also the Geschichte der Aesthetik in Deutschland^ 1868. ^Mikr., XV. « Cf. von Hartmann : Lotze's Philosophies p. 45. ^Rh}. Ph., 1881, p. 331. PHILOSOPHICAL MOTIVES AND PRESUPPOSITIONS. 7 was that of mediation between widely opposed theories. For such a service he had unusual qualifications both by nature and by training. Not only did he seek to show that there is no con- flict between the scientific and the philosophical views of the world, but within the field of metaphysics his office was that oi reconciliation. When Lotze entered upon his philosophical ca- reer he found two rival theories, bitterly antagonistic, contesting the field. Empiricism, to be sure, had for the time being the better of the conflict ; it had the greater following and received the popular plaudits. But Idealism was not dead ; on the con- trary, it showed at times a latent energy that disconcerted its foes. Lotze was both an empiricist and an idealist : an empiricist in his reverence for facts and his insistence that experience must be the starting-point of speculation, an idealist in his interpre- tation of the empirical order. Thus he was quick to see both the strength and the weaknesses of either metaphysical theory. Throughout his work we find this union of empiricism and ideal- ism, sometimes to the clarifying of thought and sometimes to its confusion. The third and last period is that in which Lotze purposed to present his system of philosophy in completed form, the com- prehensive view of God, nature, and man, which was the fruit of the thought and labor of a life-time. The first two parts only of the projected work were completed — the Logik appearing in 1874, and the Metaphysik in 1879. The third part — the prac- tical philosophy — was left unfinished at the death of the author. In the article to which reference has been made above,^ Lotze states the philosophical ideals, or ' prejudices,' as he frankly terms them, with which he entered upon his work. ** When I began my philosophical studies the predominant opinion was still that to which Fichte has given the distinctest expression, that no theory of the world should pass for truth and science which was unable to explain all the particular parts of the world's history as independent consequences of a single general principle." ^ 1 Philosophy in the last Forty Years. ^Kl. Schr., 3, p. 451- 8 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS, Bred in the traditions of the Hegelian school, Lotze goes on to say, he never ceased to keep hold of the element of truth which Fichte's assertion seemed to him to contain. At the same time, this assertion seemed to Lotze to efface an important distinction, namely, that between the all-comprehensive system of the uni- verse and our human insight into this system. As to the uni- verse itself, he felt no hesitation in presupposing this unity ; but the task of deducing the manifold out of a single fundamental principle, he believed to be too great for the finite intelligence. Only a spirit standing in the center of the universe which he him- self had made " could, with the knowledge of the final aim which he had given to his creation, make all the parts of it pass before him in the majestic succession of an unbroken development." ^ We finite beings at the circumference of the circle can hope to acquire only an approximate knowledge of the system ; it must be by a regressive investigation that philosophy may seek to dis- cover what is the living principle in the construction and course of the world.* The universe is indeed one, Lotze would seem to say, the self-realization of one ultimate and immanent principle ; but the finite mind may well prove incapable of deducing the many from the One, of showing the logical relation of the parts to the whole and the necessary development therefrom. The unity of things, in the sense thus guarded, is then one of the * prejudices ' with which Lotze set out upon the philosophical current of his youth. The other finds expression in the convic- tion that '' intellectual life is more than thought." ^ Here again Lotze attacks the Hegelian dialectic. Philosophy has erred in over-rating thought ; knowledge is "not the sole portal through which that which constitutes the essence of real existence can enter into connection with the mind. . . . Much goes on within us which even our thinking intelligence follows and contem- plates only from without, and whose peculiar contents it cannot exhaustively represent either in the form of an idea, or though a union of ideas." ^ Even he who is boldly confident that nothing is impenetrable to the mind, cannot be equally con- ^Kl. Schr., 3, p. 452. 'A7. Schr., 3, p. 453. « Cf. Mikr., 3 : pp. 61 1-612. * Ibid. PHILOSOPHICAL MOTIVES AND PRESUPPOSITIONS. 9 fident in assuming that '* thought is the precise organ which will be able to comprehend the real in its innermost essence." ^ On the contrary, Lotze believes, the mind would always find that the objects with which it occupies itself, and especially the highest principle of all, contain matter over and above that which is capable of being apprehended in the form of thought, even if the mind was quite perfect as an instrument of in- tellectual apprehension. Not only so, but the unity of all reality may be organized on a plan not demonstrable by logical laws, it may be impossible to arrange its members in logical order. For instance, the unity of a melody is not less real and organic to the musical composition because it does not lend itself to logical proof and arrangement. ** The world is certainly not so constituted," Lotze maintains, "that the individual, funda- mental truths which we find dominating in it hang together ac- cording to the poor pattern of a logical superordination, coor- dination, and subordination." ^ There will be occasion later to discuss Lotze's objections to Hegelianism, and the merit of his contention. The revolt against what he deemed an overween- ing intellectualism is one of the characteristic notes in Lotze's writings. These two ideas, then — the unity of all reality and that life is more than thought — are the convictions with which Lotze be- gan the study of philosophy. In stating them he affirms his be- lief that "except in rare cases, a prolonged philosophical labor is nothing else but the attempt to justify scientifically a funda- mental view of things which has been adopted in early life."^ The question now arises, In what degree are these ideas ethical in content ? But this question suggests another : In how far does Lotze distinguish ethical from aesthetic ideas ? On this point, as on many others, the student of Lotze's system is baffled by an absence of careful definition, and accurate and con- sistent use of terms. This defect is especially noticeable in the field of the practical philosophy, where it is at the same time 1 Ibid. ^Kl. Schr., 3, p. 479. Cf. also pp. 472, 474. 3A7. ^r/5r., 3 : p. 455. lO ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS. more mischievous, since such terms as the Good, the Beautiful, Value, and the like, belonging as they do to the vocabulary of everyday life, are more vague in their meaning than are the technical terms of metaphysics and logic. Lotze nowhere care- fully distinguishes the ethical from the aesthetic ; he nowhere concisely defines what he means by the good or the beautiful. He not infrequently uses the term 'aesthetic' in a sense but little removed from its primary meaning, that is, as pertaining to the sensibilities and thus including both the ethical and the aesthetic feelings. It is evidently in this sense that Lotze uses the word when he says that the metaphysical reasons for be- lieving in the unity of Being have been reinforced by ' aes- thetic inclinations ' which have yielded a prejudice as to the nature of this Being. ^ Again he speaks of the connection of the elements of the world in an ' aesthetic unity ' of purpose or meaning. ^ It is in this sense too, I think, that we must interpret the * aesthetic ' faith in the validity of logical principles, which he posits.^ The interpretation of the term as including ethical as well as aesthetic sentiment is less obviously necessary, perhaps, in the last two cases cited than in the first ; yet ' aes- thetic * in the ordinary sense of the term is quite evidently in- adequate to express Lotze's meaning here.'* The beautiful and the good Lotze classes together as ideas of worth or value : " We can conceive of the ' beautiful ' and the ' happy ' or ' blessedness * as united with the Good into one complex of all that has value." ** It will be necessary later to ascertain as nearly as possible what Lotze means by the good and by value. For our present purpose it suffices to say that the 'good subjectively is the 'blessedness' of sensitive beings; objectively it is some end to be realized.^ The beautiful as well as the good has a subjective significance in the happiness its contemplation gives, and an objective significance in adaptation ^Met, I 84. *Met., I 195. ^Logik, §364. *Miir., 2: pp. 272-273; P/ii/. of Relig., \ 4; Pract. Phil, \ 7. 6 Outl. of Met., \ 92. ^Mikr., 3 : pp. 614-717 ; Outl. of Met., I 92 ; Phil. ofPelig., §§ 66, 67. PHILOSOPHICAL MOTIVES AND PRESUPPOSITIONS. 11 to an end/ In our attempts to analyze experience, we arrive at three irreducible elements — universal laws or necessarily valid truths, immediately given facts of reality, and determinations of worth.^ Our universe cleaves apparently into these three realms of Truth, Reality, and Worth. It is Lotze's belief that the In- finite Reality ** unfolds itself in one movement which for finite cognition appears in the three aspects of the good which is its end, the constructive impulse by which this is realized, and the conformity to law with which this impulse keeps in the path that leads towards its end."^ Beauty is defined by Lotze rather vaguely as an appearance to immediate intuition of a unity of these three factors or realms which cognition is unable com- pletely to unite.* Only in the totality of the world can we presuppose a perfect congruity of the three ; but wherever in a single phenomenon the parts act harmoniously towards the reali- zation of an end, in accordance with laws not imposed upon them from without but immanent in them as a spontaneous and joyous activity, that object we term beautiful. It is beautiful because ' it repeats in a picture that we can intuit ' the general idea of Beauty — the ^ perfect, reciprocal involution ' of the realms of Truth, Reality, and Worth. ^ It is evident that no sharp distinction can be made between the good and the beautiful on the basis of the principles here laid down. Both denote that which has worth, on the subjective side for the sensitive beings within the range of whose experi- ence they come, on the objective side in an end which conforms to the world-aim. The good is a higher category than the beautiful, we are told ; ^ it is not in and of itself also beautiful, but first becomes beautiful in the course of its actualization. In the final result of synthesis the Good is the supreme principle, the highest and sole Reality.^ The beautiful is good in that and 1 Outl. of Esthetics, ^§ 6, 7, l6. « Mikr., 3 : p. 461 ; Cf. Outl. ofJEs., § 8. ^ Mikr.y 3 : p. 616. *^Outl. of^s., U9y 14. 6 Ou//. of ^s., U lo» 14, 23. e Out/, of^s., I II. "^ Mikr., 3 : 615, 623. 12 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS SO far as it is beautiful, for in just this measure it epitomizes in concrete form the complete and perfect Idea of the Good which is also the Idea of Beauty. To return to the question previously raised : In how far are the two pre -suppositions which Lotze, by his own confession, brought to the study of philosophy, ethical in their content? There is abundant proof that Lotze's unitary conception of the world was at least influenced in large measure by ethical consid- erations. The citations from the Metaphysik and the Logik indi- cate how constantly the ethical problem is present to his thought. Ethical considerations are for him bound up with those that are religious and aesthetic as well. Lotze is wont to group all these together as pertaining to spiritual needs, to the demands of the heart as over against those of the speculative reason.^ In the Metaphysik Lotze expressly asserts that his doctrine of the unity of the world-ground rests upon a purely speculative basis, while at the same time he confesses himself not to be indiffer- ent to the religious interests involved in such a conception.^ But while the strictly metaphysical aspect of the problem may admit of proof, or of a rational apprehension which approximates to proof, the essential unity of the three realms of truth, reality, and worth under the concept of the Good is an ideal of the practical reason which the speculative reason is unable completely to vindicate or to explain.^ It is ' reason appreciative of worth ' that affirms the unity of the Supreme Principle which realizes itself in all that is. That the universe should be one^ one in purpose and in harmony, is an ethical no less than an aesthetic or religious de- mand. It is a principle of Lotze's epistemology, constantly reiter- ated, that the truth which is necessary for thought is valid for the reality to which thought applies it.'* The ethical instinct in Lotze makes it an incredible notion to him " that the uni- verse should be split in two in such a way that the whole intel- ^ See Introd. to Mikr. ; Introd. to Ph. of Relig., \ 4. *Met., \ 233. ^ Mikr., 3 : pp. 461, 617 seq. ; Outl. ofjEs., I 9. ^ Logik, II 303-312; Mikr., i : pp. 393-398- PHILOSOPHICAL MOTIVES AND PRESUPPOSITIONS. 1 3 lectual life has always to do with an external reality which is eternally impenetrable to it." ^ It is faith in the essential moral veracity of the world, as well as in its essential rationality, that stings him to revolt against that view which represents thought as missing its mark, as aiming at things per se, but perforce contenting itself with ' mere phenomena.' On the contrary, reality does not elude thought ; reality is not a hidden world of noumena, it is the world we know in experience.^ Epis- temologically, then, the world of reality is a unity. That the unity of the ultimate principle is at bottom an ethical demand even more than a speculative, can appear fully, however, only when inquiry has been made into the nature of the Unit Being, and this inquiry must be left for a subsequent chapter. The second of Lotze's early prejudices, the conviction that the intellectual life is more than thought, springs obviously from an ethical root. He means here cognitive thought, and he recog- nized in the mental life other data than those of cognition, and other ends than those of theoretical knowledge. Thought is the instrument for the apprehension of truth ; feeling, or ' reason appreciative of worth,' for the apprehension of value. The good belongs to the realm of value, which, Lotze held, is related to the realm of truth as end to means. But whatever the rela- tion which may finally be established between the two realms, we are not warranted at the start in giving truth the precedence of value, or in making cognition superior to the practical reason. ^Kl. Schr.,Z' p. 453- 2Cf. Mikr.y I: pp. 396-397. CHAPTER II. Lotze's Idea of the Good ; its Place in his System. PFLEIDERER, who is perhaps the most sympathetic of his critics, characterizes Lotze's philosophy as a lofty ethico- religious Idealism upon the basis of a moderate and cautious realism.^ The Idea of the Good is in a peculiar sense the domi- nating idea of Lotze's system. The Good is the ground of all that is, and the end for which everything is as it is. Actuality is not a mere course of the world, it is the ' kingdom of God.' ^ The meaning of the world is what comes first, Lotze says in the conclusion to the Metaphysik. This meaning is not simply some- thing which subjected itself to the order established ; rather from it alone comes the need of that order and the form in which it is realized. Elsewhere Lotze affirms that *' all metaphysical truth consists only in the forms which must be assumed by a world that depends upon the principle of the Good." ^ It is the purpose of this chapter to develop Lotze's conception of the Good, to show in a general way its significance for his system, and to point out certain ethical ideas derived from this primary conception which determine, in large measure, his characteristic metaphys- ical doctrines. Lotze begins always with experience, with the empirical facts that lie close at hand. The unity which philosophy seeks with sure instinct must be for him a unity found by the converging of the threads of the manifold. To the theoretical reason no such unity is apparent. On the contrary, what we find is a diversity of elements apparently irreducible and ultimate : *' All our analy- sis of the cosmic order ends in leading back our thought to a consciousness of necessarily valid truths, our perception to the ^Pfleiderer: Lotze' s philosophische Wdtanchauung, pp. 62-63. ^ Ph. of Relig., § 80. 3 Outl. of Met. , \ 93. LOTZE'S IDEA OF THE GOOD. 1 5 intuition of immediately given facts of reality, our conscience to the recognition of an absolute standard of all determinations of worth'' ^ Lotze speaks of these as * elemental forms of our knowledge ' ^ and as ' realms ' or * powers.' ^ This cleavage of our universe into the realms of truth or uni- versal law, reality, and worth, presents a problem insolvable by the theoretical reason. We are not able to embrace all three in one comprehensive notion, or from any one to obtain the others by logical deduction. The three involve one another, imply one another, but the connection is obscure. The necessary truths, or universal laws, tell us merely what must follow from given con- ditions. They are hypothetical in their nature, they never state what is, but only what must be if something else is. They do not give us reality, but they imply reality. On the other hand, reality as given to us in intuitions is never presented as neces- sary ; it simply is. Other and quite different forms of reality are conceivable. Again, our ideas of worth do not point to a definite world of forms as their proper consequence ; they attach them- selves to but a part of the content of reality, and are imperfectly realized therein.* This incoherence baffles thought, which aims at unity, and is moreover the source of perplexing doubts. The key to Lotze's entire system is found in his conviction that these three realms are ultimately one.^ There is but one real power and this appears to us ** under a three-fold image of an end to be realized — namely, first some definite and desired Good, then, on account of the definiteness of this, a formed and developing reality, and, finally, in this activity an unvarying reign of law." ® This view Lotze terms a confession of his philosophic faith. Near the end of the Mikrokosmus he speaks of it as the consummation towards which he has been all the while working, though without feeling entitled to make explicit use in the fore- '^ Mikr.y 3 : p. 461 ; cf. 3 : pp. 610, 616. ^Mikr.y 3 : p. 46 J. 3 Outl. ofJEs., \ 8. ^Mikr.y 3 : pp. 461-462. 5 Cf. Pfleiderer : Lotze's philosophische Weltanschauung^ p. 63 ; Thieme : Der Primat der praktischen Vernunft bei Lotze, pp. 21-26 ; Vorbrodt : Principien der ethik und Religionsphilosophie Lotze^ s, p. lO. ^ Mikr.y 3: pp. 609-610. l6 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS. going portion of his work of a philosophic view from which its parts taken separately might seem to be logically developed.^ The final synthesis of Truth, Reality, and Worth is the goal of Lotze's thonght, fore-shadowed from the start ; only from this final point of view are his metaphysical tenets thoroughly intelli- gible in themselves and in their combination as a system. The one real principle is the Highest Good f this is the genuine reality " in the sense that all else is in relation to it, subordinate, de- duced, mere semblance or means to an end." ^ The whole sum of Nature is but the condition of the realization of the Good.'* Those principles gained by abstraction from the mode of behavior of 'things' and termed by us general laws,^ are but the formulae of a universal mechanism by which the Good as Supreme Principle realizes itself^ This is the meaning of Lotze's statement that the beginning of Metaphysic lies in Ethics, that the ground of what should be is to be sought in that which is.'^ In this sense Lotze's system is a teleological Idealism ; everything exists only by reason of the fact that it has its necessary place in the purpose which embraces all reality.^ The conviction of the supremacy of the Good Lotze declares to be the source of his respect for scien- tific investigation into the mechanical order of nature, as well as of his " obstinate refusal to see in all mechanism anything more than that form of procedure which is given by the highest reality to the living development of its content." ^ Granting that the connection between the three realms is ob- scure, let us inquire a little further into this connection and the grounds for believing that it exists. ^Mikr., 3: pp. 459-460. * Outl. of Met. ^ \ 93 ; Mikr., 3 : pp. 620-623. 8 Ouil. of Met., I 92. ^Mikr., I : p. 447. 6 Outl. or Met., | ZZ- ^ Mikr., 3 : pp. 616-618. ' Met., Schluss. 8Cf. Erdmann : Hist, of Philos., p. 309; Santayana : Lotz^s Moral Idealism^ Mind, 1890, ^Mikr.,y. p. 622. Thieme points out that Lotze was indebted to Weisse for these three ideas. Der Primal der praktischen Vernunft bei Lotze, p. 26. In the primacy given to the ethical element we see the influence of Fichte as well. LOTZE'S IDEA OF THE GOOD, IJ As regards the world of reality, human reason and insight are helpless before the task of showing why the world should take just the forms we find in it in order to the realization of the end. Our knowledge of nature and of history is far too limited to admit of our tracing the development of the supreme principle. A boundless insight into nature, Lotze believes, would at least make it appear that reality is indissolubly connected with the realm of Worth and Good.^ The plan of the universe in its de- tails is necessarily hid from finite beings. The existence of evil and of sin in nature and in history presents an insurmountable difficulty to finite reason.^ In fact, we are forced to admit a " chasm between the realm of ideas or final purposes, and the realm of real means."' Lotze is strongly averse to the attempt to deduce the universe from a single principle. All such attempts are fore-doomed to fail- ure, he believes. This has been the chief source of error, accord- ing to his thinking, in the great constructive systems of philos- ophy. To quote from the Outlines of Metaphysics : ^'Although we apprehend the Highest Good as the one real principle on which the validity of the metaphysical axioms in the world de- pend, we cannot regard it as a principle of cognition that can be profitably converted into a major premise from which to deduce the sum of metaphysical truth. . . . The very name, the Highest Good, designates the content, the essentia of the highest principle, but not the form of existence which we must attribute to it as a conditioning cause of the world of phenomena." * The real world in all its varied forms can never be shown to be the inevitable consequence and expression of the principle of the Good. Lotze gives some suggestions as to the course that must be taken by arguments aiming at a thorough solution of this prob- lem ; ® yet all such arguments must inevitably be inadequate. Such proof alone, Lotze admits, could fully justify his belief that the sphere of mechanism is unbounded, but its significance everywhere subordinate.® » Mikr., 3 : p. 609. * Outl. of Met., \% 93-94- ^Mikr. 3 : p. 610. ^Mikr., 3 ; pp. 618-619. « Outl. of^s. I 14. ^Mikr., 3: p. 618. 1 8 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS. Universally valid truths, also, though they cannot be deduced therefrom, are intelligible only with reference to the Idea of the Good/ That there is a realm of truth at all seems to Lotze con- ceivable only in a world the ultimate principle of which is ethical, and which has as its goal the realization of the Good.^ Knowl- edge is not in itself an ultimate end ; in the last resort it has worth only as offering a clue to the true meaning of existence.^ All ultimate principles, whether those of the theoretical reason, or of ethics and aesthetics, are intelligible only as expressions of an order realized in the world by the Good as the supreme principle. Order, indicating purpose, is the testimony of the world without us and the world within us to a dominating ethical principle. In the Logik Lotze shows that the speculative ideal itself points be- yond logic to the content of a supreme principle which is the ultimate ground of the universal laws themselves, of the direction in which the world as a whole develops, and of the individual forms which reality assumes at each moment* In the con- clusion to the Metaphysik we find the following statement : *^ All those laws which can be designated by the common name of mathematical mechanics, whatever that name includes of eternal and self-evident truths, and of laws which as a matter of fact are everywhere valid — all these exist not on their own authority, nor as a baseless destiny to which reality is compelled to bow. They are (to use such language as men can) only the first con- sequences which in the pursuit of its end, the living and active meaning of the world has laid at the foundation of all particular realities as a command embracing them all." But while emphasizing the subordination of Reality and Truth to the Good, we must not forget that the three realms form one universe. The distinction of the three is a distinction for thought only. There is but one world-process, from which thought ab- stracts three elements — the field in which, the means by which, the end for which the whole is. There can be no separation of '^Mikr.y'^: pp. 619-620. 2Cf. Thieme : Der Primal der praktischen Vernunft bei Lotze ^y^. 13-14 ; Vorbrodt : Principien der Ethik, p. 36. *Mikr.^ Introd., pp. vi-viii. ^Logik,liSl. • LOTZE S IDEA OF THE GOOD. I9 Truth from Reality ; the former is and is reaHzed in the latter. No truth, no law "can exist within the world before, outside, be- tween, or above, the ' things ' concerning which it is assumed to hold good." ^ * Law ' is nothing else than the thing's mode of behavior. The * thing ' is its unvarying nature as expressed in its mode of behavior ; it is no kernel or core of reality apart from this ; its sole reality is its mode of action. The law, then, is the thing.^ A general law is an abstraction corre- sponding to the abstract conception of thing.^ The superficial view by which Reality and the realms of Universal Law stand over against one another, must then be modified and corrected. There is no inert and plastic Reality which is subjected to the universal dominion of Law ; nor, on the other hand, is there any system of eternally valid Truths which exist prior to Reality and condition its form and action. Reality is activity in accordance with immanent law. But neither can Reality and Truth be separated, save in thought, from the Good. The Good is not something apart from the world, hovering over it, as it were, and directing its progress towards a goal. The universe is One Being in whom Reality, Truth, and the Good, are indissolubly united. The Absolute Be- ing may be conceived under differing aspects as the sole Reality, the Supreme Principle, or an Infinite Process, realizing an end. This Being, which must also be conceived as the highest and only true Personality,* ' faith calls God.' Because in ethical attributes is found the most adequate expression of His nature, the idea of the Good is the fundamental conception.^ What is for metaphysics the World-Ground, is for the personal appre- hension of man ' the Highest Good personal ' ^ or ' Living Love.' ^ For the Infinite there was "no Reality within which He had to realize His creation, nor laws which prior to Himself, of them- 1 Outl. of Met., I 96. 2 Outl. of Met., II 25, 26, 32, 34; Mikr., 3: p. 481. ^Outl. of Met., l\ 32-33. ^Mikr., 3 : pp. 563-568 ; Ph. of Relig., U 33, 41- ^Mikr., 3 : pp. 615-623 ; Ph. ofRelig., \ 81. « Outl. of Met., \ 92. "^ Mikr., 3 : p. 615. 20 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS. selves determined what was possible and what was impossible." ^ All that exists is but the Infinite Being ; on no other assumption is the ' relatedness ' of things intelligible. Nor can we think of the Infinite as conditioned by a system of pre-mundane laws. That which we know as the sum of universal truths is but * the mode of action of Omnipotence.' ^ The solution of this problem by thus resolving what seemed three irreducible elements of our world into one, a trinity within a unity, is a solution not afforded by the theoretical reason. It is not susceptible of proof. ** In our theoretic cognition," says Lotze, " we shall never get further than a faith founded on cer- tain motifs that, nevertheless, in the totality of the world this perfect concord [that is, of the Good, Reality, and Truth] does take place." ^ The justification of this faith will appear more clearly when the concept of Value has been considered somewhat in detail, and to this we will now turn our attention. The concept of Value, or Worth ( Werth), holds an important place in Lotze's philosophical system. It is, therefore, espe- cially unfortunate that we have nowhere a full and systematic statement of his views on ethics, aesthetics, and religion, wherein the discussion of Value would find place. This is due chiefly to the fact that the third part of his System^ that which was to con- tain the practical philosophy, was never completed. One must also deplore in Lotze's treatment of this subject a certain con- fusion in the use of terms and a lack of careful analysis, in marked contrast with his close and cautious reasoning on meta- physical and logical subjects. The concept of Value, as used by Lotze, includes both the Good and the Beautiful. In one connection, he adds to these the * happy,* or * blessedness,' as uniting with the Good and the Beautiful to form "one complex of all that has value."* Else- where he enumerates the good, the beautiful, and the holy, or » Mikr.^ 3 : p. 598. ^Mikr., 3 : p. 589 ; Cf. 3 : pp. 606-607 ; Ph. of Relig., \\ 48, 49» 54- « Outl. of jEs.y \ 14; Cf. Mikr., 4: pp. 466, 612. < Outl. of Met., § 92. LOTZE'S IDEA OF THE GOOD. 21 righteousness, as comprising our Ideas of what has worth. ^ In spite of some confusion here, it is clear enough that Lotze means to distinguish the judgment of worth from the merely cognitive judgment of fact or of truth. The content of the latter judgment is immutable but indifferent. The content of the former we pro- nounce ' beautiful ' or ' good ' ; it is not indifferent to us, it has worth. In the Philosophy of Religion, Lotze examines the concep- tion of a world-aim. Such an aim can be only that which has supreme value, and his conclusion is that only to happiness, or ' blessedness,' can supreme value be attributed.^ Nothing other than ' blessedness ' can be the world-aim, since " nothing else affirms itself so unconditionally and immediately in respect to its value. "^ Only in regard to blessedness is the question absurd why it rather than something else should be the final purpose of the world. In just this end the goodness of the world consists. It is only in eternal blessedness that the final end of all world- faring is realized ; this is the aim for the realization of which every thing is as it is, and every law of the world commands what it commands.* But just as there is no pleasure in general, every pleasure having a definite xontent, so the world-aim of blessed- ness is not realizable in a general sense, but only in the concrete.* We must turn our attention to the standard of value as appre- hended by the individual. The idea of worth can have meaning only with reference to a subject capable of sensibility ; ® hence the importance of the feelings as affording the basis of all judgments of value. All values, says Lotze, are apprehended primarily by means of feel- ings of pleasure and pain : " There is nothing at all in the world which would have any value until it has produced some pleasure in some being or other capable of enjoyment." "^ It is feeling that makes us aware of the world of values under the world of forms,^ ^Cf. Pract. Fhilos., ^ I2. ^Philos. of Relig., \ 66. ^Outl. of yEs., ^13. *Cf. Kl. Schr., 3 : p. 539 ; Mikr., 2 : pp. 309-3 lO. «Cf. Philos. of Relig., \\ 66, 69, 79. ^ Mikr.y 3 : p. 614. '^ Pract. Philos., § 8 ; Cf. Mikr., i : p. 280. ^Mikr., I : pp. 272-273. 22 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS. and so gives us the key to the meaning of our universe. The all-pervading mechanism of nature finds its goal in an inner world of pleasure and of finite enjoyment/ Vorbrodt believesr that it is not too much to say that feeling is for Lotze, as will for Wundt, the primary function out of which all others grow.^ It is certainly essential to a comprehension of Lotze' s system that his doctrine of the feelings as the instrument of value be clearly understood. No principle of his philosophy has been more severely criticised, and none is perhaps more open to criticism. Primarily, the standard of value is pleasure-pain. From this purely subjective and individual experience, an objective and universal standard emerges later, as an attempt will be made to show ; but the elementary feelings of pleasure and pain form the basis of all those judgments of worth which constitute so impor- tant a part of the activity of the human mind. In the Medici- nische Psychologie, Lotze discusses the mechanism of the feelings in their significance for psychical life.^ The capacity to respond to excitations with feelings of pleasure and pain is the distinctive characteristic of the physical life he attributes to things. If an atom of a so-called material mass be supposed to have a soul life, it is not necessary to grant it ideas, but we must attribute to it this primal experiencing of pleasure and pain.* Nothing is real that does not feel as well as act ; reciprocal action implies neces- sarily a being that feels, that measures crudely the value of its inner states by joy and desire, pain and aversion. There can be no action without passion.^ Pleasure and pain finally reduce to reaction to stimulation in harmony with, or opposed to, vital evolution.^ Pleasure-pain is, furthermore, the basis of self-consciousness, and therefore of personality. Not in the relation of thought to the thinker, but in feelings of pleasure and pain is the Ego first 1 Mikr. , 2 : p. 320. •Vorbrodt : Principien def- Ethik «. j. w., pp. II, 15. «See Med. Psy., Buck 2, Kap. 2. ^Med. Psy., pp. 1 33-134, 234; cf. Mikr., I : p. 269; A7. Schr.^ 2 : p. 82 f. « Mikr.y 3 : p. 535. ^Mikr.f I : pp. 269-271; 2 : p. 315 ; Ouil. of Psy.y \ 48. LOTZE'S IDEA OF THE GOOD. 23 conscious that its individual states belong to it, are its own/ For this self-feeling the simpler experiences are adequate no less than the higher and more complex. Without it the " consum- mate intelligence of an angel could not rise to the knowledge of itself as an Ego"; with it "the crushed worm undoubtedly dis- tinguishes its own suffering from the rest of the world." To each stimulation from the outer world the soul reacts with feeling as well as sensation. A special pleasure or pain corresponds origi- nally to each simple sensation, and this element of feeling meas- ures the value of the stimulation for the individual.^ To the sen- sation the mind responds with a judgment of being ; to the feel- ing, with a judgment of value. Judgments of being express facts ; judgments of value, the worth of these facts.^ Feelings of pleasure and pain, therefore, point beyond mere sentiency, their value is not merely subjective and individual. It is the distinctive characteristic of human sentience that we not only never apprehend sense-impressions as indifferent contents, but also that in the accompanying feelings we never become aware merely of a value for us, but of an intrinsic value as well.* This judgment {Beurtheihuig) of value is never wholly absent even in case of the lower senses, where it is suppressed by the intensity of self-reference, but becomes increasingly prominent in the higher senses, until in sound and color almost every trace of egoistic interest may be effaced.^ There is a '' tendency to see in the nature of external things a virtue peculiar to themselves, an immediate worth or the reverse, recognized by our pain or pleasure but not dependent on their presence." ^ Thus feeling, even in its simplest and most primitive manifestations, shows an inclination to transcend the individual. In its recognition of an intrinsic worth in things, it postulates a realm of objective values. At the moment that it announces itself to consciousness as the ^Mikr., I : p. 280; 2 : pp. 313-314; OutL of Psy., l\ 52-53 ; Philos. of Relig.y §37. *Mikr., I : p. 272; 2, p. 182. 3Cf. Thieme : Der Primat der prakischen Vernunft bei Lotze, pp. 5-9. * Werth an sick, Mikr., 2 : p. 185. Cf. also Mikr., 2 : pp. 217-218, 321. ^ Mikr., 2 : pp. 187-188. ^ Mikr., 2 : p. 193. 24 ETHICAL ASPECT OF LOTZE'S METAPHYSICS. well-being or ill-being of the organism, it also points away from the subjective and particular experience to a universal and sov- ereign order. ^ But feeling further serves as the basis of the highest activity of intelligence — that of 'reason appreciative of worth.' ^ As inspiring and guiding the Ideals of reason, feeling realizes its highest function. In its judgments of worth, reason likewise fulfils its highest destiny. Here, as in the simplest sense experience, the feeling of pleasure or pain yields the data on which the judgment is based. This true function of feeling becomes clear as we consider its relation to the aesthetic, moral, and theo- retical Ideals. An Ideal, as the term itself implies, is a product of thought. However based upon and rooted in the immediate and particular, an Ideal is universal, conceptual. As such, it implies necessarily the activity of thought. Feeling may enter into account as a determining factor of much importance, but an Ideal can not be a feeling-product merely. In his treatment of aesthetics, Lotze insists that we apprehend the beautiful only in the form of an Idea, or an Ideal. ^ Pri- marily, indeed, beauty consists in the subjective feeling of aesthetic pleasure ; but we are speedily under the necessity of attributing an objective reality to the beautiful. It claims a universal validity which is not satisfied in the individual pleasure.* We have seen that the general Idea of Beauty implies reference to purpose, to a world-plan in which the end to be realized, the reality in which, and the laws by which, it is realized, are believed to be perfectly synthesized.^ Any object is beautiful in the degree that it pre- sents this congruity of means, law, and end, and thus conforms to and suggests the general Idea of Beauty. It is enough to note here that the aesthetic judgment is based upon the imme- diate feeling of pleasure in the contemplation of the beautiful ob- ject, but involves a reference to an Ideal of universal and absolute worth. The value of the beautiful object consists not in the merely * Cf. Mikr., 2 : pp. 341-342. ^Einer werthempfindenden Vernunft. Mikr., I : p. 274. Cf. Mikr., I : p. 276, werthbestimmenden Vernunft. ^Outl.of Ms.^ I 7.