Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/278

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HARTMAN
275

different essences, but an interaction of elements which are all of a psychical nature. And now, after finding that it is easier to conceive the interaction of soul and body, he actually grants that a causal relation is really comprehensible only between like elements.

Lotze's theory therefore culminates in a spiritualistic Monism. He likewise places increasing emphasis on the immanence of the elements in primary substance. On this latter point he stands much closer to the Spinozistic view than he is aware.

2. Edward von Hartmann (1842–1906) gave his chief work (Die Philosophie des Unbewussten, 1868) the subtitle, Speculative Resultate nach induktio-wissenschaftlicher Methode. After his military career was cut short by a fall from a horse in which he sustained a crippled knee, he finally decided, after some mental struggle, to devote himself to philosophy. He then conceived the plan of a further development of the ideas of Hegel and Schopenhauer in mutual harmony, and then to construe these romantic theories on the basis of empirical science. His program reminds us of Lotze. But whilst Lotze accepts the mechanical conception of nature with frank consistency, and inquires only concerning its presuppositions, Hartmann seeks to prove inductively that this conception of nature is inadequate, and that it requires the supplement of a spiritual principle which he calls "The Unconscious," to prevent its being construed anthropomorphically. The forces ascribed to atoms must be conceived as wills or efforts: they must have an unconscious idea of their destiny in order to be able to realize it. Matter therefore consists of idea and will. The only explanation of the organism is the guidance of its growth by an unconscious will. Between growth and instinct there is only a