Chapter XII: Part 12

But to our main task. In the simplest changes of place and position, intelligent co-operation of the arms is manifest. For if in moving from one place to another, or in turning around each arm tended to perform on its own account the necessary movements of extension or rotation, without giving any heed to the others, the animal would endure the torments of Tantalus before it could reach, if ever at all, the choice bit of food that it had scented from afar, or the ray of light towards which an obscure impulsion drove it. On the contrary, when a star-fish is spying after food, we observe it lift the ends of its pedicel-covered arms so that the downward deflected eye there situated may obtain a good view of things in the neighborhood, and if in any direction an object worth going after is discovered we see the many hundreds of sucker-feet on the five arms push out in one and the same direction,—a phenomenon that requires the presence of a very widely ramified nervous system, since every tactile pedicel needs its separate telegraph wire in order to be properly moved and not always in the same direction, as for example when the animal wishes to perform a rotation about its own axis. For these comical animals sometimes do rotate about their axis, although our simple mind wonders why a Janus-head should want to turn around, these animals being able to look simultaneously in the four directions of the compass, and having still another eye for looking downward. Similarly in the sand-stars, to which the Medusa-heads with branched arms belong, an adaptive co-operation of the arms in creeping and swimming occurs; which can be explained only as the result of a common understanding issuing from the central ring.

It would seem to follow from Preyer's extensive observations, that as a rule no one individual arm of a star-fish enjoys to the exclusion of its fellows the prerogative of universal or even general precedence; the lead of any one arm is rather solely determined by the object sought, so that the one next to the object generally starts first and assumes the lead of the little army of arms. Of course in the case of new-growing star-fishes which have sprung from a single arm by sprouting, this is different; for in this instance the old arm will undoubtedly retain control of the others for some length of time until the young ones have reached a certain size. Preyer does not seem to have instituted observations to ascertain this, but it would be interesting to determine whether an arm of this kind always takes the lead, or in the proper cases acts as driver from behind and pushes the baby-carriage with the children before it.

Through the end of each ray of the animal a thread is drawn and affixed to a cork; the animal lying back downwards. At first the creature swung the corks alternately inwards and outwards, taking the positions represented in the above figure. After the lapse of an hour the ray with the smallest cork attached, upon which thus the least upward pressure was exerted, was pulled downwards and sidewise and brought beneath an adjacent ray; the two opposite rays were retracted centrally, the disc lifted, the centre of gravity of the animal thus displaced, and the turning effected.]

Examples of surprisingly dexterous co-operation and concerted adaptive action are observed in these animals in their climbing on difficult surfaces, and in their attempts, also, to regain their normal position when placed on their backs or made to swim in reversed positions by discs of cork fastened to the extremities of their arms. Scientists have observed members of the orders _Asteroidea_ and _Ophiuroidea_, in difficult positions of this kind, display an astounding sense of equilibrium and a skilfulness in gaining firm holds, suggestive of the athletic feats of monkeys, and that even when placed in very unusual positions such as never occur in nature. Thus many star-fishes let themselves drop from steep rocks and cliffs, if that happens to be the best way of getting down; but in such cases before they let their whole weight go hold fast to the last moment with one or two arms, as if it were previously necessary to calculate the leap into the depths below. To furnish the counter-test of this, and to prove that the central nerve-ring is, as assumed, the indispensable and necessary condition of this united co-operation, Preyer severed the ring in individual specimens of the class between every two arms, sparing the other parts as much as possible. In this way the nervous systems of the five rays were disconnected. As was expected, it was found that the more connections there were severed, the more difficult the animal found it when placed on its back to regain its normal position. For since the recovery of the normal position must be introduced by the groping about and the fastening of the pedicels of one or of several adjacent and half-turned arms, two arms or pairs of arms might for want of a mutual understanding act directly in opposition to one another and thus make the turning impossible. On the other hand, the central disc was able, though deprived of all arms, to accomplish the turning, if only the nerve-ring were preserved intact; and the more there remained of the nerve-ring on a single arm the better the single arm was able to do it.

But in circumstances which were wholly new, the adaptive co-operation of the arms demonstrated itself in so striking a manner that we may say they are not to be easily put out of countenance or confounded. When Professor Preyer, for example, slipped narrow rubber bands or cylinders over their rough spiny arms, they rid themselves as a rule of these unwonted fetters in a very short time, and in the most various but always well calculated ways. Generally the two nearest ones seized their poor imprisoned fellow "under the arms," bracing themselves with their rough spiny surface against the rubber sleeve, and thus finally stripping it off. (See Fig. 5; next page.) Sometimes, when the band was loosely adjusted, twisting movements of the arm in the water sufficed gradually to loosen it, until it could be finally cast off. Often the peeling off was effected by pressing against a rough surface, whereby sometimes an adjacent arm held the sleeve fast; and when no other expedient was of avail the animal cast the arm, sleeve and all, away from itself; and the latter may possibly have not gotten rid of it at all. At times the casting off of the arm occurred subsequently, after the obstacle had been entirely removed, and often even a day later, as if the impeded arm was still sensible of some obstruction which caused it to afterwards separate from its companions.

The figure represents the moment at which the band is about to be removed. An adjacent arm is braced against the lower edge of the band, forcing it off in the direction of the extremity of the ray.]

Attempts at flight and liberation from unwonted compulsory positions or narrow confinement, also deserve special attention. Many a person who has put a star-fish into a cage and fancied that he was assured of its possession, has been disappointed on finding that the animal had effected its escape through the meshes. But star-fishes have, in consequence of their abhorrence of the air, been made to creep into the narrow necks of bottles filled with water. Professor Preyer, for example, thrust two of the arms of a common star-fish species (_Asterias glacialis_) into a tube filled with salt water leaving the three other arms exposed to the atmosphere outside; and although it would have been impossible to force the animal into the tube without crushing it, the three arms exposed to the air were also pulled in within the space of three minutes. If the tube was placed perpendicularly in water the animal quickly crept out again. The performance seemed utterly impossible, for each single arm of the star-fish was almost as thick at its base as the greatest width of the tube, and yet three of these arms had to pass in side by side. This was made possible by the animal emptying during the passage all the numerous water-vesicles in the interior of the arms which serve to fill and to empty the distensible pedicels therein; the star-fish, after the expulsion of the water, becomes very soft in all its parts and does not harden again until it has forced itself completely through and refilled itself with water. In order to accomplish these emptyings, bendings, turnings, and rollings, thousands of muscular fibres must work in harmony within the body of the animal. This experiment was also successfully carried out with other star-fishes, but I cannot agree with the observer when he says that in so doing he brought the animals into a completely new and hitherto unexperienced position. In their haunts on rocky coasts they must assuredly often have to force their way through narrow fissures and holes; and they must find occasion to make use of the advantages of being able to evacuate water in the case also of single arms, as when they search with them in narrow apertures and snail-houses.

But undoubtedly new for these animals was the position in which they were fastened to a board by five long pins with broad heads, which Preyer drove in close to the central disc between the rays, so that the star-fish, as it seemed, was fastened to its resting-place in a way that admitted of no escape. Nevertheless, the star-fish found a means of freeing itself with ease and elegance from this constrained imprisonment in a great variety of ways, even when the exterior parts of their bodies were girded in by a much greater number of pins. Ordinarily they began by shoving one of their rays, accompanied by a backward bending movement of its two companions, far out between the two encompassing pins, and then drew with the greatest care first the one and then the other adjacent ray through the same narrow avenue of escape, whereupon then the two remaining rays, the one slightly overlapping the other, were enabled to follow with perfect ease. (See Fig. 6.) A practised knot-untier who had studied the position could not have given them better advice. But if no agreement of plan and purpose existed in this case between the separate rays, if each ray sought to free itself of its own accord, a successful extrication from the difficulty could hardly have been foreseen; and we must infer from this great unanimity of action in times of danger.

_1._ Original encompassment. _2._ First stage of extrication. _3._ Second stage. _4._ Third and last stage. The smaller figures indicate the successive positions of the same rays.]

Preyer thinks that at times the concurrence of all the rays in matters of concerted action might have to be effected by first obtaining the concurrence and assent of any individual ray that might be hostilely disposed; he holds it as not improbable that profound dissensions may arise between the united brothers, and refers to the fact that perhaps the voluntary section of a star-fish into a three-rayed and a two-rayed portion,—which frequently takes place,—may have to be regarded as the violent dissolution of a community of fellow animals formerly living in harmony, but now lapsed into a state of conflict. We shall pass this view by, however, to point out in a few words Preyer's general inferences with regard to the mutual relation of the five communal souls. Progression and flight in a direction once taken and unimpeded by obstacles,—an observation often made and easily verified,—the acrobatic performances, and lastly the intelligent behavior, so to say, of imprisoned and fettered star-fishes, prove that generally, and especially in moments of peril, strength-giving unanimity prevails.

But Preyer is nevertheless of opinion that it is not therefore necessary to assume the existence of a permanent central government, a central soul, holding simultaneous sway over the five radial souls, and in which is lodged, especially in times of battle, full executive power. He employs the simile of five hunting-dogs yoked together in the form of a ring, of like age, like power, and the same training, who hunt a hare in concert, or stand simultaneously and mechanically before a partridge; when thrown into the water make for the shore all in the same direction, and when equally tired fall simultaneously asleep. "Like the Siamese twins," he says, "these yolked-together dogs will have upon the whole apparently but one will, although they often obey only necessity in this and not their own impulses." Preyer arrives in this at the same conclusion that I pronounced in 1876 in the work I have mentioned, where I compared the concerted actions and movements of star-fishes and sea-urchins to the walking and dancing of human twin-monsters, who in spite of a difference of mental individuality, often very far reaching, nevertheless bring about perfect harmony in their external movements. In this I had especially in mind the so-called "two-headed nightingale," two girls closely united in growth, who often violently quarreled but sang and danced so harmoniously with one another that for the time being the sorrowful fate of the indissoluble union of two so different natures was completely forgotten. In the majority of their relations the five or more associates united in the star-fish are much better off than unfortunate human beings like those just described, and especially in this one particular that they do not have to die with one another, but are able to break loose with impunity from a companion whom death threatens, when they observe that he has suffered a wound or loss, simply expelling him from the community.

CARUS STERNE.

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.

I.

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

You have requested me to write you for your new quarterly magazine a review of the philosophy of contemporary Germany as manifested in its most important tendencies and endeavors. In setting out to comply with your wish, I feel that this is no simple task. With mere titles of books neither you nor your public will be satisfied. The readers of _The Monist_ will demand a deeper insight into the workshops of German philosophy; they will want to know if the old mother soil of speculative thought has retained its pristine fertility. Fertile it has remained. But in quite another sense from formerly. In a few years a century will have elapsed since Schelling published in the _Philosophische Journal_ of Niethammer and Fichte, his "General Survey of Modern Philosophical Literature," and it is well to recall to mind that treatise and that period in attempting to characterise the present state of philosophy in Germany; contrasts, we all know, are quite as important for the acquisition of knowledge as resemblances. One central problem stood at that time predominantly in the foreground; the problem, namely, of the unification of knowledge. Neither the idea nor the tendency it involves, is unknown to the philosophy of to-day, but its meaning has become a different one. At that epoch it was sought to solve the problem from within, to solve it from the centre; it was sought to find a supreme species of knowledge possessing a certainty founded unconditionally in itself, and to expand this dialectically into a system of ideas.

I do not need to set forth here the great and peculiar acquisitions that this method has won for us, nor to point out what wealth of noble power was dissipated by it in the treatment of impossible problems. These things belong to history. The speculative period of German philosophy is dead. Ludwig Feuerbach in the middle of this century sung its funeral dirge. But it took some time before people accustomed themselves to regard it as really dead,—a time in which countless attempts were made to resuscitate it; it took some time before philosophers began generally to bestow upon the corpse the kicks of abuse that Schopenhauer in its own lifetime administered to it, and for which he was rebuked by a universal silence of indignation.

Earlier history, still under the influence of the speculative masters, had characterised the progress of German philosophy from Kant to Hegel as the necessary and logical evolution of the idea of philosophy in its highest sense. But the present prevailing method of presentation is accustomed to draw a sharp, deep line at the termination of Kant's activity, and to regard the entire subsequent speculative development of the Kantian philosophy as a fallacious digression and an abandonment of the fundamental critical idea. "Back to Kant" is the watchword that has resounded since the beginning of the sixties, at first in solitary utterances, and then with greater, ever-increasing emphasis—the incipient condemnation of a period in which German philosophy had celebrated its grandest and most brilliant triumphs, and at a time when German speculative thought had just begun to grow better known and more influential abroad.

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Back to Kant. Yes. But to which Kant? To the Kant of the first or the second edition of the Critique of the Pure Reason? To the Critique of the Pure or the Critique of the Practical Reason? Very perplexing questions these. The philosophy of Kant is not so easily reducible to a simple and comprehensive formula. It is a veritable Proteus, that changes at will form and appearance. Every one interprets it, in the end, as he wishes Kant should have thought. The cry "Back to Kant" has become in the ranks of German philosophers a veritable apple of discord. An enormous Kantian literature has sprung up; critical, exegetical, constructive. No one can dispute its acumen, learning, erudition, and profundity. But the traits of Alexandrianism unmistakably cling to it. A more pernicious waste of intellectual power, perhaps, than that of the much deplored speculative period. One has the feeling often as if one would like to cast into the tumultuous, struggling crowd of combatants a different battle cry—"Back to Nature! Back to to the examination of the true contents of things!"

I shall select on this occasion from the superabundant store of Kantian literature the works of two writers only to whom the characterisation just advanced does not apply, and to whom independent and fundamental importance belongs. They are, first, ERNST LAAS,[58] professor at the University of Strassburg, who died in 1885, and second, ALOIS RIEHL,[59] formerly of Gratz, now of Freiburg. Both began with Kantian research. Neither remained identified with it. Both sought to supply a new foundation for that branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of cognition; both brought to the service of their task, in addition to eminent critical and analytical acumen, comprehensive historical knowledge. Widely different in method, both pursued the same end—the eradication of that transcendent bias which had so pernicious an influence with Kant himself and his immediate followers, and the replacing of all dualistic opposition of a higher and a lower, or a real and a phantom world, by a philosophy of reality based upon the rigid analysis of pure experience. Both, therefore, are, in this sense, indispensable preconditions of every monistic philosophy that is not founded on immediate intellectual perception, or mere postulates, but aims at a critical foundation.

[58] Laas, _Idealismus und Positivismus_, 3 Vols. 1876-87.

[59] Riehl, _Der philosophische Kriticismus und seine
Bedeutung für die positive Wissenschaft_, 3 Vols. 1876-87.

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Simultaneously with this battle for the "real" Kant and the measure of that in his philosophy which could be utilised as the groundwork of a new structure conforming to the conditions of the times, German philosophy in the second half of this century waged another war. No fratricidal struggle this, no mere scholastic feud, but a battle for existence with a foreign foe—the physical sciences. After the speculative philosophy had retired from the throne that it had so long occupied, and the vacancy seemed yet unfilled, the attempt was made to place in the unoccupied seat another intellectual power whose credit and authority with the contemporary world had begun to keep pace with the success that attended its endeavors. We shall designate these attempts briefly as "materialism," and understand by the term any and every endeavor that aims at constructing a conception of the world with the means and methods of the mathematical and mechanical sciences alone. That which was here sought after was the exact opposite of the state of things that obtained in the speculative period; and the treatment that the speculative philosophy had to submit to at the hands of many of the spokesmen of the new movement was not entirely undeserved. The battle that German philosophy here had to fight was no easy one. Its foe occupied every position of vantage. The real or apparent exactness of its principles, the detailed character of the structure of the world that it bade fair to offer were a power. What we want is facts, not ideas; intelligibility, not profundity—these were the demands with which philosophy was confronted. It was impossible to outflank, in this direction, the representatives of a scientific discipline that admitted of skilful popularisation. There was nothing similar to oppose to it. Philosophers were accordingly compelled to confine themselves to criticism, to show forth the unmistakable defectiveness of the pure-mechanical philosophy, the weaknesses and flaws in its demonstrations and the arbitrary character of its construction; and to point out by a display of much acute reasoning what fifty years before was self-evident, that mind and mental life are not merely an accidental phase of things, not a product incidentally resulting, but an indestructible feature of the inward nature of the world itself.

Much of this extensive antimaterialistic literature, in which may also be included by far the greater part of anti-Darwinian literature, can put forth no claim to lasting worth, and is to-day wholly antiquated. For the simple reason that people no longer understand, or at least will soon no longer be able to understand, the circumstances and conditions out of which this polemical activity sprung: namely the transcendent metaphysical philosophy; mistaken idealism which imagined that existence and reality had to be transfigured in and by cognition instead of through will and action; the secret fear of an endangerment or indeed of a dislodgment of the religio-theological world-conception, the supernatural God-idea, the pure spiritual and immortal soul, the freedom of the will, and other phantoms whatsoever the designations they may bear.

But this warfare against materialism, which was waged by minds of widely varying rank and power, resulted at least in the substantial advantage of having brought the hostile parties closer together, of having forced them to the reciprocal study of their respective means of investigation, and of having put an end to the complete estrangement that formerly existed between them. Not only did it enrich philosophy, but it also led physical science to a correction of many of its conceptions and to a re-examination of its methodological hypotheses.

This is best to be studied, perhaps, by taking to hand the writings of a man who may be characterised pre-eminently as a spokesman of the materialistic movement in Germany,—I mean JAKOB MOLESCHOTT. His well known work _Der Kreislauf des Lebens_ has become in its last, the eighth edition, something quite different from what it was in its first; and the rich collection of his lesser writings (_Kleinere Schriften_, 2 Vols., 1879-87) also offers the philosopher, especially from a methodological point of view, much that is worthy of especial attention. Moreover, this reciprocal influence of mind upon mind is manifested in the case of many of the most distinguished investigators of the last thirty years, in the most remarkable and gratifying manner. It is impossible to study the discourses and treatises of physiologists like DU BOIS-REYMOND and WILHELM PREYER, of physicists like HELMHOLTZ and ERNST MACH, and the discussions occasioned by their works, without being surprised at the extent to which the points of view of psychology and of the theory of cognition have penetrated into the problems and inquiries of the physical sciences. And _vice versa_ philosophical works, like FR. A. LANGE'S History of Materialism (_Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart_), UEBERWEG'S Collected Essays (_Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, just recently edited in a commendable manner by Moritz Brasch), the numerous works of LUDWIG NOIRÉ, and, last but not least, the entire scientific activity of WILHELM WUNDT,—all show an intimate familiarity with the methods of the physical sciences and an assimilation of materials from these branches of knowledge such as the speculative period can furnish no example of.

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Nevertheless, this intellectual revolution, far-reaching as it was, has led neither to solid systematic construction nor even to the successful development of positive methods of thought. Since the decline of speculative philosophy,—in which in this connection the Herbartian may also be included,—two systems only have dominantly influenced the German mind: the system of ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER and that of HERMANN LOTZE. In both a resonance still lingers of the older time. In Schopenhauer we detect the spirit of Schelling's nature- and art-philosophy; in Lotze, traces of the finely studied subtlety of Herbartian metaphysics. But though both are indebted for a portion of their real intrinsic worth to this organic though involuntary connection with a great epoch, their influence upon the present time rests upon very different grounds; and primarily upon the symmetrical, finished, and compact totality of their intellectual creations. They arose at a time in which philosophers had begun to lay aside the older systems as useless, and in which that multitudinous dismemberment of knowledge already began to make itself felt which to-day seems to be still growing greater. Although it may be difficult in many phases of the development of science to satisfy the impulse latent in us to unify knowledge, and although this endeavor is characterised ever anew by the representatives of special research as a delusion, nay as a ruinous delusion,—yet this impulse is not to be eradicated from the human mind and in some way or other it will ever procure itself recognition. Works like _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_ (World as Will and Idea), or _Der Mikrokosmus_ (Microcosm) embrace in fact the entire sphere of knowledge, not in an extensive, but in an intensive sense: they furnish a definite view of the complete inter-relation and meaning of life.

It will perhaps appear strange to the reader that works are here mentioned in the same breath and their effects upon the present time discussed, which are separated in origin from each other by a space of about forty years. Yet this very anomaly is characteristic of the development of the German mind. When Schopenhauer published, in 1819, his principal work, the time for it had not yet come. The philosophy of Hegel, a rationalistic panlogism, was then in the very midst of its career of triumph. The irrationalistic and pessimistic elements of Schopenhauerian thought were repulsive. We now know that the two first editions of the _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_ mouldered in the shops of the booksellers. Not until shortly before Schopenhauer's death in 1860 did the literary public and the scholastic circles of Germany begin to occupy themselves more seriously with this philosopher. Not until then did he really enter as an active factor into our intellectual life.

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._

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From the point of view of different systematic hypotheses, but substantially with exactly the same tendencies, analogous ideas find representation in EUGEN DÜHRING, who in versatility of talent and literary activity is perhaps to be placed directly by the side of Lotze and Hartmann, though the favor in which his works stand and the circulation they have obtained fall far below the position of the latter. He presents a different form of positivistic philosophy in Germany, a philosophy not preponderantly critical but constructive, and begins with what Ludwig Feuerbach about the middle of this century in his Principles of a Philosophy of the Future (_Grundsätze einer Philosophie der Zukunft_) once propounded as programme. His chief work, _Cursus der Philosophie als strengwissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung_ (Course of Philosophy as Exact-Scientific World-Conception and Conduct of Life), and the treatise against pessimism entitled _Der Werth des Lebens_ (The Value of Life) sketch a world-picture that is intended theoretically to be but the simple conceptual interpretation of the present contents of experience, and therefore rejects the metaphysical constructions of Lotze, as well as the new conceptual mythology of Hartmann, and criticistic doubts concerning the objective reality of the world given in consciousness. In the practical direction, as an offset to the world-throe of humanity, the gladdening power of a life and action based on universal sympathy is emphasised. Dühring is a unique, but isolated phenomenon; standing, like Schopenhauer once did, in sullen antagonism towards the official academic philosophy, and totally ignored by it; unable by virtue of the conditions already delineated to influence wider circles, which the unanimated rigidity of his manner of presentation does not contribute to make easy. Eminent mental endowment and extensive knowledge are perhaps displayed in a higher degree in his historical works (_Kritische Geschichte der Allgemeinen Principien der Mechanik_[61]; _Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie_[62]; _Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Socialismus_[63]) than in his systematic treatises.

[61] _Critical History of the General Principles of Mechanics._

[62] _Critical History of Philosophy._

[63] _Critical History of Political Economy and Socialism._

Nevertheless, Dühring can at the farthest be regarded only as one of the forerunners of that Messiah that is destined for German philosophy and German intellectual culture perhaps in the coming century; of that man who shall be able to cast up the accounts of the work of the present period, with its infinite analyses, its historical comparative character, and its pyramidal yield of material, and to condense that which now everywhere surges about us like a spiritual ether, but nowhere palpable or tangible, into the unity of a system that shall point out the paths to be followed and shall dominate all minds.

* * * * *

There are many,—and among them eminent investigators and estimable scholars,—who smile at this prophecy as an Utopian dream; nay, almost stand in dread of such hopes, as perilous to science. The day of systems, say they, is past. Philosophy, too,—perhaps it were more proper to say "mental science,"—is breaking up into a number of special sciences, over which it is sought to place a general science of knowledge or theory of science, as the last representative of that which was once called philosophy and was recognised as the queen of the sciences.

As intimated, I do not know whether the impulse toward unity that inheres in the human mind is to be so easily driven from the field; whether we shall be satisfied in the long run to behold that light that irradiates the universe, broken a hundred-fold by the prisms of the single sciences. But one thing is certain. The more irresolute they are in whom the science of the future places its confidence, the more actively will they press forward who hold that the precious treasure of truth has long since been granted unto man, and who would fain forge with this heritage of the past the fetters of the future. After the Catholic church under Pius IX. had hurled in the face of modern culture and science its frantic _Anathema sit_, it began under his successor a much quieter, yet far more determined warfare. Like one of the famed lianas of the primeval tropical forests, it entwines the giant Science, to sap his best powers and slowly but surely to stifle his life. Whatever the modern mind with the help of freedom won by bitter struggles has gained in the knowledge of nature and of history, is twisted and turned, falsified and misinterpreted by hundreds and hundreds of busy hands until it has been fashioned to fit that ready-made scheme of things composed on the one hand of Catholic dogmatical teachings, and on the other of the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy. As many representatives as secular freethought can show, there will be found beside them to-day an ecclesiastical _advocatus diaboli_ who will neither rest nor cease until of the hero has been made a wretch and mangy heresiarch.

Under protection of the principle of free inquiry, and with all the helps of science, a warfare of extermination is here carried on against all freedom of mind and all science, which is the more dangerous in proportion as the opponent loves to decorate himself with the borrowed plumes of science, and as he is able skilfully to mask his real designs. Catholicism is striving with untiring efforts to gain by the help of this reformed and modernised scholasticism, the mastery of the schools, of education, of the universities, and of the entire activity of science. And compared with the position of the representatives of modern thought it has decidedly the advantage. Not only is it in the possession of a unitary world-theory, but it defends that theory with most determined vigor and heedlessness against all differing views. The representatives of modern science, on the contrary, are not so fortunate as to possess inherited truth and infallible authority, and they not only have to contend with the formidable internal difficulties that stand in the way of a unitary formulation of their conception of the world, but frequently even avoid entering on this task with determination in order to make less prominent the contrast with the religio-theological system to which every exact scientific conception of the world must of necessity lead.

Against these aggressive endeavors of the theological mind, neither lofty indifference, nor calm historical contemplation, nor mere literary warring will avail. The power of freethought must be displayed, and the positive work that it can do must be shown. Otherwise the time may come when the fame of rigid scientific thought and successful research in special fields will not exonerate German philosophy from the reproach of having left the nation in the lurch at a period of momentous spiritual crisis. To make useful the rich acquisitions of these labors toward the construction of a general theory of the world, remains, therefore, the serious task of the German philosophy of the future.

I shall be permitted, perhaps, in a future article to present an account of the literature of these special departments.

FRIEDRICH JODL.

II.

RECENT FRENCH PUBLICATIONS.

The works that have appeared during the last three months belong to authors of different nationalities—Italian, Roumanian, Belgian, and I ought to add Russian; but I shall not speak on this occasion of the important work of Sergneyeff, _Physiologie de la Veille et du Sommeil_.

It is, as you see, a gathering of good company, on French soil.[64]

[64] All these works are published by Alcan.

* * * * *

The only French work to be mentioned is that of M. CH. ADAM, _Philosophie de François Bacon_, a memoir presented in the prize competition of which M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire was the reporter and preferred by the Academy of Moral and Political sciences.

M. Ch. Adam is already known by several works relating to the history of philosophy. The study which he now gives to the public is conscientious; we must commend his erudition and the moderation he has displayed both in his praise and in his criticism. I am not sure, however, if he is right in asserting that the fame of Bacon will increase and diminish alternately, according to whether patient analyses or daring hypotheses find the more favor in the scientific world. I have known many a savant, profoundly metaphysical and imaginative, who, in admiring Bacon, delusively believed himself in the possession of a solid safeguard against metaphysics. There is more chance, to my mind, of finding the admirers of the Chancellor among pure philosophers than among men of science. This is why I subscribe completely to the judgment of M. Ch. Adam, when he subordinates Bacon to Descartes and to Galileo. Especially should he be put below Galileo, who was the great initiator of modern science, at least the first to add a link to the chain of human science then being forged; one, I might say, who by his solid contributions really founded physical science, as chemistry was founded by Lavoisier and his contemporaries a century and a half later.

* * * * *

The Roumanian writer is M. BASILE CONTA, whose unfinished work, _Les Fondements de la Métaphysique_, has been translated by M. Tescanu. M. Conta died in the heyday of his powers. Born in 1845, he was successively, from 1875 to 1881, professor of jurisprudence at the University of Jassy, deputy, and minister of public instruction. The author and his works have, therefore, serious claims to our attention. Nevertheless, I can hardly believe that M. Conta always kept in the path in which he started, for if he had, it would have led him to considerable results.

M. Conta held that every combination of ideas, that is to say every ultimate generalisation, is essentially mobile, alterable in character, and that there will never be any final, definitive philosophical system. Subject to the benefit of this wise reserve, he undertook, nevertheless, to frame a "materialist" metaphysic, founded like the positive sciences on induction, and he attempted to rise to a general system, from which it appeared to him that the ancient notions of the soul, of freedom, and of God could not be legitimately excluded.

According to my mind, the defect of his method was the allowing too much to reasoning, the too great desire to create reality by simple logic. Unfortunately, the intellectual necessity that he proclaimed, of reducing all to unity, does not carry with it the means of properly making this reduction by a subtle operation of the mind. In order to advance towards his end, M. Conta found himself led to formulate a compendious sketch of a theory of cognition, a psychology, and a logic, at the risk of sinking at times in the quicksands of a treacherous discussion. As a matter of fact, metaphysics, spiritualism, and materialism, are conceptions of great vagueness, and the problem to reconcile them by any fashion of union, is rather like inquiring how many ways there are of placing three persons at table, or even a greater number.

This is not said by way of disputing the merits of a writer whose loss is justly regretted, or to discourage the reading of a book in which many will find much to accept.

* * * * *

The Belgian author is M. ALBERT BONJEAN, a barrister of Verviers. His book, _L' Hypnotisme, ses Rapports avec le Droit et la Therapeutique, la Suggestion Mentale_, affects too much the style of an address before a court in which the orator wishes to exhibit wit and acumen. Nevertheless, it is written with clearness, is agreeable to read, and the verbal nicety sought does not impair its good sense.

M. Bonjean has developed the three following theses: First, that the action of magnetism is not explained by the hypothesis of a fluid, that we cannot speak with M. Ochorowicz, of "a certain tonic vibratory movement which propagates itself outward from the periphery of the body," but that it is explainable by simple suggestion; second, that the power of suggestion is almost unlimited; and third, that though verbal suggestion is incontestable, mental suggestion remains doubtful until proof to the contrary.

M. Bonjean thus sides with MM. Ochorowicz and Delbœuf, and the whole school of Nancy, against that of the Salpêtrière. He endeavors especially to show the serious consequences, in criminal and civil affairs, of immoral suggestions, the dangers of which he reproaches M. Gilles de la Tourette with having concealed far too much. His personal conviction does not rest itself solely on the expositions of others, but on experiments which seem to have been conducted with prudence.

Extraordinary as this almost passive obedience of a subject to the suggestion of an act which is repugnant to his moral tendencies appears, we come in a position, it seems to me, to comprehend it by the observation of the degenerate patients of our asylums in their various manias. The dipsomaniac resists with all his power the impulse to drink, and the kleptomaniac the impulse to steal; they fight against it even to agony, but they end always by yielding to it. "It was stronger than I"; such is the formula that we have noted most often in the answers of these unfortunates. And remark, that the dipsomaniac does not drink for pleasure, but by compulsion, be the beverage what it may, water, urine, or petroleum; just as the kleptomaniac does not steal with a view to enjoying the product of his theft, which he ordinarily abandons or restores, but steals to deliver himself from agonising torture. In this manner also the onomatomaniac acts, who is seeking a word, and who rises at night to consult the dictionary, etc. The hypnotised subject is in the same predicament, whatever pathological difference there may be between the two; his personality has momentarily sunk in hypnosis, as does that of an insane person during the attack of insanity; his moral resistance must finally yield, and it is not at all remarkable that it does.

The volume of M. Bonjean ends with an interesting discussion of the celebrated case of Lully. The deceit that gave rise to belief in suggestion without words or gestures appears to be established; the subject reads from the lips of his magnetiser.

* * * * *

Let us turn to the fine work of M. R. GAROFALO, _La Criminologie, Etude sur la Nature du Crime et la Théorie de la Pénalité_. M. Garofalo has himself translated his work from the Italian; this second edition is entirely recast.

The Italians have always had a taste for juridical studies. Their school of criminologists has placed itself at the head of the movement which ought to result in the reform of all criminal codes. Two principal tendencies are predominant in the works of this school: the physicians and anthropologists, for example M. Lombroso, have conformably to their mental tendencies, particularly studied the _criminal_, of whom they have endeavored to fix the type; the jurists, like M. Garofalo, vice-president of the civil tribunal of Naples, consider by preference the _crime_, which they determine by reference to our social organisation. M. Garofalo shows himself at once an innovator, in that he endeavors to give a positive definition of crime, to take the place of the vague and incomplete definition which was accepted by the old jurists, and conforming to which anthropologists have thought themselves able to mark the characteristics of the criminal man. That definition has relation to the average morality of the societies of to-day; crime or criminal offence is to be sought, according to him, only in the violation of altruistic sentiments acquired and consolidated in the average social individual—compassion and probity. New categories ought then to be established; that of "revolutionists," for example, with whom the offence does not proclaim moral monstrosity.

The violation of altruistic sentiments certainly reveals in the offender a grave anomaly; it marks him as not adapted to the conditions of society, and even incapable of adapting himself to them, in consequence of psychical and physiological irregularities. The principle, then, is correct, although M. Garofalo has based it on an analysis of sentiments which appears to me insufficient. The sympathetic emotions which compassion embraces, are not the only source of our moral activity; probity arises in part from intelligence, and the logical sense intervenes to give the form of justice or injustice to an act of passion. Now, feebleness of judgment becomes, incidentally, an important element of the diagnosis of the criminal. Let us agree, nevertheless, that the absence of compassion and of probity upon the whole makes up the "natural crime." This suffices surely in practice.