them. Platonic and Peripatetic conceptions are far indeed from having been overthrown by the rising tide of a revived Ionian philosophy-a flood of which has slightly covered part of our land, and deeply submerged Germany. Philosophical anatomy, types, divine prototypal ideas are one by one emerging and reappearing, refreshed and invigorated by the bath of Darwinian Evolutionism through which they have been made to pass. It is again becoming manifest that nature, when broadly surveyed, confirins and accords with the speculations of philosophy, though never without a certain want of minute agreement, so opening fresh vistas, which invite the intellect to further advance, and to the solution of more and more recondite problems which it is the task of philosophical anatomy perpetually to strive after, to elucidate in part, but never, in this life, exhaustively to solve. A HERMANN LOTZE AND THE MECHANICAL NOT unimportant contribution towards the elucidation of that great question, 'What is the most rational conception of nature possible for us?' has been lately made accessible to English readers unfamiliar with German. We refer to a translation which has recently appeared of Hermann Lotze's great work entitled Microcosmus: an Essay concerning Man and his Relation to the World. The opinions of the author with respect to this question have a special interest, because he has been so long and industrious a worker in the field of scientific philosophy, because his eminence has been so widely recognised, and because he has been so zealous and able an advocate of a mechanical conception of nature. Rudolph Hermann Lotze was born May 21, 1817, at Bautzen, in Saxony. He studied medicine and philosophy at the university of Leipsic, where he graduated in both subjects in 1838, and became a university lecturer in both the following year. He became a professor at Leipsic in 1842, which ten years afterwards he left for a professorship at Göttingen.2 The study of medicine made him feel the absolute necessity of a knowledge of physical and biological science for any one who would aspire to philosophy, and forced upon his 1 In two volumes, translated by Elizabeth Hamilton and E. E. Constance Jones. Published by T. & T. Clark, of Edinburgh, in 1885. 2 For further details see Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. mind the complete untenableness of Hegelianism. At starting he appeared to be a thoroughgoing upholder of the mechanical view of nature. In his Pathology1 he sought to show that the processes observable in the living body are in no way fundamentally different from those of insensient nature, the only difference being in the arrangement of the parts upon which the physical forces act. Vital force,' he taught, is not to be understood as any distinct force, but rather as the sum of the effect of numerous partial forces acting under given conditions.' Naturally enough his writings were quoted with cordial approbation by men of the materialist school; but already in his Physiology, he repudiated materialistic dogmatism, and promised to enter more fully into the subject subsequently. This promise was fulfilled by the publication of the work to some of the contents of which we here wish to call attention. The judgments expressed in it led materialists, who had accustomed themselves to reckon Lotze as one of themselves, to denounce him as an apostate. He has not, however, really repudiated his former teaching as to mechanism, and certainly he has in no way weakened his denunciations of vitalism. The head and front of his offence in the eyes of those who deem him a renegade, is his endeavour to show that the mechanical conception of nature, as understood by him, is not in any necessary contradiction with a spiritualistic conception of the universe. We would by no means be understood to express approval of the work generally—a work in writing which the author appears to have considered nothing human as foreign to his subject, so wide is its scope and so multifarious the matters treated of in it. With many of his views we differ toto calo; and as to others with which we agree we deprecate 1 Allg. Pathologie und Therapie als Mechanische Naturwissenschaften, 1842. 2 Allg. Physiologie des Körperlichen Lebens. Leipsic, 1851. 3 Mikrokosmos: Ideen zur Naturgeschichte und Geschichte der Menschheit. 3 vols. Leipsic, 1856-1864. Second Edition, 1868. the modes in which he advocates them. Nevertheless, as a very distinguished thinker and teacher, and one who has had no inconsiderable following, we gladly avail ourselves of the opportunity of introducing him to such readers as may not yet know him, as an occasion for saying a few supplementary words on that question which seems to us one of the most important of our own day-the question as to which of our conceptions concerning nature is nearest the truth. Now the common-sense of mankind has always recognised a fundamental distinction between living things and things devoid of life, and common-sense we should remember enshrines something more than the opinion of any one man, however distinguished, and demands respectful consideration (though not slavish subjection) as an expression of the judgment of many generations of men. The conception of living creatures being permeated by a special force distinguished from the merely physical forces as 'vital,' was invented by a school of physiologists who were no doubt under the influence of this dictate of common-sense. But this conception, known as Vitalism,' has found less and less favour with scientific men, and almost all the most advanced physiologists now favour and seek mechanical explanations of vital phenomena. Such a change must be due to some good reasons. It is impossible to suppose that leading men of science can have ranged themselves in opposition to vitalism through any mere prejudice of whatever kind. There are at least three reasons for the course they have pursued: (1) the exigencies of scientific progress; (2) the necessary conditions of human mental activity; and (3) the nature of all forces, whether 'physical' or 'vital.' Science, in the popular sense of the word, progresses by the discovery of uniformities in the coexistences and sequences of phenomena, and conceptions which relate not to phenomena, but to existences supposed to underlie phenomena, cannot be expected à priori to havo much influence on such scientific discovery. Experience confirms this anticipation. The progress of physiological and medical science has been in fact due not to any theory of 'vitalism' (or other conceptions not to be verified by experiment and observation), but to investigations conducted in harmony with mechanical conceptions. No wonder, then, that physiologists are inclined to favour views which have been found of such practical utility. In the next place it is a law of the mind that not even the most abstract thoughts can take place except by the help of the imagination, and nothing can be imagined by us which has not been the subject of sense-perception. But this is by no means all. The imagination is most easily affected by objects which can be distinctly seen and definitely felt, as is shown by the terms we spontaneously employ to denote various bodily and mental affections. Thus people speak of a 'sharp pain,' 'like a knife,' a 'light character,' a 'hard heart,' a 'bright disposition,' and say that ill tidings have given them'a heavy blow.' Therefore a mechanical conception of nature, which imagines natural processes in terms of motion, must naturally and readily find acceptance amongst men, whether or not it be approved by reason on mature reflection. Lastly, the idea of a 'force' which is common to all living things, and to them only, is an idea which not only troubles the imagination but is repugnant to reason. Either such an energy is conceived of as being absolutely one with a living creature manifesting itself, in which case it must be an individual energy in each living thing, and not one common to them all, or it is conceived of as being distinct and a substance in itself a grotesque conception, in support of which no valid reason can be adduced. Vitalism, therefore, is in his last work, as in his first, consistently opposed by Lotze, and we agree with him in not only admitting, but in affirming, that men of science are fully |