Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/620

59^ THE MATERIALISTIC CONTROVERSY. The same may be said, further, of Hermann Ulrici* of Halle (1806-84), for many years the editor of the Zeit- schrift fiir Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, founded in 1837 by the younger Fichte and now edited by the author of this History, which, as the organ of the theistic school, opposed, first, the pantheism of the Young Hegelians, and then the revived materialism so loudly proclaimed after the middle of the century. This Zeitschrift of Fichte and Ulrici, following the altered circumstances of the time, has experienced a change of aim, so that it now seeks to serve idealistic efforts of every shade ; while the Philosophische Monatshefte (founded by Bergmann in 1868, edited subse- quently by Schaarschmidt, and now) edited by P. Natorp of Marburg, favors neo-Kantianism,and the Vierteljahrsschrift fur wissetischaftliche Philosophie {htgnn in 1877, and) edited by R. Avenarius of Zurich, especially cultivates those parts of philosophy which are open to exact treatment. The appearance of materialism was the consequence of the flagging of the philosophic spirit, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the dissatisfaction of the representa- tives of natural science with the constructions of the Schelling-Hegelian school. If the German naturalist is especially exposed to the danger of judging all reality from the section of it with which he is familiar, from the world of material substances and mechanical motions, the reason lies in the fact that he does not find it easy, like the Englishman for example, to let the scientific and the philosophico-religious views of the world go on side by side as two entirely heterogeneous modes of looking at things. The metaphysical impulse to generalization and unification spurs him on to break down the boundary between the two spheres, and, since the physical view of things has become part of his flesh and blood, psychical phenomena are for him nothing but brain-vibrations, and the free- dom of the will and all religious ideas, nothing but •Ulrici : On Shaksperes Dramatic Art, 1839, 3d cd., r868 [English, 1876] ; Faith and Knowledge, 1858 ; God and Nature, 1861, 2d ed., 1866 ; God and Man, in two volumes, Body and Soul, 1866, 2d ed., 1874, and Natural law, 1872 ; various treatises on Logic — in which consciousness is based on the dis- tinguishing activity, and the categories conceived as functional modes of this — on Spiritualism, etc.