countrymen who were beginning to see in him a philosophic force of far-reaching effect.
Though the three men were so considerably separated in years, they began to act upon the public almost simultaneously. Lange’s History of Materialism, so noted in its later form, first appeared in 1865; Dühring’s first important work, the Natural Dialectic, was published the same year; while Hartmann’s Philosophy of the Unconscious came first from the press in 1868. The main lines of their several theories we are now to trace and endeavour to value.
I
In opening a study of Hartmann and his large circle of readers, we come at once upon the sphere of an influence whose reach in the present “enlightened public” of Germany it is impossible to overlook; I refer, of course, to Schopenhauer. Hartmann is generally and justly recognised as the mental heir of Schopenhauer, in direct succession. His so-called system, however, is far inferior in intellectual quality to that of his predecessor. He differs from Schopenhauer in giving to the empirical a great predominance over the a priori method,[1] and in his doctrine concerning the nature of the Absolute. The former fact expresses his deference to the " stupendous
- ↑ The reader will easily recall his significant motto: “Speculative results by the inductive method of the natural sciences.”
