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.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.—EXTRICATION OF STAR-FISH IMPRISONED
INTERRADIALLY BY TACKS. (After Preyer.)
_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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *