ethical Theism of Plato and Kant is obvious, and hence it is natural to find that Plato and Kant are equally revered by the majority of the writers mentioned.
In Germany itself, while there has been so great a development of history and criticism, there has been a conspicuous decay of philosophy. A speaker at Hegel's grave predicted that his kingdom would be divided among his satraps, and certainly within a short period of his death his system was very generally abandoned. With the decay of metaphysics and the triumphant progress of physics, a powerful Materialistic school made its appearance; Feuerbach, Strauss, Dubois Raymond, Vogt, Lange, Büchner, Helmholz, and many other popular writers, have propagated it very extensively. Schopenhauer's system found much posthumous veneration. Schopenhauer agreed with Kant in his subjective Idealism, but went on to teach the utter blindness and irrationality of the world-ground in its despairing necessary evolution; hence the well-known pessimism of his school. Schopenhauer's philosophical inspirers had been Kant, Plato, and Buddha; the latter he is said to have venerated principally as an Atheist. The Oriental influence in his system is conspicuous. Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious" also received a moderate support. It was a compound of the thoughts of Hegel and Schopenhauer—the pessimism of the latter occupying a prominent position. Hartmann thought that the world was so essentially evil and wretched that its non-existence would be preferable to its existence; hence the final goal of the world-evolution was the blissful Nirvana of non-existence. Many writers returned to the anti-monistic and anti-idealistic teaching of Herbart. Lotze, in particular, has exercised a wide influence in the reaction; his teaching is a compound of Herbartian and Fichteo-Hegelian elements, and raises a strong protest against scientific Materialism.
Such, therefore, is the history of the rise, conflict, and decay of systems in the nineteenth century. The same painful impression is felt in surveying the drama, for such it truly is, as in surveying the Greek activity from Thales to Carneades. The most gifted minds of the three most gifted nations of modern Europe have sought, in grim earnest, a solution of the ever-impending problem of the universe; yet it can hardly be claimed that any positive advance has been
