or on our opinions. In saying this I have certainly no intention of counting, under this name of the natural understanding, that sum of superficial impressions, half thoughts, and groundless prejudices which, together with a few indispensable or traditional truths, constitutes the treasury of non-scientific culture. It is the defect of this culture that it is fragmentary, and this fault cannot be compensated for the purposes of science by the greater intensity with which, awakened as it is by the occurrences of life, it plunges itself into these personal experiences. Nourishing itself only upon observations which fall within its own circle of vision, it carries the thoughts to which it is so incited only a few steps forward, and contents itself with such solutions as in a measure satisfy the most pressing necessities of the case. It does not observe that the various results to which it comes by these isolated attempts form no self-consistent whole, and that every one of them contains still unsolved riddles which a step further would have brought to light. But these defects cannot be removed by the application of a specific method, for they occur very abundantly even in those philosophical views of the world which plume themselves expressly upon the possession of such methods. If I may be permitted to state what I regard as the most common fault of philosophizing, it is the want of persistence and tenacity: It satisfies itself too often with the flash of a striking thought which throws an interesting and dazzling light on one part of the world, but leaves others in only the deeper darkness; whereas it is much more important to pursue every fundamental thought one tries into all its possible consequences, in order to ascertain how far its validity suffers no contradiction from reality, and at what point its fruitfulness ceases. It is in this unremitting and consecutive prosecution of its task that the advantage lies which a scientifically-conducted investigation can have, and ought to have, over the natural attempts of nonscientific culture. In this sense every philosophy seeks quite naturally to unite its results in a systematic whole, and no just objection can be made against the necessity of such an attempt. But very important for the matter of the truths ascertained is the form of connection, of co-ordination and subordination, in which their union is sought; and in saying so, I wish merely to repudiate the prejudice which regards the commonly preferred type of classification as being the only desirable form of systematic connection. I know that for a survey of all philosophical investigations one must classify the questions to which one seeks answer; and I would in this respect be tolerably satisfied with Kant's three questions: What can we know? What shall we do? What may we hope? This classification at least keeps a firm and lively recollection of the needs for the satisfaction of which all speculation, in the last analysis, is undertaken. I know, also, and it is hardly necessary to mention it, that nearly allied groups of subjects lead to a junction of the investigations devoted to them under the names of individual disciplines; but I can set no value on subtle discriminations of these individual fields of inquiry, and just as little on the constructive art which unites them together again in the edifice of a single system. These artificial methods of connection are of advantage, only if it is an advantage to imprint the results of a speculation. clearly on the memory; but since they do not include along with their results the processes by which they have been arrived at, they effect only an external delivery of the cut and dry without conveying the living spirit of the investigation. The impulse to systematize may be directed to two different goals. In the first place, the sciences may be classified as subjective endeavours of the investigating mind to attain the knowledge of truth. Now, certainly there is nothing to say against this purpose, but only against the exaggerated importance which is set upon it; and this is a result for which we cannot feel thankful to Aristotle. It is a quite unfruitful copiousness of treatment which discusses, as he does, whether a given question belongs to this or that one of the disciplines which he distinguishes. For there is no ground for thinking that every single discipline possesses a special fruitful method which enables it, and enables none of the others, to answer a given question; and, accordingly, if one knows how to answer the question, it is difficult to see why he should not treat of it in the place where natural connections of thought suggest it and make its solution desirable; and if, on the other hand, he cannot answer it, then it is only labour lost to refer to other disciplines which will give no enlightenment either. Instead of following this course, one may take the second of the standpoints to which I have alluded: he may seek to set forth systematically, not his own subjective ways of procedure, but the objective matter of the truths discovered; and may by this course also reach the result that every question, or rather the answer to every question, would have its own definite unchangeable place in the system as a whole. I cannot acquiesce in this pretension. We can naturally undertake the solution of a problem only at the point of investigation where the results of previous inquiry place adequate grounds of decision at our command; and when we endeavour to set forth the proper inner connection of the world's contents, this partiality to systematic classification is a mischievous prejudice. The world is certainly not so constituted that the individual fundamental truths which we find dominating in it hang together according to the poor pattern of a logical superordination, co-ordination, and subordination. They form rather a texture so woven that they are all at the same time present in every bit and fold of it. You can, according to the need you feel, make every one of these single threads the chief subject of your consideration; but you cannot do this at all, or at least you cannot do it in a useful way, without taking account at every instant of the other threads with which it is indissolubly united. I should appear to say more than I desire if I did not add that I do not dispute the moderate utility of these traditional forms of philosophizing, but only their claim to pass for the indispensable requisites of all philosophical speculation. But I must here part with the favourable reader with an apology. I once said in reference to the theories of knowledge with which we are at present flooded, that the continual sharpening of the knife is tiresome if we have after all nothing to cut with it. But now I have myself claimed the reader's attention so long to these introductory considerations that I fear I must have excited no pleasant impression. I shall strive to atone for my fault by now turning without more ado, and with the desired freedom from scholastic forms, to those essential questions the discussion of which has at all times, and not least in our own, awakened the lively interest of mankind. HERMANN LOTZE. CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND THOUGHT IN RUSSIA. ST. PETERSBURG, Dec. 15th, 1879. mil before the Fresh Stor Of some arent starting events. Russia had en- Tous period leniency to a stena in personage as arei mpossible. As the e aty there were inHowever, though a brutal pleasure many it is associates Had the court a great sne political adminis Terass hari tu hear because - made to attempt to deny his mmitted it by order of - mreled bey, just as much ·len le vas asked why, if he did not e part of a base murierer, he ai fed ter his attempt ser appealed again the hearts of the listeners:-" Why," ery man is endowed with the instinet of self-preservation, kes the upper hand in some moments, even against his will. When I fired at General Drenteln, in the broad day, and in one of the most frequented streets of the capital, I could not dream of escaping; but, seeing how badly your police is organized, a sudden temptation to flee became too strong to resist, for I did not see why I should not benefit by your illorganization and save my life." Mirsky appears really to have been born under a fortunate star, for his life has been saved by a sort of miracle. If the commutation of his sentence had been put off a day longer there is no doubt that it would not have been granted, for the next morning the news of the fresh attempt on the Emperor's life had upset the whole situation and revived the terror and the anger of all the friends of the Government. All Hopes of Reform Checked. It was most unfortunate that this event should have happened just at the beginning of the truce inaugurated by the Government, in the leniency it showed to Mirsky and in the acquittal of all his accomplices excepting one, for it will naturally produce the worst consequences. The system of repression, which was about to be relaxed, or, perhaps, wholly renounced, will be again resorted to with new vigour; and in this way once more the innocent will suffer with the guilty. It is but too evident that the revolutionary party has not relinquished its designs; rather, it seems to have employed the period of quietude to improve its means of action. To say the truth, only a small part of the public believed in the boasted victory of the Government; the majority never ceased to have forebodings as to the future. But Liberals, especially, though not deceiving themselves as to the real state of things, wished ardently that nothing might occur to disturb the intentions of our rulers to go back to the prior laws. Now everything is lost again, and no one can guess when we shall return to a régime of comparative liberty. In the meantime, the foes of social order every day improve the efficiency of their weapons, and this last attempt on the Emperor's life evidences the progress they have accomplished. To undermine a railway, and prepare such an explosion as took place in the precincts of Moscow, are not such easy matters as to fire at somebody with a revolver. These later schemes require quite other means and conditions. The firstnamed enterprise was conducted with great skill and cunning, and was only defeated through the extraordinary precautions taken. Three special trains were assigned for the conveyance of the Czar and his attendants. His Majesty passed very often from one to the other, his precise whereabouts at any moment being always kept a secret, so that nobody but those immediately concerned knew in which train he travelled. Till now, chance has not shown itself favourable to the conspirators. But English readers cannot conceive how dreadful it is to live always in this state of terror. Those at the head of affairs have to be always planning new means of escape, and outwitting a cunning foe. There was enormous public anxiety here during the last journey of the Emperor from Moscow, and very eagerly was his arrival expected. Might not the railway, it was asked, have been undermined at other places, or snares of a new kind at some point await him? Precautions for the Czar's Safety, The Czar was expected to reach St. Petersburg at ten o'clock in the morning, but his arrival did not take place till three o'clock in the |