ABSTRACT
Lotze remarks that a philosophical theory is an attempt to justify “a fundamental view of things which has been adopted in early life.” This seems on the whole true of those who have found a final resting-place for their minds in a completed system. Both in their case and in that of the larger number of individuals who, while mentally impelled to seek intellectual satisfaction through the channel of philosophy, have not constructed a compact theory, it will probably be found that the course of their reflections has from the first been determined by certain fundamental questions, which haunted and stimulated their minds with renewed persistence. These questions seem to control the direction of thought, and selectively to decide the range and the degree of interest in philosophical problems.
