Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/294

Rh elements of positive faith, instead of directly attacking the dogmas of popular religion. In this way the general public would not dissipate its energy in useless dogmatic controversies.

Lange elaborated his ideal and critical theory of the social problem in his essay on Die Arbeitfrage (1865). The central thought of this essay is this, namely, that the chief duty of human society consists in seeking to put an end to the struggle for existence.

Lange is the most influential of the German Neo-Kantians. His masterly work affects wide circles both by the excellence of its form as by the richness of its content and its profound statement of the problen. He was however the herald of a new school which, with various nuances, strove to renew the Kantian theory of knowledge. Hemann Cohen's works are specifically devoted to an elaboration of the rationalistic elements in Kant's philosophy, whilst Alois Riehl inclines more towards positivism. Frederick Paulsen, whose general views are closely related to those of Fechner and Wundt, in his exposition of Kant, has directed special attention to Kant's metaphysical assumptions which are unaffected by the Critique of Reason. Windelband and Rickert conceive genuine criticism as the theory of eternal values, in which the standard of the true, the good and the beautiful is found, and they lay great stress on the distinction between the method of concept-formation practiced by the natural sciences as compared with that of the historical sciences, which are related to each other as generalization and individualization.

Criticism has become a vital factor both in the statement and in the treatment of the problems in German thought through the labors of this group of scholars.