on the things as
modes, states, parts of a single comprehensive being, of an infinite,
unconditioned substance, in so far as there is then only an action of
the absolute on itself. Nevertheless the assumption that, in virtue of
the unity and consistency of the absolute or of its impulse to
self-preservation, state [Greek: _b_] in being _b_ follows state
[Greek: _a_] in being _a_ as an accommodation or compensation follows a
disturbance, is not a full explanation of the process of action, does
not remove the difficulty as to how one state can give rise to another.
Metaphysics is, in general, unable to show how reality is made, but only to
remove certain contradictions which stand in the way of the conceivability
of these notions. The so far empty concept of an absolute looks to the
philosophy of religion for its content; the conception of the Godhead as
infinite personality (it is a person in a far higher sense than we) is
first produced when we add to the ontological postulate of a comprehensive
substance the ethical postulate of a supreme good or a universal
world-Idea.

By "thing" we understand the permanent unit-subject of changing states. But
the fact of consciousness furnishes the only guaranty that the different
states _a, [Greek: b], y_, are in reality states of one being, and not so
many different things alternating with one another. Only a conscious
being, which itself effects the distinction between itself and the states
occurring in it, and in memory and recollection feels and knows itself as
their identical subject, is actually a subject which has states. Hence,
if things are to be real, we must attribute to them a nature in essence
related to that of our soul. Reality is existence for self. All beings
are spiritual, and only spiritual beings possess true reality. Thus Lotze
combines the monadology of Leibnitz with the pantheism of Spinoza, just
as he understands how to reconcile the mechanical view of natural science
(which is valid also for the explanation of organic life) with the
teleology and the ethical idealism of Fichte. The sole mission of the
world of forms is to aid in the realization of the ideal purposes of the
absolute, of the world of values.

The ideality of space, which Kant had based on insufficient grounds, is
maintained by Lotze also, only that he makes things stand in "intellectual"
relations, which the knowing subject translates into spatial language. The
same character of subjectivity