No ethic short of one that has made itself universal and cosmic is capable of taking in hand the investigation of the basic principle of the moral; only such an ethic can [pg 194] really come to terms in intelligible fashion with nature-philosophy. Nature-philosophy and ethics in Eduard von Hartmann In Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906)_(_98_)_ also, ethics try to comprehend themselves within nature-philosophy. His _Philosophy of the Unconscious_ is largely in line with the thoughts of Fouillée, but in the matter of world-view he goes off in another direction. Instead of allowing ethics, when they are coming to terms with nature-philosophy, to experience their freedom from it, he compels them to base themselves on such a philosophy. His nature-philosophy is pessimistic. It confesses to being unable to discover any principle which contains a meaning in the course of nature. Therefore (so Hartmann concludes, as do the Indians and Schopenhauer), the world-process is something which must come to a standstill. Everything that exists must gradually enter on the blessed condition of will-lessness. Ethics are the disposition which brings this development into action. In language obscure enough von Hartmann formulates at the end of his _Phenomenology of the Moral Consciousness_ his pessimistic-ethical world-view as follows: “Existence in the world of matter is the Incarnation of the Godhead; the world-process is the history of the Passion of the Incarnate God, and at the same time the way to the Redemption of Him who is crucified in the flesh; but morality is co-operation for the shortening of this road of suffering and redemption.” Then, however, instead of unfolding what this ethic is, and how it is to come into force, he undertakes to show that all ethical standpoints which have ever made their appearance in any way in history have their own justification. He wants to house them all within an evolution which necessarily leads to a pessimistic ethic. [pg 195]