E. E. Constance Jones and Hermann Lotze

This paper explores the context of Jones’ translation of Lotze’s Microcosmos and considers the extent to which Lotze’s views influenced her discussion of both James Ward’s critique of naturalism and Henry Sidgwick’s utilitarian ethics. She interprets them both as, like Lotze, attempting to reconcile a philosophical dualism within a greater whole. In the case of Ward, this is the dualism of mind and matter. In the case of Sidgwick the opposition is that of rational benevolence and prudential self-love. In discussing Ward, Jones endorses his attempted reconciliation of mind and matter in an idealist unity and suggests this offers “a more satisfactory spiritual unification between the members of his Realm of Ends” than Lotze had offered. She also hints that Ward’s reconciliation might help effect the reconciliation between rational benevolence and prudential self-love that Sidgwick was unable to achieve. In conclusion it is suggested that Ward’s idealism would not have been deemed a successful reconciliation of the dualism of being, as Lotze understood the problem, and that this suggests that the tension between the demands of objective rational ethics and prudential self-love has also been mis-characterised by Jones.