Add to ORKGThesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityFor Lotze, metaphysics must be a "regressive investigation based on the confidence that nature in some measure reflects objectively the processes and necessities of reason. Since we find ourselves not in the ontological source and center of things , but at a rather remote periphery, our emphasis, he teaches , must be on induction rather than on deduction, on an empirical approach in which the most important factor is the particular fact in question rather t han on any speculative "logical calculus." The goal of metaphysics can only be a very modest one; namely, to harmonize reason with itself and with facts in so far as our limited position allows, to provide a coherent basis for humble satisfaction in an opt...