No More Learning

34 (#64) ##############################################

34
Philosophers
[CH.
>
cause.
Thomas Henry Huxley, the distinguished zoologist and advocate
of Darwinism, made many incursions into philosophy, and always
with effect. From his youth he had studied its problems un-
systematically; he had a way of going straight to the point in
any discussion; and, judged by a literary standard, he was a great
master of expository and argumentative prose. Apart from his
special work in science, he had an important influence upon
English thought through his numerous addresses and essays on
topics of science, philosophy, religion and politics. Among the
most important of his papers relevant here are those entitled “The
Physical Basis of Life’(1868), and 'On the Hypothesis that Animals
are Automata' (1874), along with a monograph on Hume (1879)
and the Romanes lecture Ethics and Evolution (1893) Huxley
is credited with the invention of the term 'agnosticism' to describe
his philosophical position : it expresses his attitude towards certain
traditional questions without giving any clear delimitation of the
frontiers of the knowable. He regards consciousness as a collateral
effect of certain physical causes, and only an effect-never, also, a
But, on the other hand, he holds that matter is only
a symbol, and that all physical phenomena can be analysed into
states of consciousness. This leaves mental facts in the peculiar
position of being collateral effects of something that, after all, is
only a symbol for a mental fact; and the contradiction, or apparent
contradiction, is left without remark. His contributions to ethics
are still more remarkable. In a paper entitled Science and Morals'
(1888), he concluded that the safety of morality lay'in a real and
living belief in that fixed order of nature which sends social dis-
organisation on the track of immorality. His Romanes lecture
reveals a different tone. In it, the moral order is contrasted with the
cosmic order; evolution shows constant struggle; instead of looking
to it for moral guidance, he 'repudiates the gladiatorial theory of
existence. ' He saw that the facts of historical process did not
constitute validity for moral conduct; and his plain language com-
pelled others to see it also. But he exaggerated the opposition
between them and did not leave room for the influence of moral
ideas as a factor in the historical process.
Another man of science, William Kingdon Clifford, professor
of mathematics in London, dealt in occasional essays with some
central points in the theory of knowledge, ethics and religion.
In these essays he aimed at an interpretation of life in the light of
the new science. There was insight as well as courage in all he
wrote, and it was conveyed in a brilliant style. But his work was
a
a


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Influence of Evolutionary Thought 35
cut short by his early death in 1879, and his contributions to
philosophy remain suggestions only.
It was natural that men of science with a philosophical turn of
mind should be among the first to work out the more general
consequences of the theory of evolution. But the wide range
which the theory might cover was fairly obvious, and was seen by
others who approached philosophy from the point of view of studies
other than the natural sciences. Foremost among these was
Leslie Stephen, a man of letters keenly interested in the moral
sciences. The portion of his writings which bear upon philosophy
.
is small only in relation to his total literary output. His History
of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876) places the
philosophers and moralists in their due position in the whole
literary activity of the period, and is penetrating and usually just
in its estimate of their work. A further stage of the same history
-The English Utilitarians (1900)—was completed towards the
end of his life. His own independent contribution is given in The
Science of Ethics (1882). After Spencer's Data, this is the first
book which worked out an ethical view determined by the theory
of evolution. As such it is significant. The author had sat at the
feet of John Stuart Mill; he had eagerly welcomed Darwin as an
ally of the empirical and utilitarian creed; but he came to see that
more extensive changes were necessary. Spencer's compromise
between hedonism and evolutionism failed to satisfy him, and he
found the ethical bearing of evolution better expressed by the
conception of social vitality than by that of pleasure. The great
merit of the work consists in its presentation of the social content
of morality in the individual mind as well as in the community;
but it does not sufficiently recognise the distinction between the
historical process traced by the evolution theory and the ethical
validity which evolution is assumed to possess.
The transformation of the biological sciences by the theory of
evolution was connected with a wider movement, which consisted
in the greatly extended use of the historical method in explaining
the nature of things. This applies chiefly to the social sciences.
It is to be remembered that both Darwin and Wallace owed the
suggestion of their hypothesis of natural selection to a work on
social theory. The underlying doctrine was, simply, that facts were
to be understood by tracing their origins and historical connections.
How far this historical understanding could take the enquirer
3-2


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36
[CH.
Philosophers
a
became the point at issue between what inay be called the evolu-
tion philosophy and its critics : it may be expressed in the question
whether or not origin determines validity. It was only gradually,
however, that the point of controversy became clear; and, mean-
while, the application of the historical method vastly aided the
understanding of the social order. In this reference, the treatise
entitled Ancient Law (1861) by Sir Henry Maine marks an epoch in
the study of law and institutions, and it had a much wider influence
upon thought generally by furthering the use of the method which
it employed. An early example of the application of the same
method in economics may be found in the series of essays by Thomas
Edward Cliffe Leslie, republished as Essays in Political Economy
(1888); and the historical side of economics has subsequently
been exhaustively worked.
Walter Bagehot’s Physics and Politics (1869) is still more closely
connected with the doctrine of evolution. It is described on the title-
page as 'thoughts on the application of the principles of natural
selection and inheritance to political society. ' Luminous and sug-
gestive though these studies are, it cannot be said that the influence
of the theory of evolution expresses the leading characteristic of
Bagehot’s mind, especially as shown in his other political and
economic works—The English Constitution (1867), Lombard
Street (1873), and Economic Studies (1880). It was his insight
into the actual forces, especially the human forces, at work that
chiefly distinguished his treatment. Whereas even Mill looked
upon economic and political processes as due to the composition
of a few simple forces such as desire of wealth and aversion
from labour, Bagehot knew the actual men who were doing the
work, and he recognised the complexity of their motives and the
degree in which they were influenced by habit, tradition and
imitation. In this way he gave a great impulse to realistic study,
as contrasted with the abstract method of the older economics and
politics.
6
VII. HENRY SIDGWICK AND SHADWORTH HODGSON
These writers had not much in common beyond the two points
which have led to their being placed together here. They both
saw that evolution was not an 'open sesame' to the secrets of
philosophy, and neither owed allegiance to the idealist movement
which rose to prominence in their time. They were probably


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Henry Sidgwick
37
the ablest and most influential writers who made independent
advances on lines more closely connected with the older English
tradition.
Sidgwick taught philosophy for many years at Cambridge, and
held the chair of moral philosophy there from 1883 until 1900, the
year of his death. His reputation as a philosophical writer was
made by his first book, The Methods of Ethics (1874). He after-
wards published treatises on a similar scale on political economy
and on politics ; and, after his death, various occasional articles
were issued in collected form, and a considerable series of books
was compiled from his manuscripts, dealing with general philosophy,
with contemporary ethical systems and with political constitutions.
Within certain limits, Sidgwick may be regarded as a follower of
John Stuart Mill, at least in ethics, politics and economics. In
these subjects he took Mill's views as the basis of his own criticisms
and reflections, and he accepted the utilitarian criterion. At the
same time, he gave much more weight than Mill had done to the
intellectualist tradition in philosophy. He saw that the empirical
philosophy was based on conceptions which it was unable to justify
by its customary method of tracing their origin in experience.
This did not lead, however, to any agreement with Kant's analysis
of knowledge. He was an adverse and somewhat unsympathetic
critic of the Kantian theory. He inclined, rather, to a return to
the 'natural realism' of Thomas Reid, on the question of the
knowledge of external reality; and his ethical doctrine includes
a synthesis of the views of Clarke and Butler with those of
Mill.
His first book remains his most striking contribution to philo-
sophy and the most accurate index of his philosophical attitude.
In spite of his utilitarian sympathies, its starting-point and most
fundamental ideas show the influence of a different type of thought.
He starts with the fundamental notion of ought'or duty, and argues
that enquiries into its origin in our consciousness do not affect its
validity. The knowledge that there is something right or rational
to be done depends, in the last resort, upon an intuition or imme-
diate view of what is right or reasonable. All the old arguments
of the utilitarians are swept away; the analysis of conduct into
pursuit of pleasure is shown not only to be itself incorrect, but to
be irreconcilable with the acceptance of general happiness as the
ethical end. His own utilitarianism is based upon a new synthesis
of intuitionism and empiricism. Here enters his central doctrine
of the 'axioms of the practical reason. ' These do not prescribe
6


## p. 38 (#68) ##############################################

38
[CH.
Philosophers
any concrete end as good—that has to be determined in another
way; but they are formal principles eternally valid whatever the
nature of goodness may prove to be. To these formal principles
are given the names prudence, benevolence and justice; but
they include much less than is usually covered by these terms and
may, perhaps, be adequately summed up in the statement that
neither the time at which, nor the person by whom, a good is
enjoyed affects the degree of its goodness. From the distinction
and yet equal validity of the axioms of prudence and benevolence,
Sidgwick's ethical theory terminates in a doctrine of the dualism
of the practical reason. ' It would appear, however, that this
dualism really arises from the ambiguity of the term prudence,
which may mean either regard for one's own good on the whole
or (what is not the same thing) the principle that 'hereafter as
such is neither less nor more valuable than now. Only the latter
has a claim to be regarded as an absolute ethical principle;
and it is not inconsistent with the axiom of benevolence. The
other side of his utilitarianism—the reduction of goodness to
terms of pleasure-is carried out by analysing conscious life into
its elements and showing that each in its turn (except pleasure),
when taken alone, cannot be regarded as ultimate good. This
analytic method is characteristic of Sidgwick's thinking, as it was
of that of most of his predecessors—intuitionist as well as empirical.
It rests on the assumption that the nature of a thing can be com-
pletely ascertained by examination of the separate elements into
which it can be distinguished by reflection-an assumption which
was definitely discarded by the contemporary school of idealists,
and on which the evolutionist writers also do not seem to have
relied.
As was natural, therefore, Sidgwick did not produce a system
of philosophy. He made many suggestions towards construction,
but, in the main, his work was critical. He was severely critical of
the attempts at speculative construction made in his day, and he
carried on some controversies in which his subtlety and wit had
full play: neither Spencer nor Green was his match in dialectics.
It was not, however, of systems and theories only that he was
a great critic. His powers are seen at their highest when he
analysed and described the moral opinions of ordinary men, not as
they are reflectively set down in philosophical books, but as they
are expressed in life, compact of reason and tradition, fused by
emotion and desire. The third book of his Methods of Ethics
consists, in large part, of an examination of the morality of


## p. 39 (#69) ##############################################

1]
Shadworth Hodgson
39
commonsense. It is an elucidation and sifting of the ideas under
which men act, often without clear consciousness of them; and it
shows the sympathetic apprehension of a mind which shares the
thoughts it describes and can yet see them in perspective and sum
up their significance. Both the excellence of the matter and the
distinction of the style should give at least this portion of his
work a permanent place in literature.
Shadworth Hodgson's life was an example of rare devotion to
philosophy. He had no profession and filled no public office, but
spent his time in systematic reflection and writing; and his long
life gave him the opportunity of reviewing, confirming and im-
proving upon his first thoughts. There were two periods in his
activity. In the former of these he published three books: Time
and Space in 1865, The Theory of Practice in 1870 and The
Philosophy of Reflection in 1878. Shortly thereafter he was
instrumental in founding the Aristotelian Society for the sys-
tematic study of philosophy,' and he remained its president for
fourteen years. This led to contact with other minds who looked
at the same subjects from different points of view. He read many
papers to the society, which were published in pamphlet form and
in its Proceedings, and he built up his own system afresh in the
light of familiar criticism. It took final form in The Metaphysic
of Experience, a work of four volumes published in 1898.
As an analysis of experience, Hodgson's philosophy falls into
line with a characteristic English tradition. It agrees with this
tradition, also, in taking the simple feeling as the ultimate datum
of experience. But, even here, and wherever there is experience,
there is a distinction to be drawn—not the traditional distinction
between subject and object, but that between consciousness and
its object. Always, there are two aspects in any bit of experience
that of the object itself and that of the awareness of it or the sub-
jective aspect; and these two are connected by the relation of
knowledge. The sciences are concerned with the objective aspect
only; philosophy has to deal with the subjective aspect, or the
conscious process which is fundamental and common to all the
variety of objects. Beyond this conscious reference there is nothing.
The mirage of absolute existence, wholly apart from knowledge,
is a common-sense prejudice. ' Consciousness is commensurate
with being; all existence has a subjective aspect. But this
doctrine, he holds, is misinterpreted when mind and body are
supposed to interact or when mental and bodily facts are regarded


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40
[CH.
Philosophers
!
2
as parallel aspects of the same substance. In psychology, Hodgson
may be called a materialist, unfit as that name would be to
describe his philosophical attitude. Ideas do not determine one
another, nor does desire cause volition; the only real condition
known to us is matter. And yet matter itself is a composite exist-
ence; it can be analysed into empirical percepts; and, therefore,
it is itself conditioned by something which is not material : the
very term existence implies relativity to some sort of consciousness
or other. This is the conclusion of the general analysis of ex-
perience. Of the unseen world which lies beyond the material
part of the world we cannot, he contends, have any speculative
knowledge. But the ethical judgment and our own moral nature
bring us into practical relation with that unseen world and thus
permit a positive, although not a speculative, knowledge of it. In
this way, in the final issue of his philosophy as well as in its
fundamental positions, Hodgson regards himself as correcting and
completing the work of Kant.
VIII. IDEALISTS
a
The latter half of the nineteenth century was marked by the
work of a number of writers who were influenced by the specu-
lations which, in Germany, had turned the results of Kant's
criticism into a direction which he had not anticipated. This
influence, which they shared, and their constant controversy with
current empirical philosophy united these writers into what may be
termed a school; and this school is sometimes described as neo-
Kantian, more commonly as Hegelian or neo-Hegelian. But its
members describe it simply as idealism, though it is an idealism of
a form new in English thought. Before them, Kant's speculative
successors had not obtained currency in England, unless, perhaps,
in a slight measure, through some of the utterances of Coleridge ;
and the powerful influence of Hamilton's criticism had been
almost sufficient to put a ban on what he called 'the philosophy of
the unconditioned. '
The first important work of the new movement was The Insti-
tutes of Metaphysic (1854) by James Frederick Ferrier, professor
at St Andrews. Before this date he had written a number
of philosophical articles, and in particular a series of papers
entitled The Philosophy of Consciousness,' which showed the
trend of his thinking. After his death these were collected
and published together along with a series of lectures as
>


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The English Idealists
41
Lectures on Greek Philosophy and other philosophical remains
(1866). As a historian of philosophy, Ferrier did not pretend
to exceptional research; but he had a remarkable power of
entering into the mind of earlier thinkers and of giving a living
presentation of their views. The history of philosophy was,
for him, no mere record of discarded systems, but 'philosophy
itself taking its time. ' He was a sympathetic student, also, of
the German philosophers banned by his friend Hamilton. It is
difficult to trace any direct influence of Hegel upon his own
doctrine, and, indeed, he said that he could not understand Hegel.
But, both his earlier and his later writings have an affinity with
Fichte-especially in their central doctrine: the stress laid on
self-consciousness, and its distinction from the ‘mental states' with
which the psychologist is concerned. This doctrine connects him
with Berkeley, also. He was one of the first to appreciate the
true nature of Berkeley's thought, as not a mere transition-stage
between Locke and Hume, but as a discovery of the spiritual
nature of reality. The philosophy which he worked out in The
Institutes of Metaphysic is, however, strikingly original. He
claimed that it was 'Scottish to the core. ' But it is very different
from the traditional Scottish philosophy. It disclaims all connec-
tion with psychology. He even formulates a false and psychological
theorem as the counterpart of each true and metaphysical theorem.
And this reiterated opposition, it must be confessed, grows a little
wearisome and can be excused only by the backward state of
psychology, and its confusion with philosophy, at the time when
the book was written. Further, the Scottish philosophy relied on
intuition or immediate apprehension of reality ; Ferrier's method
is that of rational deduction from a first principle. Philosophy is
reasoned truth,' he says ; but ‘it is more proper that philosophy
should be reasoned, than that it should be true. Unfortunately,
he takes Spinoza's method as his model, though he does not follow
the model in all details. There is no array of definitions, axioms
and postulates, but only propositions, each deduced from the
preceding. Thus, a heavy weight is thrown on the first proposi-
tion of the series. This is the primary law or condition of all
knowledge, and is stated in the words, ‘Along with whatever any
intelligence knows it must, as the ground or condition of its
knowledge, have some cognisance of itself. ' What follows is little
more than the elaboration of this statement. Ferrier has not only
an epistemology, or theory of knowledge, but also an agnoiology, or
theory of ignorance, the main doctrine of which is that we can


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42
Philosophers
[CH.
1
3
only be ignorant of what can possibly be known. Hence, in his
ontology, or theory of being, he reaches the conclusion that
absolute existence is ‘a supreme and infinite and everlasting mind
in synthesis with all things. ' Ferrier's writings had, and continue
to have, a considerable reputation, yet a reputation bardly commen-
surate with their philosophical insight and perfect style. Perhaps
the formalism of his method counteracted the lucidity of the
thought. Soon after his death (1864) English philosophy came
under the influence of the more comprehensive genius of Hegel.
The first English work directly due to the influence of Hegel
was The Secret of Hegel (1865) by James Hutchison Stirling.
Educated as a physician, he first heard of Hegel in accidental
conversation. Hegel was described as the reconciler of philo-
sophy and religion, and Stirling, fascinated by the thought,
soon afterwards threw up his practice, settled for some years
on the continent-in Germany and in France and devoted
himself with ardour to philosophical study, especially to the
mastery of Hegel's system. He returned to publish the results
of his work; and, although he wrote many books afterwards
especially an important Text-book to Kant (1881)The Secret
of Hegel remains his greatest work. It consists of transla-
tion, commentary, introduction and original discourse ; and it
shows the process by which the author approached and grappled
with his subject. Sometimes it is as difficult as its original; more
frequently, it illuminates Hegel both by a persistent effort of thought
and by occasional flashes of insight. Its style is characteristic.
Altogether lacking in the placid flow of the academic commentator,
and suggesting the influence of Carlyle, it is irregular, but
forceful and imaginative, a fit medium for the thinking which it
expressed. What Stirling meant by the 'secret' of Hegel was
presumably the relation of Hegel's philosophy to that of Kant.
In Hegel's construction he found a method and point of view
which justified the fundamental ideas of religion, and, at the same
time, made clear the one-sidedness of the conceptions of the 'age
of enlightenment,' at the end of which Kant stood, still hampered
by its negations and abstractions. And Stirling's favourite and
most lively criticisms were directed against the apostles of the
enlightenment and their followers of the nineteenth century.
Stirling was first in the field, and, although cut off from any
academic position, he continued to exercise a strong intellectual
influence. Independently of him, and soon after he began to
publish, the influence of Hegel was shown by a number of other


## p. 43 (#73) ##############################################

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Thomas Hill Green
43
6
writers, most of whom were connected with Oxford or Glasgow.
Like Stirling, they brought out the ideas in Kant which pointed to
Hegel's view; but, on the other hand, most of them paid little
attention to, or altogether disregarded, the details of the Hegelian
method. Of these writers one of the earliest and, in some respects,
the most important, was Thomas Hill Green, professor of moral
philosophy at Oxford. His work was constructive in aim and, to
a large extent, in achievement; and it was inspired by a belief in
the importance of right-thinking for life. The latter characteristic
Green shared with most of the writers who sympathised with his
philosophical views, and it accounted for much of the enthusiasm
with which these views were received. His constructive work, how-
ever, was preceded by a very thorough criticism. He saw that it
was necessary, first of all, to expose the assumptions and inconsis-
tencies underlying the systems of Mill and Spencer, and that these
systems were really based upon the philosophy of Hume. Green's
dissection of the latter appeared, in 1874, in the form of two
elaborate 'introductions' to a new edition of Hume's Treatise.
This work, as he confesses, was 'an irksome labour. ' He deals at
length with Locke and Hume, more shortly with Berkeley and
some of the moralists ; and he follows these writers from point to
point of their argument with unwearying, though sometimes weari-
some, persistence. But he was an unsympathetic critic. Locke
and Hume were rather careless of the niceties of terminology, and
some of the contradictions which he finds are, perhaps, only verbal
and might have been avoided by a change of expression. Enough
remain, however, amply to justify his accusation that their thought
was full of incoherences; and, if these had been brought into
clearer relief, and distinguished from merely verbal inconsisten-
cies, the effectiveness of his criticism might have been increased.
But he did succeed in showing that the philosophy based on the
abstraction of feeling, in regard to morals, no less than to nature,
was with Hume played out. He appealed to ‘Englishmen under
five-and-twenty' to close their Mill and Spencer and open their
Kant and Hegel; and this appeal marks an epoch in English
thought in the nineteenth century.
In the years following the 'introductions' to Hume, Green pub-
lished some occasional articles on philosophical topics. He, also,
exerted a great influence by his academic lectures—the more im-
portant of which are printed in his collected Works (three volumes,
1885–8). His greatest book, Prolegomena to Ethics, appeared in
1883, the year after his death. This book does not profess to be a


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44
Philosophers
[CH.
a
6
1
system either of metaphysics or of ethics ; but it supplies the
groundwork for such a system. It is a vindication of the spiritual
nature of the world and of man. Neither nature nor man can be
constructed out of the sensations or feelings which formed the
data of the empirical philosophers. Our knowledge 'presupposes'
that there is a connected world to be known. The relations in-
volved, and inexplicable on empirical methods, can be understood
only as implying the action of mind. "The action of one self-con-
ditioning and self-determining mind' is, therefore, a postulate of
all knowledge, and our knowledge is a 'reproduction of this
activity in or as the mind of man. In the same way, our moral
activity is a reproduction in us of the one eternal mind. Under
all the limitations of organic life and of the time-process generally,
the mind of man carries with it the characteristic, inexplicable on
the theory of naturalism, of 'being an object to itself. ' This
position is not to be established by deductive or inductive methods ;
in this sense it cannot be proved. But it is a point of view from
which—and from which alone—we can understand both the world
and ourselves and see how it is that we are and do what we
consciously are and do. ' In the later books of his Prolegomena
this doctrine is applied to the interpretation of the history of the
moral life and of moral ideas ; and this portion of his work shows
his powers as a writer at their best. In other writings the same
conception is applied to social and religious questions. It is
conspicuous in his Lectures on the Principles of Political
Obligation, where he maintains that will, not force, is the basis
of the state, and gives a fresh reading to the doctrine of the
'general will. '
In his metaphysics, Green does not follow the method of Hegel's
dialectic; and in his reading of history there is no trace of the
Hegelian theory that development in time follows the same stages
as logical development. The gradual steps by which the realisa-
tion of reason or of self is brought about in the time-process are
not investigated.
Only, it is assumed that the process is purposive,
that history is the reproduction of the eternal mind. How it
comes about that error and moral evil affect the process is not
explained, and the metaphor of 'reproduction, as well as the
whole relation of the time-process to eternal reality, is left
somewhat vague.
Of the numerous writers who represent a type of thought
similar to Green's in origin and outlook only a few can be men-
tioned here. In 1874, the year in which Green's 'introductions' to


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1]
Edward Caird
45
Hume were published, there appeared, also, The Logic of Hegel,
translated from the latter's Encyclopaedia by William Wallace,
who afterwards succeeded to Green's chair of moral philosophy at
Oxford. A second edition of this work, in which the introductory
matter was considerably extended, was issued in 1892; and this
was followed, in 1894, by Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, and, in
1898 (after the author's death), by Lectures and Essays on Natural
Theology and Ethics. Wallace devoted himself more directly
than his associates to the elucidation of Hegel's thought; but it
may be doubted whether he himself adhered any more closely
than they did to the details of the dialectic. The prolegomena
and introductory essays, by which his translations were prefaced,
are not merely explanatory of difficulties. They have often the
character of original interpretations; they approach the subject
from different points of view and show a rare power of selecting
essential factors. Wallace had wide intellectual sympathies and
found matter of agreement with philosophers of different schools;
but all, in his hands, led towards a central idealism. His work
consisted in pointing out the various avenues of approach to
the temple of idealism, rather than in unveiling its mysteries.
In An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (1880), John
Caird, principal of the university of Glasgow, produced a work,
original in manner, but essentially Hegelian in doctrine. A similar
character marked all the work of his younger brother, Edward
Caird, professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, and afterwards
master of Balliol college, Oxford. The influence of Edward
Caird rivalled that of his friend Green, and their teaching was in
fundamental agreement. Caird, however, had a facility of literary
expression such as Green did not possess ; he was, also, more
inclined to attack questions by the method of tracing the historical
development of thought. His first important work was A Critical
Account of the Philosophy of Kant (1877), which was superseded
by The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (two volumes,
1889). This work is a triumph of philosophical exposition and
criticism. Based upon a mastery of the whole range of Kantian
scholarship, it brings into relief the leading ideas by which Kant
himself was guided, and, through criticism of his arguments, gives
an interpretation of it as tending, when consistently worked out,
towards a system of speculative idealism. A brilliant and sympa-
thetic exposition is contained in his monograph on Hegel (1883).
His Gifford lectures, The Evolution of Religion (1893), deal less
than his other works with the criticism of philosophers; they are


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46
[CH.
Philosophers
6
a study of the nature of religion, especially as exhibited in the
development of the Christian faith.
The writings of Francis Herbert Bradley are so important for
the understanding of English idealism in the nineteenth century
that it seems necessary to make some reference here to the work
of a writer still living. His achievement has been differently
viewed: sometimes as being the finest exposition of idealism,
sometimes as marking its dissolution. His first philosophical
work, Ethical Studies, appeared in 1876, about the same date
as the first books of Green and Caird. It is full of brilliant
criticism of conventional ethical ideas. The manner was different;
but the doctrine seemed to agree with that which was beginning
to be taught in the lecture-rooms. Here, also, 'self-realisation,'
that is, the realisation of the 'true self,' was the watchword.
His Principles of Logic, published in 1883, broke new ground
and showed, also, a development of the dialectical manner. The
inadequacy of the particular,' the implication of the universal'
in all knowledge, were familiar enough, but the defects of empirical
logic had never been exposed with such depth of insight, such
subtlety of reasoning, such severity of phrase. The work was a
triumph for the idealist theory of knowledge. It is noteworthy
that these two books have never been reprinted in England,
presumably because the author became more or less dissatisfied
with their teaching. There is, at least, a difference of emphasis
in the teaching of his next and greatest work, Appearance and
Reality (1893), which has been allowed to pass through several
editions.
This remarkable book has probably exerted more influence
upon philosophical thinking in English-speaking countries than
any other treatise of the last thirty years. But no summary can
convey a clear idea of its teaching. The conceptions of popular
thought and of metaphysics alike are in it subjected to detailed,
relentless criticism. Even the distinction, within the book, between
the chapters devoted to appearance and those described as
reality' seems artificial, for everything is found to be riddled
with contradictions. And these contradictions all belong to our
thought because it is relational Green had held that experience
requires relations, and had argued thence to the need for a relating
mind as the principle of reality. Bradley, too, insists that for
thought what is not relative is nothing' but he draws the very
different conclusion that our experience, where relational, is
not true. ' Of this doctrine all the brilliant disquisitions that
>
6


## p. 47 (#77) ##############################################

1]
Alexander Campbell Fraser
47
follow are applications, with the exception of the author's own
assertions about the absolute, which, being relational, must
be affected by the same vice of contradiction. If his argument
about relations is valid, the idealism of Green and Caird falls to
the ground. His method is more akin to Hegel's than theirs was;
but he also ignores the Hegelian triad; he does not attempt any
consecutive evolution of the categories ; even his doctrine of
degrees of reality' is more Spinozistic than Hegelian. As a
whole, the book is a great original achievement—a highly abstract
dialectical exercise, in which the validity of every argument
depends upon the fundamental "position that relations neces-
sarily involve contradiction. A later book, Essays on Truth and
Reality (1914), deals in great part with controversies which
belong to the twentieth century; without deserting the positions
of the earlier work, it is less purely negative in its tendency and
more devoted to the discovery of elements of truth than to the
exposure of contradictions,
IX. OTHER WRITERS
In the latter part of the nineteenth century there were other
philosophical tendencies at work than those already mentioned.
There were idealist writers whose idealism was of a different type,
resembling Berkeley's rather than Hegel's, and who are sometimes
called personal idealists; there was a movement of reaction from
the type of idealism last described in the direction of philosophical
realism or naturalism; and there were the first indications of the
new movements of thought which have characterised the early
years of the twentieth century.
Among the writers classed as personal idealists may be counted
Alexander Campbell Fraser. His philosophical career, as student,
professor and thinker, began before the Victorian era and lasted
into the present reign. He was a pupil of Hamilton at Edinburgh,
was for ten years professor of philosophy in New college there and
succeeded to the university chair on Hamilton's death in 1856.
His first book, Essays in Philosophy, was published in 1856,
his last, a small monograph entitled Berkeley and Spiritual
Realism, in 1908. Apart from minor works, among which special
mention should be made of his monographs on Locke (1890) and
Berkeley (1881), he is best known as the editor of the standard


## p. 48 (#78) ##############################################

48
[CH.
Philosophers
editions of Berkeley's Works (1871) and of Locke's Essay (1894),
and as the author of Gifford lectures The Philosophy of Theism
(1896). He also wrote an interesting and valuable account of his
life and views entitled Biographia Philosophica (1904).
For a great many years, Fraser, Caird and Bain powerfully
affected philosophical thought in Scotland through their university
teaching. Owing to the position of philosophy in the academic
curriculum, their influence upon the wider intellectual life of the
country was almost equally great, though less easy to trace with any
exactness. Froin Bain, his pupils learned precision in thinking and
an interest in psychology as a science, together with, perhaps, a
somewhat limited comprehension of metaphysical problems. Caird
gave an insight into the history of thought and provided a point of
view from which the world and man's life might be understood; many
of his pupils have shown in their writings that they had learned
his great language and were able to develop and apply his ideas.
Fraser did not teach a system or found a school; he awakened and
stimulated thought, without controlling its direction; he called
forth in his hearers a sense of the mysteries of existence, and he
encouraged in many the spirit of reflection. He had no system;
but his thought was essentially constructive, though the construc-
tion was based on an almost Humean scepticism. On one point,
however, he never yielded to sceptical analysis—the reality of the
self as conscious activity. He found the same thought in Berkeley,
and he may almost be said to have rediscovered Berkeley for
modern readers. Of the world beyond self he could find no theory
which could be satisfactorily established by strict reasoning. But
he saw (as Hume saw in his first work) that science has its
assumptions as well as theology. In particular, he looked upon
the postulate of uniformity as an act of moral faith in the
rationality of the universe, and it was as a 'venture of faith' that
he interpreted the universe as grounded in the reason and good-
ness of God.
a
The reaction from idealism is most strikingly illustrated in the
writings of Robert Adamson. The most learned of his contemporary
philosophers, bis earlier works are written from the standpoint of a
neo-Hegelian idealism. These works are a small volume On the
Philosophy of Kant (1879), a monograph on Fichte (1861), and an
article on logic (1882), long afterwards (1911) republished in book
form. The fundamental opposition of philosophical doctrines he
regarded as 'the opposition between Hegelianism on the one hand


## p. 49 (#79) ##############################################

1]
Robert Adamson
49
and scientific naturalism or realism on the other'; and he rejected
the latter doctrine because its explanation of thought as the pro-
duct of antecedent conditions was incompetent to explain thought
as self-consciousness. The problem which he set himself was to
re-think from the former point of view the new material con-
cerning nature, mind and history provided by modern science.
He came gradually to the opinion that this could not be done-
that idealism was inadequate. His posthumously published
lectures The Development of Modern Philosophy (1903) show
that he was engaged in working out a reconstruction from the
point of view which he had at first held incompetent—that of
realism. But his suggestions do not point to a theory of mechanism
or materialism. Although mind has come into being, it is as
essential as nature: both are partial manifestations of reality.
But he had not an opportunity fully to work out his constructive
theory or to examine its adequacy and coherence.
The new tendencies which distinguish more recent philosophy
illustrate also the increasing reaction of the literature of the
United States of America upon English thought. The theory
known as pragmatism is definitely of trans-Atlantic origin, and
forms of what is called the new realism seem to have been started
independently in the United States and in this country. The
latter theory is, largely, a revival of older views : both the natural
realism of Reid and the scholastic doctrine of the reality of
universals appear to have contributed to its formation. Prag-
matism is a more original doctrine; but its seeds also lie in the
past: it has been connected with the prevailingly practical tone
of much English thought; and more definite anticipations of its
leading idea might be found in some of the later English writers
of the nineteenth century.
E. L. XIV.
CH. I.
4


## p. 50 (#80) ##############################################

CHAPTER II
HISTORIANS, BIOGRAPHERS AND POLITICAL
ORATORS
A. WRITERS ON MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY
a
In a comparison of English historical literature in the nineteenth
with that in the eighteenth century, nothing is more striking than
the advance and the expansion of the study of the national past.
As was remarked in an earlier volume? , Hume’s was the first history
of England by a native historian worthy to be classed as literature;
and, after him, the subject fell largely into the hands of professed
political or ecclesiastical partisans. Robertson's History of
Scotland is not wholly exempt from such a charge ; Smollett's
continuation of Hume is certainly open to it; and no other
work in the field of national history can be said to have been
produced in the course of the century which has survived it
except as material for subsequent use. A reason for the un-
productiveness, on this head, of the closing years of the eighteenth
century, and the early years of its successor, might, of course, be
sought in the great national struggle against the French revolution
and the conquering power to which it gave birth. This struggle
finds its counterpart in the endeavours of the romanticists to
break up the literary and artistic solidarity of classicism, and to
trace the diversity of actual life in the specific features presenting
themselves in national, provincial or local institutions, forms of
government, social ways and manners. Scott, more than any other
writer in verse or prose, by his incomparable historical novels,
taught English historians to reproduce in their works the atmo-
sphere of the times and the colouring of the localities which they
desired to recall. The lesson was reinforced by two different
currents of studies and interests. The first was a result of the
1 For writers on ancient history and early ecclesiastical history, see, ante, vol. xi,
chap. xiv.
? See, ante, vol. 2, p. 280.


## p. 51 (#81) ##############################################

CH. 11]
New Currents—Sharon Turner
51
diligent enquiry into the
origines of our national institutions
and their effect upon our national life which formed part of the
něw movement of the new century-in other words, of the
beginnings of historical criticism". In the study and literary
treatment of the national history, this research concentrated itself
in the labours of what has been called the Germanist school whose
adherents strove to show
the extent to which modern constitutional ideas were connected with
medieval facts, and the share that the German element has had in the
development of institutions and classes,' and 'succeeded in establishing the
characteristically Germanic general aspect of English history, a result
which does not exclude Roman influence, but has to be reckoned with in all
attempts to establish definitely its bearing and strength 2?
The second current, again, was one which affected England in
common with all other western nations, but which acted upon her
life and literature in a way peculiar to herself. In the period
roughly circumscribed by the revolutionary years 1830 and 1848—9,
social questions, concerned with the economic conditions of the
people at large, assumed an unprecedented prominence; and
these led to a study, very little followed before, of the economic
influences under which nations arise and have their being. Other
sciences were called upon to contribute towards an understanding
of the foundations of popular life, the materials out of which it is
formed and the reasons which determine its progress or decay.
Historical research, animated by a living interest in the present,
rather than by a romantic yearning for a revival of the past, thus
came to demand, and find, new fields for its labours.
The first name to be mentioned among writers of English history
from the close of the eighteenth century onwards is, unmistak-
ably, that of Sharon Turner. Born and educated in London",
he was, as a boy, attracted to the study of northern literature
through a version, in Percy's Five Pieces of Runic Poetry,
of that Death-Song of Ragnar Lodbrok which is held to have
first suggested the study in England of Norse antiquity“ He
1 Cf. , ante, vol. XII, chap. xiv.
2 See P. Vinogradoff's illuminating introduction to Villainage in England : Essays
on English and Medieval History (Oxford, 1892).
3 He was a pupil at James Davis's academy in Pentonville, and his literary career
illustrates the value of the attempts made in these academies to supply instruction
in modern subjects. Cf. the syllabus of courses in history and geography by Priestley
at Warrington (where he worked from 1761 to 1767) appended to Parker, Irene, Dis-
senting Academies in England (Cambridge, 1914); and see, generally, ante, vol. x,
pp. 381—3.
4 See, for some account of the literary influence of the Death Song upon Sir William
Temple and others, ante, vol. x, pp. 221-4.
4-2


## p. 52 (#82) ##############################################

52
[CH.
Historians
early abandoned the active pursuit of the legal profession, and,
in 1795, settled for many years in the neighbourhood of the
British Museum, long the constant resort of his strenuous leisure.
Here, the Old English MSS in the Cottonian library became his
chief study, and it was on his researches in these and similar
sources that was founded his History of England from the
earliest period to the Norman Conquest, produced from 1799 to
1805, after sixteen years of preparatory labours. It was well
received by Palgrave and other authorities, but was also subjected
to unfavourable criticism, which, in one instance, called forth a
vindication from the authorOn the whole, the success of the
work was such as to encourage him to produce, in steady sequence,
a continuation from the Norman conquest to 1500, and a further
continuation, covering the reign of Henry VIII, with a political
history of the commencement of the English Reformation,' which
he afterwards carried on to the death of Elizabeth. The latter
portions of the work, published in 1829, under the collective title
The History of England, failed to command a popularity
equalling that of their predecessors. The reformation period, in
particular, had, as we shall see, been recently treated by Lingard,
some of whose ecclesiastical views, indeed, Sharon Turner was
desirous of controverting. But his volumes dealing with Old
English times, though they share his general characteristics of
great amplitude and sententiousness of expression, have the dis-
tinctive note of original research both wide in range and assiduous;
nor can he be refused the credit of having pointed the way in
which Kemble and Thorpe followed, and thus made it possible for
Palgrave and Freeman to construct their great works. It was in
Sharon Turner that the interest was first awakened which led to
the appointment (in 1800) of the first Record commission, whose
composition, unfortunately, rendered its efforts of but little effect,
till, mainly through the efforts of (Sir) Harris Nicolas, it was
superseded in 1836) by the new commission, of which Palgrave was
the soul. Sharon Turner himself cannot rank as a great historian;
and it might, perhaps, be questioned whether his proper place is
among historians at all. His early volumes are marred by a
cumbrous method, a tedious style and an antiquated philology; yet,
a survey of their contents suffices to show the breadth of their
author's design and the indefatigable industry expended upon its
execution. His place in literature he owes, not to service or
circumstance, but to his courage and energy in research, which
i See bibliography.


## p. 53 (#83) ##############################################

11]
John Lingard
53
enabled him, first among English writers, to make his countrymen
aware of the elements of future national greatness revealed in the
life of our immigrant forefathers.
Some time before the new movement in English historical
studies, which had derived a strong impulse from what had, of
recent years, been done in France and Germany! , can be said to
have been fairly at work, two writers had produced historical works
of national significance. John Lingard's History of England,
indeed, had been in preparation for about thirteen years, before,
in 1819, the first three volumes of the work appeared, bringing
it to the end of the reign of Henry VII, a point very near the
critical part of the narrative, if its avowed more special purpose
be considered. Lingard's earliest book, The Antiquities of the
Anglo-Saxon Church, had been published so early as 1806. Here
is observable, together with a determination to base statements of
historical facts upon original authorities, the desire, which became
the mainspring of his History and, it is not too much to say, the
object of his life, to convince his countrymen of their mis-
conceptions as to the Roman catholic faith and its influence upon
the action of its adherents. He was himself born and bred as a
catholic (although his father was a protestant by descent), and
owed practically the whole of his training to Douay, where, it is
stated, no instruction was given in history. On the dispersion of
the college at Douay, Lingard spent some time in the centre of
English catholic affairs. He became acquainted with Charles
Butler, author of The Book of the Roman Catholic Church and
long active in promoting the abolition of penal laws against
catholics. These efforts, as implying long participation in church
affairs, were vehemently opposed by John Milner, afterwards
titular bishop of Castabala and a ruthless adversary of Lingard
and the moderate catholic party. Lingard was all but deterred
from carrying out his design of writing a history of England,
which he had cherished during the latter part of a collegiate life of
nearly thirty years. Declining the presidency of Ushaw college,
where he had held the arduous post of vice-president-as he
afterwards refused a mitre-he, in 1811, took up the humble
1 In France, where the spirit that pervaded the labours of Mabillon and his fellow-
Benedictines had never been wholly extinguished, the École des Chartes, which marked
the beginning of a systematic training in the study of medieval documents, dates from
1820, though it had to pass through a period of uncertainty, and even of temporary
extinction, before its revival nine years later. In Germany, the publication of Monu-
menta Germaniae Historica, the first modern collection of medieval sources edited with
all the appliances of modern critical scholarship, began in 1826.


## p. 54 (#84) ##############################################

54
[CH.
Historians
a
a
duties of the mission at Hornby near Lancaster; and here he
remained, almost continuously, during the rest of his life, which
ended there, forty years later, in his eighty-first year. The remote
northern presbytery became a sort of literary centre, in which he
was periodically visited by Brougham and other leaders of the
northern circuit, and whence he exercised an influence over the
conduct of catholic affairs, which neither Milner's intrigues nor
the frank differences of opinion between Wiseman and himself
could extinguish. This influence was due to his History of
England, which appeared in the critical period of catholic
affairs preceding the Emancipation act and, at Rome, was held
to have largely contributed to the change in public feeling which
had made that act possible. Whether or not pope Leo XII, as
Lingard believed, not long before the completion of his History,
intended to acknowledge his services by raising him, sooner or
later, to the cardinalate, such a recognition of endeavours equally
free from blind partisanship and from adulation would have done
honour to the church which he loved and served.
Lingard's first three volumes at once achieved what, in the
circumstances, must be reckoned a remarkable success. It is not
too much to say that this was mainly due to the use made by the
writer of his study of original MSS, both at home and in Rome,
and to the straightforward and lucid style of his narrative. Few
historians have written so little ad captandum as Lingard,
whether in this or in later, and more contentious, portions of
his work; if there is in him little warmth of sympathy, neither is
there any vituperative vehemence. No historian has ever better
trained himself in the art of avoiding the giving of offence; and
none was less likely to be run away with' by ardent admiration
for those fascinating historical characters in which fanaticism is
often intermingled with devotion to a great and noble cause.
On the other hand, there never was a more vigilant recorder of
facts than Lingard, or one whom criticism was less successful in
convicting of unfounded statements; it was not his way to take
anything in his predecessors for granted, and he wished his work.
to fulfil the purpose of a complete refutation of Hume, without
the appearance of such a purpose!
1 This is brought out in John Allen's review in The Edinburgh Revicw (April 1825,
vol. XLII), where Lingard is blamed for his anathema against the philosophy of history,
which he is pleased to term the philosophy of romance,' but which is either a sacrifice
to cant or the result of his dislike of Hume. Allen's second review of Lingard (June
1826) dealt specially with the St Bartholomew, a problem which may almost be described
as still under treatment; and it was in reply to this that Lingard issued his Vindication


## p. 55 (#85) ##############################################

11] Lingard's History of England 55
In the subsequent volumes of his History, Lingard's skill and
judgment were put to the severest of tests, and it is not unjust
to him to say that the history of the reformation, or that of
a particularly complicated section of it, was never written with
more discretion than it was by him. On the one hand, he
refused to shut his eyes, like some other judges of conservative
tendencies, to certain aspects of the conflict—the dark side of
monasticism, for instance. On the other, he declined to launch
forth into discussions of the general consequences of the English
reformation, and allowed the course of events—of which, in his
account of the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, he was able to add
many new elucidations—to tell its own story. Even in relating
the critical struggle between Elizabeth and her Scottish rival, he
hardly becomes a partisan; while his narrative of the reign of
James I plainly marks the end of Roman catholicism as an organic
part of the national life. The later volumes of the History
followed in fairly regular succession, the last (vol. VIII) appearing
in 1830, with a notable account of the antecedents of the revolution
of 1688, including the character of James II. Lingard moved more
easily as his work progressed, as well as in the careful revisions to
which he subjected it and in which he freely entered into an
examination of views opposed to his own, Macaulay's among them.
While his protestant assailants found no palpable holes in his
armour, he maintained his own position in the catholic world,
consistently holding aloof from ultramontane views and shaping
his course as seemed right to him. Yet, his conviction that he had
signally contributed to the change in educated public opinion in
England as to his church and her history, though the intention
implied is compatible with perfect veracity of statement as well
as perspicacity of judgment, cannot be said to imply that search
after truth for its own sake which is the highest motive of
the historian. Lingard's tone is not apologetic, but his purpose
avowedly is ; and, while his work retains its place among histories
of England based on scholarly research, conceived in a spirit of
fairness and composed with lucidity and skill, it lacks alike the
intensity of spirit which animates a great national history and
the breadth of sympathy which is inseparable from intellectual
(1826). Southey's criticisms of the reformation volumes in The Quarterly Review
(December 1825, vol. XXXIII) were expanded in his popular Book of the Church, which
led to a literary controversy between its author and Charles Butler. On the catholic
side, the irreconcilable Milner was provoked by the account of the earlier part of the
reformation, and in vain attempted to procure the condemnation of the book at Rome.
1 The last edition revised by himself bears the date 1854–5.


## p. 56 (#86) ##############################################

56
[CH.
Historians
independence. Lingard’s book, it should be added, is a political
history only, and sheds no light on either the literary or the social
progress of the nation.
It was only at a relatively advanced stage of Lingard's career
as a historian-in 1835—that he made acquaintance with the
historical work of his contemporary Henry Hallam, a typically
national figure among eminent English writers of history? Eton
and Oxford, although they had helped to form the man and give
him free access to what was best in the social, political and
intellectual life of his generation, had done little else to equip him
for the career which he preferred to bar or parliament. Inasmuch
as he enjoyed, throughout life, ample leisure and easy conditions of
existence, he could take his time about both reading and writing;
but he used these opportunities with a conscientious thoroughness
such as no class-room training or examination-room system could
have surpassed in effectiveness. The 'classic Hallam,' as Byron
chose to call the Edinburgh reviewer whose sole avowed pre-
tensions to fame had, so far, consisted in his contributions to Musae
Etonenses (1795), spent more than a decade in preparing his first
book, which, on its appearance in 1818), revealed itself at once as
what every production of Hallam's maturity became as a matter
of course-a 'standard' work of historical literature and learning
In A View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, he
undertook to subject to a philosophical survey the course of
European history, as a whole, during the ten centuries from the
great popular migrations to the formation of the chief states of
modern Europe, and, at the same time, to consider the special
growth of each particular state. In this truly comprehensive
essay, Hallam showed himself both too restrained and too sure-
footed to lapse into mere generalities, although the work cannot,
of course, rank with Guizot's rather later Histoire de la Civilisa-
tion en France, which, though unfinished, also overshadowed the
same writer's earlier and more concise Histoire générale de la Civi-
lisation en Europe. The chapter on England in The Middle Ages
,
* It is curious, in view of the high reputation of Hallam's name with successive
generations of historical students, that the only biographical account of him worth
notice should be Mignet's, in Éloges Historiques (Paris, 1864). This is remarked by
Sir Leslie Stephen in his article on Hallam in vol. xxiv D. of N. B. (1890), where
a few additional facts, likewise due to family information, are supplied.
2 Hallam's way of asserting his sureness as to facts was overpowering in con.
versation; and Thomas Campbell described him as, though devoid of gall and
bitterness, yet a perfect boa-contradictor. ' (Campbell's Life and Letters, ed. Beattie,
W. , vol.