212 PHILOSOPHY 



the interest in political and social problems have been dominant. 

 And yet withal, the student of these problems in the atmosphere 

 of this country likes, in a way, to do his own thinking and to make 

 his own choices of the thoughts that seem to him true and best 

 fitted for the best form of life. In spite of the fact that the different 

 streams of European thought have flowed in upon us somewhat 

 freely, there has been comparatively little either of the adherence 

 to schools of European philosophy or of the attempt to develop a 

 national school. Doubtless the influence of English and Scottish 

 thinking upon the academical circles of America was greatest for 

 more than one hundred and fifty years after the gift in 1714 by 

 Governor Yale of a copy of Locke's Essay to the college which bore 

 his name, - - and especially upon the reflections and published 

 works of Jonathan Edwards touching the fundamental problems 

 of epistemology, ethics, and religion. During the early part of this 

 century these views awakened antagonism from such writers as 

 Dana, Whedon, Hazard, Nathaniel Taylor, Jeremiah Day, Henry P. 

 Tappan, and other opponents of the Edwardean theology, and also 

 from such advocates of so-called "free-thinking," as had derived 

 their motifs and their views from English deistical writers like 

 Shaftesbury, or from the skepticism of Hume. 



A more definite philosophical movement, however, which had 

 established itself somewhat firmly in scholastic centres by the year 

 1825, and which maintained itself for more than half a century, 

 went back to the arrival in this country of John Witherspoon, in 

 1768, to be the president of Princeton, bringing with him a library 

 of three hundred books. It was the appeal of the Scottish School to 

 the "plain man's consciousness" and to so-called "common sense," 

 which was relied upon to controvert all forms of philosophy which 

 seemed to threaten the foundations of religion and of the ethics 

 of politics and sociology. But even during this period, which was 

 characterized by relatively little independent thinking in scholastic 

 circles, a more pronounced productivity was shown by such writers 

 as Francis Wayland, and others; but, perhaps, especially by Laurens 

 P. Hickok, whose works on psychology and cosmology deserve 

 especial recognition: while in psychology, as related to philosophical 

 problems, the principal names of this period are undoubtedly the 

 presidents of Yale and Princeton, -- Noah Porter and James Mc- 

 Cosh, - - both of whom (but especially the former) had their views 

 modified by the more scientific psychology of Europe and the pro- 

 founder thinking of Germany. 



It was Germany's influence, however, both directly and indirectly 

 through Coleridge and a few other English writers, that caused a 

 ferment of impressions and ideas which, in their effort to work them- 

 selves clear, resulted in what is known as New England "Iran- 



