PHILOSOPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 223 



is lessening, and is being rapidly displaced by the spirit of mutual 

 fairness and reciprocal helpfulness; and that reasonable hopes of 

 a new and a splendid era of reconstruction in philosophy may be 

 entertained. For I cannot agree with the dictum of a recent writer 

 on the subject, that " the sciences are coming less and less to admit 

 of a synthesis, and not at all of a synthetic philosopher." 



On the contrary, I hold that, with an increased confidence in the 

 capacity of human reason to discover and validate the most secret 

 and profound, as well as the most comprehensive, of truths, philo- 

 sophy may well put aside some of its shyness and hesitancy, and may 

 resume more of that audacity of imagination, sustained by ontological 

 convictions, which characterized its work during the first half of the 

 nineteenth century. And if the latter half of the twentieth century 

 does for the constructions of the first half of the same century, what 

 the latter half of the nineteenth century did for the first half of that 

 century, this new criticism will only be to illustrate the way in which 

 the human spirit makes every form of its progress. 



Therefore, a summons of all helpers, in critical but fraternal spirit, 

 to this work of reconstruction, for which two generations of enormous 

 advance in the positive sciences has gathered new material, and for 

 the better accomplishment of which both the successes and the 

 failures of the philosophy of the nineteenth century have prepared 

 the men of the twentieth century, is the winsome and imperative 

 voice of the hour. 



