SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 369 



forms under which this principle manifests itself, he will have mas- 

 tered the mystery of all things. From the year 1818, the date of 

 Hegel's election to the chair of philosophy in the University of Berlin, 

 till the break-up of his school, about 1850, his thought dominated the 

 intellect of Germany to a degree unparalleled, and from 1865 till the 

 present time, it has wielded power in the British and, to a lesser extent, 

 in the American universities. The reason for this is patent. No other 

 thinker entertained modern views. In the English-speaking countries 

 particularly, men faced the past, not the future. Hegel, on the con- 

 trary, whatever may be said in his despite, had carried the dynamic, 

 organic and evolutionary explanation into every corner of the human- 

 istic realm. Nevertheless, he and his disciples must bear the chief 

 responsibility for the estrangement between science and philosophy 

 throughout forty years (1850-90) of the nineteenth century. Why? 



In the first place, this, the most influential system of modern 

 philosophy, had been completed to all intents and purposes by the 

 year 1816. And, unfortunately, this statement implies another. In 

 1816, modem science was as yet unborn. Of course, one does not 

 forget the work of Haller, at Gottingen; of Cuvier and Bichat; of 

 Treviranus, who was the first to use the term 'biology,' in 1802; and, 

 above all, one calls to mind Charles Bell's capital discovery, in 1811. 

 Still, all these died in the faith, they having received not the promises. 

 In France, mathematical science maintained its glorious history, thanks 

 partly to the favor of Napoleon. In Germany, the rule of the modem 

 scientific spirit dates from 1826, with the foundation of Liebig's labora- 

 tory at Giessen. In Britain, all the great advances. Bell's excepted, 

 fall within the domain of astronomy, physics and the older chemistry. 

 Yet, despite this meager knowledge, as we deem it now, of the intrica- 

 cies of nature, a thinker dared to present an absolute philosophy — a 

 key to all the mysteries. 



In the second place, the interpretation of Hegel's system by his 

 followers, if not its elaboration by himself, had become increasingly 

 formal, perhaps abstract, just at the moment when science was making 

 some of its most astonishing discoveries. Small wonder, then, that 

 investigators of nature, successful beyond all precedent, turned in 

 contempt from a philosophy which seemed to them, rightly or wrongly, 

 a species of revived scholasticism. Moreover, the bitter attacks on 

 Hegel emanating from workers on the philosophical side, like Herbart 

 and his pupils, who appeared to be, and possibly were, sympathetic 

 with scientific methods, served to deepen this impression. By 1865, 

 when the cry, 'Back to Kant !' had taken effective possession of many 

 and was emphasizing the importance, for science, of a certain interpre- 

 tation of Kant's thought, this antagonism crystallized finally. 



Lastly, Hegel's 'Naturphilosophie,' containing his account of those 



VOL. LIX. — 25 



