CHAPTER IX 



POSITIVIST AND MATERIALIST NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 



Romanticism and positivism 



IN HIS History of the Philosophy of Later Times HofFding declares that there 

 are two intellectual currents characteristic of the nineteenth century: ro- 

 manticism and positivism, the former starting from the ideal of thought, 

 the latter from that which is based on fact. This division is undoubtedly in 

 accordance with the actual course of events dominating the whole world of 

 culture; the contrast indicated is discerned no less clearly in the development 

 of biology. The romantic conception of nature that prevailed at the begin- 

 ning of the century saw the true reality in an idea, of which the actual life- 

 forms were merely modifications; they sought therefore for a primary form 

 or archetype, with which the living forms were compared, as was done, each 

 in his own way, by Goethe, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and R. Owen, the last- 

 mentioned still as late as towards the middle of the century. By that time an 

 entirely different conception of natural phenomena had already appeared, 

 which fought its way year by year into the general consciousness; although 

 champions of the old ideal still survived far into the latter half of the century, 

 nevertheless it may be claimed that the victory of the new conception was 

 already fully confirmed by the beginning of the sixties. Opposition to the 

 old concept first came from the social and political spheres, after which it 

 took in its stride the scientific and literary world. Its original home, there- 

 fore, was in the two countries in which public life manifested the greatest 

 mobility — France and England. It was not until later, and then under 

 different forms, that it appeared in Germany and Scandinavia. 



In France there set in during the time of Napoleon, and still more im- 

 mediately after that era, a violent reaction against those radical ideas that 

 the enlightenment of the eighteenth century had created and the Revolution 

 had sought to realize — a reaction especially in the social and political 

 spheres, less in the scientific, although it certainly had its learned theorists, 

 as, for instance, the brilliant and fanatical Joseph de Maistre. But neverthe- 

 less the theories of the period of enlightenment could never be wholly 

 suppressed; they survived, as did the longing for the political freedom of the 

 Revolution, and they found support in the natural sciences, which at that 

 time were passing through a brilliant phase in France, being sustained by men 

 who worked for the most part undisturbed by any theoretical speculations. 



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