4 
gradual process of evolution. In confirmation of what we have 
just said, Dr. Caird says: “The only valuable criticism is that 
which turns what is latent in the thought of a great writer against 
what is explicit, and thereby makes his works the stepping-stone 
to results to which he did not himself attain.’’ (4) 
In our paper we have tried to do justice to our old Master, 
by placing well within the canvas as complete a picture of his 
philosophy and his chief thoughts as the circumstances will allow ; 
our aim has been throughout to separate all which is strictly his 
own from the thoughts and the systems of other writers with 
which, of necessity, he had to deal. The task has been by no 
means easy, as his thoughts are often most subtly interwoven 
with the thoughts of others ; this is equally true of all his works. 
Indeed, such fault as we have to find with Dr. Caird, is just this, 
that he fails often to do justice to himself ; many of his finest and 
most original thoughts are not only scattered throughout his 
writings, but hid away in obscure corners and out-of-the-way 
places, like rare botanical specimens, hard to find; but when 
found, are in their way priceless gems. This fault no doubt is 
largely the fault of his position, and must to some extent militate 
against all true philosophers ; for a true philosopher, if he is to 
help forward the march of mind, must himself be in the apostolic 
succession ; he must stand upon the shoulders of others and study 
their systems with the eyes of others. In short, the words of 
Green applied to Kant, that “he read Hume with the eyes of 
Leibniz, and Leibniz with the eyes of Hume,” and was therefore 
‘able to rid himself of the pre-suppositions of both and to start a 
new method of philosophy ;” is a conception, which Dr. Caird 
adapted, generalised, and applied all round. Indeed, he himself 
says of Plato “that he entered upon the whole inheritance of 
Greek thought, and his idealism was the result of a synthises of 
all the tendencies that show themselves in it,” and, coming later, 
Ir. Caird has done for his own age what he maintains Plato did 
for his. Through all his writings he constantly insists that, so 
long as there is an unexpressed thought which is latent beneath 
the expressed thought, and which secretly governs it, so long we 
have the right to criticise the expressed thought by bringing into 
prominence its implicit pre-suppositions. He sees God in all 
things, “the good in evil and the hope in ill success ;” that is to 
say, the Higher Unity which transcends difference, in the Deeper 
Identity of the finite and the Infinite underlying the finite 
personality with its relatively independent and self-determined 
life, and thereby lends the warrant of philosophy to Tennyson’s 
otherwise paradoxical “Infinite Personality ””—which is neither 
more nor less than Dr. Caird’s highest conception, ‘‘ Absolute 
(b) Kritik, p. x. 
