INTRODUCTION. 77 



great elemental forces, heaved up by an earthquake or 

 visited by a destructive storm. We see some persons em- 

 ployed in filling up great breaches and recently made rents, 

 others trying to lay new foundations ; others again are 

 fighting for their possession or trying to divide a disputed 

 territory ; even the peaceful workers are called out to help 

 in the battle, or disturbed by the complaints of their 

 neighbours, on whose ground they are trespassing un- 

 awares, whose foundations they are unconsciously under- 

 mining. If we inquire into the cause of this unrest and zs. 



Cause of it 



anxiety, which seems to be a feature common to nearly seen in the 



J century of 



all the phases of nineteenth-century thought, we must p e r ec e dhi"it 

 look back to the age which immediately preceded it. It 

 is the storm of the revolution which passed over Europe, 

 and shook to the foundation all political and social in- 

 stitutions, that has likewise affected our ideas and thoughts 

 in every direction. The period we refer to has thus not 

 incorrectly been termed a century of revolution. If in 29 . 

 spite of this I decline to consider nineteenth -century century 



thought 



thought as essentially revolutionary, it is because the notrevoiu- 

 work of destruction belongs in its earlier and more 

 drastic episodes to the preceding age. The beginning 

 of qur period witnesses everywhere the desire to recon- 

 struct, either by laying new foundations or by reverting 

 to older forms of thought and life which it tries to 

 support by new arguments or to enliven by a fresh in- 

 terest and meaning. We may say that the thought of so. 



, Thought of 



the century in its practical bearings is partly radical, tins century 

 partly reactionary, meaning by the former all those reaction-^ 

 constructive attempts which try to go to the root of ary< 

 things and to build up on newly prepared ground; by 



