RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 749 



teenth century, as well as in former ages, have dealt 

 exhaustively with these the most abstract and highest 

 conceptions of which human thought is capable, have 

 not been, or have only very rarely been, led to their in- 

 quiries from the side of purely scientific interests ; they 

 have approached them with a full appreciation of the 

 great moral and religious interests which lie hidden in 

 the deeper significance which we attach to the words. 

 In starting, therefore, on the survey of philosophical 

 thought, it would be quite inadequate to take scientific 

 ideas as a suitable introduction. Whatever future ages 

 may bring, the philosophy of the nineteenth century has 

 certainly not been exclusively, or even pre-eminently, 

 scientific or exact. If philosophy has assumed the name 

 of a science, it has done so in that larger sense of the 

 word which, as we have seen, is peculiar to the Ger- 

 man language. In this connection scientific treatment 

 means simply methodical treatment, whereas there is an 

 increasing tendency in many circles to identify the word 

 science with exact mathematical or positive treatment. 

 The exact treatment of philosophical problems, such as 

 has been attempted but only very partially carried out 

 in the systems of Auguste Comte in France and of 

 Herbert Spencer in England, belongs almost entirely to 

 a later part of that century, and forms, even then, only 

 one side of its large philosophical literature. Philo- 

 sophical thought had a brilliant history in the earlier 

 part of the century before the ideas of Positivism or 

 of modern Evolution were much thought of. It will 

 therefore be necessary in any account of philosophical 

 thought to ascertain and clearly define the positions 



