INTRODUCTORY. 35 



of all, to impress on my readers the great difference, 

 and indeed the contrast, which has existed all through 

 the century, between that great domain of Thought of 

 which I treated in the former volumes, under the name 

 of Scientific Thought, and that equally important, though 

 perhaps not equally coherent, region which we now 

 approach, and which I comprise under the name of 

 " Philosophical Thought." 



Earlier philosophical systems of the century aimed 29. 



. . ,, Philoso- 



at comprising under the term philosophy a well-ar- phicai con- 

 trasted with 



ranged system of all knowledge : modern science inclines 

 in the opposite direction of reducing philosophy to the 

 position of being merely a formal introduction to science 

 or the most abstract outcome of scientific reasoning. 

 Nevertheless, a glance at the scientific and philosophical 

 literatures of Germany, France, and England forces 

 upon us a strong conviction of the essential difference, 

 of the contrast and antagonism in the aims and interests, 

 in the style and the methods which are peculiar to 

 science on the one side and to philosophy on the other. 

 It was once as difficult to find a way from the abstrac- 

 tions of the great idealistic systems into the broad 

 expanse of natural science, as it is now to ascend from 

 this to the leading conceptions which form the basis 

 of our moral and social life, the ideals of art and the 

 truths of religion. The consequence has been that, a 

 century ago, natural science took its own course, un- 

 trammelled by the theories of philosophers, and that 

 we find in our days little inclination on the part of 

 practical legislators, of statesmen, and of politicians, still 

 less of artists and religious teachers, to refer for help 



