50 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Before entering upon a more detailed account of 

 psychological, logical, and positive lines of reasoning, and 

 before dealing with the Sociological Thought of the cen- 

 tury, I therefore propose to pass under review the growth 

 and diffusion of the critical and historical spirit in the 

 three countries, in a manner similar to that which I 

 adopted when dealing with the growth and diffusion of 

 the scientific spirit in the earlier part of this history. 

 41. In the present case, as Germany is the centre of the 



Growth and r 



diffusion of critical phase of Thought, and has carried criticism into 



the critical 



every branch of learning, literature, and art in the most 

 complete manner, I shall begin with the critical spirit 

 in Germany, after which I shall treat of the diffusion of 

 criticism in England and France. After this I propose 

 to take up in the four following chapters the psycho- 

 logical, the logical, the metaphysical, and the positivist 

 movements of Thought, up to the point at which they 

 came under the decided influence of the critical and 

 historical spirit. It will then be shown that this resulted 

 in the creation of two distinct lines of speculation, the 

 first of which started from the foundation of the logical 

 and metaphysical systems of the Continent, the other 

 from the psychological and positivist doctrines of France 

 and England. Both of them are historical, and have in 

 the detail of their research had to resort to special critical 

 methods : we may comprise them under the general term 

 of theories of development. Continental Thought, under 

 the influence of the Hegelian system and the great 

 historical studies which were there prevalent, adopted 

 the name of history of culture or civilisation in a more 

 general sense ; whereas, under the combined influence of 



