104 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



has succeeded, in ever so small a degree, it has destroyed 

 that truly philosophical interest which originally attaches 

 to all phenomena of the inner world. While science has 

 gained by the methods of abstraction and isolation, which 

 we may term the analytical methods, philosophy has lost. 

 It is important to bear this in mind whenever we 

 desire to form an opinion of the value of by far the larger 

 portion of recent philosophical writings. That they are so 

 frequently deficient in depth, interest, and suggestive- 

 ness, if we compare them with the writings of the 

 great philosophers of ancient and modern times down 

 to the middle of the nineteenth century, is just owing 

 to this, that they intentionally confine themselves to 

 detailed discussions and special analyses, purposely 

 abstaining from a reference to the great central prob- 

 lems which alone give to philosophy its real interest 

 and importance. Concentrating themselves on analysis, 

 they rarely venture upon the opposite process of synopsis 

 and synthesis. Just as we have excellent treatises 

 on biology which contain no definition of life, so it 

 is supposed that we might have psychology without 

 a soul, ethics without obligation or sanction, religion 

 without a Deity and an object of reverence. The great 

 thinkers of ancient and modern times, from Plato and 

 Aristotle down to Schopenhauer, Comte, and Herbert 

 Spencer, did not write on philosophical subjects before 

 they had gained a firm foothold, a central and governing 

 idea, a synopsis of their whole subject which threw light 

 on the whole of their detailed and special discussions. 1 



1 Herbert Spencer, giving expres- 

 sion to this idea, terms his philo- 

 "Synthetic philosophy," and 



Comte, on his part, though origin- 

 ally a mathematician and analyst, 

 had a very clear conception of the 



