210 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



account of this school, to which we probably owe the 

 greater part of the important psychological work of the 

 century, it may be interesting to refer briefly to the 

 causes which prevented the purely introspective methods 

 of psychology from ever receiving due recognition in 

 Germany. The reason will probably be found in what 

 may be called the essentially metaphysical turn of the 

 German mind. The principal aim of all prominent 

 thinkers in Germany down to the present day is to 

 arrive at first principles, to lay firm foundations of know- 

 ledge and practice. This has seemed a necessary requisite 

 because, ever since, through the political and ecclesiasti- 

 cal wars and controversies which followed the Eeforma- 

 tion and accompanied the Revolution in Germany, not 

 only the material progress of the nation had been 

 arrested, the historical traditions and foundations of 

 society destroyed, but also the fundamental beliefs criti- 

 cised and variously attacked. This general unsettle- 

 ment in the political, economical, social, and religious 

 world urged upon thinkers as their first and paramount 

 duty the laying and perfecting of solid foundations and 

 principles. This was the task which Descartes had set 

 himself in France, and which Leibniz, though in a less 

 systematic manner, took up for the first time in Germany 

 at the end of the seventeenth century. It has been con- 

 sidered as such by all prominent German thinkers down 

 to the present day. It was most distinctly put forward 

 by Kant and his immediate followers, and not less by 

 those who stood in opposition than by those who 

 professed to follow the lines which he had indicated. 

 So far as the special branch of philosophy with which 



