386 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



eloquent than an abstract treatise on logic. The latter 

 solves the problem of knowledge theoretically, the former 

 does so practically. The second quarter of the nineteenth 

 century witnessed the growth and recognised towards its 

 close the existence of new fields of knowledge in various 

 directions. 



The first great movement of this kind consisted in the 

 revival and deepening of the historical sciences, under 

 tile influence of the critical spirit on the one side and 

 the great ideals of classical literature on the other. On 

 this I have discoursed in an earlier chapter. But this 

 movement was very much strengthened by the peculiar 

 development of the abstract philosophical systems them- 

 selves. In Hegel's system emphasis was laid on the 

 genesis of ideas, on the gradual development of these 

 ideas in the course of the history of the human mind. 

 The consummation of the system itself was to be found 

 in the History of Philosophy, which Hegel was the first 

 to include as an integral and culminating portion of the 

 whole edifice of philosophical thought. In the history 

 of the different philosophical systems Hegel recognised 

 the appearance in time of those categories or leading 

 principles of thought which the 'Phenomenology' had 

 traced in the individual mind, which the 'Logic* had 

 brought into abstract expression, and which, with more 

 or less immapBi, had served as the leading canons through 

 which to understand the development in nature, in arts, 

 in society, and in religion. This idea of mental develop- 

 ment, of the movement and working of ideas in history, 

 was put forward by Hegel with such force and supported 

 by so many happy illustrations that it made a great 





