530 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



the necessity of giving a corrector answer was felt 

 already by Mill, and notably by Lewes ; but a definite 

 answer was not given before Herbert Spencer treated 

 comprehensively the fundamental problems of philo- 

 sophical Thought in his ' First Principles.' It is 

 interesting to see how he made use of the argument of 

 Sir William Hamilton, the same which had led Mansel 

 to a re-assertion of that body of positive doctrine with 

 which the school of Mill had broken long before. 

 Huxley gave the popular name of Agnosticism to 

 Spencer's philosophy of the Unknowable, though it is 

 doubtful whether he himself remained satisfied with the 

 57. position it assumed. Another great popular influence 

 fluencesT which did much to urge the necessity of a deeper study 



the new 



monthly of the fundamental problems, showing at the same time 



Reviews. 



the uncertainty which had taken hold of the foremost 

 thinkers of the Age, was the appearance in 1875 of a 

 new Periodical which professed to offer an arena for the 

 discussion of important questions to writers of all shades 

 of opinion. 1 The ' Fortnightly Review ' had started ten 

 years before as the organ of independent thought; 2 it 



1 This is finely expressed in 

 Tennyson's Prefatory Poem (' Nine- 

 teenth Century,' No. I., March 

 1877) : I And some are wilder comrades, sworn 



" Those that of late had fleeted far and aany * dm harbour be for men 



fast In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of 



To touch all shores, now leaving to the Doubt " 



skill 



Of others their old craft seaworthy still, 2 TV Fortnitrhtlv ' mav be con 



Have charter'd this ; where, mindful of 



the past, ' Bidered to have been the organ ot 



Our true co- mates regather round the what on the Continent is sometimes 



mast ; termed English Positivism. Since 



Of diverse tongue, but with a common , , ,, , 



wiu the time when Lord Money, as 



Here, in this roaring moon of daffodil second editor of the Review, re- 



And crocus, to put forth and brave the , pudiated the designation of it as 



For^mV, descending from the sacred j "positmst," a term objectionable 



peak also to Huxley and bpencer, the 



Of hoar high-templed Faith, have leagued 



again 

 Their lot with ours to rove the world 



about; 



