OF THE GOOD. 137 



for metaphysical inquiry in Germany, and, in this 

 country alone, the endeavour to solve practical ethical 

 questions as they presented themselves in the changing 

 and complicated circumstances of a prosperous people. 

 But though England thus offered more favourable 

 conditions for the study of theory and practice in ethics 

 than the Continental countries, it was nevertheless 

 deficient in one important aspect which was common 

 both to France and Germany ; one important idea was 

 wanting which in different ways then already guided 

 both French and German thought, but entered only 

 much later into the thought of this country. Here, 

 however, it then assumed that expression through which 

 it again powerfully reacted upon Continental thought, s. 



changing its entire character, and in the latter part of Develop- 

 ment absent 



the nineteenth century rendering obsolete a very large 

 part of all previous speculation. This is the idea of Eng 

 Development, announced by Leibniz a century earlier 

 and independently developed by Lessing and Herder, 

 by Schelling and Hegel in Germany, by Condorcet and 

 Auguste Comte in France. 



Leaving out this important contribution to philo- 

 sophical thought which is now acknowledged, if not 

 exaggerated, in all three countries alike, and which in 

 this country has become a leading force in popular 

 philosophical reasoning through the canons and watch- 

 words of the doctrine of Evolution, it must be admitted 

 that, at the beginning of the century, ethical specula- 

 tion was in this country already in full possession of an 

 elaborate ethical vocabulary, testifying to the fact that 

 British thought had recognised the ethical problem, the 



