396 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Now if we look at European thought as a whole, and 

 do not lose ourselves in the particular sequences which 

 such thought has exhibited in separate schools and 

 countries, we make what to some may be a startling 

 discovery viz., that many, if not the whole, of the 

 arguments which have been lucidly put forward on the 

 religious problem by philosophical thinkers in this 

 country during the last generation had already been 

 used, or at least suggested, by French thinkers in the 

 earlier part of the nineteenth century. That the 

 impression they then made was purely national and did 

 not attain to European importance is explained by 

 various circumstances. One of these was similar to that 

 just mentioned in connection with Mr Mallock's writings : 



long list of writings analysed and 

 discussed by Prof. Caldecott takes 

 no notice of Mallock. In fact, 

 philosophy of Religion was still, 

 at the end of the nineteenth 

 century, somewhat in the same 

 position as philosophy of Nature 

 was in the beginning. At that 

 time the only thinker who went to 

 natural philosophy itself in order to 

 build up a philosophy of nature 

 was Fries. Not to speak of the 

 Idealists, even Herbart, the leader 

 in " exact " philosophy, had a 

 very imperfect knowledge of the 

 principles of scientific research. 

 And it was not till Lotze that 

 a professional student of the 

 mechanical and biological sciences, 

 an expert in the handling of their 

 methods, undertook to deal with the 

 problems involved in scientific as 

 well as religious thought. Since 

 his time a number of philosophers, 

 especially in Germany, have come 

 from the ranks of scientific experts, 

 and have met with increasing atten- 

 tion and appreciation. The names 



of Helmholtz, du Bois Reymond, 

 Kirchhoff, Wundt, Ostwald, Mach, 

 and Haeckel, and their writings, are 

 now familiar to students of phil- 

 osophy. Yet the same fair treat- 

 ment is not, in general, awarded to 

 thinkers who come from the op- 

 posite region of human thought 

 which we may term the religious, 

 or with Mr Balfour, the theo- 

 logical. Whereas professional 

 students of nature are not any 

 longer considered to be, as such, 

 disqualified to treat philosophical 

 problems, many thinkers with dis- 

 tinct religious convictions are looked 

 upon with suspicion and as intruders 

 in the domain of pure thought. 

 The dread of the scientific bias has 

 disappeared, but not, in the same 

 degree, that of the theological 

 bias ; and we meet still with a dis- 

 cussion of religious questions by 

 philosophers who, so far as one can 

 learn, occupy no definite religious 

 position whatever, nor take any 

 part in the religious work of human 

 society. 



