402 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



was followed by, and in some instances associated with, 

 the later religious revival which centred in the Oxford 

 movement. 



The era of German idealism, with its genuine but 

 unfulfilled aspirations, was as had been the case half a 

 century earlier in France to be destroyed by Material- 

 ism and Industrialism, and the resources of the new 

 spirit in English literature had to exhaust themselves, 

 before thinking minds in both countries could realise 

 how much truth was contained in the dictum of Kenan 

 that we live on reminiscences of the past, on the 

 " Shadows of a shadow," and how much insight in his 

 query : " What will those after us live on ? " 



After having dealt with the phenomenon of indiffer- 

 ence in matters of religion, de Lamennais investigates 

 the foundations of certitude, and he finds them in the 

 dicta of common-sense. Common-sense, or the generally 

 accepted axioms and beliefs, are the authority to which 

 we ultimately appeal in questions of importance. He 

 thus reminds us not only of the r6le which custom and 

 habit played in Hume's philosophy, but also of the 

 common - sense philosophy of Reid and the Scottish 

 school which appeared as an answer to Hume's doubts. 

 In passing, we may note how a prominent English 

 philosopher and critic, the late Henry Sidgwick, in one 

 of the last of his Essays, spoke approvingly of Reid's 

 common-sense philosophy. But with de Lamennais 

 common-sense meant something different, something 

 wider and more comprehensive than the common-sense 

 of Reid ; the latter appealed rather to the unsophisti- 

 cated convictions of thinking persons when they re- 



