THE RATIONALE OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 763 



equally represented in the three countries, though the 

 wave of Pessimism which spread through the Continental 

 literature of Europe in the second quarter of the century 

 found, or imagined it found, a living voice in one side of 

 Byron's poetry ; so much so that a prominent historian 

 of the earlier part of the nineteenth century, namely 

 Gervinus, has devoted a lengthy chapter to the subject. 



As we are at present occupied with the real advance 

 which philosophic thought can register during the 

 century, and neither with its aberrations in the form 

 of pessimism nor with its practical decline through the 

 mood of sceptical indifference, it would hardly be 

 necessary to refer to Schopenhauer or his follower von 

 Hartmann, were it not for the fact that the respective 

 fundamental principles of their systems, quite apart 

 from their practical applications, mark a distinct en- 

 richment both of philosophical thought and of philosophi- 

 cal language. This showed itself when once the ethical 

 side-issues of their speculations were pushed into the 

 background, and trained thinkers were induced to 

 penetrate to the deeper foundations of their thought. 



The very titles of Schopenhauer's and von Hartmann's 

 principal works, ' The World as Will and Intellect ' of 

 the former, ' The Philosophy of the Unconscious ' of 

 the latter, not only attracted popular attention, but 

 indicated problems which had received insufficient atten- 

 tion in the ruling schools. If the spirit of dismay 

 which filled many younger minds in Germany after 

 the failure of the revolutionary movement in politics 

 and of the idealistic in speculation, found its philoso- 

 phical justification in the pessimism of Schopenhauer, 



