70 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



also daringly announced their central ideas at an early 

 age ; but they differ from them inasmuch as both these 

 thinkers found it impossible to retain their early posi- 

 tions, and in consequence developed various modifications 

 known in the history of philosophy as the later phases 

 of their respective systems. The tenacity — not to 

 say obstinacy — with which both Schopenhauer and 

 Hartmann clung to their original formula;, to what 

 many may consider mere words, is characteristic of 

 thinkers who live out of the world and secluded from 

 its practical interests, who also take no part in academic 

 teaching, but are interested only in the written, not 

 the verbal, transmission of their ideas. Although such 

 thinkers may cast inquisitive and searching glances all 

 round into the different regions of science, art, and 

 life, they do so always through the coloured eyeglasses 

 which they have armed themselves with, and which 

 transmit only those rays that are congenial to their 

 organ of vision. A similar one-sided colouring is char- 

 acteristic also of the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, 

 who, early in life, came under the spell of the formula 

 and the word Evolution ; though it must be admitted 

 that by placing in opposition to, and at the foundation 

 of, evolution, " the Unknowable," his influence upon the 

 thought of his age has been twofold and in opposite direc- 

 tions — in the direction of dogmatism and positivism on 

 the one side, of agnosticism and scepticism on the other. 

 41. To understand Schopenhauer's philosophy we must 



Peculiarity ^ r i j 



ofSchopen- realise that he was the first among recent German 



hauer s ^ 



philosophy, thinkers to break not only with the general tendency 

 of the philosophical systems which he opposed, but also 



