270 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Catholic Church. This position, whatever its defects 

 may be, has at least this advantage, that it deals with a 

 compact phenomenon, with an organised and unified body 

 of thought. 



In this country, on the one side, the religious problem 

 has been attacked and treated by writers of all shades of 

 opinion, possessing all possible qualifications ; but none 

 of their theories or discussions have combined in distinct 

 schools of thought centred around prominent names. 

 Each writer has generally been content to state his 

 view independently, disregarding usually historical con- 

 tinuity and the opinions of friends as well as opponents. 

 The historical and critical treatment of the problem has 

 thus been very inadequate.'^ To note that this is to a 

 large extent owing to the preponderance of extra-academic 

 thought and learning is only to repeat what I have had 

 frequent occasion to mention in other fields of thought 

 and research. 



In trying, therefore, to attain to some clearness as to 

 the progress of philosophic thought on religious matters 

 one is almost compelled to follow the better defined lines 

 on which such thought has marched in Germany. These 



^ This is fully confirmed, even in 

 stronger terms, by the author of, 

 so far as I know, the only history 

 of our subject written in the 

 English language : " The century 

 now behind us has teemed with 

 new ideas and fresh methods, and 

 in some quarters it is closing in a 

 mood of depression through our 

 failure to secure a commanding 

 and dominant result for Philosophy 

 of Religion after so much mental 

 activity has been applied to it. A 

 survey of the past and a comparison 

 of the methods which compete for 



our acceptance in the present may 

 be the remedy needed by the tend- 

 ency to Agnosticism, on the one 

 hand, and the apparently chaotic 

 advocacy of incompatible systems 

 on the other." (Alfred Caldecott, 

 ' The Philosophy of Religion in 

 England and America,' 1901. 

 Preface.) A glance at the body 

 of the work and at the number of 

 separate headings under which the 

 difterent writers are classed is the 

 most impressive proof of the cor- 

 rectness of the contention. 



