362 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



the British mind has always recoiled with a character- 

 istic confidence in the dicta of common- sense, but also 

 with a feeling of reserve and of reverence for differing 

 individual convictions. We do not meet in this country 

 with that cheery and light-hearted philosophy which 

 runs through many of the classical writings of the 

 French encyclopaedists and naturalists, nor with that 

 profound and imposing sense of serious inner conviction 

 which impressed Hegel's audience and Schopenhauer's 

 readers, contributing so much to the success of their 

 teaching ; nor, lastly, with that oracular announcement 

 of secret and hidden truths which was peculiar to 

 Schelling and his disciples. The three just named 

 characteristics of English philosophical thought : the 

 absence of radicalism, of system, and of continuity, 

 joined to undoubted originality in individual instances, 

 are reflected more than anywhere else in those detached 

 and sporadic discussions of the religious problem : the 

 problem of the Spirit. Whereas, on the Continent, 

 notably in Germany, this problem forms, as I have tried 

 to show, the important centre of the entire philosophical 

 movement, it can hardly be maintained that this country 

 has, up to quite recent times, done more than contribute 

 fragments to the discussion.^ But a few of these fras- 



^ We are impressed very forcibly 

 with the fragmentary and incon- 

 clusive nature of British thought 

 on the subject before us by a glance 

 at the table of contents of a recent 

 work by Professor Alfred Caldecott, 

 ' The Philosophy of Religion in 

 England and America' (1901). It 

 is, so far as I know, the only 

 attempt to present in a compact 

 and readable form the sporadic 



meditations on our subject wliich 

 are scattered through English 

 literature. The number of names 

 — some of the verj' first importance 

 — is not less impressive than the 

 number of types under which their 

 very varying contributions are mar- 

 shalled. Of these types the author 

 finds no less than thirteen. The 

 contributions come from all depart- 

 ments of literature, from purely 



