OF SOCIETY. 423 



much grreater revolution of ideas which accompanied 3. 



^ ^ The French 



and followed in the wake of that political upheaval. Revolution. 



If in the literature of the second half of the eigh- 

 teenth century we look for the thinker who had the 

 fullest and most modern conception of the problem before 

 us, it is undoubtedly Herder : nor is it without sig;nifi- *• , 



, Herder and 



cance for his comprehension of the vastness and intricacy Rousseau, 

 of this problem to note that he published only ' Ideas 

 towards a History of Mankind,' a programme which, 

 under the widening and deepening influences of sub- 

 sequent thought, assumed a larger expression on the 

 title-page of Lotze's ' Microcosmus ' as ' Ideas towards 

 a Natural History and History of Mankind.' From a 

 practical point of view the problem was, however, 

 brought under notice some time before Herder wrote 

 by several thinkers, notably by Eousseau in France, 

 who denounced the artificiality of modern life and 

 proclaimed a return to nature, but whose lasting con- 

 tribution to the solution of the social problem consists 

 probably in his profound influence on popular educa- 

 tion in Switzerland and Germany. Some signs that the 

 problem was independently before the minds of thinkers 

 are to be found in the literature of other countries — for 

 instance, in the earlier writings of Vico ^ in Italy, of 



with its constant phenomena, and great work in this larger spirit : 



the changing course of history, in " Its subject is man, not merely in 



the great whole of nature, to the his historical development but in 



steady influence of which tlie all his relationships" (p. 58S). 



results of modern science have ^ AVe are indebted to J. Michelet 



made us feel more than ever in sub- i in France and still more to Robert 



jection ? " (Introduction to ' Micro- Flint in this country for having 



cosmus,' Eng. transL, vol. i. p. xvi.) 1 made the writings of Giambattista 



Robert FUnt, in his ' Philosophy of 

 History in France and Germany,' 

 has correctly characterised Lotze's 



Vico (1668-1744) better known 

 to modern students ; the former 

 through a translation of the 



