720 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



an opponent, with the former, of the shallow materialism 

 and, with the latter, of the socialism of the age. 



With an appreciation of Professor Wundt's important 

 labours in the direction of systematisation of thought 

 we might properly close this chapter. During the last 

 twenty years of the century no comprehensive and 

 original system of philosophy has made its appearance. 

 Wundt's work has in this respect been compared by 

 German writers to the work of Aristotle in antiquity : 

 concluding for a period the systematic effort of thought 

 and giving at the same time such a comprehensive 

 critical view of contemporary speculation and contem- 

 porary problems that great originality as well as much 

 erudition will be required from any one who would 

 succeed in finding and establishing a new departure in 

 systematic philosophy. The foundation of any new 

 system will have to be laid both much deeper and much 

 broader than in the past. Accordingly, the work which 

 has been done since, in all the three countries, is, if not 

 devoid of originality, yet on the whole fragmentary 

 and preparatory. No one has ventured upon a new 

 and comprehensive summation of these labours. Never- 

 theless, some progress has been made towards system- 

 atisation ; but this progress stands still under the 

 culminating sign of one dominant idea which led 

 Spencer as well as Wundt, the idea of Evolution. 



The peculiar aspect given to this idea through 

 Spencer has been more stimulating to French than to 

 German thought. The latter took it more directly from 

 Darwin, or from the earlier and more comprehensive 

 conception of development which, since the time of 



