730 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



principles, quite spontaneously conceived the idea that 

 by following out their line of reasoning a solution of the 

 philosophical problem could be attained where and when 

 Idealism had failed. In fact, they thought that circum- 

 spection — i.e., looking outside and around — would be 

 more helpful than introspection. There is also no doubt 

 that idealistic thinkers had, in an unwarranted manner, 

 made tacit and surreptitious use of notions which be- 

 long exclusively to the material sciences. The natural- 

 istic school of thought worked in the commencement 

 mainly with the conception of Life as the highest uni- 

 fying principle in nature, and when the older formula of 

 a " vital force " could not be logically defined it was 

 driven to a purely mechanical construction of reality. 

 This line of reasoning found its consummation in the 

 system of Herbert Spencer. In this system the natural- 

 istic train of thought came to a limit as the idealistic 

 had apparently come to a limit a generation earlier in 

 the system of Hegel. 



In parenthesis it may be noted that on the idealistic 

 side Schopenhauer alone had not discarded the " Thing 

 in Itself," but had incorporated it in his dualistic system 

 by defining it as the Will in analogy with the active 

 principle of the human mind ; on the other side, Comte 

 had not reduced biology to mechanism, but had main- 

 tained that the living creation could only be understood 

 by the vue d'ensemble — i.e., by resorting to a mental 

 principle. 



This inroad of naturalism into what we may term the 

 philosophy of mind did not contaminate British thought 

 to the same extent. Though by Hartley a mechanical 



