INTRODUCTION. 67 



No account of the thought of our century would be 

 complete or satisfactory which took no notice of this great 

 volume of immethodical and unsystematic thought which 

 lies buried in the general literature and in the art of 

 the age. Both have shown a vitality, originality, and 

 versatility which exceed that of any except the few 

 favoured periods those of Athens under Pericles, Italy 

 during the Eenaissance, and England under Elizabeth. 

 In one of the arts, in music, our age has, according to the 

 opinion of many competent judges, exceeded in originality 

 and certainly in productiveness all former ages. In 

 poetry Goethe and Wordsworth have raised our tastes 14. 



Goethe and 



and demands to a higher level, in fiction France and Wordsworth 



raised our 



England have almost created a new branch of literature, testes - 

 whilst the peculiar features of modern English landscape- 

 painting were unknown to previous centuries. All this, 

 though produced under no scientific or philosophical rule 



writings. Vid. 'Nouv. Ess. ,' Preface, pourraieut lire toute la suite des 

 Leibniz, Philosophische Werke, ed. choses de 1'univers. 

 Gerhardt, vol. v. p. 48 : " Quae sint, quse fuerint, qua; 

 " Ces petites perceptions sont done mox futura trahantur. . . . C'eat 

 de plus grande efficace par leur suites i aussi par les perceptions insensibles 

 qu'on ne pense. Ce sont elles qui j que s'explique cette admirable har- 

 forment ce je ne sgay quoy, ces monie pre"establie de 1'ame et du 

 gouts, ces images des quality's des I corps, et meme de toutes les Mon- 

 sens, claires dans 1'assemblage, mais ades ou substances simples, qui sup- 

 confuses dans les parties, ces im- j ple'e a 1'influence insoutenable des 

 pressioiis que des corps environnans : uns sur les autres, et qui au juge- 

 font sur nous, qui enveloppent i ment de 1'auteur du plus beau des 

 1'infini, cette liaison que chaque j Dictionnaires exalte la grandeur 

 estre a avec tout le reste de 1'uni- des perfections divines au dela de 

 vers. On peut meme dire qu'en ce qu'on eu jamais concu." 

 consequence de ces petites percep- ' The importance of this idea of 

 tions le present est gros de 1'avenir j Leibniz has been dwelt on at length 

 et charge du passe", que tout est ! by Kuno Fischer in his ' Geschichte 

 conspirant (avfarvoia. irdvra, comme ' der neueren Philosophic,' where he 

 disoit Hippocrate) et que dans la also traces its influence in the 

 moindre des substances, des yeux -. development of philosophy and 

 aussi percans que ceux de Dieu ! literature in Germany after Leibniz. 



