204 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



detailed research, measured the importance of their 

 results according to the light which they were able to 

 throw upon the questions referring to the whole subject 

 and its combined life and unity. 



It was also natural, seeing that this comprehensive 

 or philosophical treatment led to such great results in 

 the historical sciences, that an attempt should have been 

 made to deal with the phenomena of Nature by a similar 

 conception. It was not a new or a far-fetched sugges- 

 tion to regard Nature as the play-ground of a hidden 

 intelligence, of an unconscious mind, just as history, lan- 

 guage, and thought were viewed as the manifestations 

 of the conscious human mind. After this the further 

 conception was not remote that both the mind of Nature 

 and the mind of Man are only two different sides of the 

 universal or absolute Mind. The philosophy of Schelling 

 was the first attempt to put this idea into an applicable 

 form, the system of Hegel the first confident elaboration 

 of it in its various ramifications and applications. At 

 the time when the mathematical and physical sciences 

 were leading the way in France, and gradually forcing 

 their way into Germany, most of the universities in the 

 latter country had one or more representatives of that 

 new and apparently promising school which termed itself 

 7. the " Philosophy of Nature." The trammels of this school 



Philosophy 



of Nature, had to be shaken off by those who, as they became 

 gradually convinced of its barrenness in actual results, 

 took up the cause of the exact or mathematical sciences 

 now that they had been cultivated by many isolated 

 labourers in Germany and in England, and had been 



