64 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



theories. It seems as if even the most abstract and 

 serene thought could not live long without coming into 

 contact for mutual good or evil with the affairs of 

 practical life. 



These affairs and interests of practical life form the 

 highest subject of philosophical thought; with their 

 furtherance, be it to strengthen, to reform, or to 

 develop them, philosophical thought is mainly occupied. 

 The whole fabric of Society, all the work of Culture, all 

 the achievements of civilisation, are bound up with certain 

 existing fundamental convictions which cannot be attacked 

 or lost without the most serious consequences. In the 

 face of this circumstance it would be futile to maintain 

 that any earnest thinker could approach these momentous 

 problems without a feeling of the great responsibility 

 which must attach to his utterances. It is not too 

 much to say that the whole weight of the moral world 

 presses upon the minds of those who deal with these 

 fundamental problems. 



The great philosophers of the past century have 



shared this feeling of heavy responsibility with the 



great thinkers of former ages, and the fact that that 



century has probably produced a greater number of 



si. leading thinkers fully conscious of the educational and 



Philo- 

 sophers as reforming task which lay before them, is a sign that 



educators 



and re- more has been expected in these recent times from 



formers. * 



philosophical speculation than in any former age during 

 the whole course of civilised history. The only age 

 which could be compared with the nineteenth century 

 was that which during the fourth and third centuries 

 B.C. witnessed the disintegration of the ideals of Grecian 



