OF KNOWLEDGE. 



305 



several of the outstanding -works of that philosophy have 

 been brought out in English translations, this alone 

 would not account for the entirely altered attitude now 

 taken up by prominent thinkers, in general philosophy 

 as well as to the special problem of knowledge. The 

 deeper cause of this change must indeed be sought in a 

 different direction, and again in that pressure which the 

 diffused thought of general literature, the clearer prin- 

 ciples of science and the demands of practical life, 

 exerted upon the most secluded and abstract philo- 

 sophical speculation. In this instance what influenced 

 philosophy was a circumstance to which I have had 

 occasion to advert already in the foregoing chapters, 

 namely, the growing necessity that was felt for the 

 formation of a philosophical or reasoned creed. 



Up to the middle of the nineteenth century free in- 

 quiry into the nature and essence of fundamental beliefs 

 had not been a desideratum with the large number of 

 educated and thinking persons in this country. The 

 Reformation * was not accompanied in England or in 



1 The Reformation in this country 

 is in fact not one startling event 

 such as was connected with Luther's 

 appearance in Germany. It was a 

 process which had several stages, 

 occupying, in all, three centuries 

 before it manifested, and then only 

 partially and imperfectly, its in- 

 herent tendencies. As I am not 

 writing for British readers only, 

 who may, or may not, be well 

 acquainted with the historical de- 

 velopment of religious thought in 

 their own country, I refer to two 

 works in which that History is 

 very lucidly explained. The first 

 is written by one inside what is 

 termed 'The Church,' i.e., from 



VOL. III. 



the Anglican point of view, which 

 looks upon movements outside 

 as representing Dissent, be they 

 in the direction of the older 

 Romanism or in that of independ- 

 ence in religious organisation or 

 doctrine. It is the 'Bampton 

 Lectures,' by G. H. Curtis, en- 

 titled, ' Dissent in its Relation to 

 the Church of England' (1872). 

 On p. 287 he says: "The contro- 

 versies which mainly characterised 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 

 turies were of a dissimilar type, 

 the cause of divergence in the 

 sixteenth century being the merely 

 exterior question of Church-polity 

 on which the Independents se- 



U 



