OF REALITY. 



429 



had, identifying it, for instance, with the theory of know- 

 ledge or with some branch of psychology. It is, of course, 

 needless to fight over words. Still the existence and 

 the continual reintroduction of a term which we thought 

 discarded shows that it covers some meaning and has 

 some significance. Many passages might be collected 

 from recent writers Continental as well as British 

 where the word metaphysic is used although the exist- 

 ence of such a thing is denied. It is more useful to 

 observe how in Germany lectures on Metaphysics have 

 become rare at the Universities ; but that nevertheless 

 philosophical literature shows there, though perhaps to a 

 smaller extent than it has done during the last genera- 

 tion in this country and in France, 1 a tendency to 



1 In general it may be stated that 

 the revival of the interest in meta- 

 physics commenced in France and 

 in this country just at the time 

 when in Germany it had almost 

 entirely disappeared. So far as 

 British philosophy is concerned, the 

 change which has come over philo- 

 sophical thought is shown, for in- 

 stance, in two treatises on Meta- 

 physics which appeared respectively 

 in the 8th and the 9th editions of 

 the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' both 

 by thinkers of the first order, repre- 

 senting definite schools of thought. 

 The earlier one was written in the 

 year 1857 by H. L. Hansel (1820- 

 1871), a pupil of Sir Wm. Hamilton ; 

 the latter by Edward Caird (1835- 

 1908), the centre of the independent 

 Hegelian movement of thought, in 

 1883. Both articles are important 

 treatises, from very different points 

 of view. In the earlier article Meta- 

 physics is mainly concerned with 

 psychology; the on tological problem, 

 or the problem of reality, receives 

 only subordinate treatment in fact, 



the principal metaphysical problem 

 as treated in the present chapter 

 is, by Mansel, thrust beyond the 

 limits of philosophical speculation, 

 and philosophy is reduced to pure 

 phenomenalism which, according to 

 this view, has to be supplemented 

 in the acceptance by faith of re- 

 vealed truth ; a position from 

 which it required only one step 

 to the philosophy of the Un- 

 knowable of Herbert Spencer. 

 This extreme development of a 

 view which originated in the school 

 of Hamilton, and which was more 

 popularly explained in Mansel's 

 ' Bampton Lectures,' reacted as 

 much in the direction of phenomen- 

 alism and naturalism as it did on 

 the other side in the direction of a 

 transcendentalism modelled very 

 much on the Hegelian type. The 

 latter is, together with the History 

 of Metaphysics, expounded in a 

 concise and masterly manner ' in 

 Caird's article, reprinted in the 

 second volume of his ' Essays on 

 Literature and Philosophy' (1892). 



