474 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



records and of the Eevelation which they contained on 

 the other. 



What was demanded in these two great scientific 

 tasks and stood out in tolerable clearness and def- 

 initeness, thus becoming a fit subject for academic 

 teaching and study, existed, though less clearly and 

 definitely, in many other branches of literature and 

 learning. What was common to all these movements 

 and endeavours and enlivened the lectures of many 

 prominent academic teachers from that time onward, 

 was the attempt to penetrate beneath forms and facts 

 which had become dead through age, routine, and 

 convention, to the moving spirit which had once 

 vivified them. This was to be done by hard work 

 and severe method, not only in the form of a poetical 

 fancy. That this could be done was the common faith 

 of all the great founders and leaders of German Wissen- 

 schaft, notably in the historical and philosophical sciences. 

 Of this common faith the philosophy of Hegel appeared 

 as the methodical and abstract enunciation : a statement 

 which would serve as introduction to all critical, his- 

 torical, and philosophical studies, but also as their con- 

 summation. As such it was announced by Hegel him- 

 self and accepted by a whole generation of eager and 

 thoughtful listeners. 



The further elaboration of the scheme put forward by 



in a different quarter. Nor is 

 there wanting in this age and in 

 this country a parallel to the dis- 

 illusionment which was widespread 

 in Germany two generations ago. 

 This is, e.g., expressed in the 19th 

 chapter of Mr A. W. Benn's ' His- 

 tory of English Rationalism in the 



Nineteenth Century ' (2 vols., 1906) ; 

 in reference to which it may be 

 remarked that this author takes 

 no note of Lotze and of his influ- 

 ence on English thought, nor of the 

 altered position which he occupies 

 with regard to the relation of science 

 and religion. 



