OF NATURE. 625 



of development, an idea which he identifies with 

 discontinuity. 1 



We thus find that, at the end of the century, the m 53. 



Transition 



problem of nature has become specified in a manner ^ethical 

 which points on the one side to the poetical and artistic, aspects - 

 on the other side to the ethical and practical aspects 

 as necessary complements to purely mechanical views 

 such as have been elaborated and become fruitful in 

 science. By a general consensus of opinion among the re- 

 presentatives of many schools of thought, the mechanical 

 views of nature reveal to us only the necessary forms of 

 thought by which we can acquire a mastery over natural 

 things and processes ; they do not reveal to us either the 

 essence or the meaning i.e., the soul of nature. Never- 

 theless, this latter term has a definite sense, and can as 

 little be got rid of in any true philosophy of nature as 

 the term Soul or Spirit can be permanently eliminated 

 from a study and comprehension of the inner life. 



The problem of nature has, in the course of the nine- 

 teenth century, met with a fate similar to that which 

 has befallen other philosophical problems. It has been 

 taken over by the exact and the natural sciences; and, 

 so far as the deeper questions of the essence and mean- 

 ing of things natural are concerned, the earlier philosophy 



1 The problem of the Contingent 

 will occupy us again in later chap- 

 ters. In the meantime I may 

 mention that it forms the principal 

 subject of discussion in Alfred 

 FouilleVs critical account of the 

 idealistic as opposed to the posi- 

 tivistic movement in modern 

 French thought. He there (' Le 

 Mouvement Idealiste,' 2me ed^ 

 1896, pp. 151-277) traces "la 



theorie de la contingence, telle 

 que 1'ont soutenue Lotze, M. Re- 

 nouvier, M. Boutroux, M. Berg- 

 son," into what he considers its 

 ethical consequences, according to 

 which it should be judged. The 

 best discussion of this side of the 

 subject in English literature is to 

 be found in the 4th of Prof. Ward's 

 second series of ' Giff ord Lectures, ' 

 1911. 



VOL. III. 2 R 



