OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 



versity system. Up to the middle of the eighteenth 

 century the great philosophers abroad were, as little as 

 those in this country, induced to regulate their literary 

 utterances by the necessities of teaching. If, in spite of 

 this, the philosophies of the Continent were marked by 

 systematic unity and a love of strict method, this was 

 owing to other causes to which I have had occasion to 

 refer in former chapters. I have there defined this cir- 

 cumstance by saying that the leading thinkers on the 

 Continent aimed at elaborating a philosophical or reasoned 

 creed, and that the solution of special, psychological, 

 logical, or ethical problems was a secondary and subserv- 

 ient consideration, the main object being to define and 

 develop a central idea. But this systematic and method- 

 ical bias was further strengthened when philosophy 

 became in Germany a prominent subject in academic 

 teaching. This introduced the desire to give, not only 

 system and method but also completeness. It was 

 probably with this consideration that Baumgarten inter- 

 polated aesthetics in the range of the special philosophical 

 disciplines. A similar desire for method, system, and 

 completeness is also characteristic of Kant's great work. 

 In fact, it is not too much to say that the elaborate for- 

 malism which pervades almost the whole of modern 

 German philosophy may be largely traced to the influ- 

 ence of Kant's works, and this in its good as well as its 

 evil consequences. 



So far as our present subject is concerned, it is re- 8 - 

 markable what an enormous influence was exerted by 

 speculations which stood in little or no connection with 

 the great literary movement in the centre of Germany. 



