182 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Hegel to any great extent. It was more by those who 

 were inspired by the general tenor and tendency of his 

 thought, than by himself, that the necessity was felt to 

 tackle ethical problems specifically. And this has been 

 even more marked among his followers in this country 

 than it has been abroad. We shall therefore have to 

 revert to him later on, when we shall try to understand 

 some of the more recent ethical speculations peculiar to 

 English thought. It will now be more interesting to 

 cast a glance at that system of thought which in France 

 unknown for a long time to German thinkers was 

 slowly preparing the opposite forces which should 

 gradually drive into the background that official philo- 

 sophy which called itself Spiritualism and was largely 

 indebted, notably through its great representative 

 Cousin, to the teachings of Schellmg and Hegel in 

 si. Germany. This was the spirit of Positivism reduced 



Comte's 



Positivism. f or the first time to a philosophical creed by Auguste 

 Comte. 



In order to understand this independent counter- 

 movement which was not confined to French thought, 

 though it there received both a name and an ambitious 

 systematic treatment, it will be of advantage to look 

 upon the ethical problem from a somewhat different 

 point of view. This suggested itself naturally in a 

 country which had witnessed in succession the temporary 

 downfall of two traditional powers, Religion and the 

 State. The former had lost its spiritual centre and 

 meaning, through the attacks of the prominent repre- 

 sentatives of sensationalism and scepticism who domin- 

 ated French literature during the second half of the 



