202 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



I have pointed out in an earlier chapter how the 

 disintegration of philosophical systems, the contradictory 

 conclusions which were drawn from apparently identical 

 premises, led to an abandonment of the central philo- 

 sophical problems, to a distaste for metaphysics : further, 

 how a new line of research and study took its place 

 under the name of the Theory of Knowledge or 

 Epistemology* a genuine outcome of the critical spirit 

 as it lived in Kant's philosophy. We have now to 

 note a still more important consequence of this dis- 

 integration of systems, of this collapse of metaphysics. 

 . This was the gradual revival of ethical studies in the 



Revival of 



narrower and more practical sense of the word. As in 

 antiquity the larger and more comprehensive meta- 

 physical systems of Plato and Aristotle were followed 

 by the ethical speculations of the Stoics and Epicureans 

 where the problem of the Good, of the summum lonum, 

 was pushed into the foreground, so it has again happened 

 in recent times that when the foundations of knowledge 

 became shaken, the principles of action attracted once 

 more the attention of foremost thinkers. With this 

 difference however : that whereas during the decline of 

 classical culture the problem seemed to be how, amidst 

 the disturbance of external political and social events, 

 the secluded thinker could preserve his moral dignity 

 and philosophic calm, in modern times the teachers of 

 philosophy have more and more realised that, amidst 

 the collapse of creeds and systems it must be their 

 task to provide a firm foundation, not so much for 

 private morality as for the reconstruction of society and 

 the enlightenment of the masses. 



