462 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



political science lasted, the latter confined itself almost 

 exclusively to the economic question i.e., to the discus- 

 sion of the Work of Society, and more narrowly to that 

 of a society possessing as much stability and liberty as 

 that of Great Britain in the time of its enormous 

 industrial development and of its dominant position in 

 the trade of the world. 



On the other side of the Channel we have during the 

 .same period two distinct movements, both dealing with 

 the fundamental problems of the constitution of society 

 -and of the State. Forms of government, the relation of 

 Church and State, and of the different classes of society, 

 the security and tenure of property, the representation 

 of the People, these were some of the foremost questions 

 which thinkers and practical men dealt with immediately 

 after the Eevolution had created a feeling of insecurity 

 and unrest, and a sense of the need for some kind of 

 Order, be it natural or artificial, new or old. 1 Thus we 

 have two schools of thought which deal more precisely with 



1 It is interesting to see how 

 thinkers on the question of the 

 rehabilitation of social order, such 

 as de Maistre (see infra, note to p. 

 464), put the question of the truth 

 of any doctrine such as that of 

 the infallibility of the Pope in the 

 second order compared with the 

 question as to the practical efficiency 

 of such a doctrine. Their opponents, 

 such as Saint-Simon and others (see 

 infra, p. 466), consider that the 

 human mind has got hold of some 

 fundamental scientific truth occa- 

 sionally narrowed down to the law 

 of gravitation and that such 

 affords a principle from which to 

 construct a social order. Using 

 the terminology now current in 

 philosophical literature, we may 



say that the former are Pragma- 

 tists, the latter Rationalists. Since, 

 in the course of the last thirty 

 years, the belief in the certitude of 

 scientific knowledge has gradually 

 given way and is being replaced by 

 that in its exactitude or definite- 

 ness, a tendency has arisen to see 

 the value of any doctrine in its use- 

 fulness and applicability for the 

 purpose of the increase of know- 

 ledge or as a power of organisation. 

 Such passages as that quoted from 

 Huxley (see supra, p. 229 n.), as 

 also that quoted later from Lord 

 Morley (infra, p. 465 n.), would in 

 the present state of philosophic 

 doubt have to be reconsidered and 

 rewritten. 



