OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 653 



II. 



After the immediate influence of Hegel's work and 

 personality had disappeared, when, as it were, the first 

 phase of Hegelianism had ended, there are to be found 

 only three systems of thought which exhibit similar 

 consistency and have attained, or at least approached, 

 similar importance : they are the systems of Schopen- 

 hauer in Germany, of Comte in France, and of Herbert 

 Spencer in England. All three are independent of 32. 



The three 



Hegel, all three attempted a unification of thought and subsequent 



systems. 



knowledge, but the position which they took up to the 

 religious problem was characteristically different. 



Schopenhauer's philosophy was indeed a philosophy of 33. 



Schopen- 



redemption, but it stands so little in connection with the hauer. 

 religious problem, as this practically presents itself 

 to-day, it is so full of elements derived from regions of 

 thought which are foreign to modern or European in- 

 terests, that it resembles rather an exotic plant grown 

 in a modern conservatory, where it is preserved from 

 too intimate contact with the outside world. 



The philosophy of Comte, on the other side, as well 34. 



Comte and 



as that of Spencer, stands in immediate contact with the spencer. 

 thought and the interests of the age, but neither of them 

 recognises the religious problem in its real importance, 

 though both deal with it in a certain sense. They are 

 at one in absorbing into their systems the ethical ele- 

 ments which before their time were essentially bound 

 up with some religious or spiritual creed. 



This spiritual element Comte indeed tried to restore 



