656 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



the third, it is essentially anthropocentric or humanistic. 

 In the course of the nineteenth century thought has moved 

 from the first to the second, and is at the end of the 

 century everywhere inclined in the direction of the 

 third of these three positions. 



We have seen how the first of these was the central 



problem in the idealistic systems ; we have now to 



follow up the scientific movement in philosophy, which, 



as I said, had its origin likewise in Kant. 



37. The two thinkers who, for a time, represented almost 



Scientific 



philosophy alone in Germany scientific, as distinguished from re- 

 in Germany. 



ligious philosophy, were Fries and Herbart. Both start 

 directly and professedly from Kant. Fries had, at the 

 same time, a distinct religious interest : he had been 

 brought up in religious surroundings. Herbart, on the 

 other side, never dealt exhaustively with the religious 

 problem. He, even more than Fries, represents the 

 realistic current of thought, and was for a time con- 

 sidered to be the strongest opponent of the idealistic 

 movement. Beginning with Kant, he in the sequel 

 assimilates ideas taken from the Leibniz- Wolffian school. 

 Together with Fries he also introduced psychological 

 analysis into the foundations of his philosophy. 



But neither Fries nor Herbart succeeded in developing 

 a system of philosophy in the sense of bringing the whole 

 of their speculation under a governing idea, to a point 

 of view from which the different philosophical problems 

 could be methodically attacked. They were, even more 

 than Kant, convinced that all knowledge is purely 

 empirical, and that the philosophical treatment must 

 either be confined to bringing out the different prin- 



