OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 



Through the wide grasp of natural and social 

 phenomena which characterises Spencer's writings, as 

 well as through the limitation of his speculation to 

 what he terms the Knowable, the spirit of Spencer's 

 philosophy has entered into wide regions of modern 

 thought and given rise to important criticisms and 

 developments. 1 Though we may say that the greater 



also say that it has been superseded 

 by recent thought in this country, 

 and this advance is due mainly to 

 the growing influence of the two 

 thinkers just mentioned. I shall 

 have to refer again to both of them 

 later on in this chapter. So far as 

 Ward is concerned he had already 

 gained the reputation of an original 

 thinker, mainly through his Article 

 on ' Psychology ' in the Encyclop. 

 Brit. (9th ed., 1886), followed by 

 two further Treatises in the 10th 

 and llth ed. (referred to supra, 

 vol. iii. p. 277). In the critical 

 work the philosophies of Naturalism 

 and Agnosticism, mainly identified 

 with the names of Spencer and 

 Huxley, are minutely analysed and 

 found to be defective and unsatis- 

 factory ; a circumstance which does 

 not seem to have escaped Huxley 

 nor altogether even Spencer him- 

 self. (See the latter's Autobio- 

 graphy, vol. ii. p. 166 to end.) We 

 are then led on to the beginnings 

 of a constructive effort, the founda- 

 tions of which are to be found in 

 Ward's Psychology, with its insist- 

 ence on the experience of the 

 individual mind developed and 

 augmented by intersubjective in- 

 tercourse with other minds, forming, 

 as it were, the whole continuous 

 field of thought, knowledge, volition, 

 and moral judgments, the unity of 

 which is to be found ultimately in 

 the continuity of mental life and 

 in the duality with unity of the 

 primordial experience of subject 

 and object. The following passage 



1 In this country the most im- 

 portant critical work is that of 

 Prof. James Ward. It is entitled 

 ' Naturalism and Agnosticism,' 

 forming the Gifford Lectures de- 

 livered before the University of 

 Aberdeen in the years 1896-98. It 

 was published in 1899, and may be 

 considered as forming a landmark 

 in recent thought, marking the 

 transition from the nineteenth to the 

 twentieth century. There is only 

 one other philosophical work which 

 can claim to have assisted to the 

 same degree in revolutionising 

 philosophical thought in this 

 country during the last years of 

 the period I am dealing with. This 

 is Mr F. H. Bradley's ' Appearance 

 and Reality ' (referred to exten- 

 sively, supra, vol. iii. pp. 27, 186, 

 431, 434, 533 sqq.) The first edi- 

 tion appeared in 1893, and two 

 more editions were called for be- 

 fore the end of the century. Both 

 works are largely influenced by 

 Continental thought. That of Ward 

 contains much which reminds one 

 of Lotze, whereas Bradley, though 

 certainly influenced by Lotze, re- 

 fers with more sympathy to Hegel. 

 But these two works, so different, 

 have nevertheless jointly produced, 

 what we may term, the modern 

 British School of Philosophy, the 

 originality and independence of 

 which has not yet been duly 

 recognised abroad. If the Lotzean 

 position in philosophy may be con- 

 sidered as an important stepping- 

 stone in modern thought, we may 



Criticisms 

 arid de- 

 velopments 

 of Spencer. 



