THE RATIONALE OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 741 



In those histories, the naturalistic tendency is usually 

 disregarded, and in many instances it is made to appear 

 as if the idealistic systems alone deserved the name of s. 

 philosophy. A prominent example of the attitude is the 

 well-known work of Kuno Fischer, for whom modern 

 philosophy is wellnigh identical with Idealism of the 

 Hegelian type. This monumental History, though a work 

 of genius, is nevertheless misleading, for it puts into the 

 foreground or fills almost the entire picture with a move- 

 ment of thought which was not international, and has 

 become so only to a moderate extent at a later period. 



The international movement of European Thought 

 during the nineteenth century was dominated by the 

 development of scientific ideas in all the three countries 

 alike. Idealism, as a philosophical doctrine, was in the 

 general movement only an episode, though an important 9. 

 and suggestive one. Its real meaning and value is in the 



general 



only now beginning to be justly appreciated. One of movement, 

 the reasons why for a time the Idealistic Systems were 

 discarded may be found in the fact that they did not 

 rest on a sufficiently broad basis of experience, such 

 as the natural sciences had prepared for themselves. 

 That this was necessary was recognised by some of the 

 most abstract thinkers, such as Fichte and Hegel : they 

 handed over the performance of this important task to 

 their disciples and followers ; in their latest works these 

 two thinkers sought for the necessary proofs of their 

 abstract generalisations respectively in the data of the 

 individual and in those of the collective human conscious- 

 ness i.e., in psychological and historical facts. Hence 

 the immediate outcome of Idealistic Thought was not a 



