754 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



indulged in the extreme version of Feuerbach and the 

 popular materialists in Germany ; nevertheless they pro- 

 voked a desire on the part of an opposite school of 

 thought to give a more idealistic expression to the 

 current idea of development, now become popular under 

 the term Evolution. 



This idealistic interpretation of the principle of de- 

 velopment, the search for origins and the genesis of 

 things, they found fully alive in the historical studies of 

 German and French scholars, and much of this was seen 

 to have been stimulated by the idealistic school of 

 thought of which Hegel stood out as the last and 

 greatest representative. 



is. The central philosophy of Hegel thus became a sub- 



Reaction 

 under the iect m the studies of this school. It gave an answer to 



influence of d 



a question which, on closer scrutiny, was found to be ig- 

 nored in the naturalistic conception, for it became evident 

 that in that conception neither the subject nor the object 

 of the process was defined or at all intelligible. For the 

 purposes of natural science, of the scientific connection 

 of things and events in time and space, the statement of 

 a process was sufficient, but the philosophical mind 

 desires to go a step further : What is the beginning and 

 the end of this process ? What is the power that started 

 it, and what is its end and aim ? To these questions 

 the Evolutional system of Hegel gave a definite answer. 

 The power underlying all, or the Absolute, is, according 

 to Hegel, Spirit or Mind, and the purpose of the process 

 which can be traced in the ascending stages of thought 

 is self-realisation. 



Thinkers in this country set themselves accordingly to 



