INTRODUCTION. 77 



great elemental forces, heaved up by an earthquake or 

 visited by a destructive storm. We see some persons em- 

 ployed in filling up great breaches and recently made rents, 

 others trying to lay new foundations ; others again are 

 fighting for their possession or trying to divide a disputed 

 territory ; even the peaceful workers are called out to help 

 in the battle, or disturbed by the complaints of their 

 neighbours, on whose ground they are trespassing un- 

 awares, whose foundations they are unconsciously under- 

 mining. If we inquire into the cause of this unrest and 28. 



Cause of it 



anxiety, which seems to be a feature common to nearlv seen in the 



^ century of 



all the phases of nineteenth-century thought, we must preciding" t. 

 look back to the age which immediately preceded it. It 

 is the storm of the revolution which passed over Europe, 

 and shook to the foundation all political and social in- 

 stitutions, that has likewise affected our ideas and thoughts 

 in every direction. The period we refer to has thus not 

 incorrectly been termed a century of revolution. If in 29. 



Nineteenth 



Spite of this I decline to consider nineteenth-century century 



' thought 



thought as essentially revolutionary, it is because the ^onar'^"' 

 work of destruction belongs in its earlier and more 

 drastic episodes to the preceding age. The beginning 

 of our period witnesses everywhere the desire to recon- 

 struct, either by laying new foundations or by reverting 

 to older forms of thought and life which it tries to 

 support by new arguments or to enliven by a fresh in- 

 terest and meaning. We may say that the thought of 30. 

 the century in its practical bearings is partly radical, this century 



^ '' ' partly radi- 



partly reactionary, meaning by the former all those cai, partly 

 constructive attempts which try to go to the root of '"'^ 

 things and to build up on newly prepared ground ; by 



