INTRODUCTION. 



25 



what more difficult to find a corresponding word in Ger- 

 man. I have for some time hesitated whether to use the 

 word Gfeist or Weltanschauung, two terms frequently used 

 to express the aggregate of the inner life of an age : but 

 have finally resolved to use the word Denken, as this word 

 lends itself to the same contrasts of Life and Action 

 (Leben und Handeln), denoting the inner world, whereas 

 the opposite of Geist is Stoff (matter), and Weltanschauung, 

 though an expressive and untranslatable word, denotes 

 rather the outcome, the result, of thought than thought 

 itself. Passing from the word to the subject itself, I find 

 that the greater definiteness of the term in the English 

 language is accompanied also by a more abundant litera- 

 ture of the subject. The larger idea of a Philosophy of 45. 



History is indeed due mainly to Continental thinkers, of History 



due to con- 

 especially to Herder, Hegel, Comte, and Guizot, and ^^ 



Voltaire's ' Siecle de Louis XIV.' will always be the 

 model of the historical picture of a period. Still it is 

 in my opinion mainly the writings of Carlyle, Buckle, 

 Draper, Lecky, Leslie Stephen, and, considering its size, 

 perhaps more than all, Mark Pattison's ' Essay,' 1 which 

 have fixed in our minds the meaning of the word 

 Thought as the most suitable and comprehensive term 

 to denote the whole of the inner or hidden Life and 

 Activity of a period or a nation. I therefore put in a 

 claim to start with the use of the English word, as 

 sufficiently familiar to most of my readers, and request 

 those who may object to the vagueness of the French 



1 See ' Essays and Reviews,' 

 ' Tendencies of Religious Thought 

 in England, 1688-1750,' by Mark 

 Pattison ; also Leslie Stephen's 



remarks on it in the Preface to 

 his 'History of English Thought 

 in the Eighteenth Century. ' 



