INTRODUCTION. 67 



No account of the thought of our century would be 

 complete or satisfactory which took no notice of this great 

 volume of unmethodical and unsystematic thought which 

 lies buried in the general literature and in the art of 

 the age. Both have shown a vitality, originality, and 

 versatility which exceed that of any except the few 

 favoured periods those of Athens under Pericles, Italy 

 during the Renaissance, and England under Elizabeth. 

 In one of the arts, in music, our age has, according to the 

 opinion of many competent judges, exceeded in originality 

 and certainly in productiveness all former ages. In 

 poetry Goethe and Wordsworth have raised our tastes H. 



Goethe and 



and demands to a higher level, in fiction France and Wordsworth 



raised our 



England have almost created a new branch of literature, tastes * 

 whilst the peculiar features of modern English landscape- 

 painting were unknown to previous centuries. All this, 

 though produced under no scientific or philosophical rule 



writings. See 'Nouv. Ess.,' Pre- pourraient lire toute la suite des 

 face, Leibniz, Philosophische Werke, choses de 1'univers. 

 ed. Gerhardt, vol. v. p. 48 : " Qua) sint, qua; fuerint, qua) 

 "Cespetites perceptions sontdonc mox futura trahantur. . . . C'est 

 de plus grandeefficace par leur suites aussi par les perceptions insensibles 

 qu'on ne pense. Ce sont elles qui que s'explique cette admirable har- 

 fornient oe je ne 8ay quoy, ces monie preestablie de 1'ame et du 

 gouts, ees images des qualitds des corps, et meme de toutes les Mon- 

 sens, claires dans I'assemblage, mais ades ou substances simples, qui sup- 

 confuses dans les parties, ces im- plee a 1'influence insoiitenable des 

 pressions que des corps environnans uns sur les autres, et qui au juge- 

 font sur nous, qui envelopperit incut de 1'auteur du plus beau des 

 1'infiui, cette liaison que chaque j Dictionnaires exalte la grandeur 

 estre a avec tout le reste de 1'uni- des perfections divines au dela de 

 vers. On peut meme dire qu'eu ce qu'on eu jamais coucu." 

 consequence de ces petites percep- | The importance of this idea of 

 tions le present est gros de 1'avenir Leibniz has been dwelt on at length 

 et chargd du passe, que tout est by Kuno Fischer in his ' Geschichte 

 conspirant (a-vfjurvota ireCvTo, comme der neueren Philosophic," where he 

 disoit Hippocrate) et que dans la also traces its influence in the 

 moindre des substances, des yeux development of philosophy and 

 AUSSI percans qu eux de Dieu I literature in Germany after Leibniz. 



