198 PHILOSOPHY 



elusions of the Kantian criticism, endeavored to place the positive 

 answer to all three of these great problems of philosophy upon 

 more comprehensive, scientifically defensible, and permanently 

 sure foundations. The one class so far completed the attempt to 

 remove the knowledge at which philosophy aims as, by the end of 

 the first half of the century, to have left no rational ground for 

 any kind of faith. The other class had not, even by the end of the 

 second half of the century, as yet agreed upon any one scheme for 

 harmonizing the various theories of knowledge, of reality, and of 

 the ground of morality and religion. There appeared, however, - 

 especially during the last two decades of the century, certain 

 signs of convergence upon positions, to occupy which is favorable 

 for agreement upon such a scheme, and which now promise a new 

 constructive era for philosophy. The terminus of the destructive 

 movement has been reached in our present-day positivism and philo- 

 sophical skepticism. For this movement there would appear to be 

 no more beyond in the same direction. The terminus of the other 

 movement can only be somewhat dimly descried. It may perhaps 

 be predicted with a reasonable degree of confidence as some form 

 of ontological Idealism (if we may use such a phrase) that shall be 

 at once more thoroughly grounded in man's total experience, as 

 interpreted by modern science, and also more satisfactory to human 

 ethical, sesthetical, and religious ideals, than any form of system- 

 atic philosophy has hitherto been. But to say even this much is 

 perhaps unduly to anticipate. 



If we attempt to fathom and estimate the force of the various 

 streams of influence which have shaped the history of the philo- 

 sophical development of the nineteenth century, I think there can 

 be no doubt that the profoundest and the most powerful is the one 

 influence which must be recognized and reckoned with in all the 

 centuries. This influence is humanity's undying interest in its 

 moral, civil, and religious ideals, and in the civil and religious in- 

 stitutions which give a faithful but temporary expression to these 

 ideals. In the long run, every fragmentary or systematic attempt 

 at the solution of the problem of philosophy must sustain the test 

 of an ability to contribute something of value to the realization of 

 these ideals. The test which the past century has proposed for its 

 own thinkers, and for its various schools of philosophy^ is by far the 

 severest which has ever been proposed. For the most part unosten- 

 tatiously and in large measure silently, the thoughtful few and 

 the comparatively thoughtless multitude have been contributing, 

 either destructively or constructively, to the effort at satisfaction 

 for the rising spiritual life of man. And if in some vague but 

 impressive manner we speak of this thirst for spiritual satisfac- 

 tion as characteristic of any period of human history, we may say, 



