cu. Yi.j THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 470 



So utterly destitute were they of that historic sense which 

 enables the critic to enter into the spirit of the epoch which 

 he is criticizing, that they could not interpret the mythology 

 of antiquity and the theologic dogmas of the mediaeval 

 Church otherwise than as a set of ingenious devices con- 

 trived by priests and rulers for the ensnaring and subjugation 

 of mankind. Perhaps nothing can better illustrate the bar- 

 renness of their point of view than their imdiscrimiuating 

 admiration for the emperor Julian, whose memory they 

 exalted because of his attempt to stop the progress of Chris- 

 tianity; this being the very reason for which that monarch 

 is now justly regarded as one of the most blindly retrograde 

 statesmen that ever lived. Such was their criticism — a mere 

 bald negation and disavowal of all that had preceded them. 

 And such being their criticism, such also was their political 

 philosophy — an unqualified protest, primarily against feudal- 

 ism, monopoly and divine riglit, but ultimately, as carried out 

 by Kousseau, against all constraint whatever of man by man, 

 and therefore against the very constitution of society. The 

 immortal pamphlet in which this greatest of sophists sought 

 to demonstrate that all civilization, all science, and all specu- 

 lative culture is but an error and a failure, and that tlie 

 only remedy lies in a return to primitive barbarism, — was 

 the legitimate outcome and reductio ad absurdum of a philo- 

 sophy which began by forcibly severing itself from all historic 

 sympathy with the time-hallowed traditions of our race. 



Such a philosophy may end, as it has ended, in anarchy of 

 thought, but not in rational conviction. It cannot organize 

 a new framework of. opinions, nor can it even thoroughly 

 accomplish the task of destroying tlie old framework. It 

 may indeed, as it has done here and there, knock the vener- 

 able edifice into unshapely ruin, but it cannot sweep away 

 the cumbersome debris, and leave the ground clear foi the 

 erection of a new and more pei'manent structure. It dis- 

 credits altogether too profuLiudly the earnest work of that 



