INTRODUCTORY. 



27 



21. 

 Medieval 



modern 

 break 

 with it. 



ally interesting to see how in the writings of one of the 

 latest representatives of the ideal school of philosophy in 

 this country, and one who has had a very marked influence, 

 we find a continual striving to find an expression for the 

 twofold aspect of reality and for the essence of the truly 

 real, similar to that which we meet with in the writings 

 of Plato.^ 



The patristic and scholastic philosophies are full of 

 a recognition of the twofold aspect of reality ; but philosophy 

 they find a solution of the question as to the truly 

 real in the Christian doctrine of a higher life. Modern 

 philosophy started in England in the teaching of 

 Bacon, and on the Continent in that of Descartes, 

 with a reaction against the neglect with which mediteval 

 philosophy had treated the problems of this world. It 

 led, though in very different ways, to the culture of those 

 branches of knowledge which have to do with the outer 

 world — i.e., with Nature in the largest sense of the term. 

 This interest, as well as the fact that Plato's writings are 

 wanting in due appreciation of the importance of the 

 exact and natural sciences, — with the sole exception of 

 mathematics, — was probably the reason why, for a long 

 time, Plato's works remained little known to philosophi- 

 cal students. With a deeper recognition, however, that 

 the question as to the truly real was not only of re- 



moderu, positive and evolutionary, 

 thought, M. Fouillee in France, 

 started on his philosophic career 

 with a study of Plato. In each of 

 the three countries the prominence 

 given to Platonic studies through 

 these translations was followed by 

 a reaction more or less associated 

 with the studj"- of Aristotle, in 



Germany by Trendelenburg (' Ele- 

 menta Logices Aristot.,' 1836, 

 'Logische Untersuchungen,' 1840), 

 in France by Barthelemy-Saint 

 Hilaire (1844, &c.), in England by 

 the recent Aristotelian studies at 

 the University of Oxford. 



1 See Mr F. H. Bradley's 'Ap- 

 pearance and Reality,' Isted,, 1893. 



