GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 97 



guide a development of criticism." No other nation 

 possessed an institution like the Academic Franqaise, 

 which, as the same author says, had according to the in- 

 tention of its founder the special mission of establishing 

 " a sj'stem of absolute confidence in the power of definite 

 rules and of watching over their observation." ^ It may 

 be of further interest to note that the English term 

 " criticism " is synonymous with the French word 

 " critique," and that the French word " criticisme " has 

 been reserved to denote the philosophy of Kant and its 

 developments.^ 



In Germany the word " Kritik " has never been 

 confined to that narrower meaning which is still largely 

 current in this country : ^ it has always been employed 



1 M. Brunetiere defines the object 

 of criticism as follows : "I'objet de 

 la critique est de juger de classer 

 d'expliquer les oeuvres de la litter- 

 ature et de I'art" (Art. "Critique," 

 'Grande Encyclopedie,' vol. xiii 

 p. 447 — loc. cit., p. 414, p. 6). 



^ This special meaning was in- 

 troduced by one of the two ori- 

 ginal thinkers who have swayed 

 philosophic thought in France since 

 the time of Cousin, and outside of 

 the Thomistic movement within 

 the pale of tlie Roman Catholic 

 Church. These two thinkers are 

 Augusta Comte and Charles Re- 

 nouvier (1818-1903, ' Essais de 

 Critique Generale,' Ist ed., 1854). 

 Comte coined the term Positivism, 

 Renouvier, the term Neo-criticisrae, 

 to characterise their respective 

 philosophical points of view. In 

 this respect the latter occupies an 

 important place in the difiusion of 

 the critical spirit in the wider sense 

 of the word. It is " Criticisme " in 

 the Kantian sense, as distinguished 

 from that philological learning and 



VOL. III. 



criticism which was succesfully 

 practised by some eminent mem- 

 bers of the eclectic school of Victor 

 Cousin. 



^ Carlyle had already pointed to 

 the use of the term in a larger sense 

 than that prevalent in England. 

 In his Essay on the *' State of 

 German Literature" (1827, 'Col- 

 lected Works,' vol. vi. p. 60) he 

 wrote : " Far from being behind 

 other nations in the practice or 

 science of Criticism, it is a fact for 

 which we fearlessly refer to all 

 competent judges, that they [the 

 Germans] are distinctly and even 

 considerably in advance. We state 

 what is already known to a great 

 part of Europe to be true. Criti- 

 cism has assumed a new form in 

 Germany ; it proceeds on other 

 principles, and proposes to itself a 

 liigher aim. The grand question is 

 not now a question concerning the 

 qualities of diction, the coherence 

 of metaphors, the fitness of senti- 

 ments, the general logical trutli ia 

 a work of art, as it was some half- 



