GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 105 



This attitude has ahnost disappeared in the philosophical 

 literature of our day ; most philosophical writers have 

 lost the " magnet of their course " ; hence the anarchy 

 of opinions and the labyrinthine meanderings of modern 

 philosophical thought to which I referred above. They 

 do not write philosophy ; they write about philosophy or 

 philosophical subjects.-^ 



This state of things has been brought about by the ii. 



Sapping 



workings of the critical spirit. It will be one of the effector 



° ^ critical 



main objects of the following pages to show how criticism ''P'"'^- 

 has undermined one after the other of the foundations 

 upon which former systems have built, how it has de- 

 stroyed the central ideas from which emanated the light 

 that illuminated the speculations of former ages. 



" For who, without some far-off light, his own soul ponders o'er, 

 Is like the bark that compassless would reach a distant shore." 



Just as the question presented itself above : Why 

 has philosophical thought not availed itself of the 

 methods of science which have given so much definite- 

 ness and assurance ? we may now put the reverse 

 question : Why has the critical spirit, which has had 

 such free access to every department of knowledge and 

 thought, not wrought similar havoc in the regions of 



necessity of complementing the 

 analytical process, the "esprit 

 d'analyse," by a synoptical process, 

 the "esprit d'ensemble." To this 

 I have drawn attention in a paper 

 published in the ' Proceedings of 

 the Philosophical Society of the 

 University of Durham,' vol. iii., 

 entitled " On a General Tendency 

 of Thought in the Second Half of 

 the Nineteenth Century " ; see also 



' Edinburgh Review,' April 1911. 

 I shall revert to this subject at the 

 close of the present section. 



^ I have adoi^ted this distinction 

 from a remark made bj' the late 

 Professor Sylvester regarding the 

 mathematical writings of Augustus 

 de Morgan. He said — whether 

 justly or unjustly — that De Morgan 

 did not write mathematics, but 

 about mathematics. 



