GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 187 



philosophical thought during the nineteenth century, it 

 cannot be denied that the free development of the critical 

 process has not only been actually delayed or interrupted 

 by the philosophy of common - sense in Britain, the 

 eclectic school in France, and the idealistic school in 

 Germany, but that even at the present day we have to 

 resort to one or the other of the expedients offered respec- 

 tively by idealism, eclecticism, or common-sense if we 

 desire to relieve the purely expectant attitude which the 

 critical method forces upon us ; in other words, if we 

 desire to arrive at some positive answer to the great 

 philosophical problems. The renewed interest which has 

 of late been taken in the systems of Hegel and of Leibniz 

 and in the philosophy of the Scottish school proves the 

 correctness of this observation. It has been truly said 

 that at the end of the nineteenth century Philosophy has 69. 



• 1 11 • ^ • ■^ Philosophy 



become international ; we had occasion to make a similar becoming 



inter- 

 remark with regard to Science. This stage of what we national. 



might call Co-operation in the higher regions of Thought 

 was reached earlier by Science than by Philosophy. The 

 first great scientific idea to be worked out by the aid of 

 thinkers of all the civilised nations combined was that 

 of which we treated in the earlier part of this history 

 under the title of " The Physical View of Nature " : the 

 conception of energy. Somewhat later the working out 

 of the Darwinian programme, the theory of descent, has 

 still more closely united the thinkers in many countries. 

 Co-operation in philosophical labours was established 

 still later, and not till England had become thoroughly 

 acquainted with Continental philosophy by study- 

 ing, in a critical spirit, consecutively the philosophies 



