OP KNOWLEDGE. 301 



to formulate, and to explain. "With the transition from 

 the Idealism of the classical to the Eealism of the exact 

 period of thought, knowledge has, even in the eyes 

 of the professedly unprejudiced thinker, acquired a 

 different aspect, demanding a new Logic and a new 

 Psychology. 



If we now turn from German to British philosophy of 

 the last hundred years, we find that a distinctly new effort 

 to solve the problems of knowledge was put forward by 

 John Stuart Mill, the first of a long line of psychologists ii. 

 and logicians, whose labours have largely influenced 

 philosophical thought not only in this country but also 

 abroad. But here again the tendencies of thought as 

 exhibited in general literature exert a very distinct 

 influence, not to say pressure, on the minds of even the 

 most secluded thinkers. Two characteristics have here to 

 be noted. The rapid growth of natural knowledge, based 

 almost exclusively on observation and experiment, had 

 already, in the eighteenth century, created a desire for 

 an analogous study of the human mind and human 

 nature, placing as it were the natural history of the 

 human soul in a position parallel to that of the know- 

 ledge of external nature. Kightly or wrongly, it was 

 generally thought that the Inductive methods of re- 

 search, practised by the great naturalists and appraised 

 by Bacon, furnished the principal instruments by which 

 to attain correct and useful knowledge, and these induc- 

 tive methods formed therefore a prominent aspect in the 

 study of the problems of knowledge. But even more 

 determining for these philosophical speculations was 

 a second influence. This was the widespread atten- 



