316 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



19. 



Continental 

 efforts to 

 transcend 

 dualism. 



philosophical literature indicates a widespread tendency 

 to overcome the latent dualism characteristic of the 

 earlier philosophies in this country. 



This dualism in human knowledge is, however, not 

 a special characteristic of modern thought, but can be 

 traced in the earliest systems of ancient philosophy, and 

 was nowhere more apparent than in the middle ages 

 with their avowed antithesis of Divine — or Eevealed — 

 and of Human Knowledge. 



Unlike English philosophical thought, thought on 

 the Continent set out in modern times with the bold 

 attempt to overcome the existing dualism in know- 

 ledge by starting from some supreme principle or idea 

 in the light of which the whole of human science — 

 be it spiritual or natural — could be organised, being 

 systematically co-ordinated or subordinated. The two 

 great systems in which this was carried out, and which 

 have had lasting influence on Continental thought up 

 to the present day, are those of Descartes and Spinoza. 



Up to quite recent times, when the independence of 

 the development of philosophical thought in this country 

 has been clearly recognised by Continental writers, the 

 leading historians of philosophy, who belong nearly 

 exclusively to Germany, were in the habit of represent- 

 ing the history of modern philosophy as an unbroken 

 chain from Descartes to Hegel and Schopenhauer ; ^ 



^ This view is mainly represented 

 by Kuno Fischer in his monu- 

 mental work on the ' History of 

 Modern Philosophy.' He does not 

 include in it the History of the 

 realistic movement in philosophy, 

 to which he, however, devoted a 

 smaller work with the title, ' Franz 



Bacon von Verulam, Das Zeitalter 

 der Realphilosophie ' (1856, 2nd ed., 

 1875). The continuity of the 

 Idealistic movement is also sketched 

 by Schopenhauer in the first Essay 

 contained in his ' Parerga and 

 Paralipouiena,' and b\r Schvvegler 

 in his well-known 'Short History 



