OF KNOWLEDGE. 371 



movements were, as I have had occasion to point out 

 before, the higher educational movement and the growth 

 of the critical spirit in literature, art, history, and 

 theology. For both of these movements the ideal aims, 

 though vague, were nevertheless of inestimable value : 

 indeed history has shown that both these movements 

 have fallen to a lower level in proportion as these 

 ideal aims have lost their meaning and their hold 

 upon them. 



But also within the idealistic school itself the want 

 was felt of a distinct method by which the begin- 

 ner could be gradually introduced into the region of 

 philosophical thought. There must be some way of 

 leading up from the position of common -sense and 

 ordinary reasoning to the heights of speculation. There 

 was wanted what the ancients called a special dialectic 

 which should traverse the different stages of the intel- 

 lectual process, leading the mind on from lower to higher, 

 from familiar and concrete to larger and more abstract 

 conceptions. The great work which was dictated by a feel- 

 ing that this was the desideratum of the age, and which 

 had for its aim to exhibit this gradual rise of the philo- 

 sophic mind to the heights of speculation and the estab- 

 lishment of a comprehensive philosophic creed, was Hegel's Hegei .-'ums 

 ' Phenomenology of Mind.' ^ This work appeared in 1807. the want. 



^ The 'Phenomenology of Mind' 

 may be studied from various points 

 of view, and the important position 

 which the work occupies in the 



poetical thought of the age, and 

 which was most cle -.rly expressed 

 in advance by Spinoza when he 

 identified the order which prevails 



history of Thought becomes evident ! in things with the order which 



as we realise how many different 1 prevails in our thoughts ah( ut 



sides and interests it represents, j things. The philosophy of Spirn. za 



It may be considered as a loijical \ introduced to the age by Lessing, 



development of the main idea which Jacobi, and Herder came as a wel- 



governed the philosophical and come and inspiring solution of the 



