RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 743 



unification of scientific and religious reasoning, frequently 

 to the disadvantage of both, whereas Newton kept them 

 so distinctly apart that his immortal scientific works 

 can be studied without any reference whatever to his 

 theological writings. 



The two positions represented by these two great 

 men namely, the attempt on the one side to unify 

 or combine the scientific and the religious aspects, and 

 on the other to keep them apart or contrast them 

 have, indeed, been adopted by many thinkers in the 

 course of our period ; but an attempt to do justice to 

 such problems has been more usually considered the 

 duty of philosophy par excellence. In the rare instances 

 in which scientific authorities of the first order have . 

 ventured upon a solution of these problems, they have 

 stepped outside of the limits of scientific reasoning ; 

 having, as it were, attempted to occupy the more im- 

 partial if not more elevated position of judges who as- 

 sign to scientific reasoning its position and its value in 

 the connected whole of human thought and interests. 1 



Consistently with the division of thought which 

 underlies the present history, and which has been 

 explained in the third part of the Introduction, I 

 relegate the exposition of such theories to the second 2. 



Philosophi- 



part of this work, which deals with philosophical 

 thought. The fact that in the course of the nineteenth 

 century there have still appeared scientific thinkers who 

 have not only attacked special scientific problems, but 

 also the great universal world -problem, may well be 



1 Examples of this will be found 

 in the writings of Andre" Marie 

 Ampere, of Emil Du Bois - Rey- 



mond, and of Gustav Theodor 

 Fechner. 



