as well as by natural selection; and all mental process to depend upon and imply a subjective reference. Two other articles on the same subject in later editions of the Encyclopaedia and many contributions to journals prepared the way for his classical treatment of Psychological Principles, published in 1918. In Naturalism and Agnosticism (1899) the two doctrines named are subjected to exhaustive and perhaps final criticism, a theory of scientific conceptions is worked out, and a constructive view of reality, idealistic or spiritual in character, is maintained. Founding on the implication of subject and object in all experience, the author reaches a metaphysical position according to which the universe is throughout interpreted as spiritual; and this spiritual nature is found in a plurality of finite conscious centres of experience. In a later work, The Realm of Ends, or Pluralism and Theism (1911), he brings into prominence the conception of worth, and passes from a review of non-theistic pluralism to a discussion and defence of the theistic view of the world. The metaphysic worked out in these two books may be regarded as a return to monadism in contrast with the monism of Green. But the new monadism differs from that of Leibniz as much as Green's monism differs from the monism of Spinoza. It is in many respects more in harmony with the 'spiritual realism' of Berkeley. For its monads are regarded as influencing one another and as working out their ends in interaction both with one another and with an environment of laws and values which express the infinite mind.

The reaction from idealism is most strikingly illustrated in the writings of Robert Adamson. The most learned of his contemporary philosophers, his earlier works were written from the standpoint of a neo-Hegelian idealism. These works are a small volume On the Philosophy of Kant (1879), a monograph on Fichte (1861), and an article on logic (1882), long afterwards (1911) republished in book

form. The fundamental opposition of philosophical doctrines he regarded as "the opposition between Hegelianism on the one hand and scientific naturalism or realism on the other "; and he rejected the latter doctrine because its explanation of thought as the product of antecedent conditions was incompetent to explain thought as selfconsciousness. The problem which he set himself was to re-think from the former point of view the new material concerning nature, mind, and history provided by modern science. He came gradually to the opinion that this could not be done that idealism was inadequate. His posthumously published lectures entitled The Development of Modern Philosophy (1903) show that he was engaged in working out a reconstruction from the point of view which he had at first held incompetent-that of realism. But his suggestions do not point to a theory of mechanism or materialism. Although mind has come into being, it is as essential as nature: both are partial manifestations of reality. But he had not an opportunity fully to work out his constructive theory or to examine its adequacy and coherence.

The new tendencies which distinguish more recent philosophy illustrate also the increasing reaction of the literature of the United States of America upon English thought. The theory known as pragmatism is definitely of trans-Atlantic origin, and forms of what is called the new realism seem to have been started independently in the United States and in this country. The latter theory is largely a revival of older views: both the natural realism of Reid and the scholastic doctrine of the reality of universals appear to have contributed to its formation. Pragmatism is a more original doctrine; but its seeds also lie in the past: it has been connected with the prevailingly practical tone of much English thought; and more definite anticipations of its leading idea might be found in some of the later English writers of the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER XIII

RETROSPECT

THE preceding survey of English philosophy breaks off at a moment when the interest is at its height. Nevertheless, the end of a century and the close of a long reign do also, in this case, mark a period in the history of thought. The leading schools, evolutionary and idealistic, had elaborated their views very fully; both had been subjected to thorough criticism; and interest was beginning to turn to new questions or new ways of putting old ones. The year 1900 is thus a convenient date for ending an historical record. Reviewing this record as a whole, it may be possible to make some general remarks on the features which characterise three centuries of English thought.

English philosophy is one of the results of the awakening of the European mind known as the Renaissance. It had its roots in the older learning of the Scholastics; but its national character is seen clearly only after it began to be written in the English language. The intellectual ferment of the time, the wide sweep of its imagination, and its confidence in the future triumphs of mind were expressed by Bacon. Hobbes seized upon a leading conception of the new science, and by its aid constructed a system. Both made use of the ideas of their day, but in philosophy they were pioneers. After them English thought, like European thought generally, came under the influence of Descartes. But, from this time onwards, until the influence of Kant and Hegel made itself felt in the nineteenth century, English philosophy pursued an independent course. Spinoza was little known and

avoided-possibly for theological reasons. Leibniz was equally neglected—perhaps, in some measure, owing to the controversy with Newton. No doubt the disregard of these great thinkers entailed some loss; but it gave free course to original developments, and it did not prevent a powerful reaction of English upon continental philosophy. În France, Condillac and Helvétius drew their ideas from Locke; his influence and that of his followers among the deists were prominent in the period of the "Enlightenment" in France and Germany; and one side of his work culminated in Hume and stimulated Kant to a new criticism of knowledge. After Kant, and in the brilliant period of German speculation which followed, English influence diminished. The Scottish philosophy, it is true, had its echo in France; and, later in the nineteenth century, the empirical logic of John Stuart Mill, and the ideas of Darwin, which Spencer worked into a system, left their mark upon philosophy throughout the world. But, on the whole, philosophy in Great Britain not only lost its influence abroad but at home also began to pay the penalty for its independence. For a vigorous life the influence of new ideas from other strains of thought was needed; and these new ideas came from many quarters, but chiefly from the group of thinkers of whom Hegel was the greatest.

Before this influence made itself felt-especially in the earlier decades of the last century-English philosophy had suffered a decline: it was written in the minor key; the more speculative topics were avoided; and great figures were scarce. There was never any real gap in the development, any time at which thought was dead. But for the time it dwindled, whereas other periods, before and since, were marked by greater intensity, wider interests, and more influential thinkers. In the three centuries under review perhaps no other country can show more names of the first rank in philosophy and of greater permanent influence upon the course of human thought.

The English philosophers were not great systembuilders. Between Hobbes and Herbert Spencer there was no important writer who attempted a complete survey of the whole realm of thought from his point of view and articulated it into a system. The importance of philosophical ideas cannot be estimated rightly by their expression as a compact body of doctrine. Indeed there is a danger in the premature reduction of ideas to system. We need not say with Nietzsche that "the will to system is a lack of rectitude"; but the system-builder in philosophy has many temptations to stray from the path of strict intellectual honesty. Historians of philosophy also are apt to be unjust when they force the ideas of others into system and describe them by some general term. English writers-Locke in particular-have suffered much in this way at the hands of erudite German historians on the look-out for system rather than for thought; and Kuno Fischer has even described English philosophy as a whole as a stage in the development of realism or empiricism. It is unnecessary to discuss such a view, for it does not admit of defence and hardly of excuse. English philosophy produces a very different impression when its documents are read at first hand and without theoretical preconceptions. It is true that the problems and the issue of a particular type of thought may be traced, better than anywhere else, in the works of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, John Stuart Mill, and Spencer. But even their message is not exhausted by the term 'empiricism'; there is as good reason, for instance, to describe Locke as the first 'critical' philosopher as to call him the apostle of empiricism. Besides, there were never wanting representatives of a different outlook. Berkeley is improperly regarded as a thinker half-way between Locke and Hume; and the idealistic tradition was maintained throughout the centuries by Herbert of Cherbury, More, Cudworth, Norris, Shaftesbury, Reid, and many others-thinkers who fell short of the first rank but bear witness to the speculative insight of the English mind.