[Footnote 1: Cf. Nedich, Die Lehre von der Quantifikation des Prädikats in vol. iii. of Wundt's Philosophische Studien; L. Liard, Les Logiciens Anglais Contemporains, 1878; Al. Riehl in vol. i. of the Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 1877 [cf. also appendix A to the English translation of Ueberweg's Logic.—TR.].]
German idealism, for which S.T. Coleridge (died 1834) and Thomas Carlyle (died 1881) endeavored to secure an entrance into England, for a long time gained ground there but slowly. Later years, however, have brought increasing interest in German speculation, and much of recent thinking shows the influence of Kantian and Hegelian principles. As pioneer of this movement we may name J.H. Stirling (The Secret of Hegel, 1865); and as its most prominent representatives John Caird (An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, 1880), Edward Caird (The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, 1889; The Evolution of Religion, 1893), both in Glasgow, and T.H. Green (1836-82; professor at Oxford; Prolegomena to Ethics, 3d ed., 1887; Works, edited by Nettleship, 3 vols., 1885-88).[1] In opposition to the hereditary empiricism of English philosophy—which appears in Spencer and Lewes, as it did in Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, though in somewhat altered form—Green maintains that all experience is constituted by intelligible relations. Knowledge, therefore, is possible only for a correlating self-consciousness; while nature, as a system of relations, is likewise dependent on a spiritual principle, of which it is the expression. Thus the central conception of Green's philosophy becomes, "that the universe is a single eternal activity or energy, of which it is the essence to be self-conscious, that is, to be itself and not itself in one" (Nettleship). To this universal consciousness we are related as manifestations or "communications" under the limitations of our physical organization. As such we are free, that is, self-determined, determined by nothing from without. The moral ideal is self-realization or perfection, the progressive reproduction of the divine self-consciousness. This is possible only in terms of a development of persons, for as a self-conscious personality the divine spirit can reproduce itself in persons alone; and, since "social life is to personality what language is to thought," the realization of the moral ideal implies life in common. The nearer determination of the ideal is to be sought in the manifestations of the eternal spirit as they have been given in the moral history of individuals and nations. This shows what has already been implied in the relation of morality to personality and society, that moral good must first of all be a common good, one in which the permanent well-being of self includes the well-being of others also. This is the germ of morality, the development of which yields, first, a gradual extension of the area of common good, and secondly, a fuller and more concrete determination of its content. Further representatives of this movement are W. Wallace, Adamson, Bradley; A. Seth is an ex-member.
[Footnote 1: Cf. on Green the Memoir by Nettleship in vol. iii. of the Works.]
The first and greatest of American philosophical thinkers was the Calvinistic theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-58; treatise on the Freedom of Will, 1754; Works, 10 vols., edited by Dwight, 1830). Edwards's deterministic doctrine found numerous adherents (among them his son, who bore his father's name, died 1801) as well as strenuous opponents (Tappan, Whedon, Hazard among later names), and essentially contributed to the development of philosophical thought in the United States. For a considerable period this crystallized for the most part around elements derived from British thinkers, especially from Locke and the Scottish School. In 1829 James Marsh called attention to German speculation [1] by his American edition of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, with an important introduction from his own hand. Later W.E. Channing (1780-1842), the head of the Unitarian movement, attracted many young and brilliant minds, the most noted of whom, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), became a leader among the New England transcendentalists. Metaphysical idealism has, perhaps, met with less resistance in America than in England. Kant and Hegel have been eagerly studied (G.S. Morris, died 1889; C.C. Everett; J. Watson in Canada; Josiah Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 1892; and others); and The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, edited by W.T. Harris, has since 1867 furnished a rallying point for idealistic interests. The influence of Lotze has also been considerable (B.P. Bowne in Boston). Sympathy with German speculation, however, has not destroyed the naturally close connection with the work of writers who use the English tongue. Thus Spencer's writings have had a wide currency, and his system numbers many disciples, though these are less numerous among students of philosophy by profession (John Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 1874).
[Footnote 1: Cf. Porter, op. cit.]
In the latest decades the broadening of the national life, the increasing acquaintance with foreign thought, and the rapid development of university work have greatly enlarged and deepened the interest in philosophical pursuits. This is manifested most clearly in the field of psychology, including especially the "new" or "physiological" psychology, and the history of philosophy, though indications of pregnant thought in other departments, as ethics and the philosophy of religion, and even of independent construction, are not wanting. Among psychologists of the day we may mention G.S. Hall, editor of The American Journal of Psychology (1887 seq.), G.T. Ladd (Elements of Physiological Psychology, 1887), and William James (Principles of Psychology, 1890). The International Journal of Ethics (Philadelphia, 1890 seq.), edited by S. Burns Weston, is "devoted to the advancement of ethical knowledge and practice"; among the foreign members of its editorial committee are Jodl and Von Gizycki. The weekly journal of popular philosophy, The Open Court, published in Chicago, has for its object the reconciliation of religion and science; the quarterly, The Monist (1890 seq.), published by the same company under the direction of Paul Carus (The Soul of Man, 1891), the establishment of a monistic view of the world. Several journals, among them the Educational Review (1891 seq., edited by N.M. Butler), point to a growing interest in pedagogical inquiry. The American Philosophical Review (1892 seq., edited by J.G. Schurman, The Ethical Import of Darwinism, 1887) is a comprehensive exponent of American philosophic thought.
%4. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Holland.%
In Sweden an empirical period represented by Leopold (died 1829) and Th. Thorild (died 1808), and based upon Locke and Rousseau, was followed, after the introduction of Kant by D. Boëthius, 1794, by a drift toward idealism. This was represented in an extreme form by B. Höijer (died 1812), a contemporary and admirer of Fichte, who defended the right of philosophical construction, and more moderately by Christofer Jacob Böstrom (1797-1866), the most important systematic thinker of his country. As predecessors of Böstrom we may mention Biberg (died 1827), E.G. Geijer (died 1846), and S. Grubbe (died 1853), like him professors in Upsala, and of his pupils, S. Ribbing, known in Germany by his peculiar conception of the Platonic doctrine of ideas (German translation, 1863-64), the moralist Sahlin (1877), the historian, of Swedish philosophy[1] (1873 seq.) A. Nyblaeus of Lund, and H. Edfeldt of Upsala, the editor of Böstrom's works (1883).
[Footnote 1: Cf. Höffding, Die Philosophie in Schweden in the Philosophische Monatshefte, vol. xv. 1879, p. 193 seq.]
Böstrom's philosophy is a system of self-activity and personalism which recalls Leibnitz and Krause. The absolute or being is characterized as a concrete, systematically articulated, self-conscious unity, which dwells with its entire content in each of its moments, and whose members both bear the character of the whole and are immanent in one another, standing in relations of organic inter-determination. The antithesis between unity and plurality is only apparent, present only for the divisive view of finite consciousness. God is infinite, fully determinate personality (for determination is not limitation), a system of self-dependent living beings, differing in degree, in which we, as to our true being, are eternally and unchangeably contained. Every being is a definite, eternal, and living thought of God; thinking beings with their states and activities alone exist; all that is real is spiritual, personal. Besides this true, suprasensible world of Ideas, which is elevated above space, time, motion, change, and development, and which has not arisen by creation or a process of production, there exists for man, but only for him—man is formally perfect, it is true, but materially imperfect (since he represents the real from a limited standpoint)—a sensuous world of phenomena as the sphere of his activity. To this he himself belongs, and in it he is spontaneously to develop the suprasensible content which is eternally given him (i.e., his true nature), namely, to raise it from the merely potential condition of obscure presentiment to clear, conscious actuality. Freedom is the power to overcome our imperfection by means of our true nature, to realize our suprasensible capacities, to become for ourselves what we are in ourselves (in God). The ethics of Böstrom is distinguished from the Kantian ethics, to which it is related, chiefly by the fact that it seeks to bring sensibility into a more than merely negative relation to reason. Society is an eternal, and also a personal, Idea in God. The most perfect form of government is constitutional monarchy; the ideal goal of history, the establishment of a system of states embracing all mankind.