Victor Cousin is given the astonishing amount of space of eleven columns; but just why he should have been treated in this extravagant manner is not clear, for we are told that his search for principles was not profound and that he “left no distinctive, permanent principles of philosophy.” Nor does it seem possible that he should draw nearly as much space as Rousseau and Montesquieu combined simply because he left behind interesting analyses and expositions of the work of Locke and the Scottish philosophers. Even Comte is given only four and a half columns more.
The English philosophers of the nineteenth century before John Stuart Mill are awarded space far in excess of their importance, comparatively speaking. For instance, James Mill receives two columns of biography; Coleridge, who “did much to deepen and liberalize Christian thought in England,” five and three-fourths columns; Carlyle, nine and two-thirds columns; William Hamilton, two and three-fourths columns; Henry Mansel, a disciple of Hamilton’s, two-thirds of a column; Whewell, over a column; and Bentham, over three and a half columns.
Bentham’s doctrines “have become so far part of the common thought of the time, that there is hardly an educated man who does not accept as too clear for argument truths which were invisible till Bentham pointed them out.... The services rendered by Bentham to the world would not, however, be exhausted even by the practical adoption of every one of his recommendations. There are no limits to the good results of his introduction of a true method of reasoning into the moral and political sciences.” John Stuart Mill, whose philosophy is “generally spoken of as being typically English,” receives nine and a half columns; Charles Darwin, seven columns; and Herbert Spencer, over five.
Positivism in Germany is represented by Dühring in a biography which is only three-fourths of a column in length—an article which is merely an attack, both personal and general. “His patriotism,” we learn, “is fervent, but narrow and exclusive.” (Dühring idolized Frederick the Great.) Ardigò, the important Italian positivist, receives no mention whatever in the Encyclopædia, although in almost any adequate history of modern philosophy, even a brief one, you will find a discussion of his work.
With the exception of Lotze, the philosophers of the new idealism receive scant treatment in the Britannica. Hartmann and Fechner are accorded only one column each; and Wilhelm Wundt, whose æsthetic and psychological researches outstrip even his significant philosophical work, is accorded only half a column! Francis Herbert Bradley has no biography—a curious oversight, since he is English; and Fouillée receives only a little over half a column.
The most inadequate and prejudiced treatment in the Britannica of any modern philosopher is to be found in the biography of Nietzsche, which is briefer than Mrs. Humphry Ward’s! Not only is Nietzsche accorded less space than is given to such British philosophical writers as Dugald Stewart, Henry Sidgwick, Richard Price, John Norris, Thomas Hill Green, James Frederick Ferrier, Adam Ferguson, Ralph Cudworth, Anthony Collins, Arthur Collier, Samuel Clarke and Alexander Bain—an absurd and stupid piece of narrow provincial prejudice—but the biography itself is superficial and inaccurate. The supposed doctrine of Nietzsche is here used to expose the personal opinions of the tutor of Corpus Christi College who was assigned the task of interpreting Nietzsche to the readers of the Britannica. It would be impossible to gather any clear or adequate idea of Nietzsche and his work from this biased and moral source. Here middle-class British insularity reaches its high-water mark.
Other important modern thinkers, however, are given but little better treatment. Lange receives only three-fourths of a column; Paulsen, less than half a column; Ernst Mach, only seventeen lines; Eucken, only twenty-eight lines, with a list of his works; and Renouvier, two-thirds of a column. J. C. Maxwell, though, the Cambridge professor, gets two columns—twice the space given Nietzsche!
In the biography of William James we discern once more the contempt which England has for this country. Here is a man whose importance is unquestioned even in Europe, and who stands out as one of the significant figures in modern thought; yet the Encyclopædia Britannica, that “supreme book of knowledge,” gives him a biography of just twenty-eight lines! And it is Americans who are furnishing the profits for this English reference work!
Perhaps the British editors of this encyclopædia think that we should feel greatly complimented at having William James admitted at all when so many other important moderns of Germany and France and America are excluded. But so long as unimportant English philosophical writers are given biographies, we have a right to expect, in a work which calls itself an “international dictionary of biography,” the adequate inclusion of the more deserving philosophers of other nations.
But what do we actually find? You may hunt the Encyclopædia Britannica through, yet you will not see the names of John Dewey and Stanley Hall mentioned! John Dewey, an American, is perhaps the world’s leading authority on the philosophy of education; but the British editors of the Encyclopædia do not consider him worth noting, even in a casual way. Furthermore, Stanley Hall, another American, who stands in the front rank of the world’s genetic psychologists, is not so much as mentioned. And yet Hall’s great work, Adolescence, appeared five years before the Britannica went to press! Nor has Josiah Royce a biography, despite the fact that he was one of the leaders in the philosophical thought of America, and was even made an LL.D. by Aberdeen University in 1900. These omissions furnish excellent examples of the kind of broad and universal culture which is supposed to be embodied in the Britannica.