History of Modern Philosophy | Page 9

science, the rights and the riches of
individuality in the interest of piety; work for the future must not blind
us to the demands of the present nor lead us to neglect the
comprehensive cultivation of the natural capacities of the spirit. The
world and man are no longer viewed through Christian eyes, the one as
a realm of darkness and the other as a vessel of weakness and wrath,
but nature and life gleam before the new generation in joyous, hopeful
light. Humanism and optimism have always been allied.
This change in the spirit of thought is accompanied by a corresponding
change in the object of thought: theology must yield its supremacy to
the knowledge of nature. Weary of Christological and soteriological
questions, weary of disputes concerning the angels, the thinking spirit
longs to make himself at home in the world it has learned to love,
demands real knowledge,--knowledge which is of practical utility,--and
no longer seeks God outside the world, but in it and above it. Nature
becomes the home, the body of God. Transcendence gives place to
immanence, not only in theology, but elsewhere. Modern philosophy is
naturalistic in spirit, not only because it takes nature for its favorite
object, but also because it carries into other branches of knowledge the

mathematical method so successful in natural science, because it
considers everything sub ratione naturae and insists on the "natural"
explanation of all phenomena, even those of ethics and politics.
In a word, the tendency of modern philosophy is anti-Scholastic,
humanistic, and naturalistic. This summary must suffice for preliminary
orientation, while the detailed division, particularization, modification,
and limitation of these general points must be left for later treatment.
Two further facts, however, may receive preliminary notice. The
indifference and hostility to the Church which have been cited among
the prominent characteristics of modern philosophy, do not necessarily
mean enmity to the Christian religion, much less to religion in general.
In part, it is merely a change in the object of religious feeling, which
blazes up especially strong and enthusiastic in the philosophy of the
sixteenth century, as it transfers its worship from a transcendent deity
to a universe indued with a soul; in part, the opposition is directed
against the mediaeval, ecclesiastical form of Christianity, with its
monastic abandonment of the world. It was often nothing but a very
deep and strong religious feeling that led thinkers into the conflict with
the hierarchy. Since the elements of permanent worth in the tendencies,
doctrines, and institutions of the Middle Ages are thus culled out from
that which is corrupt and effete, and preserved by incorporation into the
new view of the world and the new science, and as fruitful elements
from antiquity enter with them, the progress of philosophy shows a
continuous enrichment in its ideas, intuitions, and spirit. The old is not
simply discarded and destroyed, but purified, transformed, and
assimilated. The same fact forces itself into notice if we consider the
relations of nationality and philosophy in the three great eras. The
Greek philosophy was entirely national in its origin and its public, it
was rooted in the character of the people and addressed itself to
fellow-countrymen; not until toward its decline, and not until
influenced by Christianity, were its cosmopolitan inclinations aroused.
The Middle Ages were indifferent to national distinctions, as to
everything earthly, and naught was of value in comparison with man's
transcendent destiny. Mediaeval philosophy is in its aims un-national,
cosmopolitan, catholic; it uses the Latin of the schools, it seeks

adherents in every land, it finds everywhere productive spirits whose
labors in its service remain unaffected by their national peculiarities.
The modern period returns to the nationalism of antiquity, but does not
relinquish the advantage gained by the extension of mediaeval thought
to the whole civilized world. The roots of modern philosophy are sunk
deep in the fruitful soil of nationality, while the top of the tree spreads
itself far beyond national limitations. It is national and cosmopolitan
together; it is international as the common property of the various
peoples, which exchange their philosophical gifts through an active
commerce of ideas. Latin is often retained for use abroad, as the
universal language of savants, but many a work is first published in the
mother-tongue--and thought in it. Thus it becomes possible for the
ideas of the wise to gain an entrance into the consciousness of the
people, from whose spirit they have really sprung, and to become a
power beyond the circle of the learned public. Philosophy as
illumination, as a factor in general culture, is an exclusively modern
phenomenon. In this speculative intercourse of nations, however, the
French, the English, and the Germans are most involved, both as
producers and consumers. France gives the initiative (in Descartes),
then England assumes the leadership (in