Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/492

 478 FERDINAND TONNIES : names of Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Biichner, Diihring, von Hartmann perhaps we must now add Nietzsche denote the common element in these tendencies. The new school tradition which had formed itself, although in divergent directions, has been quickly disintegrated. Concerning the result of the whole movement of which naturally the last phase affects us most for our present subject, we may hear the clear testimony of a thoughtful expert, which our own knowledge can only confirm. "Thus there appeared," says Eucken, "manifold systems and tendencies which side by side, or one after the other, asserted their power and predominance. But none succeeded in permanently maintaining its pre-eminence. This is manifest even in terminology. All these systems may be recognised in the terminology current in general scientific language, though in very different degrees (Hegel still predominates without question). There is indubitably present a certain syncretism, with all its defects and dangers. ... In particular societies and sects, indeed, a strict observance is maintained in rejecting everything alien. But the terms of such sects are like small coins, which are not current outside their narrow sphere. . . . With us Germans, for instance, so much of a manifold and contradictory nature has been accumulated, that the technical philosophical language hardly continues to form a medium of understanding." Since this was written (about twenty years ago) external conditions have somewhat altered. The study of philosophy at the univer- sities, after years of evanescence, has begun to revive ; but now under a new character which the whole development has been preparing : " everywhere we are beginning to philosophise from the basis of the sciences " (Paulsen). But the sciences from which the most energetic and hopeful start is made are not, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the natural sciences, but the mental sciences, which are drawing more closely together. Psychology and Sociology (which may also be called Social Psychology) form the centres, Biology constitutes the bridge between the two great spheres. But the improvement and influence of these sciences depends again upon the interaction of German thought with the thought of other languages. So far as universal (logico-speculative) philosophy is yet considered at all, there is no question that in this century German philo- sophy alone has won a rank for itself, and made its influence felt in all countries. It is different with the particular sciences and with that philosophy which would erect itself upon them. Here co-operation is manifold, though it may