Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/379

Rh forms under which this principle manifests itself, he will have mastered the mystery of all things. From the year 1818, the date of Hegel's election to the chair of philosophy in the University of Berlin, till the break-up of his school, about 1850, his thought dominated the intellect of Germany to a degree unparalleled, and from 1865 till the present time, it has wielded power in the British and, to a lesser extent, in the American universities. The reason for this is patent. No other thinker entertained modern views. In the English-speaking countries particularly, men faced the past, not the future. Hegel, on the contrary, whatever may be said in his despite, had carried the dynamic, organic and evolutionary explanation into every corner of the humanistic realm. Nevertheless, he and his disciples must bear the chief responsibility for the estrangement between science and philosophy throughout forty years (1850-90) of the nineteenth century. Why?

In the first place, this, the most influential system of modern philosophy, had been completed to all intents and purposes by the year 1816. And, unfortunately, this statement implies another. In 1816, modern science was as yet unborn. Of course, one does not forget the work of Haller, at Göttingen; of Cuvier and Bichat; of Treviranus, who was the first to use the term 'biology,' in 1802; and, above all, one calls to mind Charles Bell's capital discovery, in 1811. Still, all these died in the faith, they having received not the promises. In France, mathematical science maintained its glorious history, thanks partly to the favor of Napoleon. In Germany, the rule of the modern scientific spirit dates from 1826, with the foundation of Liebig's laboratory at Giessen. In Britain, all the great advances. Bell's excepted, fall within the domain of astronomy, physics and the older chemistry. Yet, despite this meager knowledge, as we deem it now, of the intricacies of nature, a thinker dared to present an absolute philosophy—a key to all the mysteries.

In the second place, the interpretation of Hegel's system by his followers, if not its elaboration by himself, had become increasingly formal, perhaps abstract, just at the moment when science was making some of its most astonishing discoveries. Small wonder, then, that investigators of nature, successful beyond all precedent, turned in contempt from a philosophy which seemed to them, rightly or wrongly, a species of revived scholasticism. Moreover, the bitter attacks on Hegel emanating from workers on the philosophical side, like Herbart and his pupils, who appeared to be, and possibly were, sympathetic with scientific methods, served to deepen this impression. By 1865, when the cry, 'Back to Kant!' had taken effective possession of many and was emphasizing the importance, for science, of a certain interpretation of Kant's thought, this antagonism crystallized finally.

Lastly, Hegel's 'Naturphilosophie,' containing his account of those