Page:The Idealistic Reaction Against Science (1914).djvu/119



1. Two Attempts at Escape from the Agnostic Position. — Thinkers have tried to escape from the agnostic position in two different ways: one, whose course we have followed through neo-criticism and empirio-criticism, aims at the critical elimination of the problem by the reduction of all reality to phenomena only, and the dismissal of that Absolute which appeared to baffle knowledge, a proceeding reminding us of a child who imagines that by shutting his eyes to something of which he is afraid he can destroy it; the other is the return to that speculative method which positivism had vainly endeavoured to replace by science. Some of these speculative attempts, which were inspired by post-Kantian idealism, have been already treated in their relation to neo-criticism; this applies more especially to those which are closely connected with the teaching of Fichte, Schelling, and Schopenhauer, and which are more or less deeply tinged with romanticism and irrationalism; we must now sketch the outlines of that movement of thought which arose in England in opposition to traditional empiricism and its ultimate tendency, agnostic positivism, claiming to be able to supply that which was lacking in scientific intellectualism, and reaching in the works of Hegel a higher form of rationalism.

2. The Eternity of Thought, as Affirmed by Green in Opposition to Empiricism. — The philosophy of Thomas Hill Green appears to be a reaction from the empiricist