CHAPTER IV
ENGLISH NEO-HEGELIANISM
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[1] appears to be a reaction from the empiricist
- ↑ Green published nothing in his life-time but articles in reviews and an Introduction to the works of Hume (1874-75). After his death his Prolegomena to Ethics was edited by A. C. Bradley and published in 1883, and his complete works were collected and published in three volumes by Nettleship (Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1885).
