regarding the nature of the Real than we learn from the analysis of knowledge.

In yet another way we may show that Green's conclusions are of a serious nature for morality. Kant found room for freedom in a noumenal region; but there is no noumenal region of higher truth and deeper reality, unless the phenomenal is merely phenomenal, and unless its truth is the merely relative truth of appearance.1 Green makes phenomenal reality real reality; human knowledge becomes knowledge. Soul and World are now two sides of the same shield. asserts its unity, self-identity, and freedom by imposing law on the world—or by recognising law in the world. So far as man is a part of the world, he is therefore subjected to the hardest determinist necessity-and that in the sacred name of the freedom and spirituality of soul.

Soul

Hegel again had (if he cared to use it) his way of escape. His world did not contain merely the two regions of Kant's world-phenomenal and noumenal; it contained many regions. Thus it was easy for Hegel (if he liked) to say that, while from a lower point of view man's conduct is determined, yet from a higher (and truer) man's conduct is free. But Green cannot say this. He has not two regions-nor yet many regions-but only one region; it has two sides, but there is no actual or possible division between them. Green of course satisfied himself that his view of freedom met all the moral interests of the case; but no libertarian will concur in that estimate. And, as a matter of pure logic, it seems either that Green's

1 Confessedly, Kant's way of working out his solution is unsatisfying. See above, p. 57.

metaphysics of knowledge ought to have been Pantheistic, or that his ethics ought to have provided some separate personal freedom for man.

A further consequence of this fact, that Green interprets the Kantian analysis of knowledge in a theistic sense, is that his whole philosophy becomes religious. To Green, duty is an absolute revelation; in the service of duty we act for and with God. On the other hand, Green regards this as the whole of religion. He is as resolute as Dr. Edward Caird to admit no supernatural revelation or redemptive act. The systematic unity of all things is revealed and grasped in knowledge. God is the presupposition of that unity, and it has no other presupposition or condition. At least, however, Green does not offer us any of the heady stuff which suggests a region of religious or of philosophical truth jenseits des Guten und Bösen. And again we feel that Green is the least Hegelian of all those who have been attracted and instructed by Hegel.

CHAPTER VII

BRITISH HEGELIANISM-LATER PHASES

LITERATURE.-There is no general history of the movement, whether in its earlier or in its later modes. Dr. Stirling's As Regards Protoplasm, Mr. Sandeman's Problems of Biology, Mr. F. H. Bradley's Logic and Appearance and Reality, the Essays in Philosophical Criticism, Professor A. Seth Pringle-Pattison's later writings, especially Hegelianism and Personality, Professor Ritchie's Darwin and Hegel, Mr. Fairbrother's brief statement of The Philosophy of T. H. Green, and last-not least-Mr. M'Taggart's Studies in Hegelian Dialectic, are the works mainly relied on in what follows. Mr. M'Taggart's Studies in Hegelian Cosmology and Dr. Baillie's Hegel's Logic are partially dealt with in other chapters.

HITHERTO We have studied the founding of the British Hegelian faith by three great teachers-Dr. Stirling, Dr. E. Caird, and T. H. Green-who all concur in seeking an entrance to Hegel by means of the teaching of Kant. In what follows we have to study some phases of change affecting the progress of British Hegelianism. All that we can here notice may be grouped in three sections. First, we have to study the effect produced on the Hegelian movement by contact with Darwinism. Secondly, we must say a very little regarding the progress or transformations of thought manifested in the writings of Mr. F. H. Bradley. Thirdly, we observe

Professor A. Seth from a disciple becoming a critic, and evoking various replies.

But

If the appeal to Kant is the first great peculiarity of British Hegelianism, a second great influence upon its development is found in the movement towards a fusion with that naturalistic philosophy of evolution, whose leading names are Darwin and Mr. Spencer. Instead of confining ourselves to the mysterious and ideal evolution traced out by Hegel, may we not amend the master's statement so far as to hold that evolution is also to be recognised as a process in time? All the "Hegelian" school now admit this. may we further hold that this recognition-when we thoroughly understand what we are doing, and read the significance of the evolutional process in the light of its results-is not merely compatible with but equivalent to the central truths of idealist philosophy? Here doubts arise within the Hegelian school. It is a still further question whether the special hypotheses of Darwin-or of Spencer-correctly interpet the time process of evolution. On the whole, Spencer has been noticeably less successful than Darwin in securing the attention of Hegelian writers or gaining the suffrages of some. Darwin ascribes evolution to struggle for existence. In this biologically true? Is it the whole or at least the main biological truth? Is it susceptible of enlarged application?-to universalise it appears strictly impossible.1 These questions still remain for discussion. The present writer believes that he can date almost or absolutely to a year the change of attitude in Dr. E. Caird's class lectures, when that great 1 See below, Chap. IX.

teacher ceased to regard Darwinism as a hypothesis, itself "struggling for existence" against formidable rivals, and made acknowledgment of it as-at least in measuree-a plain statement of facts.1 What was of chief significance then was the assertion of evolution as an actual process in time; but with this admission the subtle yet questionable Darwinian theory tended to gain acceptance, and to modify the currents of thought in the Hegelian school. From that time onwards the movement has been divided. With great scorn, and with keen critical power, Dr. Stirling repudiates Darwin as a mere charlatan in metaphysics and even in science. While not inclined, any more than his colleagues, to deny the fact of evolution as a time process, Dr. Stirling refuses to consider it a significant fact, and brands the hypothesis of struggle for existence, the assumed cause of evolutionary progress, as inconsistent with the evidence and speculatively absurd. As often as a union of Darwinism with Hegelianism is proposed, Dr. Stirling forbids the banns. The same attitude is powerfully presented— without the element of personal attack on Darwin—in Mr. George Sandeman's Problems of Biology. On the other hand, Professor Alexander's Moral Order and Progress represents pretty much the transition from Green to naturalistic evolutionism; while Professor Ritchie's Darwin and Hegel stands for the pure neutral synthesis-Hegel the idealistic truth of Darwinism, Darwin the palpable realistic verification of Hegel, struggle for existence a formula to be maintained and enforced at all hazards. Green's sympathies

1 In 1875-76 the attitude of agreement was recent if not absolutely

new.