INTRODUCTION
1. The Reaction from Intellectualism in Contemporary Philosophy.
— One of the essential characteristics of
contemporary thought is undoubtedly the reaction
from intellectualism in all its forms. The mind of
man, which could not rest content with a simple
transference of results attained by the methods of the natural
sciences to the realm of philosophy, and was reluctant
to stay its steps on the threshold of the dim temple of
the Unknowable, sought within itself other and deeper
activities which should throw open the portals of mystery.
Art, moral life, and religious belief were called upon to fill
the void left by scientific knowledge; and the reaction
went so far as to extend to the human intellect as a
whole a distrust which should have been confined
to scientific naturalism and its claim to be able to
comprehend the infinite riches of mind and nature
within a few mechanical formulas. The ruined shrines
of the Goddess of Reason, who for so long had tyrannised
over the mind, were invaded by the rebel forces of
feeling, will, imagination, and every obscure and primitive
instinct: thus it came about that Schopenhauer achieved
a posthumous triumph over his hated rival Hegel, whose
hearers he had in his lifetime vainly endeavoured to
entice away, even though he fixed his own lectures for
the same hour. Once the blind power of impulse was
exalted and the sure guidance of the intellect abandoned,
the door was opened to every kind of arbitrary speculation;
hence the confusion, Byzantinism, and dabbling
in philosophy which during the last twenty years have
