IMMANUEL KANT _Frontispiece_ MAP SHOWING THE DECENTRALIZATION OF EUROPE 13 MAP SHOWING THE BIRTHPLACES OF THE CHIEF PHILOSOPHERS OF THE RENAISSANCE 30 BARUCH DE SPINOZA 84 MAP SHOWING THE BIRTHPLACES OF SOME OF THE INFLUENTIAL THINKERS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 144 MAP SHOWING THE UNIVERSITY TOWNS AND OTHER IMPORTANT PLACES CONNECTED WITH THE GERMAN IDEALISTS 280 A BEGINNER’S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY VOLUME II MODERN PHILOSOPHY (1453 TO THE PRESENT TIME) CHAPTER I THE CHARACTERISTICS AND DIVISIONS OF THE MODERN PERIOD =The Difficulty in the Study of Modern Philosophy.= Beside the great spans of ancient and mediæval civilizations, the 450 years of the modern period seem brief. The road is indeed relatively short from mediæval times to the century in which we live, and yet it proves difficult to the student who travels it for the first time. Even for the modern mind the study of modern philosophy is inherently more difficult than that of the ancient and mediæval. The preceding periods present new points of view, but these, once attained, lead along comparatively easy ways. The chief difficulty of the preceding periods is overcome when their peculiar view of things is gained; but the student of modern philosophy is confronted with difficulties all along the way. In the first place, modern philosophy is very complex because it is a conflict of various aspirations. It has neither the objectivity of ancient thought nor the logical consistency of mediæval thought. It arises from subjective motives, whose shadings are difficult to trace. The task is rendered harder by the fact that intimations of the problems in the history of modern philosophy are on the whole present in the beginner’s mind; and yet at the same time his mind possesses, besides these, many mediæval notions as well. For the student to pass successfully through the entire length of modern thought from Cusanus to Spencer means, therefore, two things for him: (1) he must gain an insight into the depth and significance of his own half-formed ideas; (2) he must transcend or give up entirely his mediæval notions. If therefore philosophy represents the epoch that produces it,――either as the central principle or as the marginal and ulterior development of that epoch,――the modern can come to an understanding of the history of modern philosophy only by coming to an understanding of himself and his own inner reflections.