Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century: Literary PortraitsBrandes, Georg
History
Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century: Literary Portraits
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism
It would not be in place in these pages to treat of the real
significance of the controversy between the two modern schools, a
problem which, in Germany, by almost all thinkers, is solved from the
Teutonic point of view; as a matter of course, Stuart Mill would not
admit that David Hume had been refuted by Kant, an opinion which I now
thoroughly share with him, and which I believe will be universally
prevalent when the Kant worship begins to be somewhat on the decline.
(I already find a trace of this change of conception in Germany in
Fr. Paulsen's admirable work on Kant's "Theory of Knowledge.") At that
time, to be sure, I had a presentiment that there must be some way of
reconciling the rationalistic and the empiric theory of knowledge, but
I did not yet know Herpert Spencer's simple solution of the problem.
Mill spoke briefly but decidedly against all attempts at mediation, and
concluded, with the mingling of modesty and decision that was peculiar
to him, in the following words, which have remained fixed in my memory,
"I believe that we must choose between the theories."
In the same spirit he expressed himself concerning the various
modern philosophers, whose thought was nearly related to his own. He
recommended me to become acquainted with Herbert Spencer, yet would
not advise me, he said, to study Spencer's later works; he thought
that in these Spencer had deviated from the "good method." On the
other hand, he urgently commended to me Spencer's "Principles of
Psychology," and the two chief works of his, in my estimation, far
less intellectual contemporary Bain,--"The Senses and the Intellect"
and "The Emotions and the Will." He presented me with a copy of the
"Analysis of the Human Mind," by his much-revered father (the edition
prepared and supplied with notes by himself and Bain), extolling the
book to me as the main work of the English school in this century;
and I having expressed to him my admiration of his critique of
Hamilton's philosophy, he sent me the book the very next day. Almost
of itself the conversation fell on Taine's recently issued volume, "De
l'intelligence," in which Mill is so zealously investigated, profited
by, and refuted, and in which the English tendency has perhaps placed
its most enduring monument in French philosophy. Mill praised Taine,
called his book one of the most profound and important works of modern
France, and said about the same things to me regarding it that I found
repeated later in his review of it ("Fortnightly Review," July, 1870).
As a whole, he liked the book; but he had the same kind of objections
to offer against the last chapters as against the later works of
Herbert Spencer. We must, according to his conviction, most decidedly
"choose," once for all, between the conditional knowledge of empiricism
and the absolute certainty of intuition, and Taine, in the last volume
of his work, had attempted to establish axioms which, not being derived
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