§ 197. Though the many philosophies be inevitable, it must not be concluded that there is therefore no progress in philosophy. The solution from which every great philosophy is precipitated is the mingled wisdom of some latest age, with all of its inheritance. The "positive" knowledge furnished by the sciences, the refinements and distinctions of the philosophers, the ideals of society--these and the whole sum of civilization are its ingredients. Where there is no single system of philosophy significant enough to express the age, as did the systems of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, and the others who belong to the roll of the great philosophers, there exists a _general sophistication_, which is more elusive but not less significant. The present age--at any rate from its own stand-point--is not an age of great philosophical systems. Such systems may indeed be living in our midst unrecognized; but historical perspective cannot safely be anticipated. It is certain that no living voice is known to speak for this generation as did Hegel, and even Spencer, for the last. There is, however, a significance in this very passing of Hegel and Spencer,--an enlightenment peculiar to an age which knows them, but has philosophically outlived them. There is a moral in the history of thought which just now no philosophy, whether naturalism, or transcendentalism, realism or idealism, can fail to draw. The characterization of this contemporary eclecticism or sophistication, difficult and uncertain as it must needs be, affords the best summary and interpretation with which to conclude this brief survey of the fortunes of philosophy. [Sidenote: Metaphysics. The Antagonistic Doctrines of Naturalism and Absolutism.] § 198. Since the problem of metaphysics is the crucial problem of philosophy, the question of its present status is fundamental in any characterization of the age. It will appear from the foregoing account of the course of metaphysical development that two fundamental tendencies have exhibited themselves from the beginning. The one of these is naturalistic and empirical, representing the claims of what common sense calls "matters of fact"; the other is transcendental and rational, representing the claims of the standards and ideals which are immanent in experience, and directly manifested in the great human interests of thought and action. These tendencies have on the whole been antagonistic; and the clear-cut and momentous systems of philosophy have been fundamentally determined by either the one or the other.