the demands of pure reason yielded as under irresistible pressure,—while the solvent force of unrestrained reason was itself important in inducing the change. After the hellenistic and the patristic directions of thought got under weigh the ideal of unhampered reason entered upon days which impress us at this distance as utterly calamitous, and the subordination of reason to faith is viewed as a spectacle lamentable in the extreme. But the era which made philosophy the handmaid of theology was also regarding the social welfare, naturally and inevitably. For just as with the Greeks over-emphasis upon freedom from Church control is misleading, so also with the middle ages neglect of the State aspect of Church control produces a distorted impression. The viewpoint had changed but not the basic condition for viewing the world and life. And so after religion had yielded to science as dominant interest with the attendant shifting of emphasis from the transcendental to the positive—the same concern for social welfare continued, from the Renaissance on in increasing measure. The assertion that 'knowledge is power' was but one expression of a growing utilitarianism which embraced speculation as well as practice; and the concerted development of pure and applied science is a significant mark of the modern recognition that knowledge must serve social welfare.[1] In short, man's ultimate concern must be for himself even when he seems to be concerned for truth alone.
Thus out of the history of thought, and into the situation of our own day especially it is sufficiently clear that other determinants besides disinterested reason have entered into the search for truth. And whether we examine the "Causes of Error" to
- ↑ The thought of modern England and France best illustrates this utilitarian emphasis. The matter is put in admirable form by Leslie Stephen when he says that "it is not to be forgotten that the prestige of modern science depends in great measure upon its application to purposes of direct utility" (History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 1881, vol. 1, p. 11). The shifting of emphasis to man as the object of primary concern began in Italy, where also empirical science was first really established by Galileo.
very natural conclusion of his life work when viewed from this angle. The centrifugal forces as distinguished from the centripetal forces, to use Pater's illuminating phraseology, were uniformly the object of Plato's disapproval, though for the rest he represents the quintessence of Greek free inquiry. The difficulty is removed when one gives due place to his concern for the common good.
