The 19th Century and History

Abstract

In his lectures on modern philosophy, Josiah Royce presents a sweeping analysis of the uniquely historical character of philosophical inquiry in the 19th century. Royce’s inclusion of such a wide variety of converging thought in that century serves as a useful introduction into the amendments that nineteenth century thought made to the tendencies of the preceding era. The science of the 17th century had “deliberately neglected the history of things,” and looked at nature as it eternally is, particular natural events as subsumable under universal laws, and history as subsumable under mechanism.² The 18th century, whose Enlightenment philosophy we examined in the previous chapters, conceived of human nature as static, and postulated our access to that nature through an examination of the state of nature. The supposition of the permanence of human nature allowed Enlightenment philosophers to demonstrate the natural equality, freedom, and independence of humans and their endowment with natural rights and reason.

Our language, our institutions, our beliefs, our ideals, whatever in short, is the mightiest and dearest in all our world, all this together is a slow and hard-won growth, nobody’s arbitrary invention, no gift from above, no outcome of a social compact, no immediate expression of reason, but the slowly formed concretion of ages of blind effort, unconscious, but wise in its unconsciousness, often selfish, but humane even in its selfishness.¹

Josiah Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy