How, then, can this brief and imperfect sketch of the outline of the development of philosophy in the nineteenth century better come to a close than by words of encouragement and of exhortation as well. There are, in my judgment, the plainest signs that the somewhat too destructive and even nihilistic tendencies of the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century have reached their limit; that the strife of science and philosophy, and of both with religion, is lessening, and is being rapidly displaced by the spirit of mutual fairness and reciprocal helpfulness; and that reasonable hopes of a new and a splendid era of reconstruction in philosophy may be entertained. For I cannot agree with the _dictum_ of a recent writer on the subject, that "the sciences are coming less and less to admit of a synthesis, and not at all of a synthetic philosopher."
On the contrary, I hold that, with an increased confidence in the capacity of human reason to discover and validate the most secret and profound, as well as the most comprehensive, of truths, philosophy may well put aside some of its shyness and hesitancy, and may resume more of that audacity of imagination, sustained by ontological convictions, which characterized its work during the first half of the nineteenth century. And if the latter half of the twentieth century does for the constructions of the first half of the same century, what the latter half of the nineteenth century did for the first half of that century, this new criticism will only be to illustrate the way in which the human spirit makes every form of its progress.
Therefore, a summons of all helpers, in critical but fraternal spirit, to this work of reconstruction, for which two generations of enormous advance in the positive sciences has gathered new material, and for the better accomplishment of which both the successes and the failures of the philosophy of the nineteenth century have prepared the men of the twentieth century, is the winsome and imperative voice of the hour.
CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR A. C. ARMSTRONG, Wesleyan University. SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR A. E. TAYLOR, McGill University, Montreal. PROFESSOR ALEXANDER T. ORMOND, Princeton University. SECRETARY: PROFESSOR A. O. LOVEJOY, Washington University.