e Utilitarian position, and point out how they
prepared the way for the later developments of thought. The
Utilitarians were opposed to a vague sentiment rather than to any
definite system. They were a small and a very unpopular sect. They
excited antipathy on all sides. As advocating republicanism, they were
hardly more disliked by the Tories, who directly opposed them, than by
the Whigs, who might be suspected of complicity. As enthusiastic
political economists, they were equally detested by sentimental
Radicals, Socialists, and by all who desired a strong government,
whether for the suppression of social evils or the maintenance of
social abuses. And now, as suspected of atheism, they were hated by
theologians. But though the Utilitarians were on all sides condemned
and denounced, they were met by no definite and coherent scheme of
philosophy. The philosophy of Stewart and Brown had at least a strong
drift in their direction. Though 'political economy' was denounced in
general terms, all who spoke with authority accepted Adam Smith. Their
political opponents generally did not so much oppose their theories as
object to theory in general. The Utilitarian system might be both
imperfect and dogmatic; but it had scarcely to contend with any clear
and assignable rival. The dislike of Englishmen to any systematic
philosophy, whether founded upon the national character or chiefly due
to special conditions, was still conspicuous outside of the small
Utilitarian camp.

To discover, therefore, the true position of contemporary opinion, we
should have to look elsewhere. Instead of seeking for the philosophers
who did not exist, we should have to examine the men of letters who
expressed the general tendencies. In Germany, philosophical theories
may be held to represent the true drift of the national mind, and a
historian of German thought would inquire into the various systems
elaborated by professors of philosophy. He would at least be in no
want of materials for definite logical statements. In England, there
was no such intellectual movement. There we should have to consider
poetry and literature; to read Wordsworth and Coleridge, Scott and
Byron and Shelley, if we would know what men were really thinking and
feeling. The difficulty is, of course, that none of these men, unless
Coleridge be an exception, had any conscious or systematic philosophy.
We can only ask, therefore, what they would have said if they had
been requested