ple for explaining the system of things. Some of the
questions which it leaves unanswered, and some of the facts which
it overlooks, have been pointed out in last lecture. Of this theory
perhaps enough has already been said.

In spite of the increased vogue which naturalism has obtained from its
alliance with triumphant evolutionism, it cannot be said to represent
the prevailing type of thought amongst the English metaphysicians
of the last generation. That generation was remarkable for the
reappearance in this country of a reasoned Idealism; and all forms of
Idealism have at least this in common, that they refuse to look upon
the material process as the ultimate character of reality--so far as
reality is known or knowable.

It may also be said--and this is a characteristic which is not merely
negative--that all forms of Idealism agree in ascribing special
significance to the moral and religious aspects of life. This holds
true of the great idealists, different as their types of thought may
be--of Plato and Aristotle, of Spinoza and Leibniz, of Kant, Fichte,
and Hegel. It holds true also of the leading representatives of recent
English idealism. But the ethical tone of a treatise and the ethical
interest of its author are not always a guarantee that ethical
conceptions have a secure position in his system of thought. This is
the case, I think, with Spinoza; and it seems to me to hold also of
some writers of the present day. Mr Bradley, for instance, is perhaps
the most influential, as he is without doubt not the least brilliant,
of contemporary metaphysicians; he carries on the tradition of a
school of thought predominantly ethical; his first book was a defence
of the ethical positions of that school; but, if we turn to the
elaborate metaphysical treatise which has resulted from his mature
reflexion, its most impressive feature will be found to be the almost
complete bankruptcy of the system in the region of ethics.

Not only had this idealist movement in its beginnings a predominantly
ethical tone. It was really started in the interest of moral ideals as
well as of intellectual thoroughness; and its contribution of greatest
value to English thought was a work on ethics. The 'Prolegomena
to Ethics' of T.H. Green was a fitting result of his unwearied
controversies in defence of the spiritual nature of man and the
universe. No one is more worthy than he to be called by the Platonic
name a 'friend of ideas,' And he was