ss are thus differentiating into two distinct types,
corresponding to two radically opposed political theories and appealing
to two antagonistic temperaments. The one type is that of constructive
idealists and socialists, who can name all the streets and towers
of "the city of gold," which they imagine as situated just round a
promontory. The development of man is a closed system; its term is known
and is within reach. The other type is that of those who, surveying
the gradual ascent of man, believe that by the same interplay of forces
which have conducted him so far and by a further development of
the liberty which he has fought to win, he will move slowly towards
conditions of increasing harmony and happiness. Here the development
is indefinite; its term is unknown, and lies in the remote future.
Individual liberty is the motive force, and the corresponding political
theory is liberalism; whereas the first doctrine naturally leads to a
symmetrical system in which the authority of the state is preponderant,
and the individual has little more value than a cog in a well-oiled
wheel: his place is assigned; it is not his right to go his own way. Of
this type the principal example that is not socialistic is, as we shall
see, the philosophy of Comte.

CHAPTER XIII. GERMAN SPECULATIONS ON PROGRESS

1.

The philosophical views current in Germany during the period in which
the psychology of Locke was in fashion in France and before the genius
of Kant opened a new path, were based on the system of Leibnitz. We
might therefore expect to find a theory of Progress developed there,
parallel to the development in France though resting on different
principles. For Leibnitz, as we saw, provided in his cosmic optimism
a basis for the doctrine of human Progress, and he had himself
incidentally pointed to it. This development, however, was delayed. It
was only towards the close of the period--which is commonly known as
the age of "Illumination"--that Progress came to the front, and it is
interesting to observe the reason.

Wolf was the leading successor and interpreter of Leibnitz. He
constrained that thinker's ideas into a compact logical system which
swayed Germany till Kant swept it away. In such cases it usually
happens that some striking doctrines and tendencies of the master are
accentuated and enforced, while others are suffered to drop out of
sight.

So it was here. In the Wolfian system, Leibnitz's conception of
develo