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Nor ought we to allow the opposition between them to mislead us into expecting to find everywhere perfect correlation and entire correspondence between the two sides. On the very face of it, there is a wide and obvious difference in their develop- ment. For realism at first manifested itself only in timid attempts ; such systems as were propounded were merely ten- tative and of no real importance ; it was not until compara- tively late that the names of pioneers like Locke, Hume, and Condillac came into prominence. Idealism, on the other hand, made its appearance quite suddenly, in the system of a man who developed his theory in conscious opposition, not merely to the sceptics and mystics, but also to Locke and the English moralists, and who therefore may be said to have wrought along a line that covers the work of the whole of these thinkers. In fact, he carried his idealism to a point corresponding to that stage in the development of realism which is occupied by Condillac. prev next |