The Contribution of Professor Hobhouse to Philosophy and Sociology

THE driving force of Hobhouse's thought was an ardent humanitarianism, an intense desire to serve mankind, by bringing to bear upon the problems of human life the methods and principles of rational thought. Quite early in his career as an undergraduate at Oxford (I883-87), he became convinced that an adequate understanding of social problems could be reached only on the basis of an underlying philosophy, and throughout his work the philosophic spirit, the urgent demand for an all-round or synoptic view characterised both his treatment of scientific data and his handling of practical affairs. His passion for humanity and justice gave him tremendous energy and driving power, while his love of truth and rare intellectual candour and willingness to profit from criticism and experience led him to ever fresh fields of investigation and ever deeper analysis of the foundations of knowledge. He illustrates in his life work his own view of reason as a continuous and comprehensive effort towards harmony in experience, whether in the field of practice or speculation, and those who saw him at work, whether as a teacher, journalist or chairman of trade boards, will have recognised in his endeavours the very same spirit which in other fields was exhibited in his persistent attempts at wider and more inclusive syntheses of the results of empirical research and metaphysical speculation. The formative influences in his early career were the work of Spencer, the positivism of Comte (especially as interpreted by Bridges), and the social philosophy of Mill and Green. From Spencer he inherited the ambition for a philosophy which should be a synthesis of all the sciences, though he came to see that such a synthesis does not exhaust the entire field of philosophy, which, in his view, should include not only the scientific interpretation of reality, but every sort of appreciation of the real which conformed

Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography

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