The Biographical History of Philosophy from Its Origin in Greece Down to the Present Day

INTRODUCTION.

§ I. ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY And Science.

PHILOSOPHY is everywhere in Europe fallen into discredit. Once the pride and glory of the greatest intellects, and still forming an important element of liberal culture, its present decadence is attested no less by the complaints of its few followers than by the thronging ranks of its opponents. Few now believe in its large promises; still fewer devote to it that passionate patience which is devoted by thousands to Science. Every day the conviction gains strength that Philosophy is condemned, by the very nature of its impulses, to wander forever in one tortuous labyrinth within whose circumscribed and winding spaces weary seekers are continually finding themselves in the trodden tracks of predecessors, who, they know, could find no exit.

Philosophy has been ever in movement, but the movement has been circular; and this fact is thrown into stronger relief by contrast with the linear progress of Science. Instead of perpetually finding itself, after years of gigantic endeavor, returned to the precise point from which it started, Science finds itself year by year, and almost day by day, advancing step by step, each accumulation of power adding to the momentum of its progress; each evolution, like the evolutions of organic development, bringing with it a new functional superiority, which in its turn becomes the agent of higher developments. Not a fact is discovered but has its bearing on the whole body of doctrine; not a mechanical improvement in the construction of instruments but opens fresh sources of discovery. Onward, and forever onward, mightier and forever mightier, rolls this wondrous tide of discovery, and the "thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns." While the first principles of Philosophy are to this day as much a matter of dispute as they were two thousand years ago, the first principles of Science are securely established,

and form the guiding lights of European progress. Precisely the same questions are agitated in Germany at the present moment that were agitated in ancient Greece; and with no more certain Methods of solving them, with no nearer hopes of ultimate success. The History of Philosophy presents the spectacle of thousands of intellects-some the greatest that have made our race illustrious steadily concentrated on problems believed to be of vital importance, yet producing no other result than a conviction of the extreme facility of error, and the remoteness of any probability that Truth can be reached.* The only conquest has been critical, that is to say, psychological. Vainly do some argue that Philosophy has made no progress hitherto, because its problems are so complex, and require more effort than the simpler problems of Science; vainly are we warned not to conclude from the past to the future, averring that no progress will be made because no progress has been made. Perilous as it must ever be to set absolute limits to the future of human capacity, there can be peril in averring that Philosophy never will achieve its aim because those aims lie beyond all human scope. The difficulty is impossibility. No progress can be made because no certainty is possible. To aspire to the knowledge of more than phenomena,-their resemblances, co-existences, and successions,-is to aspire to transcend the inexorable limits of human faculty. To know more, we must be more.

The reader will have perceived that I use the word Philosophy in some restricted sense; and as this is the sense which will be attached to it throughout the present History, an explanation becomes requisite. In all countries the word Philosophy has come to be used with large latitude, designating indeed any and every kind of speculative inquiry; nay, in England, as Hegel notices with scorn,t microscopes, telescopes, barometers, and balances, are freely baptized "philosophical instruments;"-New

* Compare Kant in the Preface to the 2d ed. of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft: "Der Metaphysik . . . ist das Schicksal bisher noch so günstig nicht gewesen dass sie den sichern Gang einer Wissenschaft einzuschlagen vermogt hätte; ob sie gleich älter ist als alle übrige. . . . Es ist also kein Zweifel dass ihr Verfahren bisher ein blosses Herumtappen, und, was das Schlimmste ist, unter blossen Begriffen gewesen sey."

Geschichte der Philosophie, i. 72.

ton is called a philosopher; and even Parliamentary proceedings get named philosophical;-so wide a range is given to this word. Such expressions may be criticised, but no criticism will root them out of our language; and it is futile to argue against whatever has become thus familiar and extensive. Nevertheless, when any one undertakes to write a History of Philosophy, he must define the limits of his undertaking; and as I have not the slightest intention of including either microscopic inquiries, or Parliamentary debates, within my narrative, but of rigorously limiting it to such topics as are comprised in other Histories of Philosophy, it is indispensable to define the word "Philosophy," by limiting it exclusively to Metaphysics, in direct antithesis to Science. This is the sense it bears in all other Histories; except that the demarcation from Science is not always rigorously made.

In the early days of speculation all Philosophy was essentially metaphysical, because Science had not distinctly emerged. The particular sciences then cultivated, no less than the higher generalities on Life, Destiny, and the Universe, were studied on one and the same Method; but in the course of human evolution a second Method grew up, at first timidly and unconsciously, gradually enlarging its bounds as it enlarged its powers, and at last separating itself into open antagonism with its parent and rival. The child then destroyed its parent; as the mythic Zeus, calling the Titans to his aid, destroyed Saturn and usurped his throne. Observation and Experiment were the Titans of the new Method.

There are many who deplore the encroachment of Science, fondly imagining that Philosophy would respond better to the wants of man. This regret is partly unreasoning sentiment, partly ignorance of the limitations of human faculty. Even among those who admit that Philosophy is an impossible attempt, there are many who think it should be persevered in, because of the lofty views it is supposed to open to us. This is as if a man desirous of going to America should insist on walking there, because journeys on foot are more poetical than journeys by rail and steam; in vain is he shown the impossibility of crossing the Atlantic on foot; he admits that grovelling fact, but his lofty soul has visions of some mysterious overland route by which he will pass. He dies without reaching America, but

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The Biographical History of Philosophy from Its Origin in Greece Down to the ...