Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, 2 vols. Schwegler, History of Philosophy. Weber, History of Philosophy. Windelband, History of Philosophy. Turner, History of Philosophy. Sidgwick, History of Ethics. Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, 2 vols. Hunter, History of Philosophy. Davidson, A History of Education. Janet and Séailles, A History of the Problems of Philosophy. ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY: Benn, The Greek Philosophers, 2 vols. Benn, The Philosophy of Greece considered in Relation to the Character and History of its People. Burt, History of Greek Philosophy. Grote, History of Greece. Ferrier, Lectures on Greek Philosophy, 2 vols. Mayor, Sketch of Ancient Philosophy from Thales to Cicero. Windelband, History of Greek Philosophy. Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. Marshall, Short History of Greek Philosophy. Gomperz, The Greek Thinkers, 3 vols. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers (Bohn's Library). Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers. MODERN PHILOSOPHY: Höffding, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy. Burt, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. Falckenberg, History of Modern Philosophy. Cousin, History of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, 2 vols. Adamson, The Development of Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. Levy-Bruhl, History of Modern Philosophy in France. Dewing, Introduction to the History of Modern Philosophy. I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY THE SCIENTIFIC PERIOD § 2. The Origin of Greek Philosophy 1. THE beginnings of philosophy are commonly attributed to the Greeks. Of course before the time of the Greeks, men had thought about the meaning of things; but the conditions had been lacking which were necessary to precipitate their thought into sufficiently well-defined concepts to serve as effective intellectual tools. The task of forging the intellectual framework, in the shape of abstract ideas or generalizations, by means of which it should be possible to analyze, and bring into order, the incoherency of the world as it makes its first impression upon us, fell to the Greek mind. And for this task it had special qualifications. Its sanity, its healthy human interest, its clearness of vision and hostility to confusedness of every sort, its sense of measure, and the single-heartedness with which it confined itself within the field of concrete fact where it felt at home, enabled it to leave behind, as no previous race had done, an articulate objective expression of itself which survived its own existence, and could enter into the spiritual history of mankind. All these qualities relate themselves closely to the artistic temperament of which Greece is pre-eminently the type, and between which and the philosophic spirit there is an intimate connection. The same sense for form and proportion which enabled the Greek to originate the art types that have stood as models ever since, kept him within the bounds of clearly defined ideas in his philosophical thinking, and prevented him from losing himself in the realm of vague feeling, and adumbra 8 tions of the infinite, which have brought shipwreck to so many attempts at philosophizing, and which, whatever their meaning to the individual, have no objective significance, until a foundation at least of clear conceptions has first been acquired. The Greek frankly moved within the realm of the finite, where definition and order reigned, and he could know just what he was talking about. The infinite was to him the region of chaos, and stood on a distinctly lower plane of reality. use. So also, along with its feeling for form, the artistic spirit involves a certain disinterestedness of mood. Beauty, as Kant has said, gives us pleasure in the mere contemplation of itself, apart from the vulgar thoughts of possession and And this quality, too, enters into the philosophical attitude. Long before the time of the Greeks, there had been a very considerable development of knowledge in the Orient, particularly in Egypt and Chaldæa; and the Greeks were able to presuppose and to build upon this. But the attitude which they adopted toward this knowledge was their own. Previous science had been on the empirical and rule of thumb order, not based on essential principles; it had remained largely bound down to the concrete particulars, and to the practical uses from which it had sprung. Geometry, e.g., was cultivated in Egypt, whence the Greeks derived it; but it was cultivated as little more than a set of approximate rules for use in land measuring. We do not have philosophy proper until we can get clear of the entanglement of special cases, and practical utility, and take a disinterested delight in principles on their own account; and this the Greek temperament was able to accomplish. It could find pleasure in the free play of ideas for their own sake, could treat them as a work of art, apart from their immediate practical bearing; and the existence of this attitude is marked by the rise of Philosophy, or disinterested love of wisdom as such. It was not, however, in Athens, which stands to us as the centre of Greek culture, nor in any other of the cities of Greece proper, that the new intellectual movement began. It was rather in the Greek colonies, which the mother country had from very early times begun to throw off, first in the Eastern colonies of Asia Minor, and then in Southern Italy. Athens itself, even at the height of its power, never took very kindly to freedom of philosophic speculation, and was inclined to treat its prophets with a full measure of the traditional severity. The political fickleness incident to a popular government, and the religious intolerance on the part of the masses, resulted in more than one act of injustice, of which the judicial murder of Socrates is of course the most famous instance. "Then I must indeed be a fool," Socrates is made to say to Callicles in one of Plato's dialogues, "if I do not know that in the Athenian state any man can suffer anything." In the colonies, however, tendencies were at work which already had greatly weakened the force of these unfavorable conditions, long before the breath of the new spirit had touched Greece itself. The transplanting of Greek life to a new home, necessarily resulted in a general shaking up of former habits of thought. Ceremonial observances, and the religious beliefs embodied in the national mythologies, could not fail to lose something of their rigidity and inevitableness, as their roots were torn from the local environment, and the concrete spots and objects to which they were attached; and the further adjustment that would have continually to go on, as they came into competition with more or less antagonistic traditions, would tend still further to beget a temper of openness and flexibility. In Asia Minor, moreover, the colonists were brought in contact with the highest culture and learning of the day. The new knowledge of the world, which was open to them in their character as a race of seafarers and traders, was also continually enlarging their ideas, and breaking down the superstitions of mythology. Their active and adventurous life gave them a versatility and alertness of mind, which was as yet wanting to their less enterprising kins men; while the rapid fortunes which were thus built up in trade by the merchant princes, offered the possibility of the leisure which the intellectual life demands. It was at Miletus, the wealthy and active Ionian capital, on the coast of the Ægean, that the new intellectual movement found its centre; and accordingly the earliest school of Greek philosophy is known as the Milesian School. 2. Our knowledge of the beginnings of Greek philosophy is very fragmentary, and it is only with difficulty that it can be pieced together to form a connected whole. Still it is possible to read into it a certain amount of unity. At any rate, it is clear that, within this century and a half, there gradually emerged the more fundamental of those distinctions and terms, by which the mind attempts to introduce order and connection into the processes of the world. They were grasped in a definite, even though rudimentary way, and were consciously employed in attempts to build up a comprehensive view of the universe. This took place, however, within certain limits, which need to be kept in mind continually. It is necessary to recall, once more, that the fundamental distinction between consciousness and matter has not yet been clearly attained. Mental qualities and physical qualities are still more or less mixed up together. There is, consequently, as yet no conception of a strictly immaterial existence. Real existence is that which lies outside us in space, which we can see and touch; and nothing else is real. It is true that this material and spatial existence is not wholly identical with the modern conception of matter, for it has to find room within itself for qualities which we call conscious and mental. But if matter was not regarded as dead and unconscious, at least there was no way of separating mind, or thought, from its spatial embodiment. To attempt to think of anything that was not material in its nature, and so space-filling, was to think of nothing. Within the limitations of this inability to conceive of anything as real, which did not have tangible |