The World and the Individual: 1st and 2nd Series, by Josiah Royce, Ph. D. LL. D., Professor of the History of Philosophy in Harvard University.

Principia Ethica: by G. E. Moore, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

The Nature of Truth: an Essay, by Harold H. Joachim, Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, Oxford.

That a truth is obvious is no reason for ignoring it. Yet it has often occurred that what was once generally known, is lost through being unnoticed. Its rediscovery so continually occurring, leads to the quaint concept that the body of truths cannot be increased because "old" truths can be found. And learning, puzzled by its own erudition, concludes that the particular authors to whom it chooses to refer, have all the knowledge that is worth knowing. So it was once possible to find all Science in "the Master of them that know."

It is therefore possible that we shall be supposed to be discussing the obvious, or discovering what is already well known, when we treat of the development of Philosophy. For all that we state to begin with is what has perhaps become a platitude in the History of Philosophy. It is this that the development of Philosophy has, in fact, involved a continual widening of its conclusions, so as to contain within a new conclusion truths that seemed opposed before. But on this point, first, something must be said. For it is not long since a changed concept of Philosophy itself has appeared. If the spirit of the nineteenth century was scientific, that of the twentieth

is likely to be historical. History has changed the perspective of our knowledge. And Philosophy is necessarily influenced by it, as the other portions of 'experience' have been or soon will be. The watchmen indeed tell as that the conflict of Religion and Science is as nothing if compared to the greater issue that waits on the conflict of Religion and History. And, in our present position, it may be well considered difficult to judge whether the majority will, in that conflict, be found on the side of Religion or of History. We understand, of course, that there can be no conflict between "truths;" but the question always remains as to what is true: for much seems true that is afterwards found false. And, as in the conflict with Science, much may be conceived historically essential to "Religion," which will be found afterwards to be outside its sphere. This much in passing. Our subject now is not Religion, but Philosophy. And of this, too, we may say, that History has done much and may yet do more to render its meaning clearer. It is indeed most deeply true that "the History of Philosophy is Philosophy itself, taking its time." But if Philosophy can have a History, the History of Philosophy must be understood as a repeating in the individual of the thought of his race. A History of Philosophy that does not mean insight into the problem as stated by past thinkers, but is merely a list of terms, is of little account to Philosophy itself.

But what, in fact, has been the History of Philosophy? We know well enough that most of the Histories of Philosophy begin with Thales; such is the influence of a great man, for Aristotle began with Thales. But it is no longer sufficient for us to conceive as historically adequate this simple isolation of Western thought. For obviously we have but made an arbitrary beginning, and have attained to an abstract exactness "subtilitati naturæ longe impar." It is plain to all thinkers that Western thought is not all thought; and that civilization does not begin with Greece. But what we have so far called Philosophy has been nothing but the highest Western thought. And as the concepts of Science have made man no longer the most important figure on the stage of the Universe, so the concepts of History have dwarfed the importance of our civilization. A new Renaissance has opened to us the vistas of pre-Grecian history and extra-European Religion and Philosophy. The world for the thinkers of to-day does not move round Europe any more than the sun goes round the earth. We men are no longer "ants or frogs, 'D. Ritchie, Philosophical Essays.

dwelling around the pool," which is the Mediterranean.

Indeed,

the change effected by History may be compared to that worked by Science, where "the floor of heaven inlaid with stars had sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness of the universe. In the fabric of habit, which they had so laboriously built for themselves, mankind were no longer to remain."

This much we have learnt; but it would be false to conclude that we must straightway reject the ascertained data of the history of Western thought. For, even in the highest Science, the human point of view must remain for us central; so, in History, our civilization must remain the standard of comparison; although we need not suppose that to it all types must conform

For, in the first place, although History has thus lengthened the series in the development of thought, there are as yet no sufficient data for a more adequate concept of Philosophic development. And again, we shall be better able to study the particular aspect which is our present subject if we refer only to that which is conceived to be sufficiently understood. The historian is well aware that he can but trace single threads in the complex tapestry of life: the picture of the whole is only to be gained by a reconsidering of many abstractions. If therefore the course of history is here read in the light of one idea, it must not be supposed that the treatment of the facts is conceived. to be adequate. But, however inadequate, it is true, if the precision, gained by adopting one aspect, be sufficient.

Taking then a designedly limited view, we may discuss the development of Philosophy as we know it. But at the very outset it is noticeable that the history begins in Ionia and not in Greece proper. Where the West met the East, there, even for Aristotle, Philosophy arose. And Thales appears to have solved the opposition between. the prevalent cosmogonies by a cosmology which explained, and in truth (though not to him,) explained away what preceded it. However we are still here in the mists of history. The next step is clearer.

Following upon Thales, appears to have come a school of physicists, who explain the changing world by reference to an "underlying" permanence; with them, a material principle filled the place of a philosophic ideal. These were Ionians. And, as though in opposition to this school, appears Pythagoras. His school represented the West 2Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 109, B.

as compared to the Ionians of the East. To him the mathematical ideal became a material principle: and, because all things were numerable, he said all things were number. He and his school were Dorians. So were the early Philosophers, as compared to the school that was to follow them.

The external division is a sign of the facts of thought: for Ionia and Magna Grecia produced Athenian Philosophy. And even the earliest philosophers noted that the next great stage of thoughtdevelopment is marked by Anaxagoras, who taught at Athens. The external placing of a philosophic school is, however, not so important as the nature of its conclusions. And here it is a trite thing to say that the glories of Greek thought, Plato and Aristotle, assimilated and reconciled what had been before thought opposing truths. This was the true refutation of Sophist Scepticism: the reply to the taunt that all philosophers disagree is best made by the appearance of a philosophy in which all that is true in "all philosophers" is shown to be but the partial truths which, put together in a true synthesis, will exclude the seeming disagreement by correcting the partiality of the truths. Aristotle knew this-that his philosophy was dependent, almost for its life-blood, on the conclusions of his predecessors. This is his reason for the History of Philosophy which he has given us in the first book of the Metaphysics.' And the last great word of Athens on Philosophy is Aristotle.

But once again the conflict of opposing schools, the practical wisdom of Stoic and Epicurean as opposed to the unpractical sublimity of Eastern thought, formed Neoplatonism. And Athens gave way to Alexandria. That this was a real stage in the upward course of thought can hardly be denied nowadays, though the precision of logical thinking is often lost by the Neoplatonists. The ideal Unity, of which they gained some glimpse from the vantage point of Greek thought, was rather an inspiration than a conclusion. Their chief Philosophers were more than half Priests. In the light of the One Beautiful of Plotinus, the details of the world are blurred; and Plotinus himself speaks as one blinded.

Following upon these last efforts of the Ancient World in the region of thought, we read of a doubtful period during which no system was originated. Yet data were gradually accumulating which went much beyond the possible extension of Neoplatonic philosophy.

3Met. A. in fine.

"Cf. Porphyry, Vita Plot. c. 14.

Life always comes before Logic. So the struggles of Christianity and the gradual attainment of an aristocratic leisure, at least for a few, preceded any logical formulation. But during this period of the "Dark Ages" properly so called, and the Eclectic period that preceded them, the process of synthesis is the same. The period may be barren of content for the history of abstract thought; but it is precisely in that time (as it were, of "embryo philosophy") that the greatest of the catholicizing efforts of philosophy was made. The Southern history of Western thought closed, and the Northern began.

When in the early Middle Ages the accumulated data were at last synthesized, the method adopted was in fact the last one that had lived in the southern world. Scotus Erigena attempted to set in order the data of philosophy, the highest experience of his day, in the language of Neoplatonism. This begins the history of abstract thought among the northern races of Europe. Scotus indeed thought he was referring to early Christianity when he deferred to "Dionysius;" and he erred, as all primitive philosophers do, by the hypostasizing of abstractions. But he fixed forever one part of the inheritance of the North, not Platonism but Neoplatonism. And such indeed appears to have been the "flavour" of all Western thought until the new clash of ideas when the Arabs met Christianity in Spain. Here indeed the still unsystematized thought of Christianity (which meant in those days the thought of Northern Europe) was at a distinct disadvantage. Apart from the graces of Arabian Literature, as compared to the crude latinity of half-civilized Goths and Teutons, the keenness of the Arabian thought. was undeniable. It is traditionally said that "Aristotle" was introduced to Western Europe by the Arabs: but this is a misleading. simplification. The Arabian (and the Jewish) Philosophy had had a long history before it began to influence Christianity: and "Aristotle," who stood for the "rationalistic" school of Arabian Philosophy, was not the Aristotle of Athens.

It is well known that the inspiring idea of Mohammedanism is the unity of God. It might be said that with this sole dogma the spirit. of the Arabians was strong enough to overcome the effete civilizations with which it came in contact. But, as Greece educated Rome although conquered by it, so the Syrian Christians introduced logical. thought to the soldier enthusiasts of Arabia. And, as soon as the Arabians began to form states, the latest results of Greek thought became of interest to them Thus it was they became acquainted, through Nestorian Syrians, with Neoplatonic speculation. But the