A. The Sophists 352
1. Protagoras 372
2. Gorgias 378
B. Socrates 384
1. The Socratic Method 397
2. The Principle of the Good 406
3. The Fate of Socrates 425
C. The Philosophy of the Socratics 448
1. The Megarics 454
_a._ Euclides 455
_b._ Eubulides 456
_c._ Stilpo 464
2. The Cyrenaic School 469
_a._ Aristippus 470
_b._ Theodoras 475
_c._ Hegesias 477
_d._ Anniceris 478
3. The Cynic School 479
_a._ Antisthenes 481
_b._ Diogenes 484
_c._ Later Cynics 486
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT HEIDELBERG ON THE 28TH OCTOBER, 1816
GENTLEMEN,—Since the History of Philosophy is to be the subject of
these lectures, and to-day I am making my first appearance in this
University, I hope you will allow me to say what satisfaction it
gives me to take my place once more in an Academy of Learning at this
particular time. For the period seems to have been arrived at when
Philosophy may again hope to receive some attention and love—this
almost dead science may again raise its voice, and hope that the world
which had become deaf to its teaching, may once more lend it an ear.
The necessities of the time have accorded to the petty interests of
every-day life such overwhelming attention: the deep interests of
actuality and the strife respecting these have engrossed all the powers
and the forces of the mind—as also the necessary means—to so great
an extent, that no place has been left to the higher inward life, the
intellectual operations of a purer sort; and the better natures have
thus been stunted in their growth, and in great measure sacrificed.
Because the spirit of the world was thus occupied, it could not look
within and withdraw into itself. But since this stream of actuality
is checked, since the German nation has cut its way out of its most
material conditions, since its nationality, the basis of all higher
life, has been saved, we may hope that, in addition to the State, which
has swallowed up all other interests in its own, the Church may now
resume her high position—that in addition to the kingdom of the world
to which all thoughts and efforts have hitherto been directed; the
Kingdom of God may also be considered. In other words, along with the
business of politics and the other interests of every-day life, we may
trust that Science, the free rational world of mind, may again flourish.
We shall see in the History of Philosophy that in other European
countries in which the sciences and the cultivation of the
understanding have been prosecuted with zeal and with respect,
Philosophy, excepting in name, has sunk even from memory, and that
it is in the German nation that it has been retained as a peculiar
possession. We have received the higher call of Nature to be the
conservers of this holy flame, just as the Eumolpidæ in Athens had
the conservation of the Eleusinian mysteries, the inhabitants of the
island of Samothrace the preservation and maintenance of a higher
divine service; and as, earlier still, the World-spirit reserved to the
Jewish nation the highest consciousness that it should once more rise
from thence as a new spiritual force. We have already got so far, and
have attained to a seriousness so much greater and a consciousness so
much deeper, that for us ideas and that which our reason justifies, can
alone have weight; to speak more plainly, the Prussian State is a State
constituted on principles of intelligence. But the needs of the time
and the interests of the events in the world already mentioned, have
repressed a real and earnest effort after Philosophy and driven hence
any general attention to it. It has thus happened that because vigorous
natures turned to the practical, insipidity and dulness appropriated
to themselves the preeminence in Philosophy and flourished there. It
may indeed be said that since Philosophy began to take a place in
Germany, it has never looked so badly as at the present time—never
have emptiness and shallowness overlaid it so completely, and never
have they spoken and acted with such arrogance, as though all power
were in their hands! To combat the shallowness, to strive with German
earnestness and honesty, to draw Philosophy out of the solitude into
which it has wandered—to do such work as this we may hope that we are
called by the higher spirit of our time. Let us together greet the dawn
of a better time in which the spirit, hitherto a prey to externalities,
may return within itself, come to itself again, and win space and
room for a kingdom of its own, where true minds will rise above the
interests of the moment, and obtain the power to receive the true,
eternal and divine, the power to consider and to grasp the highest.
We elders, who in the storms of the age have ripened into men, may
think you happy whose youth falls in the day in which you may devote
the same undisturbed to Science and to Truth. I have dedicated my life
to Science, and it is a true joy to me to find myself again in this
place where I may, in a higher measure and more extensive circle,
work with others in the interests of the higher sciences, and help to
direct your way therein. I hope that I may succeed in deserving and
obtaining your confidence. But in the first place, I can ask nothing of
you but to bring with you, above all, a trust in science and a trust
in yourselves. The love of truth, faith in the power of mind, is the
first condition in Philosophy. Man, because he is Mind, should and must
deem himself worthy of the highest; he cannot think too highly of the
greatness and the power of his mind, and, with this belief, nothing
will be so difficult and hard that it will not reveal itself to him.
The Being of the universe, at first hidden and concealed, has no power
which can offer resistance to the search for knowledge; it has to lay
itself open before the seeker—to set before his eyes and give for his
enjoyment, its riches and its depths.
PREFATORY NOTE
IN the History of Philosophy the observation is immediately forced
upon us that it certainly presents great interest if its subject is
regarded from a favourable point of view, but that it would still
possess interest even if its end were regarded as opposite to what it
is. Indeed, this interest may seem to increase in the degree in which
the ordinary conception of Philosophy, and of the end which its history
serves, is reversed; for from the History of Philosophy a proof of the
futility of the science is mainly derived.
The demand that a history, whatever the subject may be, should state
the facts without prejudice and without any particular object or end
to be gained by its means, must be regarded as a fair one. But with a
commonplace demand like this, we do not get far; for the history of a
subject is necessarily intimately connected with the conception which
is formed of it. In accordance with this what is important in it is
determined, and the relation of the events to the end regulates the
selection of facts to be recorded, the mode of comprehending them, and
the point of view under which they are regarded. It may happen from the
ideas formed of what a State really is, that a reader of the political
history of a country may find therein nothing of what he looks for.
Still more may this be the case in the history of Philosophy, and
representations of this history may be instanced in which everything,
excepting what was supposed to be Philosophy, appears to be found.
In other histories we have a clear conception of their subjects, at
least so far as their principal points are concerned; we know whether
they concern a particular land, people or race, or whether their
subject is the science of mathematics, physics, &c., or an art, such as
painting. The science of Philosophy has, however, this distinguishing
feature, and, if you will, this disadvantage as compared with other
sciences, that we find the most varied points of view as regards its
Notion, and regarding that which it ought to and can accomplish. If
this first assumption, the conception of the subject of the history, is
not established, the history itself is necessarily made vacillating,
and it only obtains consistency when it sets forth a definite
conception: but then in view of the various ways of regarding its
subject, it easily draws upon itself the reproach of one-sidedness.
That drawback relates, however, only to an external consideration of
this narrative; there is another and greater disadvantage allied to
it. If there are different Notions of the science of Philosophy, it
is the true Notion alone that puts us in a position to understand the
writings of philosophers who have worked in the knowledge of it. For in
thought, and particularly in speculative thought, comprehension means
something quite different from understanding the grammatical sense
of the words alone, and also from understanding them in the region
of ordinary conception only. Hence we may possess a knowledge of the
assertions, propositions, or of the opinions of philosophers; we may
have occupied ourselves largely with the grounds of and deductions from
these opinions, and the main point in all that we have done may be
wanting—the comprehension of the propositions. There is hence no lack
of voluminous and even learned histories of Philosophy in which the
knowledge of the matter itself about which so much ado has been made,
is absent. The authors of such histories may be compared to animals
which have listened to all the tones in some music, but to whose senses
the unison, the harmony of their tones, has not penetrated.
The circumstance mentioned makes it in no science so necessary as in
the history of Philosophy to commence with an Introduction, and in it
correctly to define, in the first place, the subject of the history
about to be related. For it may be said, How should we begin to treat
a subject, the name of which is certainly mentioned often enough, but
of whose nature we as yet know nothing? In treating the history of
Philosophy thus, we could have no other guidance than that of seeking
out and taking up whatever has received the name of Philosophy,
anywhere or any time. But in fact, when the Notion of Philosophy is
established, not arbitrarily but in a scientific way, such treatment
becomes the science of Philosophy itself. For in this science the
peculiar characteristic is that its Notion forms the beginning in
appearance merely, and it is only the whole treatment of the science
that is the proof, and indeed we may say the finding of its Notion; and
this is really a result of that treatment.
In this Introduction the Notion of the science of Philosophy, of the
subject of its history, has thus likewise to be set forth. At the same
time, though this Introduction professes to relate to the history of
Philosophy only, what has just been said of Philosophy on the whole,
also holds good. What can be said in this Introduction is not so much
something which may be stated beforehand, as what can be justified or
proved in the treatment of the history. These preparatory explanations
are for this reason only, not to be placed in the category of arbitrary
assumptions. But to begin with stating what in their justification are
really results, can only have the interest which may be possessed by a
summary, given in advance, of the most general contents of a science.
It must serve to set aside many questions and demands which might, from
our ordinary prejudices, arise in such a history.
INTRODUCTION
THERE are various aspects under which the History of Philosophy may
possess interest. We shall find the central point of this interest in
the essential connection existing between what is apparently past and
the present stage reached by Philosophy. That this connection is not
one of the external considerations which may be taken into account in
the history of Philosophy, but really expresses its inner character:
that the events of this history, while they perpetuate themselves in
their effects like all other events, yet produce their results in a
special way—this it is which is here to be more clearly expounded.
What the history of Philosophy shows us is a succession of noble minds,
a gallery of heroes of thought, who, by the power of Reason, have
penetrated into the being of things, of nature and of spirit, into
the Being of God, and have won for us by their labours the highest
treasure, the treasure of reasoned knowledge.
The events and actions of this history are therefore such that
personality and individual character do not enter to any large degree
into its content and matter. In this respect the history of Philosophy
contrasts with political history, in which the individual, according to
the peculiarity of his disposition, talents, affections, the strength
or weakness of his character, and in general, according to that through
which he is this individual, is the subject of actions and events. In
Philosophy, the less deserts and merits are accorded to the particular
individual, the better is the history; and the more it deals with
thought as free, with the universal character of man as man, the more
this thought, which is devoid of special characteristic, is itself
shown to be the producing subject.
The acts of thought appear at first to be a matter of history, and,
therefore, things of the past, and outside our real existence. But in
reality we are what we are through history: or, more accurately, as
in the history of Thought, what has passed away is only one side, so
in the present, what we have as a permanent possession is essentially
bound up with our place in history. The possession of self-conscious
reason, which belongs to us of the present world, did not arise
suddenly, nor did it grow only from the soil of the present. This
possession must be regarded as previously present, as an inheritance,
and as the result of labour—the labour of all past generations of men.
Just as the arts of outward life, the accumulated skill and invention,
the customs and arrangements of social and political life, are the
result of the thought, care, and needs, of the want and the misery, of
the ingenuity, the plans and achievements of those who preceded us in
history, so, likewise, in science, and specially in Philosophy, do we
owe what we are to the tradition which, as Herder has put it,[1] like
a holy chain, runs through all that was transient, and has therefore
passed away. Thus has been preserved and transmitted to us what
antiquity produced.
But this tradition is not only a stewardess who simply guards
faithfully that which she has received, and thus delivers it unchanged
to posterity, just as the course of nature in the infinite change and
activity of its forms ever remains constant to its original laws and
makes no step in advance. Such tradition is no motionless statue, but
is alive, and swells like a mighty river, which increases in size the
further it advances from its source. The content of this tradition is
that which the intellectual world has brought forth, and the universal
Mind does not remain stationary. But it is just the universal Mind
with which we have to do. It may certainly be the case with a single
nation that its culture, art, science—its intellectual activities as a
whole—are at a standstill. This appears, perhaps, to be the case with
the Chinese, for example, who may have been as far advanced in every
respect two thousand years ago as now. But the world-spirit does not
sink into this rest of indifference; this follows from its very nature,
for its activity is its life. This activity presupposes a material
already present, on which it acts, and which it does not merely augment
by the addition, of new matter, but completely fashions and transforms.
Thus that which each generation has produced in science and in
intellectual activity, is an heirloom to which all the past generations
have added their savings, a temple in which all races of men thankfully
and cheerfully deposit that which rendered aid to them through life,
and which they had won from the depths of Nature and of Mind. To
receive this inheritance is also to enter upon its use. It constitutes
the soul of each successive generation, the intellectual substance of
the time; its principles, prejudices, and possessions; and this legacy
is degraded to a material which becomes metamorphosed by Mind. In this
manner that which is received is changed, and the material worked upon
is both enriched and preserved at the same time.
This is the function of our own and of every age: to grasp the
knowledge which is already existing, to make it our own, and in so
doing to develop it still further and to raise it to a higher level. In
thus appropriating it to ourselves we make it into something different
from what it was before. On the presupposition of an already existing
intellectual world which is transformed in our appropriation of it,
depends the fact that Philosophy can only arise in connection with
previous Philosophy, from which of necessity it has arisen. The course
of history does not show us the Becoming of things foreign to us, but
the Becoming of ourselves and of our own knowledge.
The ideas and questions which may be present to our mind regarding the
character and ends of the history of Philosophy, depend on the nature
of the relationship here given. In this lies the explanation of the
fact that the study of the history of Philosophy is an introduction to
Philosophy itself. The guiding principles for the formation of this
history are given in this fact, the further discussion of which must
thus be the main object of this introduction. We must also, however,
keep in mind, as being of fundamental importance, the conception of
the aim of Philosophy. And since, as already mentioned, the systematic
exposition of this conception cannot here find a place, such discussion
as we can now undertake, can only propose to deal with the subject
provisionally and not to give a thorough and conclusive account of the
nature of the Becoming of Philosophy.
This Becoming is not merely a passive movement, as we suppose movements
such as those of the sun and moon to be. It is no mere movement in
the unresisting medium of space and time. What we must represent to
ourselves is the activity of free thought; we have to present the
history of the world of thought as it has arisen and produced itself.
There is an old tradition that it is the faculty of thought which
separates men from beasts; and to this tradition we shall adhere. In
accordance with this, what man has, as being nobler than a beast,
he has through thinking. Everything which is human, however it may
appear, is so only because the thought contained in it works and has
worked. But thought, although it is thus the essential, substantial,
and effectual, has many other elements. We must, however, consider it
best when Thought does not pursue anything else, but is occupied only
with itself—with what is noblest—when it has sought and found itself.
The history which we have before us is the history of Thought finding
itself, and it is the case with Thought that it only finds itself in
producing itself; indeed, that it only exists and is actual in finding
itself. These productions are the philosophic systems; and the series
of discoveries on which Thought sets out in order to discover itself,
forms a work which has lasted twenty-five hundred years.
If the Thought which is essentially Thought, is in and for itself
and eternal, and that which is true is contained in Thought alone,
how, then, does this intellectual world come to have a history? In
history what appears is transient, has disappeared in the night of
the past and is no more. But true, necessary thought—and it is only
with such that we have to do—is capable of no change. The question
here raised constitutes one of those matters first to be brought
under our consideration. But in the second place, there are also
many most important things outside of Philosophy, which are yet the
work of Thought, and which are left unconsidered. Such are Religion,
Political History, forms of Government, and the Arts and Sciences. The
question arises as to how these operations differ from the subject of
consideration, and how they are related in history? As regards these
two points of view, it is desirable to show in what sense the history
of Philosophy is here taken, in order to see clearly what we are about.
Moreover, in the third place, we must first take a general survey
before we descend to particulars, else the whole is not seen for the
mere details—the wood is not seen for the trees, nor Philosophy for
mere philosophies. We require to have a general idea of the nature and
aim of the whole in order to know what to look for. Just as we first
desire to obtain a general idea of a country, which we should no longer
see in going into detail, so we desire to see the relation which single
philosophies bear to the whole; for in reality, the high value of the
detail lies in its relation to the whole. This is nowhere more the
case than with Philosophy, and also with its history. In the case of a
history, indeed, the establishment of the Universal seems to be less
needful than in that of one of the sciences proper. For history seems
at first to be a succession of chance events, in which each fact stands
isolated by itself, which has Time alone as a connecting-link. But even
in political history we are not satisfied with this. We see, or at
least divine in it, that essential connection in which the individual
events have their place and relation to an end or aim, and in this
way obtain significance. For the significant in history is such only
through its relation to and connection with a Universal. To perceive
this Universal is thus to apprehend the significance.
There are, therefore, the following points with which I wish to deal in
this introduction.
The first of these will be to investigate the character of the history
of Philosophy, its significance, its nature, and its aim, from which
will follow inferences as to its treatment. In particular, we shall
get an insight into the relation of the history of Philosophy to the
science of Philosophy, and this will be the most interesting point of
all. That is to say, this history represents, not merely the external,
accidental, events contained within it, but it shows how the content,
or that which appears to belong to mere history, really belongs to the
science of Philosophy. The history of Philosophy is itself scientific,
and thus essentially becomes the science of Philosophy.
In the second place, the Notion of Philosophy must be more adequately
determined, and from it must be deduced what should be excluded
from the history of Philosophy out of the infinite material and the
manifold aspects of the intellectual culture of the nations. Religion,
certainly, and the thoughts contained in and regarding it, particularly
when these are in the form of mythology, are, on account of their
matter, and the sciences with their ideas on the state, duties and
laws, on account of their form, so near Philosophy that the history
of the science of Philosophy threatens to become quite indefinite in
extent. It might be supposed that the history of Philosophy should take
account of all these ideas. Has not everything been called Philosophy
and philosophizing? On the one hand, the close connection has to be
further considered in which Philosophy stands with its allied subjects,
religion, art, the other sciences, and likewise with political history.
On the other hand, when the province of Philosophy has been correctly
defined, we reach, with the determination of what Philosophy is and
what pertains to it, the starting-point of its history, which must
be distinguished from the commencements of religious ideas and mere
thoughtful conjectures.
From the idea of the subject which is contained in these first two
points of view, it is necessary to pass on to the consideration of the
third point, to the general review of this history and to the division
of its progress into natural periods—such an arrangement to exhibit
it as an organic, progressive whole, as a rational connection through
which this history attains the dignity of a science. And I will not
occupy further space with reflections on the use of the history of
Philosophy, and other methods of treating it. The use is evident.
But, in conclusion, I wish to consider the sources of the history of
Philosophy, for this is customary.
A
THE NOTION OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
THE thought which may first occur to us in the history of Philosophy,
is that the subject itself contains an inner contradiction. For
Philosophy aims at understanding what is unchangeable, eternal, in and
for itself: its end is Truth. But history tells us of that which has at
one time existed, at another time has vanished, having been expelled by
something else. Truth is eternal; it does not fall within the sphere of
the transient, and has no history. But if it has a history, and as this
history is only the representation of a succession of past forms of
knowledge, the truth is not to be found in it, for the truth cannot be
what has passed away.
It might be said that all this argument would affect not only the other
sciences, but in like degree the Christian religion, and it might be
found inconsistent that a history of this religion and of the other
sciences should exist; but it would be superfluous further to examine
this argument, for it is immediately contradicted by the very fact that
there are such histories. But in order to get a better understanding
of this apparent contradiction, we must distinguish between the
outward history of a religion or a science and the history of the
subject itself. And then we must take into account that the history
of Philosophy because of the special nature of its subject-matter,
is different from other histories. It is at once evident that the
contradiction in question could not refer to the outward history, but
merely to the inward, or that of the content itself. There is a history
of the spread of Christianity and of the lives of those who have avowed
it, and its existence has formed itself into that of a Church. This in
itself constitutes an external existence such that being brought into
contact with temporal affairs of the most diverse kind, its lot is a
varied one and it essentially possesses a history. And of the Christian
doctrine it is true that it, too, has its history, but it necessarily
soon reached its full development and attained to its appointed powers.
And this old creed has been an acknowledged influence to every age, and
will still be acknowledged unchanged as the Truth, even though this
acknowledgment were become no more than a pretence, and the words
an empty form. But the history of this doctrine in its wider sense
includes two elements: first the various additions to and deviations
from the truth formerly established, and secondly the combating of
these errors, the purification of the principles that remain from such
additions, and a consequent return to their first simplicity.
The other sciences, including Philosophy, have also an external history
like Religion. Philosophy has a history of its origin, diffusion,
maturity, decay, revival; a history of its teachers, promoters, and
of its opponents—often, too, of an outward relation to religion
and occasionally to the State. This side of its history likewise
gives occasion to interesting questions. Amongst other such, it is
asked why Philosophy, the doctrine of absolute Truth, seems to have
revealed itself on the whole to a small number of individuals, to
special nations, and how it has limited itself to particular periods
of time. Similarly with respect to Christianity, to the Truth in
a much more universal form than the philosophical, a difficulty
has been encountered in respect to the question whether there is a
contradiction in the fact that this religion should have appeared so
late in time, and that it should have remained so long and should still
remain limited to special races of men. But these and other similar
questions are too much a matter of detail to depend merely on the
general conflict referred to, and when we have further touched upon the
peculiar character of philosophic knowledge, we may go more specially
into the aspects which relate to the external existence and external
history of Philosophy.
But as regards the comparison between the history of Religion and that
of Philosophy as to inner content, there is not in the latter as there
is in Religion a fixed and fundamental truth which, as unchangeable, is
apart from history. The content of Christianity, which is Truth, has,
however, remained unaltered as such, and has therefore little history
or as good as none.[2] Hence in Religion, on account of its very nature
as Christianity, the conflict referred to disappears. The errors and
additions constitute no difficulty. They are transitory and altogether
historical in character.
The other sciences, indeed, have also according to their content a
History, a part of which relates to alterations, and the renunciation
of tenets which were formerly current. But a great, perhaps the
greater, part of the history relates to what has proved permanent,
so that what was new, was not an alteration on earlier acquisitions,
but an addition to them. These sciences progress through a process of
juxtaposition. It is true that in Botany, Mineralogy, and so on, much
is dependent on what was previously known, but by far the greatest
part remains stationary and by means of fresh matter is merely added
to without itself being affected by the addition. With a science
like Mathematics, history has, in the main, only the pleasing task
of recording further additions. Thus to take an example, elementary
geometry in so far as it was created by Euclid, may from his time on be
regarded as having no further history.
The history of Philosophy, on the other hand, shows neither the
motionlessness of a complete, simple content, nor altogether the onward
movement of a peaceful addition of new treasures to those already
acquired. It seems merely to afford the spectacle of ever-recurring
changes in the whole, such as finally are no longer even connected by a
common aim.
1. COMMON IDEAS REGARDING THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
At this point appear these ordinary superficial ideas regarding the
history of Philosophy which have to be referred to and corrected. As
regards these very current views, which are doubtless known to you,
gentlemen, for indeed they are the reflections most likely to occur
in one’s first crude thoughts on a history of Philosophy, I will
shortly explain what requires explanation, and the explanation of the
differences in philosophies will lead us further into the matter itself.
a. _The History of Philosophy as an accumulation of Opinions._
History, at the first glance, includes in its aim the narration of
the accidental circumstances of times, of races, and of individuals,
treated impartially partly as regards their relation in time,
and partly as to their content. The appearance of contingency in
time-succession is to be dealt with later on. It is contingency of
content which is the idea with which we have first to deal—the idea of
contingent actions. But thoughts and not external actions, or griefs,
or joys, form the content of Philosophy. Contingent thoughts, however,
are nothing but opinions, and philosophical opinions are opinions
relating to the more special content of Philosophy, regarding God,
Nature and Spirit.
Thus we now meet the view very usually taken of the history of
Philosophy which ascribes to it the narration of a number of
philosophical opinions as they have arisen and manifested themselves
in time. This kind of matter is in courtesy called opinions; those who
think themselves more capable of judging rightly, call such a history
a display of senseless follies, or at least of errors made by men
engrossed in thought and in mere ideas. This view is not only held by
those who recognize their ignorance of Philosophy. Those who do this,
acknowledge it, because that ignorance is, in common estimation, held
to be no obstacle to giving judgment upon what has to do with the
subject; for it is thought that anybody can form a judgment on its
character and value without any comprehension, of it whatever. But
the same view is even held by those who write or have written on the
history of Philosophy. This history, considered only as the enumeration
of various opinions, thus becomes an idle tale, or, if you will, an
erudite investigation. For erudition is, in the main, acquaintance with
a number of useless things, that is to say, with that which has no
intrinsic interest or value further than being known. Yet it is thought
that profit is to be derived from learning the various opinions and
reflections of other men. It stimulates the powers of thought and also
leads to many excellent reflections; this signifies that now and then
it occasions an idea, and its art thus consists in the spinning one
opinion out of the other.
If the history of Philosophy merely represented various opinions in
array, whether they be of God or of natural and spiritual things
existent, it would be a most superfluous and tiresome science, no
matter what advantage might be brought forward as derived from such
thought-activity and learning. What can be more useless than to learn
a string of bald opinions, and what more unimportant? Literary works,
being histories of Philosophy in the sense that they produce and
treat the ideas of Philosophy as if they were opinions, need be only
superficially glanced at to find how dry and destitute of interest
everything about them is.
An opinion is a subjective conception, an uncontrolled thought, an
idea which may occur to me in one direction or in another: an opinion
is mine,[3] it is in itself a universal thought which is existent in
and for itself. But Philosophy possesses no opinions, for there is no
such thing as philosophical opinions. When we hear a man speaking of
philosophical opinions, even though he be an historian of philosophy
itself, we detect at once this want of fundamental education.
Philosophy is the objective science of truth, it is science of
necessity, conceiving knowledge, and neither opinion nor the spinning
out of opinions.
The more precise significance of this idea is that we get to know
opinions only, thus laying emphasis upon the word Opinion. Now the
direct opposite of opinion is the Truth; it is Truth before which
mere opinion pales. Those who in the history of Philosophy seek mere
theories, or who suppose that on the whole only such are to be found
within it, also turn aside when that word Truth confronts them.
Philosophy here encounters opposition from two different sides. On the
one hand piety openly declares Reason or Thought to be incapable of
apprehending what is true, and to lead only to the abyss of doubt; it
declares that independent thought must be renounced, and reason held in
bounds by faith in blind authority, if Truth is to be reached. Of the
relation existing between Religion and Philosophy and of its history,
we shall deal later on. On the other hand, it is known just as well,
that so-called reason has maintained its rights, abandoning faith in
mere authority, and has endeavoured to make Christianity rational, so
that throughout it is only my personal insight and conviction which
obliges me to make any admissions. But this affirmation of the right
of reason is turned round in an astonishing manner, so that it results
in making knowledge of the truth through reason an impossibility.
This so-called reason on the one hand has combated religious faith in
the name and power of thinking reason, and at the same time it has
itself turned against reason and is true reason’s adversary. Instinct
and feeling are maintained by it against the true reason, thus making
the measure of true value the merely subjective—that is a particular
conviction such as each can form in and for himself in his subjective
capacity. A personal conviction such as this is no more than the
particular opinion that has become final for men.
If we begin with what meets us in our very first conceptions, we cannot
neglect to make mention of this aspect in the history of Philosophy.
In its results it permeates culture generally, being at once the
misconception and true sign of our times. It is the principle through
which men mutually understand and know each other; an hypothesis
whose value is established and which is the ground of all the other
sciences. In theology it is not so much the creed of the church that
passes for Christianity, as that every one to a greater or less degree
makes a Christianity of his own to tally with his conviction. And in
history we often see theology driven into acquiring the knowledge of
various opinions in order that an interest may thus be furnished to
the science, and one of the first results of the attention paid them
is the honour awarded to all convictions, and the esteem vouchsafed to
what has been constituted merely by the individual. The endeavour to
know the Truth is then of course relinquished. It is true that personal
conviction is the ultimate and absolute essential which reason and its
philosophy, from a subjective point of view, demand in knowledge. But
there is a distinction between conviction when it rests on subjective
grounds such as feelings, speculations and perceptions, or, speaking
generally, on the particular nature of the subject, and when it rests
on thought proceeding from acquaintance with the Notion and the nature
of the thing. In the former case conviction is opinion.
This opposition between mere opinion and truth now sharply defined, we
already recognize in the culture of the period of Socrates and Plato—a
period of corruption in Greek life—as the Platonic opposition between
opinion _δόξα_ and Science _ἐπιστήμη_. It is the same opposition as
that which existed in the decadence of Roman public and political life
under Augustus, and subsequently when Epicureanism and indifference set
themselves up against Philosophy. Under this influence, when Christ
said, “I came into the world that I should bear witness unto the
Truth,” Pilate answered, “What is Truth?” That was said in a superior
way, and signifies that this idea of truth is an expedient which is
obsolete: we have got further, we know that there is no longer any
question about knowing the Truth, seeing that we have gone beyond it.
Who makes this statement has gone beyond it indeed. If this is made our
starting point in the history of Philosophy, its whole significance
will consist in finding out the particular ideas of others, each one of
which is different from the other: these individual points of view are
thus foreign to me: my thinking reason is not free, nor is it present
in them: for me they are but extraneous, dead historic matter, or so
much empty content, and to satisfy oneself with empty vanity is mere
subjective vanity itself.
To the impartial man, the Truth has always been a heart-stirring word
and one of great import. As to the assertion that the Truth cannot be
known, we shall consider it more closely in the history of Philosophy
itself where it appears. The only thing to be here remarked is that
if this assumption be allowed, as was the case with Tennemann, it is
beyond conception why anyone should still trouble about Philosophy,
since each opinion asserts falsely in its turn that it has found
the truth. This immediately recalls to me the old belief that Truth
consists in knowledge, but that an individual only knows the Truth in
so far as he reflects and not as he walks and stands: and that the
Truth cannot be known in immediate apprehension and perception, whether
it be external and sensuous, or whether it be intellectual perception
(for every perception as a perception is sensuous) but only through the
labour of thought.
b. _Proof of the futility of Philosophical Knowledge obtained through
the History of Philosophy itself._
From another point of view another consequence ensues from the above
conception of the history of Philosophy which may at will be looked
at as an evil or a benefit. In view of such manifold opinions and
philosophical systems so numerous, one is perplexed to know which
one ought to be accepted. In regard to the great matters to which
man is attracted and a knowledge of which Philosophy would bestow,
it is evident that the greatest minds have erred, because they have
been contradicted by others. “Since this has been so with minds so
great, how then can _ego homuncio_ attempt to form a judgment?” This
consequence, which ensues from the diversity in philosophical systems,
is, as may be supposed, the evil in the matter, while at the same time
it is a subjective good. For this diversity is the usual plea urged by
those who, with an air of knowledge, wish to make a show of interest
in Philosophy, to explain the fact that they, with this pretence of
good-will, and, indeed, with added motive for working at the science,
do in fact utterly neglect it. But this diversity in philosophical
systems is far from being merely an evasive plea. It has far more
weight as a genuine serious ground of argument against the zeal
which Philosophy requires. It justifies its neglect and demonstrates
conclusively the powerlessness of the endeavour to attain to
philosophic knowledge of the truth. When it is admitted that Philosophy
ought to be a real science, and one Philosophy must certainly be the
true, the question arises as to which Philosophy it is, and when it can
be known. Each one asserts its genuineness, each even gives different
signs and tokens by which the Truth can be discovered; sober reflective
thought must therefore hesitate to give its judgment.
This, then, is the wider interest which the history of Philosophy is
said to afford. Cicero (De natura Deorum I. 8 sq.) gives us from this
point of view, a most slovenly history of philosophic thought on God.
He puts it in the mouth of an Epicurean, but he himself knew of nothing
more favourable to say, and it is thus his own view. The Epicurean
says that no certain knowledge has been arrived at. The proof that
the efforts of philosophy are futile is derived directly from the
usual superficial view taken of its history; the results attendant
on that history make it appear to be a process in which the most
various thoughts arise in numerous philosophies, each of which opposes,
contradicts and refutes the other. This fact, which cannot be denied,
seems to contain the justification, indeed the necessity for applying
to Philosophy the words of Christ, “Let the dead bury their dead;
arise, and follow Me.” The whole of the history of Philosophy becomes
a battlefield covered with the bones of the dead; it is a kingdom
not merely formed of dead and lifeless individuals, but of refuted
and spiritually dead systems, since each has killed and buried the
other. Instead of “Follow thou Me,” here then it must indeed be said,
“Follow thine own self”—that is, hold by thine own convictions, remain
steadfast to thine own opinion, why adopt another?
It certainly happens that a new philosophy makes its appearance, which
maintains the others to be valueless; and indeed each one in turn
comes forth at first with the pretext that by its means all previous
philosophies not only are refuted, but what in them is wanting is
supplied, and now at length the right one is discovered. But following
upon what has gone before, it would rather seem that other words of
Scripture are just as applicable to such a philosophy—the words which
the Apostle Peter spoke to Ananias, “Behold the feet of them that shall
carry thee out are at the door.” Behold the philosophy by which thine
own will be refuted and displaced shall not tarry long as it has not
tarried before.
c. _Explanatory remarks on the diversity in Philosophies._
Certainly the fact is sufficiently well established that there are and
have been different philosophies. The Truth is, however, one; and the
instinct of reason maintains this irradicable intuition or belief. It
is said that only one philosophy can be true, and, because philosophies
are different, it is concluded that all others must be erroneous.
But, in fact, each one in turn gives every assurance, evidence and
proof of being the one and true Philosophy. This is a common mode of
reasoning and is what seems in truth to be the view of sober thought.
As regards the sober nature of the word at issue—thought—we can tell
from every-day experience that if we fast we feel hunger either at once
or very soon. But sober thought always has the fortunate power of not
resulting in hunger and desire, but of being and remaining as it is,
content. Hence the thought expressed in such an utterance reveals the
fact that it is dead understanding; for it is only death which fasts
and yet rests satisfied. But neither physical life nor intellectual
remains content with mere abstention; as desire it presses on through
hunger and through thirst towards Truth, towards knowledge itself. It
presses on to satisfy this desire and does not allow itself to feast
and find sufficiency in a reflection such as this.
As to this reflection, the next thing to be said of it is that however
different the philosophies have been, they had a common bond in
that they were Philosophy. Thus whoever may have studied or become
acquainted with a philosophy, of whatever kind, provided only that it
is such, has thereby become acquainted with Philosophy. That delusive
mode of reasoning which regards diversity alone, and from doubt of
or aversion to the particular form in which a Universal finds its
actuality, will not grasp or even allow this universal nature, I
have elsewhere[4] likened to an invalid recommended by the doctor to
eat fruit, and who has cherries, plums or grapes, before him, but
who pedantically refuses to take anything because no part of what is
offered him is fruit, some of it being cherries, and the rest plums or
grapes.
But it is really important to have a deeper insight into the bearings
of this diversity in the systems of Philosophy. Truth and Philosophy
known philosophically, make such diversity appear in another light from
that of abstract opposition between Truth and Error. The explanation
of how this comes about will reveal to us the significance of the
whole history of Philosophy. We must make the fact conceivable, that
the diversity and number of philosophies not only does not prejudice
Philosophy itself, that is to say the possibility of a philosophy,
but that such diversity is, and has been, absolutely necessary to the
existence of a science of Philosophy and that it is essential to it.
This makes it easy to us to comprehend the aim of Philosophy, which
is in thought and in conception to grasp the Truth, and not merely
to discover that nothing can be known, or that at least temporal,
finite truth, which also is an untruth, can alone be known and not
the Truth indeed. Further we find that in the history of Philosophy
we have to deal with Philosophy itself. The facts within that history
are not adventures and contain no more romance than does the history
of the world. They are not a mere collection of chance events, of
expeditions of wandering knights, each going about fighting, struggling
purposelessly, leaving no results to show for all his efforts. Nor is
it so that one thing has been thought out here, another there, at will;
in the activity of thinking mind there is real connection, and what
there takes place is rational. It is with this belief in the spirit of
the world that we must proceed to history, and in particular to the
history of Philosophy.
2. EXPLANATORY REMARKS UPON THE DEFINITION OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
The above statement, that the Truth is only one, is still abstract
and formal. In the deeper sense it is our starting point. But the
aim of Philosophy is to know this one Truth as the immediate source
from which all else proceeds, both all the laws of nature and all
the manifestations of life and consciousness of which they are
mere reflections, or to lead these laws and manifestations in ways
apparently contrary, back to that single source, and from that source
to comprehend them, which is to understand their derivation. Thus what
is most essential is to know that the single truth is not merely a
solitary, empty thought, but one determined within itself. To obtain
this knowledge we must enter into some abstract Notions which, as
such, are quite general and dry, and which are the two principles of
_Development_ and of the _Concrete_. We could, indeed, embrace the
whole in the single principle of development; if this were clear, all
else would result and follow of its own accord. The product of thinking
is the thought; thought is, however, still formal; somewhat more
defined it becomes Notion, and finally Idea is Thought in its totality,
implicitly and explicitly determined. Thus the Idea, and it alone is
Truth. Now it is essentially in the nature of the Idea to develop, and
only through development to arrive at comprehension of itself, or to
become what it is. That the Idea should have to make itself what it is,
seems like a contradiction; it may be said that it is what it is.
a. _The Notion of Development._
The idea of development is well known, but it is the special
characteristic of Philosophy to investigate such matters as were
formerly held as known. What is dealt with or made use of without
consideration as an aid to daily life, is certainly the unknown to man
unless he be informed in Philosophy. The further discussion of this
idea belongs to the science of Logic.
In order to comprehend what development is, what may be called two
different states must be distinguished. The first is what is known as
capacity, power, what I call being-in-itself (_potentia_, _δύναμις_);
the second principle is that of being-for-itself, actuality (_actus_,
_ἐνέργεια_). If we say, for example, that man is by nature rational,
we would mean that he has reason only inherently or in embryo: in this
sense, reason, understanding, imagination, will, are possessed from
birth or even from the mother’s womb. But while the child only has
capacities or the actual possibility of reason, it is just the same as
if he had no reason; reason does not yet exist in him since he cannot
yet do anything rational, and has no rational consciousness. Thus what
man is at first implicitly becomes explicit, and it is the same with
reason. If, then, man has actuality on whatever side, he is actually
rational; and now we come to reason.
What is the real meaning of this word? That which is in itself must
become an object to mankind, must arrive at consciousness, thus
becoming for man. What has become an object to him is the same as what
he is in himself; through the becoming objective of this implicit
being, man first becomes for himself; he is made double, is retained
and not changed into another. For example, man is thinking, and thus he
thinks out thoughts. In this way it is in thought alone that thought is
object; reason produces what is rational: reason is its own object. The
fact that thought may also descend to what is destitute of reason is
a consideration involving wider issues, which do not concern us here.
But even though man, who in himself is rational, does not at first
seem to have got further on since he became rational for himself—what
is implicit having merely retained itself—the difference is quite
enormous: no new content has been produced, and yet this form of
being for self makes all the difference. The whole variation in the
development of the world in history is founded on this difference.
This alone explains how since all mankind is naturally rational, and
freedom is the hypothesis on which this reason rests, slavery yet has
been, and in part still is, maintained by many peoples, and men have
remained contented under it. The only distinction between the Africans
and the Asiatics on the one hand, and the Greeks, Romans, and moderns
on the other, is that the latter know and it is explicit for them, that
they are free, but the others are so without knowing that they are,
and thus without existing as being free. This constitutes the enormous
difference in their condition. All knowledge, and learning, science,
and even commerce have no other object than to draw out what is inward
or implicit and thus to become objective.
Because that which is implicit comes into existence, it certainly
passes into change, yet it remains one and the same, for the whole
process is dominated by it. The plant, for example, does not lose
itself in mere indefinite change. From the germ much is produced when
at first nothing was to be seen; but the whole of what is brought
forth, if not developed, is yet hidden and ideally contained within
itself. The principle of this projection into existence is that
the germ cannot remain merely implicit, but is impelled towards
development, since it presents the contradiction of being only implicit
and yet not desiring so to be. But this coming without itself has
an end in view; its completion fully reached, and its previously
determined end is the fruit or produce of the germ, which causes a
return to the first condition. The germ will produce itself alone and
manifest what is contained in it, so that it then may return to itself
once more thus to renew the unity from which it started. With nature it
certainly is true that the subject which commenced and the matter which
forms the end are two separate units, as in the case of seed and fruit.
The doubling process has apparently the effect of separating into two
things that which in content is the same. Thus in animal life the
parent and the young are different individuals although their nature is
the same.
In Mind it is otherwise: it is consciousness and therefore it is free,
uniting in itself the beginning and the end. As with the germ in
nature, Mind indeed resolves itself back into unity after constituting
itself another. But what is in itself becomes for Mind and thus
arrives at being for itself. The fruit and seed newly contained within
it on the other hand, do not become for the original germ, but for us
alone; in the case of Mind both factors not only are implicitly the
same in character, but there is a being for the other and at the same
time a being for self. That for which the “other” is, is the same
as that “other;” and thus alone Mind is at home with itself in its
“other.” The development of Mind lies in the fact that its going forth
and separation constitutes its coming to itself.
This being-at-home-with-self, or coming-to-self of Mind may be
described as its complete and highest end: it is this alone that it
desires and nothing else. Everything that from eternity has happened
in heaven and earth, the life of God and all the deeds of time simply
are the struggles for Mind to know itself, to make itself objective
to itself, to find itself, be for itself, and finally unite itself to
itself; it is alienated and divided, but only so as to be able thus to
find itself and return to itself. Only in this manner does Mind attain
its freedom, for that is free which is not connected with or dependent
on another. True self-possession and satisfaction are only to be found
in this, and in nothing else but Thought does Mind attain this freedom.
In sense-perception, for instance, and in feeling, I find myself
confined and am not free; but I am free when I have a consciousness of
this my feeling. Man has particular ends and interests even in will; I
am free indeed when this is mine. Such ends, however, always contain
“another,” or something which constitutes for me “another,” such as
desire and impulse. It is in Thought alone that all foreign matter
disappears from view, and that Mind is absolutely free. All interest
which is contained in the Idea and in Philosophy is expressed in it.
b. _The Notion of the Concrete._
As to development, it may be asked, what does develop and what forms
the absolute content? Development is considered in the light of a
formal process in action and as destitute of content. But the act
has no other end but activity, and through this activity the general
character of the content is already fixed. For being-in-self and
being-for-self are the moments present in action; but the act is the
retention of these diverse elements within itself. The act thus is
really one, and it is just this unity of differences which is the
concrete. Not only is the act concrete, but also the implicit, which
stands to action in the relation of subject which begins, and finally
the product is just as concrete as the action or as the subject which
begins. Development in process likewise forms the content, the Idea
itself; for this we must have the one element and then the other: both
combined will form a unity as third, because the one in the other is
at home with, and not without, itself. Thus the Idea is in its content
concrete within itself, and this in two ways: first it is concrete
potentially, and then it is its interest that what is in itself should
be there for it.
It is a common prejudice that the science of Philosophy deals only with
abstractions and empty generalities, and that sense-perception, our
empirical self-consciousness, natural instinct, and the feelings of
every-day life, lie, on the contrary, in the region of the concrete and
the self-determined. As a matter of fact, Philosophy is in the region
of thought, and has therefore to deal with universals; its content
is abstract, but only as to form and element. In itself the Idea is
really concrete, for it is the union of the different determinations.
It is here that reasoned knowledge differs from mere knowledge of the
understanding, and it is the business of Philosophy, as opposed to
understanding, to show that the Truth or the Idea does not consist
in empty generalities, but in a universal; and that is within itself
the particular and the determined. If the Truth is abstract it must
be untrue. Healthy human reason goes out towards what is concrete;
the reflection of the understanding comes first as abstract and
untrue, correct in theory only, and amongst other things unpractical.
Philosophy is what is most antagonistic to abstraction, and it leads
back to the concrete.
If we unite the Notion of the concrete with that of development we have
the motion of the concrete. Since the implicit is already concrete
within itself, and we only set forth what is implicitly there, the new
form which now looks different and which was formerly shut up in the
original unity, is merely distinguished. The concrete must become for
itself or explicit; as implicit or potential it is only differentiated
within itself, not as yet explicitly set forth, but still in a state
of unity. The concrete is thus simple, and yet at the same time
differentiated. This, its inward contradiction, which is indeed the
impelling force in development, brings distinction into being. But
thus, too, its right to be taken back and reinstated extends beyond
the difference; for its truth is only to be found in unity. Life, both
that which is in Nature and that which is of the Idea, of Mind within
itself, is thus manifested. Were the Idea abstract, it would simply be
the highest conceivable existence, and that would be all that could
be said of it; but such a God is the product of the understanding of
modern times. What is true is rather found in motion, in a process,
however, in which there is rest; difference, while it lasts, is but a
temporary condition, through which comes unity, full and concrete.
We may now proceed to give examples of sensuous things, which will help
us further to explain this Notion of the concrete. Although the flower
has many qualities, such as smell, taste, form, colour, &c., yet it is
one. None of these qualities could be absent in the particular leaf or
flower: each individual part of the leaf shares alike all the qualities
of the leaf entire. Gold, similarly contains in every particle all
its qualities unseparated and entire. It is frequently allowed with
sensuous things that such varied elements may be joined together, but,
in the spiritual, differentiation is supposed to involve opposition. We
do not controvert the fact, or think it contradictory, that the smell
and taste of the flower, although otherwise opposed, are yet clearly
in one subject; nor do we place the one against the other. But the
understanding and understanding thought find everything of a different
kind, placed in conjunction, to be incompatible. Matter, for example,
is complex and coherent, or space is continuous and uninterrupted.
Likewise we may take separate points in space and break up matter
dividing it ever further into infinity. It then is said that matter
consists of atoms and points, and hence is not continuous. Therefore
we have here the two determinations of continuity and of definite
points, which understanding regards as mutually exclusive, combined
in one. It is said that matter must be clearly either continuous or
divisible into points, but in reality it has both these qualities. Or
when we say of the mind of man that it has freedom, the understanding
at once brings up the other quality, which in this case is necessity,
saying, that if Mind is free it is not in subjection to necessity, and,
inversely, if its will and thought are determined through necessity, it
is not free—the one, they say, excludes the other. The distinctions
here are regarded as exclusive, and not as forming something concrete.
But that which is true, the Mind, is concrete, and its attributes are
freedom and necessity. Similarly the higher point of view is that Mind
is free in its necessity, and finds its freedom in it alone, since
its necessity rests on its freedom. But it is more difficult for us
to show the unity here than in the case of natural objects. Freedom
can, however, be also abstract freedom without necessity, which
false freedom is self-will, and for that reason it is self-opposed,
unconsciously limited, an imaginary freedom which is free in form
alone.
The fruit of development, which comes third, is a result of motion,
but inasmuch as it is merely the result of one stage in development,
as being last in this stage, it is both the starting point and the
first in order in another such stage. Goethe somewhere truly says,
“That which is formed ever resolves itself back into its elements.”
Matter—which as developed has form—constitutes once more the material
for a new form. Mind again takes as its object and applies its activity
to the Notion in which in going within itself, it has comprehended
itself, which it is in form and being, and which has just been
separated from it anew. The application of thought to this, supplies it
with the form and determination of thought. This action thus further
forms the previously formed, gives it additional determinations, makes
it more determinate in itself, further developed and more profound. As
concrete, this activity is a succession of processes in development
which must be represented not as a straight line drawn out into vague
infinity, but as a circle returning within itself, which, as periphery,
has very many circles, and whose whole is a large number of processes
in development turning back within themselves.
c. _Philosophy as the apprehension of the development of the Concrete._
Having thus generally explained the nature of the Concrete, I now add
as regards its import, that the Truth thus determined within itself
is impelled towards development. It is only the living and spiritual
which internally bestirs and develops itself. Thus the Idea as concrete
in itself, and self-developing, is an organic system and a totality
which contains a multitude of stages and of moments in development.
Philosophy has now become for itself the apprehension of this
development, and as conceiving Thought, is itself this development in
Thought. The more progress made in this development, the more perfect
is the Philosophy.
This development goes no further out than into externality, but the
going without itself of development also is a going inwards. That
is to say, the universal Idea continues to remain at the foundation
and still is the all-embracing and unchangeable. While in Philosophy
the going out of the Idea in course of its development is not a
change, a becoming “another,” but really is a going within itself,
a self-immersion, the progress forward makes the Idea which was
previously general and undetermined, determined within itself. Further
development of the Idea or its further determination is the same
thing exactly. Depth seems to signify intensiveness, but in this case
the most extensive is also the most intensive. The more intensive is
the Mind, the more extensive is it, hence the larger is its embrace.
Extension as development, is not dispersion or falling asunder, but
a uniting bond which is the more powerful and intense as the expanse
of that embraced is greater in extent and richer. In such a case what
is greater is the strength of opposition and of separation; and the
greater power overcomes the greater separation.
These are the abstract propositions regarding the nature of the Idea
and of its development, and thus within it Philosophy in its developed
state is constituted: it is one Idea in its totality and in all its
individual parts, like one life in a living being, one pulse throbs
throughout all its members. All the parts represented in it, and their
systematization, emanate from the one Idea; all these particulars are
but the mirrors and copies of this one life, and have their actuality
only in this unity. Their differences and their various qualities are
only the expression of the Idea and the form contained within it. Thus
the Idea is the central point, which is also the periphery, the source
of light, which in all its expansion does not come without itself, but
remains present and immanent within itself. Thus it is both the system
of necessity and its own necessity, which also constitutes its freedom.
3. RESULTS OBTAINED WITH RESPECT TO THE NOTION OF THE HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY.
Thus we see that Philosophy is system in development; the history of
Philosophy is the same; and this is the main point to be noted and the
first principle to be dealt with in this treatise on that history. In
order to make this evident, the difference in respect to the possible
modes of manifestation must first be pointed out. That is to say, the
progression of the various stages in the advance of Thought may occur
with the consciousness of necessity, in which case each in succession
deduces itself, and this form and this determination can alone emerge.
Or else it may come about without this consciousness as does a natural
and apparently accidental process, so that while inwardly, indeed,
the Notion brings about its result consistently, this consistency is
not made manifest. This is so in nature; in the various stages of the
development of twigs, leaves, blossom and fruit, each proceeds for
itself, but the inward Idea is the directing and determining force
which governs the progression. This is also so with the child whose
bodily powers, and above all whose intellectual activities, make their
appearance one after the other, simply and naturally, so that those
parents who form such an experience for the first time, marvel whence
all that is now showing itself from within, comes from; for the whole
of these manifestations merely have the form of a succession in time.
The one kind of progression which represents the deduction of the
forms, the necessity thought out and recognized, of the determinations,
is the business of Philosophy; and because it is the pure Idea which
is in question and not yet its mere particularized form as Nature and
as Mind, that representation is, in the main, the business of logical
Philosophy. But the other method, which represents the part played by
the history of Philosophy, shows the different stages and moments in
development in time, in manner of occurrence, in particular places,
in particular people or political circumstances, the complications
arising thus, and, in short, it shows us the empirical form. This point
of view is the only one worthy of this science. From the very nature
of the subject it is inherently the true one, and through the study of
this history it will be made manifest that it actually shows and proves
itself so.
Now in reference to this Idea, I maintain that the sequence in the
systems of Philosophy in History is similar to the sequence in the
logical deduction of the Notion-determinations in the Idea. I maintain
that if the fundamental conceptions of the systems appearing in the
history of Philosophy be entirely divested of what regards their
outward form, their relation to the particular and the like, the
various stages in the determination of the Idea are found in their
logical Notion. Conversely in the logical progression taken for
itself, there is, so far as its principal elements are concerned,
the progression of historical manifestations; but it is necessary to
have these pure Notions in order to know what the historical form
contains. It may be thought that Philosophy must have another order as
to the stages in the Idea than that in which these Notions have gone
forth in time; but in the main the order is the same. This succession
undoubtedly separates itself, on the one hand, into the sequence in
time of History, and on the other into succession in the order of
ideas. But to treat more fully of this last would divert us too far
from our aim.
I would only remark this, that what has been said reveals that the
study of the history of Philosophy is the study of Philosophy itself,
for, indeed, it can be nothing else. Whoever studies the history of
sciences such as Physics and Mathematics, makes himself acquainted with
Physics and Mathematics themselves. But in order to obtain a knowledge
of its progress as the development of the Idea in the empirical,
external form in which Philosophy appears in History, a corresponding
knowledge of the Idea is absolutely essential, just as in judging of
human affairs one must have a conception of that which is right and
fitting. Else, indeed, as in so many histories of Philosophy, there is
presented to the vision devoid of idea, only a disarranged collection
of opinions. To make you acquainted with this Idea, and consequently
to explain the manifestations, is the business of the history of
Philosophy, and to do this is my object in undertaking to lecture on
the subject. Since the observer must bring with him the Notion of
the subject in order to see it in its phenomenal aspect and in order
to expose the object faithfully to view, we need not wonder at there
being so many dull histories of Philosophy in which the succession of
its systems are represented simply as a number of opinions, errors and
freaks of thought. They are freaks of thought which, indeed, have been
devised with a great pretension of acuteness and of mental exertion,
and with everything else which can be said in admiration of what is
merely formal. But, considering the absence of philosophic mind in
such historians as these, how should they be able to comprehend and
represent the content, which is reasoned thought?
It is shown from what has been said regarding the formal nature of the
Idea, that only a history of Philosophy thus regarded as a system of
development in Idea, is entitled to the name of Science: a collection
of facts constitutes no science. Only thus as a succession of phenomena
established through reason, and having as content just what is reason
and revealing it, does this history show that it is rational: it shows
that the events recorded are in reason. How should the whole of what
has taken place in reason not itself be rational? That faith must
surely be the more reasonable in which chance is not made ruler over
human affairs, and it is the business of Philosophy to recognize that
however much its own manifestations may be history likewise, it is yet
determined through the Idea alone.
Through these general preliminary conceptions the categories are now
determined, the more immediate application of which to the history of
Philosophy we have now to consider. This application will bring before
us the most significant aspects in this history.
a. _The development in Time of the various Philosophies._
The first question which may be asked in reference to this history,
concerns that distinction in regard to the manifestation of the Idea,
which has just been noticed. It is the question as to how it happens
that Philosophy appears to be a development in time and has a history.
The answer to this question encroaches on the metaphysics of Time, and
it would be a digression from our object to give here more than the
elements on which the answer rests.
It has been shown above in reference to the existence of Mind, that
its Being is its activity. Nature, on the contrary, is, as it is; its
changes are thus only repetitions, and its movements take the form of a
circle merely. To express this better, the activity of Mind is to know
itself. I am, immediately, but this I am only as a living organism;
as Mind I am only in so far as I know myself. _Γνῶθι σεαυτόν_, Know
thyself, the inscription over the temple of the oracle at Delphi,
is the absolute command which is expressed by Mind in its essential
character. But consciousness really implies that for myself, I am
object to myself. In forming this absolute division between what is
mine and myself, Mind constitutes its existence and establishes itself
as external to itself. It postulates itself in the externality which is
just the universal and the distinctive form of existence in Nature. But
one of the forms of externality is Time, and this form requires to be
further examined both in the Philosophy of Nature and the finite Mind.
This Being in existence and therefore Being in time is a moment not
only of the individual consciousness, which as such is essentially
finite, but also of the development of the philosophical Idea in the
element of Thought. For the Idea, thought of as being at rest, is,
indeed, not in Time. To think of it as at rest, and to preserve it in
the form of immediacy is equivalent to its inward perception. But the
Idea as concrete, is, as has been shown, the unity of differences; it
is not really rest, and its existence is not really sense-perception,
but as differentiation within itself and therefore as development,
it comes into existent Being and into externality in the element of
Thought, and thus pure Philosophy appears in thought as a progressive
existence in time. But this element of Thought is itself abstract and
is the activity of a single consciousness. Mind is, however, not only
to be considered as individual, finite consciousness, but as that
Mind which is universal and concrete within itself; this concrete
universality, however, comprehends all the various sides and modes
evolved in which it is and becomes object to the Idea. Thus Mind’s
thinking comprehension of self is at the same time the progression of
the total actuality evolved. This progression is not one which takes
its course through the thought of an individual and exhibits itself
in a single consciousness, for it shows itself to be universal Mind
presenting itself in the history of the world in all the richness of
its form. The result of this development is that one form, one stage in
the Idea comes to consciousness in one particular race, so that this
race and this time expresses only this particular form, within which it
constructs its universe and works out its conditions. The higher stage,
on the other hand, centuries later reveals itself in another race of
people.
Now if we thus grasp the principles of the Concrete and of Development,
the nature of the manifold obtains quite another signification, and
what is said of the diversity in philosophies as if the manifold were
fixed and stationary and composed of what is mutually exclusive, is at
once refuted and relegated to its proper place. Such talk is that in
which those who despise Philosophy think they possess an invincible
weapon against it, and in their truly beggarly pride in their pitiful
representations of it, they are in perfect ignorance even of what they
have and what they have to know in any meagre ideas attained, such as
in that of the manifold and diverse. Yet this category is one which
anybody can understand; no difficulty is made in regard to it, for
it is thoroughly known, and those who use it think they can do so as
being entirely comprehensible—as a matter of course they understand
what it is. But those who believe the principle of diversity to be
one absolutely fixed, do not know its nature, or its dialectic; the
manifold or diverse is in a state of flux; it must really be conceived
of as in the process of development, and as but a passing moment.
Philosophy in its concrete Idea is the activity of development in
revealing the differences which it contains within itself; these
differences are thoughts, for we are now speaking of development in
Thought. In the first place, the differences which rest in the Idea
are manifested as thoughts. Secondly, these distinctions must come
into existence, one here and the other there; and in order that they
may do this, they must be complete, that is, they must contain within
themselves the Idea in its totality. The concrete alone as including
and supporting the distinctions, is the actual; it is thus, and thus
alone, that the differences are in their form entire.
A complete form of thought such as is here presented, is a Philosophy.
But the Idea contains the distinctions in a peculiar form. It may be
said that the form is indifferent, and that the content, the Idea, is
the main consideration; and people think themselves quite moderate and
reasonable when they state that the different philosophies all contain
the Idea, though in different forms, understanding by this that these
forms are contingent. But everything hangs on this: these forms are
nothing else than the original distinctions in the Idea itself, which
is what it is only in them. They are in this way essential to, and
constitute the content of the Idea, which in thus sundering itself,
attains to form. The manifold character of the principles which
appear, is, however, not accidental, but necessary: the different
forms constitute an integral part of the whole form. They are the
determinations of the original Idea, which together constitute the
whole; but as being outside of one another, their union does not take
place in them, but in us, the observers. Each system is determined as
one, but it is not a permanent condition that the differences are thus
mutually exclusive. The inevitable fate of these determinations must
follow, and that is that they shall be drawn together and reduced to
elements or moments. The independent attitude taken up by each moment
is again laid aside. After expansion, contraction follows—the unity
out of which they first emerged. This third may itself be but the
beginning of a further development. It may seem as if this progression
were to go on into infinitude, but it has an absolute end in view,
which we shall know better later on; many turnings are necessary,
however, before Mind frees itself in coming to consciousness.
The temple of self-conscious reason is to be considered from this the
point of view alone worthy of the history of Philosophy. It is hence
rationally built by an inward master worker, and not in Solomon’s
method, as freemasons build. The great assumption that what has taken
place on this side, in the world, has also done so in conformity
with reason—which is what first gives the history of Philosophy
its true interest—is nothing else than trust in Providence, only
in another form. As the best of what is in the world is that which
Thought produces, it is unreasonable to believe that reason only is
in Nature, and not in Mind. That man who believes that what, like the
philosophies, belongs to the region of mind must be merely contingent,
is insincere in his belief in divine rule, and what he says of it is
but empty talk.
A long time is undoubtedly required by Mind in working out Philosophy,
and when one first reflects on it, the length of the time may seem
astonishing, like the immensity of the space spoken of in astronomy.
But it must be considered in regard to the slow progress of the
world-spirit, that there is no need for it to hasten:—“A thousand
years are in Thy sight as one day.” It has time enough just because it
is itself outside of time, because it is eternal. The fleeting events
of the day pass so quickly that there is not time enough for all that
has to be done. Who is there who does not die before he has achieved
his aims? The world-spirit has time enough, but that is not all. It
is not time alone which has to be made use of in the acquisition of
a conception; much else is required. The fact that so many races and
generations are devoted to these operations of its consciousness by
Mind, and that the appearance is so perpetually presented of rising
up and passing away, concern it not at all; it is rich enough for
such displays, it pursues its work on the largest possible scale,
and has nations and individuals enough and to spare. The saying that
Nature arrives at its end in the shortest possible way, and that this
is right, is a trivial one. The way shown by mind is indirect, and
accommodates itself to circumstances. Considerations of finite life,
such as time, trouble, and cost, have no place here. We ought, too, to
feel no disappointment that particular kinds of knowledge cannot yet be
attained, or that this or that is still absent. In the history of the
world progression is slow.
b. _The application of the foregoing to the treatment of Philosophy._
The first result which follows from what has been said, is that the
whole of the history of Philosophy is a progression impelled by an
inherent necessity, and one which is implicitly rational and _à priori_
determined through its Idea; and this the history of Philosophy has to
exemplify. Contingency must vanish on the appearance of Philosophy.
Its history is just as absolutely determined as the development of
Notions, and the impelling force is the inner dialectic of the forms.
The finite is not true, nor is it what it is to be—its determinate
nature is bound up with its existence. But the inward Idea abolishes
these finite forms: a philosophy which has not the absolute form
identical with the content, must pass away because its form is not that
of truth.
What follows, secondly from what we have said, is that every philosophy
has been and still is necessary. Thus none have passed away, but
all are affirmatively contained as elements in a whole. But we must
distinguish between the particular principle of these philosophies as
particular, and the realization of this principle throughout the whole
compass of the world. The principles are retained, the most recent
philosophy being the result of all preceding, and hence no philosophy
has ever been refuted. What has been refuted is not the principle of
this philosophy, but merely the fact that this principle should be
considered final and absolute in character. The atomic philosophy,
for example, has arrived at the affirmation that the atom is the
absolute existence, that it is the indivisible unit which is also the
individual or subject; seeing, then, that the bare unit also is the
abstract being-for-self, the Absolute would be grasped as infinitely
many units. The atomic theory has been refuted, and we are atomists
no longer. Mind is certainly explicitly existent as a unit or atom,
but that is to attribute to it a barren character and qualities
incapable of expressing anything of its depth. The principle is indeed
retained, although it is not the absolute in its entirety. This same
contradiction appears in all development. The development of the tree
is the negation of the germ, and the blossom that of the leaves, in so
far as that they show that these do not form the highest and truest
existence of the tree. Last of all, the blossom finds its negation in
the fruit. Yet none of them can come into actual existence excepting
as preceded by all the earlier stages. Our attitude to a philosophy
must thus contain an affirmative side and a negative; when we take both
of these into consideration, we do justice to a philosophy for the
first time. We get to know the affirmative side later on both in life
and in science; thus we find it easier to refute than to justify.
In the third place, we shall limit ourselves to the particular
consideration of the principle itself. Each principle has reigned for a
certain time, and when the whole system of the world has been explained
from this special form, it is called a philosophical system. Its whole
theory has certainly to be learned, but as long as the principle is
abstract it is not sufficient to embrace the forms belonging to our
conception of the world. The Cartesian principles, for instance, are
very suitable for application to mechanism, but for nothing further;
their representation of other manifestations in the world, such as
those of vegetable and animal nature, are insufficient, and hence
uninteresting. Therefore we take into consideration the principles of
these philosophies only, but in dealing with concrete philosophies
we must also regard the chief forms of their development and their
applications. The subordinate philosophies are inconsistent; they have
had bright glimpses of the truth, which are, however, independent
of their principles. This is exemplified in the Timæus of Plato, a
philosophy of nature, the working out of which is empirically very
barren because its principle does not as yet extend far enough, and it
is not to its principle that we owe the deep gleams of thought there
contained.
In the fourth place it follows that we must not regard the history
of Philosophy as dealing with the past, even though it is history.
The scientific products of reason form the content of this history,
and these are not past. What is obtained in this field of labour is
the True, and, as such, the Eternal; it is not what exists now, and
not then; it is true not only to-day or to-morrow, but beyond all
time, and in as far as it is in time, it is true always and for every
time. The bodily forms of those great minds who are the heroes of this
history, the temporal existence and outward lives of the philosophers,
are, indeed, no more, but their works and thoughts have not followed
suit, for they neither conceived nor dreamt of the rational import
of their works. Philosophy is not somnambulism, but is developed
consciousness; and what these heroes have done is to bring that which
is implicitly rational out of the depths of Mind, where it is found at
first as substance only, or as inwardly existent, into the light of
day, and to advance it into consciousness and knowledge. This forms a
continuous awakening. Such work is not only deposited in the temple of
Memory as forms of times gone by, but is just as present and as living
now as at the time of its production. The effects produced and work
performed are not again destroyed or interrupted by what succeeds, for
they are such that we must ourselves be present in them. They have as
medium neither canvas, paper, marble, nor representation or memorial
to preserve them. These mediums are themselves transient, or else form
a basis for what is such. But they do have Thought, Notion, and the
eternal Being of Mind, which moths cannot corrupt, nor thieves break
through and steal. The conquests made by Thought when constituted
into Thought form the very Being of Mind. Such knowledge is thus not
learning merely, or a knowledge of what is dead, buried and corrupt:
the history of Philosophy has not to do with what is gone, but with the
living present.
c. _Further comparison between the History of Philosophy and Philosophy
itself._
We may appropriate to ourselves the whole of the riches apportioned
out in time: it must be shown from the succession in philosophies how
that succession is the systematization of the science of Philosophy
itself. But a distinction is to be noted here: that which first
commences is implicit, immediate, abstract, general—it is what has
not yet advanced; the more concrete and richer comes later, and the
first is poorer in determinations. This may appear contrary to one’s
first impressions, but philosophic ideas are often enough directly
opposed to ordinary ideas, and what is generally supposed, is not found
to be the case. It may be thought that what comes first must be the
concrete. The child, for instance, as still in the original totality
of his nature, is thought to be more concrete than the man, hence we
imagine the latter to be more limited, no longer forming a totality,
but living an abstract life. Certainly the man acts in accordance with
definite ends, not bringing his whole soul and mind into a subject,
but splitting his life into a number of abstract unities. The child
and the youth, on the contrary, act straight from the fulness of the
heart. Feeling and sense-perception come first, thought last, and thus
feeling appears to us to be more concrete than thought, or the activity
of abstraction and of the universal. In reality, it is just the other
way. The sensuous consciousness is certainly the more concrete, and if
poorer in thought, at least richer in content. We must thus distinguish
the naturally concrete from the concrete of thought, which on its
side, again, is wanting in sensuous matter. The child is also the most
abstract and the poorest in thought: as to what pertains to nature, the
man is abstract, but in thought he is more concrete than the child.
Man’s ends and objects are undoubtedly abstract in general affairs,
such as in maintaining his family or performing his business duties,
but he contributes to a great objective organic whole, whose progress
he advances and directs. In the acts of a child, on the other hand,
only a childish and, indeed, momentary “I,” and in those of the youth
the subjective constitution or the random aim, form the principle
of action. It is in this way that science is more concrete than
sense-perception.
In applying this to the different forms of Philosophy, it follows in
the first place, that the earliest philosophies are the poorest and the
most abstract. In them the Idea is least determined; they keep merely
to generalities not yet realized. This must be known in order that we
may not seek behind the old philosophies for more than we are entitled
to find; thus we need not require from them determinations proceeding
from a deeper consciousness. For instance, it has been asked whether
the philosophy of Thales is, properly speaking, Theism or Atheism,[5]
whether he asserted a personal God or merely an impersonal, universal
existence. The question here regards the attribution of subjectivity
to the highest Idea, the conception of the Personality of God. Such
subjectivity as we comprehend it, is a much richer, more concentrated,
and therefore much later conception, which need not be sought for in
distant ages. The Greek gods had, indeed, personality in imagination
and idea like the one God of the Jewish religion, but to know what
is the mere picture of fancy, and what the insight of pure Thought
and Notion, is quite another thing. If we take as basis our own
ideas judged by these deeper conceptions, an ancient Philosophy may
undoubtedly be spoken of as Atheism. But this expression would at the
same time be false, for the thoughts as thoughts in beginning, could
not have arrived at the development which we have reached.
From this it follows—since the progress of development is equivalent
to further determination, and this means further immersion in and a
fuller grasp of the Idea itself—that the latest, most modern and
newest philosophy is the most developed, richest and deepest. In that
philosophy everything which at first seems to be past and gone must be
preserved and retained, and it must itself be a mirror of the whole
history. The original philosophy is the most abstract, because it is
the original and has not as yet made any movement forward; the last,
which proceeds from this forward and impelling influence, is the
most concrete. This, as may at once be remarked, is no mere pride in
the philosophy of our time, because it is in the nature of the whole
process that the more developed philosophy of a later time is really
the result of the previous operations of the thinking mind; and that
it, pressed forwards and onwards from the earlier standpoints, has not
grown up on its own account or in a state of isolation.
It must also be recollected that we must not hesitate to say, what is
naturally implied, that the Idea, as comprehended and shown forth in
the latest and newest philosophy, is the most developed, the richest
and deepest. I call this to remembrance because the designation, new
or newest of all in reference to Philosophy, has become a very common
by-word. Those who think they express anything by using such terms
might quite easily render thanks respecting any number of philosophies
just as fast as their inclination directs, regarding either every
shooting-star and even every candle-gleam in the light of a sun, or
else calling every popular cry a philosophy, and adducing as proof that
at any rate there are so many philosophies that every day one displaces
another. Thus they have the category in which they can place any
apparently significant philosophy, and through which they may at the
same time set it aside; this they call a fashion-philosophy.
“Scoffer, thou call’st this but a fleeting phase
When the Spirit of Man once again and anew,
Strives earnestly on, towards forms that are higher.”
A second consequence has regard to the treatment of the older
philosophies. Such insight also prevents us from ascribing any blame
to the philosophies when we miss determinations in them which were not
yet present to their culture, and similarly it prevents our burdening
them with deductions and assertions which were neither made nor thought
of by them, though they might correctly enough allow themselves to
be derived from the thought of such a philosophy. It is necessary
to set to work on an historical basis, and to ascribe to Philosophy
what is immediately given to us, and that alone. Errors crop up here
in most histories of Philosophy, since we may see in them a number
of metaphysical propositions ascribed to a philosopher and given out
as an historical statement of the views which he has propounded, of
which he neither thought nor knew a word, and of which there is not
the slightest trace found in history. Thus in Brucker’s great History
of Philosophy (Pt. I. pp. 465-478 seq.) a list of thirty, forty, or a
hundred theorems are quoted from Thales and others, no idea of which
can be traced in history as having been present to these philosophers.
There are also propositions in support of them and citations taken
from discussions of a similar kind with which we may occupy ourselves
long enough. Brucker’s method is to endow the single theorem of an
ancient philosopher with all the consequences and premises which must,
according to the idea of the Wolffian Metaphysics, be the premises and
conclusions of that theorem, and thus easily to produce a simple, naked
fiction as if it were an actual historical fact. Thus, according to
Brucker, Thales said, _Ex nihilo fit nihil_, since he said that water
was eternal. Thus, too, he was to be counted amongst the philosophers
who deny creation out of nothing; and of this, historically at least,
Thales was ignorant. Professor Ritter, too, whose history of Ionic
Philosophy is carefully written, and who on the whole is cautious not
to introduce foreign matter, has very possibly ascribed to Thales more
than is found in history. He says (pp. 12, 13), “Hence we must regard
the view of nature which we find in Thales as dynamic in principle.
He regarded the world as the all-embracing, living animal which
has developed from a germ like every other animal, and this germ,
like that of all other animals, is either damp or water. Thus the
fundamental idea of Thales is that the world is a living whole which
has developed from a germ and carries on its life as does an animal,
by means of nourishment suitable to its nature” (cf. p. 16). This is
quite a different account from that of Aristotle, and none of it is
communicated by the ancients regarding Thales. The sequence of thought
is evident, but historically it is not justified. We ought not by such
deductions to make an ancient philosophy into something quite different
from what it originally was.
We are too apt to mould the ancient philosophers into our own forms of
thought, but this is just to constitute the progress of development;
the difference in times, in culture and in philosophies, depends on
whether certain reflections, certain thought determinations, and
certain stages in the Notion have come to consciousness, whether a
consciousness has been developed to a particular point or not. The
history of Philosophy has simply to deal with this development and
bringing forth of thought. The determinations involved certainly follow
from a proposition, but whether they are put forth as yet or not is
quite another thing, and the bringing forth of the inner content is the
only matter of importance. We must therefore only make use of the words
which are actually literal, for to use further thought determinations
which do not yet belong to the consciousness of the philosopher in
question, is to carry on development. Thus Aristotle states that
Thales has defined the principle (_ἀρχή_) of every thing to be water.
But Anaximander first made use of _ἀρχή_, and Thales thus did not
possess this determination of thought at all; he recognized _ἀρχή_ as
commencement in time, but not as the fundamental principle. Thales did
not once introduce the determination of cause into his philosophy, and
first cause is a further determination still. There are whole nations
which have not this conception at all; indeed it involves a great step
forward in development. And seeing that difference in culture on the
whole depends on difference in the thought determinations which are
manifested, this must be so still more with respect to philosophies.
Now, as in the logical system of thought each of its forms has its
own place in which alone it suffices, and this form becomes, by means
of ever-progressing development, reduced to a subordinate element,
each philosophy is, in the third place, a particular stage in the
development of the whole process and has its definite place where it
finds its true value and significance. Its special character is really
to be conceived of in accordance with this determination, and it is to
be considered with respect to this position in order that full justice
may be done to it. On this account nothing more must be demanded or
expected from it than what it actually gives, and the satisfaction
is not to be sought for in it, which can only be found in a fuller
development of knowledge. We must not expect to find the questions of
our consciousness and the interest of the present world responded to
by the ancients; such questions presuppose a certain development in
thought. Therefore every philosophy belongs to its own time and is
restricted by its own limitations, just because it is the manifestation
of a particular stage in development. The individual is the offspring
of his people, of his world, whose constitution and attributes are
alone manifested in his form; he may spread himself out as he will, he
cannot escape out of his time any more than out of his skin, for he
belongs to the one universal Mind which is his substance and his own
existence. How should he escape from this? It is the same universal
Mind that is embraced by thinking Philosophy; that Philosophy is
Mind’s thought of itself and therefore its determinate and substantial
content. Every philosophy is the philosophy of its own day, a link in
the whole chain of spiritual development, and thus it can only find
satisfaction for the interests belonging to its own particular time.
On this account an earlier philosophy does not give satisfaction
to the mind in which a deeper conception reigns. What Mind seeks
for in Philosophy is this conception which already constitutes its
inward determination and the root of its existence conceived of as
object to thought; Mind demands a knowledge of itself. But in the
earlier philosophy the Idea is not yet present in this determinate
character. Hence the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and indeed
all philosophies, ever live and are present in their principles, but
Philosophy no longer has the particular form and aspect possessed
by that of Plato and of Aristotle. We cannot rest content with
them, and they cannot be revived; hence there can be no Platonists,
Aristotelians, Stoics, or Epicureans to-day. To re-awaken them would
be to try to bring back to an earlier stage the Mind of a deeper
culture and self-penetration. But this cannot be the case; it would be
an impossibility and as great a folly as were a man to wish to expend
his energies in attaining the standpoint of the youth, the youth in
endeavouring to be the boy or child again; whereas the man, the youth,
and the child, are all one and the same individual. The period of
revival in the sciences, the new epoch in learning which took place in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, began not only with the revived
study of, but also with the re-animation of the old philosophies.
Marsilius Ficinus was a Platonist; an Academy of Platonic philosophy
was established and installed with professors by Cosmos de Medici, and
Ficinus was placed at the head of it. There were pure Aristotelians
like Pomponius: Gassendi later on maintained the Epicurean philosophy,
for his philosophy dealt with Physics after the manner of the
Epicureans; Lipsius wished to be a Stoic, and so on. The sense of
opposition was so great, ancient philosophy and Christianity—from or
in which no special philosophy had developed—were so diverse, that
no philosophy peculiar to itself could develop in Christianity. What
was or could be had as philosophy, either in conformity with or in
opposition to Christianity, was a certain ancient philosophy which was
thus taken up anew. But mummies when brought amongst living beings
cannot there remain. Mind had for long possessed a more substantial
life, a more profound Notion of itself, and hence its thought had
higher needs than such as could be satisfied by these philosophies.
A revival such as this is then to be regarded only as the transitory
period in which we learn to know the forms which are implied and which
have gone before, and as the renewal of former struggles through the
steps necessary in development. Such reconstructions and repetitions in
a distant time of principles which have become foreign to Mind, are in
history transitory only, and formed in a language which is dead. Such
things are translations only and not originals, and Mind does not find
satisfaction excepting in knowledge of its own origination.
When modern times are in the same way called upon to revert to the
standpoint of an ancient philosophy (as is recommended specially in
regard to the philosophy of Plato) in order to make this a means of
escaping from the complications and difficulties of succeeding times,
this reversion does not come naturally as in the first case. This
discreet counsel has the same origin as the request to cultivated
members of society to turn back to the customs and ideas of the savages
of the North American forests, or as the recommendation to adopt the
religion of Melchisedec which Fichte[6] has maintained to be the
purest and simplest possible, and therefore the one at which we must
eventually arrive. On the one hand, in this retrogression the desire
for an origin and for a fixed point of departure is unmistakable,
but such must be sought for in thought and Idea alone and not in an
authoritatively given form. On the other hand, the return of the
developed, enriched Mind to a simplicity such as this—which means to
an abstraction, an abstract condition or thought—is to be regarded
only as the escape of an incapacity which cannot enjoy the rich
material of development which it sees before it, and which demands to
be controlled and comprehended in its very depths by thought, but seeks
a refuge in fleeing from the difficulty and in mere sterility.
From what has been said it is quite comprehensible how so many of
those who, whether induced by some special attraction such as this,
or simply by the fame of a Plato or ancient philosophy in general,
direct their way thereto in order to draw their own philosophy from
these sources, do not find themselves satisfied by the study, and
unjustifiably quit such altogether. Satisfaction is found in them to
a certain extent only. We must know in ancient philosophy or in the
philosophy of any given period, what we are going to look for. Or at
least we must know that in such a philosophy there is before us a
definite stage in the development of thought, and in it those forms
and necessities of Mind which lie within the limits of that stage
alone are brought into existence. There slumber in the Mind of modern
times ideas more profound which require for their awakening other
surroundings and another present than the abstract, dim, grey thought
of olden times. In Plato, for instance, questions regarding the nature
of freedom, the origin of evil and of sin, providence, &c., do not
find their philosophic answer. On such subjects we certainly may in
part take the ordinary serious views of the present time, and in part
philosophically set their consideration altogether aside, or else
consider sin and freedom as something negative only. But neither the
one plan nor the other gives freedom to Mind if such subjects have once
been explicitly for it, and if the opposition in self-consciousness
has given it the power of sinking its interests therein. The case is
similar with regard to questions regarding the limits of knowledge, the
opposition between subjectivity and objectivity which had not yet come
up in Plato’s age. The independence of the “I” within itself and its
explicit existence was foreign to him; man had not yet gone back within
himself, had not yet set himself forth as explicit. The subject was
indeed the individual as free, but as yet he knew himself only as in
unity with his Being. The Athenian knew himself to be free, as such,
just as the Roman citizen would, as _ingenuus_. But the fact that man
is in and for himself free, in his essence and as man, free born, was
known neither by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, nor the Roman legislators,
even though it is this conception alone which forms the source of
law. In Christianity the individual, personal mind for the first time
becomes of real, infinite and absolute value; God wills that all men
shall be saved. It was in the Christian religion that the doctrine
was advanced that all men are equal before God, because Christ has
set them free with the freedom of Christianity. These principles make
freedom independent of any such things as birth, standing or culture.
The progress made through them is enormous, but they still come short
of this, that to be free constitutes the very idea of man. The sense
of this existent principle has been an active force for centuries and
centuries, and an impelling power which has brought about the most
tremendous revolutions; but the conception and the knowledge of the
natural freedom of man is a knowledge of himself which is not old.
B
THE RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE.