Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/54

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
xlvii

as put forward not with the purpose of impugning that fundamental idea, but rather with the aim of throwing clearer light upon it from a nearly-related point of view."

2. From a notice of 'Lectures on Greek Philosophy,' &c, 2 vols., by Professor Hermann Ulrici, an Editor of 'Zeitschrift fur Philosophic und philosophische Kritik,' vol. liv. p. 185 (1869):—

"The 'Philosophical Remains' include not the whole but the best and most important portion of the writings on philosophy left by James Frederick Ferrier, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy at the University of St Andrews, who died 11th June 1864. We know the author through his 'Institutes of Metaphysic,' a work which even in England made a strong impression, and shortly after its appearance received a notice in this periodical which entered into and duly appreciated its views. We lament with the editors the premature death of this eminent man, whom we rank far higher than the newest celebrities for the day of English philosophy (J. S. Mill, A. Bain, &c.)—the more since he had the courage to do battle against the stream of shallow empiricism which English philosophy still follows, and which in consistency leads inevitably to one-sided materialism, sapping not only all ethical science, but all science whatever.

"The first volume contains almost exclusively lectures on the history of Greek philosophy, which Fer-