Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/59

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4
GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

philosophy is bound, and has fulfilled a requisition which either contains all other rules, or renders all other rules superfluous.

3. In the older histories of philosophy this rule is but little attended to, this obligation is very imperfectly fulfilled. They abound in learning, but they are lamentably deficient in insight. They are in general mere repertories of disjointed and exploded opinions, of capricious and arbitrary thoughts, which, as presented in these compilations, contain no point of interest for any living soul. The letter is there, but the spirit has altogether fled; there is abundance of the husk, but the kernel is nowhere to be found.

4. Of late years the history of philosophy has been studied in a profounder and more rational spirit. Living insight has been aimed at rather than dead learning. Attempts have been made to grasp the inner soul rather than the external environment of bygone speculations, and to trace the logical filiation of systems. These attempts, it must be owned, have been only partially successful. Much still remains to be done. The ground has been broken; but it cannot be said that the jungle has been cleared, or the roads made. The most diligent pioneers in this good work have been the two German philosophers, Hegel and Zeller. But Hegel's work on the history of philosophy labours under the disadvantages incident to a posthumous publication, and seems in many