Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/75

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
20
GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

which express the two conceptions that lie at the root of the two great schools of philosophy that have divided the world, and two more fundamental conceptions of these antagonist philosophies I believe it is not possible to obtain. I have called both of these schools philosophical; but in strict speech we ought to say that while the one of them is philosophical, the other is anti-philosophical, for they are directly opposed to each other, as you may see from the opposite conceptions which each of them entertains in regard to the proper business of philosophy. But we need not quarrel about the use of a word; and, provided the opposition between the two parties be understood, we may apply the term philosophical to both of them.

23. But to render our definition of philosophy complete, something, indeed a good deal, still requires to be added to it. Philosophy, I have said, is the pursuit of the real as it exists for all intelligence. This definition proceeds, as I have said, on the postulate—a postulate which I regard as axiomatic—that all intelligences know and think in some respects alike. It is not necessary, at present at least, to suppose that there are more intelligences than ours in the universe; but if there are other intelligences, it is necessary to suppose that they agree in some respect with ours, or, in other words, that all intelligences, actual or possible, have something in common. Now, the question here arises, What is