Course of the History of Modern Philosophy (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE II. PERPETUITY OF PHILOSOPHY. Subject of this lecture: Verification by history of the results obtained by psychology.?Has philosophy had an historical existence, and what has this existence been 1st, The East.?Birth of philosophy. 2d, Greece and Eome.?Development of philosophy.?Socrates. 8d, Middle age.?Seholasticism. 4th, Modern philosophy.?Descartes. 5th, Actual condition of philosophy.?View of the future.?Conclusion: That philosophy has not been wanting to any epoch of humanity; that its importance has increased from epoch to epoch; and that its tendency is to become, without ceasing, a more considerable portion of history. In my last lecture, I endeavored to vindicate philosophy: I showed that philosophy is not the dream of particular men, but the necessary development of a fundamental need of human nature. I reviewed all the general ideas which govern humanity? the idea of the useful, the idea of the just, the idea of the beautiful, the idea of the divine; and beyond these I found yet the idea of the true, of the true in itself, in its highest degree, under its purest form?that which thought, in its freest flight, is not able to pass beyond, because this form is precisely the essential and adequate form of thought. I proved, 1st, that these different ideas are facts which are attested by the authority of consciousness, and which, therefore, can be regarded as real elements of human nature; 2d, that there are no other elements, and that these exhaust the capacity of human nature; 3d, that there are no less, that is, that they are simple, indecomposable, irreducible into each other; 4th, that if they are not contemporaneous one with another, yet once formed, they coexist without power of destroying each other, and constitute the eternal foundation of humani...