A History of Philosophy in Epitome

To write a manual of the history of philosophy is by no means an easy undertaking. The first difficulty is to define the precise content of the term 'philosophy.' With us it has a much wider range of application than with our Teutonic neighbors. They smile at our simplicity when we speak of philosophical instruments, and cannot understand how Francis Bacon should be numbered among philosophers. This is the explanation why Albert Schwegler had disposed of our great Inductionist in the...
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To write a manual of the history of philosophy is by no means an easy undertaking. The first difficulty is to define the precise content of the term 'philosophy.' With us it has a much wider range of application than with our Teutonic neighbors. They smile at our simplicity when we speak of philosophical instruments, and cannot understand how Francis Bacon should be numbered among philosophers. This is the explanation why Albert Schwegler had disposed of our great Inductionist in the space of some fifty lines, whereas Jacob Boehme occupies about-three pages! But M. Comte, in his Cours de Philosophic Positive, has rescued philosophy from the monopoly of the metaphysicians; and has endorsed that prescriptive significance, which the word has long obtained in the philosophical schools of Great Britain.

The chief difficulty, however, in writing such a manual as the one before us, is that which has been the puzzle of philosophers in all ages, - the selection of a clear and comprehensive method. Schwegler has very judiciously blended the history of philosophers with the history of philosophy, and has not overlooked the philosophy of history in the plan which he has chosen. His book does not repel you either by a profusion of dry facts, or by an unbroken series of metaphysical disquisitions; but you feel, as you advance, in close contact with earnest philosophers, while you are treading the mazes of their conflicting philosophies.

Schwegler was an intense Hegelian, though refusing to commit himself to the logical forms of his master. Indeed, in this History, he starts from a diametrically opposite standpoint. Hegel held that the various systems of ancient and modern philosophy corresponded to logical categories, and that a history of philosophy ought to aim at exhibiting that correspondence. Schwegler contends that the history of philosophy will not admit of any such an a priori construction; and, in the spirit of a true inductionist, says that facts, so far as they can be admitted, after a critical sifting, should be received as such, and their rational connection be analytically determined.' This principle he adopts as the basis of his Epitome.