Ebook Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy

On the other hand, however, these views do not remain confined to their first authors, they spread and maintain themselves in schools, and by means of writings; a scientific tradition is formed, the later members learn from the earlier, and through them are stimulated to the completion, continuation, and cor rection of their results, to the asking of new questions, and the search after new answers and methods. The systems of philosophy, however peculiar and self dependent they may be, thus appear as the members of a larger historical interconnection; in respect to this alone can they be perfectly understood; the farther we follow it, the more the individual becomes united to a whole of historical development, and the problem arises not merely of explaining this whole by means of the particular moments conditioning it, but.