order again to reconstruct them into a system? This it could not accomplish; but still it attempted this, and nothing else. A complete analysis was not to be expected from the first efforts of intelligence; its decompositions were necessarily partial and imperfect; a partial and imperfect analysis afforded only hypothetical elements; and the synthesis of these elements issued, consequently, only in a one-sided or erroneous theory.

Thales and the Ionic School.

"Thales, the founder of the Ionian philosophy, devoted an especial study to the phænomena of the material universe; and, struck with the appearances of power which water manifested in the formation of bodies, he analyzed all existences into this element, which he viewed as the universal principle, -- the universal agent of creation. He proceeded by an incomplete analysis, and generalized by hypothesis the law which he drew by induction from the observation of a small series of phænomena.

"The Ionic school continued in the same path. They limited themselves to the study of external nature, and sought in matter the principle of existence. Anaximander of Miletus, the countryman and disciple of Thales, deemed that he had traced the primary cause of creation to an ethereal principle, which occupied space, and whose different combinations constituted the universe of matter. Anaximenes found the original element in air, from which, by rarefaction and condensation, he educed existences. Anaxagoras carried his analysis farther, and made a more discreet use of hypothesis; he rose to the conception of an intelligent first cause, distinct from the phænomena of nature; and his notion of the Deity was so far above the gross conceptions of his contemporaries, that he was accused of atheism.

Pythagoras and the Italic School.

"Pythagoras, the founder of the Italic school, analyzed the properties of number; and the relations which this analysis revealed, he elevated into principles of the mental and material universe. Mathematics were his only objects; his analysis was partial, and his synthesis. was consequently hypothetical. The Italic school developed the notions of Pythagoras, and, exclusively preöccupied with the relations and harmonies of existence, its disciples did not extend their speculation to the consideration either of substance or of cause.

"Thus, these earlier schools, taking external nature for their point of departure, proceeded by an imperfect analysis, and a presumptuous synthesis, to the construction of exclusive systems, in which Idealism, or Materialism, preponderated, according to the kind of data on which they founded.

Eleatic School.

The Sophists. Soc

rates.

"The Eleatic school, which is distinguished into two branches, the one of Physical, the other of Metaphysical, speculation, exhibits the same character, the same point of departure, the same tendency, and the same errors. "These errors led to the skepticism of the Sophists, which was assailed by Socrates,-the sage who determined a new epoch in philosophy by directing observation on man himself, and henceforward the study of mind becomes the prime and central science of philosophy. "The point of departure was changed, but not the method. The observation or analysis of the human mind, though often profound, remained always incomplete. Fortunately, the first disciples of Socrates, imitating the prudence of their master, and warned by the downfall of the systems of the Ionic, Italic, and Eleatic schools, made a sparing use of synthesis, and hardly a pretension to system. "Plato and Aristotle directed their observation on the phanomena of intelligence, and we cannot too highly admire the profundity of their analysis, and even the sobriety of their synthesis. Plato devoted himself more particularly to the higher faculties of intelligence; and his disciples were led by the love of generalization, to regard as the intellectual whole, those portions of intelligence which their master had analyzed; and this exclusive spirit gave birth to systems false, not in themselves, but as resting upon a too narrow basis. Aristotle, on the other hand, whose genius was of a more positive character, analyzed with admirable acuteness those operations of mind which stand in more immediate relation to the senses; and this tendency, which among his followers became often exclusive and exaggerated, naturally engendered systems which more or less tended to materialism."

Plato and Aristotle.

School of Alexan

dria.

1

The school of Alexandria, in which the systems resulting from those opposite tendencies were combined, endeavored to reconcile and to fuse them into a still more comprehensive system. Eclecticism, -conciliation,-union, were, in all things, the grand aim of the Alexandrian school. Geographically situated between Greece and Asia, it endeavored to ally Greek with Asiatic genius, religion with philosophy. Hence the Neoplatonic system, of which the last great representative is Proclus. This system is the result of the long labor of the Socratic schools. It is an edifice reared by synthesis out of the materials

Proclus.

1 Géruzez, Nouveau Cours de Philosophie, p. 4-8. Paris, 1834, (2d ed.)

which analysis had collected, proved, and accumulated, from Socrates down to Plotinus.

But a synthesis is of no greater value than its relative analysis; and as the analysis of the earlier Greek philosophy was not complete, the synthesis of the Alexandrian school was necessarily imperfect.

In the scholastic philosophy, analysis and observation were too often neglected in some departments of philosophy, and too often carried rashly to excess in others.

The Scholastic Phi

losophy.

Philosophy from

the revival of letters.

tes.

Bacon and Descar

After the revival of letters, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the labors of philosophy were principally occupied in restoring and illustrating the Greek systems; and it was not until the seventeenth century, that a new epoch was determined by the genius of Bacon and Descartes. In Bacon and Descartes our modern philosophy may be said to originate, inasmuch as they were the first who made the doctrine of method a principal object of consideration. They both proclaimed, that, for the attainment of scientific knowledge, it is necessary to observe with care,—that is, to analyze; to reject every element as hypothetical, which this analysis does not spontaneously afford; to call in experiment in aid of observation; and to attempt no synthesis or generalization, until the relative analysis has been completely accomplished. They showed that previous philosophers had erred, not by rejecting either analysis or synthesis, but by hurrying on to synthetic induction from a limited or specious analytic observation. They propounded no new method of philosophy, they only expounded the conditions of the old. They showed that these conditions had rarely been fulfilled by philosophers in time past; and exhorted them to their fulfilment in time to come. They thus explained the petty progress of the past philosophy;— and justly anticipated a gigantic advancement for the future. Such was their precept, but such unfortunately was not their example. There are no philosophers who merit so much in the one respect, none, perhaps, who deserve less in the other.

Result of this historical sketch of philosophy.

Of philosophy since Bacon and Descartes, we at present say nothing. Of that we shall hereafter have frequent occasion to speak. But to sum up what this historical sketch was intended to illustrate. There is but one possible method of philosophy, a combination of analysis and synthesis; and the purity

and equilibrium of these two elements constitute its perfection. The aberrations of philosophy have been all so many violations of the laws of this one method. Philosophy has erred, because it built its systems upon incomplete or erroneous analysis, and it can only proceed in safety, if from accurate and unexclusive observation, it rise, by successive generalization, to a comprehensive sys

tem.

LECTURE VII.

THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY.

I HAVE already endeavored to afford you a general notion of what Philosophy comprehends: I now proceed to say something in regard to the Parts into which it has been divided. Here, however, I must limit myself to the most famous distributions, and to those which, as founded on fundamental principles, it more immediately concerns you to know. For, were I to attempt an enumeration of the various Divisions of Philosophy which have been proposed, I should only confuse you with a multitude of contradictory opinions, with the reasons of which you could not, at present, possibly be made acquainted.

Expediency of a division of Philosophy.

Seneca, in a letter to his young friend Lucilius, expresses the wish that the whole of philosophy might, like the spectacle of the universe, be at once submitted to our view. "Utinam quemadmodum universi mundi facies in conspectum venit, ita philosophia tota nobis posset occurrere, simillimum mundo spectaculum." But as we cannot survey the universe at a glance, neither can we contemplate the whole of philosophy in one act of consciousness. We can only master it gradually and piecemeal; and this is in fact the reason why philosophers have always distributed their science, (constituting, though it does, one organic whole,) into a plurality of sciences. The expediency, and even necessity, of a division of philosophy, in order that the mind may be enabled to embrace in one general view its various parts, in their relation to each other, and to the whole which they constitute, is admitted by every philosopher. "Res utilis," continues Seneca, "et ad sapientiam properanti utique necessaria, dividi philosophiam, et ingens corpus ejus in membra disponi. Facilius enim per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur."2

But, although philosophers agree in regard to the utility of such a distribution, they are almost as little at one in regard to the parts, as they are in respect to the definition, of their science; and, indeed, their differences in reference to the former, mainly arise from their