PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY.
This is a saddening book, if we arc to believe what we read in Dr. Fuller's preface :—
" . . many American university curricula are faced with the problem of acquainting, wholesale and in the brief term of one semester, large numbers of innocent and incurious youths with what every young man should know about the history of Greek Philosophy."
Their needs, and those of the general public, have led him to attempt " a simple, painless, and not unentertaining history of Greek Philosophy as a whole." So far as it is possible to convey to a Greekless and philosophically uneducated audience an adequate idea of a complicated and thorny subject, he may fairly claim to have succeeded. Without originality or parti prix he sets down in the terms of modern philosophical language the problems Thales and his successors tried to solve, and the answers they gave, and attempts to supply an historic background to his subject. This involves not only a sketch of Greek religion, but also a fancy picture of Periclean society, which is perhaps the weakest section of the book. It was inevitable, with these premises, that his account, both of the religious and philosophical systems, should be more definite and more completely rounded off than the evidence warrants ; but he has faithfully followed his authorities and interpreted them intelligibly, not even sparing us allusions to Einstein. The book is certainly " not unentertaining." For example, in speaking of the weakness of the system of Parmenides, he remarks : It is, however, only just to remember that the whole history of philosophy is plaintive with the mewings of metaphysicians who have found it easier to get up the tree of knowledge than to get down again." Or again : " In everything,' as in a well-shaken cocktail, there is a portion of everything.' " This is a description of the particles of Anaxagoras. The attribution to Pythagoras of the " view that everything is a sum or number of discreet units " is Probably due to the transatlantic printer.
Previous page
