the individuality of the thinker, disposition, will, fancy--all these exert
a far stronger influence on the development of philosophy, both by way of
promotion and by way of hindrance, than in any other department of thought.
If a system gives classical expression to the thought of an epoch, a
nation, or a great personality; if it seeks to attack the world-riddle from
a new direction, or brings us nearer its solution by important original
conceptions, by a subtler or a simpler comprehension of the problem, by a
wider outlook or a deeper insight; it has accomplished more than it could
have done by bringing forward a number of indisputably correct principles.
The variations in philosophy, which, on the assumption of the unity of
truth, are a rock of offense to many minds, may be explained, on the one
hand, by the combination of complex variety and limitation in the motives
which govern philosophical thought,--for it is the whole man that
philosophizes, not his understanding merely,--and, on the other, by the
inexhaustible extent of the field of philosophy. Back of the logical labor
of proof and inference stand, as inciting, guiding, and hindering agents,
psychical and historical forces, which are themselves in large measure
alogical, though stronger than all logic; while just before stretches
away the immeasurable domain of reality, at once inviting and resisting
conquest. The grave contradictions, so numerous in both the subjective
and the objective fields, make unanimity impossible concerning ultimate
problems; in fact, they render it difficult for the individual thinker to
combine his convictions into a self-consistent system. Each philosopher
sees limited sections of the world only, and these through his own eyes;
every system is one-sided. Yet it is this multiplicity and variety of
systems alone which makes the aim of philosophy practicable as it endeavors
to give a complete picture of the soul and of the universe. The history of
philosophy is the philosophy of humanity, that great individual, which,
with more extended vision than the instruments through which it works,
is able to entertain opposing principles, and which, reconciling old