Intellectual history

“ The ideas which have prevailed in the past, in regard to the nature of the ultimate particles of matter out of which worlds are formed, reveal the speculative tendency as well as the intellectual status of the human mind in different epochs of the history of civilization. ”

“ The philosophers of modern times, while they may not adopt the principles of the ancient philosophy, still recognize their power, their forms of thought, and their activities, and their great influence on the intellectual development of the world. ”

“ It would require a lifetime to calculate, and many books to describe, all the directions and interactions of the intellectual and social forces which, since the fall of ancient civilization, have hindered and helped the emancipation of reason. ”

“ In order to deal effectually with the history of philosophy, in order to derive any benefit from it as students, and in order to confer any benefit on it as historians, we must, first of all, be philosophers ourselves. ”

“ But let us look at the inventive class of minds which stand out amongst their fellows—the men who, with little prompting or none, conceive new ideas in science, arts, morals—and we can be at no loss to understand how and whence have arisen the elements of that civilization which history traces from country to country throughout the course of centuries. ”

“ All our systems of politics, morals, and metaphysics would be different if we knew exactly how they grew up, and what transformations they have undergone; if we knew, in short, the true history of human ideas.—Cliffe Leslie, Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy, 1879, 149. The history of philosophy must be rational and philosophic. It must be philosophy itself, with all its elements, in all their relations, and under all their laws represented in striking characters by the hands of time and of history, in the manifested progress of the human mind.—Sir William Hamilton, Edin. ”

“ This accumulation of intellect among the lower and labouring classes is a delightful thing,—when contemplated as studying history or philosophy, or sporting itself with the finest productions of genius. ”

“ There will come a time—I am sure of it—when it will be found that the same practical results, both in mental discipline, and in political philosophy, are to be attained by the accurate study of mediæval and modern as of ancient history ”

“ We may accept the isolation of the historical critic then, at least in theory, and conceive of him as a fragment of a social historian, as the author of a chapter in the history of the human spirit. But can we isolate the philosophic critic in the same way? ”

“ The philosophy of history at large, explaining the past and predicting the future phenomena of man’s life in the world by reference to general laws, is in fact a subject with which, in the present state of knowledge, even genius aided by wide research seems but hardly able to cope. ”

“ Beyond these, the essential and the eminently desirable elements of all education, let each man take up his special line--the historian devote himself to his history, the man of science to his science, the man of letters to his culture of that kind, and the artist to his special pursuit. ”

“ I am convinced that such among you as may intend to hereafter prosecute your speculative researches in a profound and zealous spirit, and to study philosophy both in itself and in its history,—I am convinced that you must build your labours upon the distinction now brought before you. ”

“ Circumstances of various kinds, and particularly ill-health, have thus put me, although a writer, into the position of a reader; and have made me ask myself, as I collected these fragments of my former studies, what can the study of history, particularly of the history of art and of other manifestations of past conditions of soul, do for us in the present?
All knowledge is bound to be useful. ”

“ Even one who confines his reading solely to biographies of thinkers, writers, inventors, poets of the spirit or poets of science, will in a short time have acquired an understanding of the whole History of Humanity. ”

“ But quite certainly he had something of genius for the exact study of history, for the pursuit of exact truth, with a keenness of scent as if that alone existed, in some special area of historic fact, to be determined by his own peculiar mental preferences. Power here too again,—the crude power of men and women which mocks, while it makes its use of, average human nature: it was the magic function of history to put one in living [17] contact with that. ”

“ History, the knowledge of the adventures, the development, the changeful career, the varied growths, the ambitions, aspirations, and, if you like, the approximating destinies of mankind, claims a place second to none in the roll of sciences. Arising from one of the first and most anciently cultivated instincts, the desire to know how we come to be what we are, and how the world comes to be what it is, the love of history is certainly second in origin to no other sort of love of knowledge. ”

“ You may have your Hegel's philosophy of history, or you may have your Schlegel's philosophy of history; you may prove from history that the world is governed in detail by a special Providence; you may prove that there is no sign of any moral agent in the universe, except man; you may believe, if you like it, in the old theory of the wisdom of antiquity; you may speak, as was the fashion in the fifteenth century, of "our fathers, who had more wit and wisdom than we" ”

“ The only branch of human knowledge about which we must have reservations is history. What is generally understood by this word is [a] science of human deeds, for mature intellects and not [conviene] to children. Understood in another sense, presented from another perspective, is to the contrary access. So, [we have] History: general and national history, but the history of great human and social deeds, of labor, arts, ideas, personal life, better than political history; the history of the people before that of the kings, the history of humanity's evolution before that of dynasties and battles. ”

“ For a long time men's minds had been growing more and more practical, seeking for some tangible and useful result from their labours. The result was that the study of ancient and modern Languages and Literature, of Theology, History, Metaphysics, Antiquities, and the fruitless speculations of Philosophy, received less attention every year, until at last they were altogether abandoned. ”

“ It follows that all the natural arts serve divine science, and the lower knowledge rightly ordered leads to the higher. History, i.e. the historical meaning, is that in which words signify things, and its servants, as already said, are the three sciences, grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. ”

“ While history itself is to those who study it for sheer interest in the doings of mankind, an art, and one of the greatest;—to those who study it that they may 'learn its lessons', refute a political opponent, or pass a competitive examination, no more than a branch of useful knowledge. ”

“ We may hold that the historian should confine himself to giving a record of the objective facts, which can be fully given in dates, statistics, and phenomena seen from outside. But if we allow ourselves to contemplate a philosophical history, which shall deal with the causes of events and aim at exhibiting the evolution of human society—and perhaps I ought to apologise for even suggesting that such an ideal could ever be realised—we should also see that the history of literature would be a subordinate element of the whole structure. ”

“ Eschewing all expressions of opinion on controverted points of science, philosophy, religion, and politics, it aims at an accurate representation of facts and institutions, of the results of physical research, of the prominent events in the history of the world, of the most significant productions of literature and art, and of the celebrated individuals whose names have become associated with the conspicuous phenomena of their age—doing justice to all men, all creeds, all sections. ”

“ And the range of topics is very wide; it embraces science and art, history and philosophy; above all, the knowledge of human nature that teaches how the mind he addresses is to be convinced and persuaded, and how a willing ear is to be won to his discourse. ”

“ Pragmatic reflections, however abstract they be, are thus in reality the present, and vivify the tales of the past with the life of to-day.—Here too a word should specially be given to the moralising and the moral instructions to be gained through history,—for which it was often studied.... Rulers, statesmen, nations, are especially bidden learn from the experience of history. ”

“ Examples of the empirical laws from which this method begins abound in histories, newspapers, and political discussions, and are of all shades of truth or half-truth: as that 'History consists in the biographies of great men'; in other words, that the movements of society are due to exceptional personal powers, not to general causes ”

“ As the true history of our own race shows that we came from a low and brutal state, common once to all mankind, so the facts of our present condition give us reasonable hope for a better future. Let us, then, stand, on the highest points of knowledge in all its departments, for these are touched with light. We must reach these heights by continual reading, observation, and experiment. The result of these is culture. All thought has an added, beauty as it approaches the truth, but what is needed is to attain to clear conceptions. ”

“ While not unmindful of historical and social influences, I desire especially to fix my reader's attention on great individuals, their ideas, their feelings, and their art. The general history of ideas should, in the first instance, be discerned by the student of literature through his observation of individual minds. ”

“ On the other hand, to extract the philosophy of history, to direct on judgment of events and men, to trace the connection of cause and effects, and to draw from the occurrences of former time general lessons of moral and political wisdom, has become the business of a distinct class of writers. ”

“ Historical intellectualism has opened the way to the many attempts, made especially during the last two centuries and continued to-day, to discover a philosophy of history, an ideal history, a sociology, a historical psychology, or whatever else a science may be called, whose object is to extract from history concepts and universal laws. ”

“ The principle once established makes it a matter of indifference [13] whether we proceed from the individual or from the broader standpoint of the psychological history of the race. This psychological history is made out by a study of the literature products left behind in the ascent from the lower levels of development to the higher, as represented in modern civilization. ”

“ It is thus my intention to render as intelligible as I possibly can the general results and the connection of all the past transactions in the history of the human race; to form a true judgment on the particular portions or sections of history, according to their intrinsic nature and real value in reference to the general progress of mankind, carefully distinguishing what was injurious, what advantageous, and what indifferent; and thereby, as far as is possible to the limited perceptions of man, to comprehend in some degree that mighty whole. ”

“ History is thus interpreted as a series of intelligent events, a progressive eduction of the rationality of man in his institutions, in state, art, and religion. Wherever two or three are met together to consult about and devise a common good, and wherever this common good widens in extent and deepens in quality, there is seen the implicit spirit of rationality, outering itself. ”

“ And it is precisely this method of studying men that the historical student has to use. His premises are always more or less uncertain, and his conclusions, therefore, like the conclusions of every day life, are the product of his judgment rather than the product of pure reason. ”

“ And many topics of quite primary interest to mankind, the first appearance and the growth of scientific knowledge for example, and its effects upon human life, the elaboration of the ideas of money and credit, or the story of the origins and spread and influence of Christianity, which must be treated fragmentarily or by elaborate digressions in any partial history, arise and flow completely and naturally in one general record of the world in which we live. ”

“ The Study of the history of philosophy is perhaps the most fascinating pursuit for anyone who is eager to understand the civilization and culture of the human race, for all of the different elements of human nature that help to build up the culture of a certain epoch or a nation mirror themselves in one way or another in the philosophy of that epoch or of that nation. ”

“ But history is not only philosophy, teaching by example; its true purpose is, also, to illustrate the general progress of society in knowledge and the arts, and the changes of manners and pursuits of men.
There is an imperfection, both in ancient and modern histories, and those of the best masters, in this respect. While they recite public transactions, they omit, to a great degree, what belongs to the civil, social, and domestic progress of men and nations. ”

“ Whether the upholders of these several interpretations of history would have us understand them as speaking of the ultimate goal of the historic evolution, or merely of the dominant motive under which men and society act, none of these interpretations can be accepted by the student of the facts of the moral life of the race as a true reading of history. ”