PHILOMELA 



4641 



PHILOSOPHY 



going back through the Latin to the original 

 Greek word which meant to cut into jurr> 

 to engrave, to mark; but it also means the 

 ''sum of qualities or features by which a person 

 or a thing is distinguished from others." The 

 connection is not immediately obvious, but a 

 little study shows that this derived meaning 

 refers simply to the stamp or "character" im- 

 pressed by nature, education or habit. 



Munitjacturc, which has come to have almost 

 exclusively the meaning of producing by n 

 of machinery. i.s composed of two Latin words, 

 ically unchanged in form, which mean a 

 making by hand. 



possible to multiply such instances in 

 ly endless number, but the student will 

 find pleasure in tracing them for himself. Any 

 good, unabridged dictionary- gives such deriva- 

 tions, tracing them in some instances through 

 various languages before they emerge as mod- 

 ern Knglish word-. And even in Knglish it- 

 -i If many words have had a curious and inter- 

 esting history. Some have become obsolete 

 altogether, some have acquired new meanings 

 which differ widely from the original one. Only 

 with a know ledge of philology in this sense does 

 one acquire the ability to use with precision 

 the words of the English language. A.MC c. 



Consult Whitney's Language and the Study of 

 Language; Bloomfleld's Introduction to the Study 

 of Language. 



Itrlatrd Subject*. Tli<- r-al-r is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes: 

 Knglish Language Language 



Greek Language Latin Language 



PHILOMELA, fit o me' la, in Greek my- 

 thology, a sister of Procne, daughter of Pandion. 

 Procne became the wife of Tereus, king of 

 Thrace, and bore him a son called Itys. But 

 us grew tired of his wife, and cutting out 

 her tongue that she might not tell her story, 

 .-hut her up in prison. Then the vile king pre- 

 tt nded that Ins wife was dead, and married 

 Phil- !': tin- injured Procne wove a 



u-l) in which she told ln-r terrible mi-foriune 

 o I Philomel;! relea-ed the captive, 



and the two Mb n in ti rill. I. : illed 



i he h<y Itys and served him to hi- father as 



o angered the gods that they 



I'rocne into a swallow, Philomela into 



and Tereus into a hawk which 



imica them. 



PHILOSOPHER'S, filos'oferz, STONE. Sec 

 \i. in 



PHILOSOPHY, ftof'ojS,th mothei ... ,i,,- 

 lly love <>< h 



m 



; id that Pythagoras, the Greek sage, ob- 

 jected to the old name of sophoi (wise men) 

 on the ground that it sounded arrogant, and 

 modestly added the prefix philos, meaning 

 lover, or jri> ml. 



According to the early Greek ideas, philoso- 

 phy stood for general culture; it embraced 

 "all knowledge." But that was before scien- 

 tific research had so greatly broadened the field 

 as to make classification ncce.-sary. Much of 

 the knowledge that was originally included in 

 the scope of philosophy is now covered by spe- 

 cial sciences, like physics, ps> f chology, meta- 

 physics, ethics, logic, and so on; so to-day it 

 is difficult to decide just where philosophy 

 proper begins and where it ends. Probably 

 the closest we can come to a true definition 

 is to say that philosophy is the study of all t In - 

 sciences, considering each one not as something 

 detached and independent, but a*s related to all 

 the rest. Herbert Spencer called philosophy 

 "a system of completely united knowledge." 



Greek Philosophy. The earliest philosopher 

 on record is the Greek Thales, who founded 

 what is known as the Ionic school, as long 

 ago as 600 B.C. He made the first attempt, so 

 far as is known, to get away from the mytho- 

 logical explanation of the universe. The first 

 philosophers considered men but little; their 

 chief subjects of speculation were physical phe- 

 nomena and the real nature of matter. Tliev 

 developed various systems of natural philoso- 

 phy, which were ridiculed and criticized by tin- 

 skeptical Sophists who sprang up at the - 

 of this "pre-Socratic" period. 



It was Socrates who, as Cicero .-aid. "brought 

 down philosophy from the heaven- to earth." 

 He was a moral philosopher; that is. the aim 

 of his teachings was Jo help men to live better 

 lives. His influence led to the founding of many 

 other schools of Greek thought; among the<< 

 were the Cynic and the Cyrenaic, forerun- 

 of the Stnir and Kpicnnan schools, developing 

 the practical side of his teaching.-; the 

 ih niir, founded by Plato, and the /'.;//;' 

 founded by An-totle. de\ eloping the idealistic 



side. The next important \ 



skepticism, a philosophy winch, like that of 



the Sophists, was largely one of denial. 



Roman Philosophy. The Romans did not de- 

 velop any original system, but borrowed from 

 ' Greeks. Their characteristic school was the 

 <*tic t represented by Cicn-o; n \\ . p.tch- 

 uil. fcrinM from Stoici-in and othet 



I from . \n~i"']. \ - . -tern 

 that Miimn.il. i| in Alevtndn ' ' : d to 



