INTRODUCTION. 



Two ways 

 in which 

 Thought 



this history is all known when the order of the day, the 

 year, at most of a generation, is known. Even the highly 

 complicated but stagnant life of China would have a short 

 historical record many thousands of years taking up no 

 more space than as many days of modern European history : 



"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 



Thus it is that Thought becomes in two ways a subject 

 of great interest and importance to the historian. Of 

 ffistory nto every change in nature or human life we can ask : What 

 has been its result in the world of thought ? What 

 gain or loss, what progress, has it worked in the minds 

 of men, of us the beholders ? Has it increased our 

 knowledge, enriched our stock of ideas, deepened our 

 insight, broadened our views and sympathies in one 

 word, has it added to our interests ? has it made larger 

 and fuller our inner life ? 



And of every change in human affairs we can ask this 

 further question : What part has thought, the inner life, 

 played in this change ? These two questions mark the 

 task of the historian of Thought. 



I do not think it necessary or practicable at this stage 

 t o explain minutely the terms with which we have so 







far been dealing. Many a one might be tempted to ask 

 for a definition of Thought, or for a preciser statement of 

 the actual relation between Nature, Life, and Thought. 1 



Definition 



of Thought 



impossible. 



1 In refusing to define what I 

 mean by Thought, I take up the 

 opposite position to that occupied 

 by Prof. Max Miiller in his latest 

 work, 'The Science of Thought,' 

 London, 1887, p. 1, where he says : 

 " I mean by Thought the act of 

 thinking, and by thinking I mean 



no more than combining. I do 

 not pretend that others have not 

 the right of using Thought in any 

 sense which they prefer, provided 

 only that they will clearly define 

 it. " So far as definition is at all a 

 part of the work of the historian. 

 I maintain that it is the jreaulb and 



