INTRODUCTORY. 



57 



to write a history of philosophy, or the philosophers of 

 the century, as in the earlier part of the work I pro- 

 posed to write a history of science. Histories of philo- 

 sophy, as a whole, or of the various schools of philosophy, 

 have been written in great number ; in the right place 

 I shall fully refer to them. It will then become abun- 

 dantly evident how little my own work could have been 

 written without the assistance which at every step I 

 have received from them. But though it may appear as 

 if the proposed manner of dealing with the subject could 

 hardly afford that systematic completeness which a more 

 chronological method might secure, it will in the sequel 



acquainted with their writings after 

 having sketched out for myself the 

 plan of this section ; but I gratefully 

 acknowledge the assistance I have 

 received from them in working out 

 the scheme. Foremost among 

 them are : Prof. Windelband's 

 brilliant ' History of Philosophy,' 

 of which I have before me the 

 4th German edition (1907) ; an 

 English translation by J. F. Tufts 

 appeared in 1893. In a prospec- 

 tus to the 1st edition (1889) Prof. 

 Windelband defines his subject to 

 be " a history of the problems and 

 of the notions which have been 

 formed for their solution. " In re- 

 ferring to the 6th and 7th sections of 

 his History my readers will be able 

 to see how his arrangement and de- 

 finition of the problems differs from 

 those I have adopted. More dis- 

 tinctly and concisely, the ' History 

 of Philosophy ' as a History of Prob- 

 lems has been written by Harald 

 Hoffding (Isted. 1894, Engl. transl. 

 1900). In the Introduction he 

 says : ' ' The investigation of the 

 History of Modern Philosophy 

 which I have here undertaken has 

 confirmed me personally in the view 

 . . . that philosophical investiga- 



tion centres in four main problems." 

 He then characterises these prob- 

 lems as 



1. "The Problem of Knowledge 



(the logical problem)." 



2. "The Problem of Existence 



(the cosmological prob- 

 lem)." 



3. " The Problem of the Estima- 



tion of AVorth (the ethico- 

 religious question)." 



4. " The Problem of Conscious- 



ness (the psychological 



problem)." 



We have further from the same 

 eminent author, with a slightly 

 different arrangement of the four 

 problems, a series of Lectures de- 

 livered in the University of Upsala 

 (1902) and published under the 

 title ' Philosophische Probleme ' 

 (1903), and a Review of recent 

 thinkers in a series of Lectures 

 delivered in the same year in Copen- 

 hagen and published under the title 

 ' Moderne Philosophen ' (1905) ; a 

 French work on somewhat related 

 lines with the title ' A History of 

 the Problems of Philosophy' has 

 been written by Paul Janet and 

 Gabriel Seailles and translated by 

 Ada Monahan (Macmillan, 1902). 



