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 wi-itings 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 

 :8ays : ' ' 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 Worth (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). 



