NATURE 
73 
THURSDAY, MAY 27, 1886 
A HAND-BOOK TO THE HISTORY OF 
PHILOSOPHY 
A Handa-Book to the History of Philosophy. For the Use 
of Students. By Ernest Belfort Bax. Bohn’s Philo- 
sophical Library. Pp. 405. (London: George Bell 
and Sons, 1886.) 
HE task to which Mr. Bax has set himself in writing 
a short and at the same time intelligible account of 
the history of philosophy is anything but an easy one. 
The historian of philosophy finds himself in presence of 
an enormous amount of material, which has accumulated 
as system has followed system in what at first sight seems 
a bewildering succession. It will naturally occur to the 
reader to ask whether after all the history of superseded 
systems of philosophy is of much more than antiquarian 
interest, or whether at best its study can be expected to 
repay the necessary trouble. 
There is a pretty widespread idea that philosophy, or 
‘“‘metaphysics,” has led to nothing but disappointing 
failures in the past, and cannot from its very nature lead 
to any result of real value. This idea would appear to 
depend on a radical misconception as to the nature and 
scope of philosophical inquiry. Those in search of first 
principles in any department of science cannot fail to 
come across questions which they find cannot be solved 
by the methods which may be applied to the ordinary 
questions occurring within their science. Such questions 
occur naturally and necessarily in mathematics, physics, 
biology, art, &c., and in virtue of their similarity may be 
all classified as philosophical questions. As a familiar 
example we may take the question, which must neces- 
sarily come prominently before the physiologist, as to 
whether consciousness is a function of the body. It is 
pretty generally acknowledged that this question cannot 
be solved by experimental methods. The question is a 
philosophical one, and can only be attacked by the 
method of philosophy. 
Let us see what this method is, and how it is to be 
applied to the case in question. Mr. Bax defines philo- 
sophy as the result of the endeavour to reconstruct the 
world according to its possibility. Applying the method 
here indicated we have to ask whether it is possible to 
conceive the world of our experience on the supposition 
that consciousness is a function of the body. This was 
substantially the question which Locke set himself to 
answer; and it was finally answered by Hume, who 
showed that the supposition in question led necessarily to 
its own annihilation. It remained for Kant and his suc- 
cessors to point the way to the only hypothesis con- 
sistent with the facts. 
Such being the scope and method of philosophy, we 
may readily understand that its history is no mere record 
of an arbitrary series of speculations successively dis- 
placing one another, but never leading to any permanent 
result. Modern philosophy has centred round the dis- 
cussion of the relation of matter and thought; and its 
successive systems form so many landmarks in the pro- 
gress towards a solution of the fundamental questions 
VOL. XXXIV.—No. 865 
| be in place here. 
involved in this discussion. Each system is doubtless 
more or less burdened with superfluities and errors of 
detail ; and many philosophical works have been written 
by men famous in their day, but who failed to realise the 
true position of philosophical thought in their tnne, and 
thus cannot be assigned a permanent place in the history 
of philosophy. 
Progress in philosophy is nevertheless just as well 
marked as in any department of science ; and it is the 
special merit of Mr. Bax’s hand-book that this progress 
is everywhere clearly brought into prominence. 
There is one important respect in which the history 
of philosophy differs from that of any of the sciences, 
and which gives it a far greater relative importance. The 
detailed results of a science have a value of their own 
more or less independently of theoretical considerations 
or of other facts of the science in question. Thus the 
experimental results of chemistry have each a value inde- 
pendently of the truth of the vast majority of the other 
experimental results of the science, and even of the 
atomic theory itself. In philosophy, on the other hand, 
the conclusions arrived at are closely interdependent, and 
have no value apart from the general conception to which 
they belong, and the process by which that conception 
has been arrived at. It is as if the conclusions of chem- 
istry were entirely valueless apart from the atomic theory 
and its correct application in detail. If this were so, it is 
evident that the history of the atomic theory and its 
application would be the first essential for the student of 
chemistry, instead of being what, as a matter of fact, 
many students of chemistry have only a very hazy notion 
of. Philosophical conclusions may be said to include the 
process by which they have been arrived at, so that a 
knowledge of the history of philosophy is in reality the 
basis of all study of philosophy. For this reason it will 
probably only lead to perplexity and disappointment to 
attempt the study of any philosopher without knowing 
the point at which he took up the work of his prede- 
cessors. Just as the individual organism shadows forth 
in its own development the forms assumed in the 
evolution of the stock to which it belongs, so the 
student of philosophy must repeat in his own mind 
the essential points in the historical development of 
philosophy. 
A detailed criticism of Mr. Bax’s work would scarcely 
The book is on the whole an excellent 
piece of work. It is less of a summary, and much more 
readable, than the similar work of Schwegler, and 
for this reason will probably be preferred by English 
students. Due weight is as a rule given to the 
elements in any philosophical system which were of 
permanent value in influencing subsequent thought, 
while systems which were in reality anachronisms, how- 
ever much stir they may have made, are passed over 
rapidly. 
There are few positive blots in the book. One of these, 
cropping up in one form or other at various places, con- 
sists in the writer’s persistent identification of the “anti- 
worldliness” of Christianity with “ other-worldliness.” 
As regards this and other kindred subjects the candour of 
Mr. Bax’s expressions of opinion will, however, thoroughly 
commend themselves to the reader. 
J. S. HALDANE 
