Produced by Ted Garvin, Thomas Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders INITIATION INTO PHILOSOPHY By Emile Faguet Of the French Academy Author of "The Cult Of Incompetence," "Initiation Into Literature," etc. Translated from the French by Sir Homer Gordon, Bart. 1914 PREFACE This volume, as indicated by the title, is designed to show the way to the beginner, to satisfy and more especially to excite his initial curiosity. It affords an adequate idea of the march of facts and of ideas. The reader is led, somewhat rapidly, from the remote origins to the most recent efforts of the human mind. It should be a convenient repertory to which the mind may revert in order to see broadly the general opinion of an epoch--and what connected it with those that followed or preceded it. It aims above all at being _a frame_ in which can conveniently be inscribed, in the course of further studies, new conceptions more detailed and more thoroughly examined. It will have fulfilled its design should it incite to research and meditation, and if it prepares for them correctly. E. FAGUET. CONTENTS PART I ANTIQUITY CHAPTER I BEFORE SOCRATES Philosophical Interpreters of the Universe, of the Creation and Constitution of the World. CHAPTER II THE SOPHISTS Logicians and Professors of Logic, and of the Analysis of Ideas, and of Discussion. CHAPTER III SOCRATES Philosophy Entirely Reduced to Morality, and Morality Considered as the End of all Intellectual Activity. CHAPTER IV PLATO Plato, like Socrates, is Pre-eminently a Moralist, but he Reverts to General Consideration of the Universe, and Deals with Politics and Legislation. CHAPTER V ARISTOTLE A Man of Encyclopaedic Learning; as Philosopher, more especially Moralist and Logician. CHAPTER VI VARIOUS SCHOOLS The Development in Various Schools of the General Ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. CHAPTER VII EPICUREANISM Epicureanism Believes that the Duty of Man is to seek Happiness, and that Happiness Consists in Wisdom. CHAPTER VIII STOICISM The Passions are Diseases which can and must be Extirpated. CHAPTER IX ECLECTICS AND SCEPTICS Philosophers who Wished to Belong to No School. Philosophers who Decried All Schools and All Doctrines. CHAPTER X NEOPLATONISM Reversion to Metaphysics. Imaginative Metaphysicians after the Manner of Plato, but in Excess. CHAPTER XI CHRISTIANITY Philosophic Ideas which Christianity Welcomed, Adopted, or Created; How it must Give a Fresh Aspect to All Philosophy, even that Foreign to Itself. PART II IN THE MIDDLE AGES CHAPTER I FROM THE FIFTH CENTURY TO THE THIRTEENTH Philosophy is only an Interpreter of Dogma. When it is Declared Contrary to Dogma by the Authority of Religion, it is a Heresy. Orthodox and Heterodox Interpretations. Some Independent Philosophers. CHAPTER II THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY Influence of Aristotle. His Adoption by the Church. Religious Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.