From Germany this spread to Scotland, England, France, and Italy, and in general it may be said that in the nineteenth century the seat of philosophy is essentially to be sought in the universities. [1]
In conclusion, the share of the various peoples in the development of philosophy deserves a brief mention. As with all developments of European culture, so with philosophy,—the Greeks created it, and the primitive structure of philosophy due to their creative activity is still to-day an essential basis of the science. What was added in antiquity by the mixed peoples of Hellenism and by the Romans does not, in general, amount to more than a special form and practical adaptation of the Greek philosophy. Only in the religious turn which this last movement took (cf below, Part II. ch 2) do we find something essentially new which sprang from the harmonising of national differences in the Roman Empire. The scientific culture of the Middle Ages was also international, as is implied in the universal employment of the Latin language. It is with modern philosophy that the special characters of particular nations first present themselves as of decisive influence. While the traditions of medieval scholasticism maintain themselves most vigorously and independently in Spain and Portugal, the Italians, Germans, English, and French supply the first movements of the new science which reached its highest point in the classical period of German philosophy. Compared with these four nations, the rest stand almost entirely in a receptive attitude, a certain independence is noticeable, if anywhere, in more recent time among the Swedes.
§ 2. The History of Philosophy.
The more varied the character assumed by the problems and content of philosophy in the course of time, the more the question rises, what meaning there can be in uniting in historical investigation and exposition products of thought which are not only so manifold, but also so different in kind, and between which there seems to be ultimately nothing in common but the name.
For the anecdotal interest in this checkered diversity of various opinions on various things, which was perhaps formerly the chief motive of a "History of Philosophy," stimulated too by the remarkable and strange nature of many of these views, cannot possibly serve as the permanent centre of a genuine scientific discipline.
1. At all events, however, it is clear that the case stands otherwise with the history of philosophy than with that of any other science. For with all these the field of research remains fixed, on the whole at least, however many the variations to which its extent, its separation from a still more general field, and its limitation with reference to neighbouring fields, may be subject in the course of history. In such a case there is no difficulty in tracing the development of knowledge over a field which can be determined in this way, and in eventually making just those variations intelligible as the natural consequences of this development of insight.
- ↑ The best evidence for this statement is afforded by just the passionate attacks which Schopenhauer directed against the relation between philosophy and the universities.
