Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/34

20 D. G. RITCHIE : fitted into a scheme of logical development. The " contin- gent " element, the personality of the individual philosopher, his particular education and the various influences under which he came, cannot be safely neglected by the student of philosophical theories, however anxious he may be to keep to the main currents of thought and to escape the distract- ing toil of exploring side-channels and back waters. 1 Too much may, indeed, easily be made of this "contingent" element, as is done I think by those who would make a whole stage in the development of Plato's philosophy depend upon a supposed visit to Megara. On the other hand, when an historian or teacher of philosophy gives a complete ac- count of Hume, based of course mainly on the Treatise, and then passes on to Kant and considers him as " answering Hume," accuracy is sacrificed to an appearance of precise dialectical opposition ; and some misunderstanding of Kant has been the result of this not infrequent manner of exposi- tion. In the first place, it might very well be said that Kant does not " answer " Hume. He appreciated Hume better than to treat him as Beattie and the other " answerers " do. But, in the second place, Kant had only read the Essays, and therefore he only knew of Hume's attack on the neces- sity of the causal nexus, and he was unaware of Hume's attempt to base mathematical truth upon experience. The kind of commentary which we most need now upon the great philosophers of the past is not so much an exposi- tion of their doctrines which shall make them more consis- tent with themselves than they really are, nor a merciless exposure of the inconsistencies and contradictions which can easily be found in systems from which we stand at a sufficient intellectual distance. Both these kinds of commentary are valuable in their way ; but what is most necessary is a minute and accurate study of the sources from which a philosopher derived his ideas and of the particular circumstances which led to his laying stress on one rather than on another aspect of the truth as it appeared to him. To understand what the philosopher meant and in what order his ideas grew is the first thing; we may then go on to reconcile apparent contra- dictions or to detect new ones. But to understand a philo- sopher in this way implies that we study him in his historical environment. A " psychological" account of the genesis of a philosophical system, an exact intellectual biography of a 1 It must be understood that I admit the " accidental " or the " contin- gent " element in history only in the same sense in which the biologist speaks of " accidental " or " spontaneous " variations. They are names, for what we do not fully understand.