The Biographical History of Philosophy: From Its Origin in Greece Down to the Present Day, Volume 1

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D. Appleton and Company, 1863
 

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Page 47 - I trust hereby to make it manifest with what small willingness I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleasing solitariness fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes; put from beholding the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies...
Page 61 - I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel — a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
Page 123 - ... of refusing to do that which he directs; but when I depart from him, the glory which the multitude confers overwhelms me. I escape, therefore, and hide myself from him, and when I see him I am overwhelmed with humiliation, because I have neglected to do what I have confessed to him ought to be done ; and often and often have I wished that he were no longer to be seen among men.
Page 123 - He esteems these things and us who honour them, as nothing, and lives among men, making all the objects of their admiration the playthings of his irony. But I know not if any one of you have ever seen the divine images which are within, when he has been opened and is serious. I have seen them, and they are so supremely beautiful, so golden, so divine, and wonderful, that everything which Socrates commands surely ought to be obeyed, even like the voice of a God, "At one time we were fellow-soldiers,...
Page 164 - Euthydemus, partaking of the divine nature, it must surely be the soul which governs and directs him ; yet no one considers this as an object of his sight. Learn, therefore, not to despise those things which you cannot see ; judge of the greatness of the power by the effects which are produced, and reverence the Deity.
Page 189 - Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades ; See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long ; There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees...
Page 254 - It is a mere catalogue of the distinctions rudely marked out by the language of familiar life, with little or no attempt to penetrate, by philosophic analysis, to the rationale even of those common distinctions. Such an analysis, however superficially conducted, would have shown the enumeration to be both redundant and defective. Some objects are omitted, and others repeated several times under different heads. It is like a division of animals into men, quadrupeds, horses, asses, and ponies.
Page 252 - The former of these propositions is not a definition at all ; the latter is a mere nominal definition or explanation of the use and application of a term. The first is susceptible of truth or falsehood, and may therefore be made the foundation of a train of reasoning.
Page 299 - The radical error of those who believe that we perceive things as they are, consists in mistaking a metaphor for a fact, and believing that the mind is a mirror in which external objects are reflected. But, as Bacon finely says, "The human understanding is like an unequal mirror to the rays of things, which, mixing its own nature with the nature of things, distorts and perverts them.
Page xxxi - ... thirst for knowledge which has dignified his life, and enabled him to multiply tenfold his existence and his happiness. Having done this, its part is played. Our interest in it now is purely historical. The purport of this history is to show how and why the interest in philosophy has become purely historical.

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