by the loose acceptation id' the term physics in the So- cratic schools; ami by the fad that metaphysics. or phi- losophy, in Aristotle's estimation, lay beyond the domain of physics. Dividing philosophy into metaphysics, phys- ics, and ethics, we now habitually exclude physics, or natural philosophy, and Bel it apart as the realm of ex- act science. The other two are assigned to philosophy. Hut metaphysics and ethics may be united as together
PHILOSOPHY
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PHILOSOPHY
constituting philosophy, or they may be kept distinct and variously subdivided. Sir William Hamilton, who, in deference to the narrowness of the Scotch school, at times almost identities psychology with philosophy, enumerates, by a strained construction, five brandies of the former: logic, ethics, politics, aesthetics, and the- ology (Metaph. lect. iii, p. 44). Re'musat incidentally distributes philosophy under the live heads of psychol- ogy, logic, metaphysics, theodicy (or the philosophy of religion = theology), and morals (Vie cPAbelard, liv. ii, ch. iii, vol. i, p. 351 sq.). Ampere, in his ingenious and fantastic classification of human knowledge, by a sep- tuple series of violent dichotomies, manufactures eighty- four distinct departments of philosophical inquiry. For the present purpose, the sufficiency or the insufficiency, the validity or the invalidity, of these various divisions and subdivisions is unimportant. The history of phi- losophy includes them all, either as definite members or as subordinate parts. Each may be treated separately, or all may be embraced in one treatment, or a distinct discussion may be bestowed upon several of them com- bined in one view. Thus there may be a history of mental philosophy, and a history of ethics, like the sup- plements of Dugald Stewart and Sir James Mackintosh to the Encyclopaedia Britannica ; or a history of logic, like Mr. Biakey's very feeble treatise on that subject ; or a history of heretical opinions, like those so common in the earlier ages of the Christian Church ; or a general history of philosophy, like Brucken's or Tennemann's or Ueberweg's. This is the mode in which the history of philosophy may be divided.
The other process of division regards primarily the succession of philosophical systems, or of philosophical schools, where the systems are identified with particular schools. A very loose and general distribution of this kind is into ancient, mediaeval, and modern, each of which has often been handled separately. The distinc- tion between these divisions is mainly the difference of time. They frequently run into each other. In many characteristics, both of doctrine and method, they re- peat each other. The scholastic procedure is discern- ible in Plotinus and Joannes Damascenus, while John Scotus Erigena approached more nearly to the Neo- Platonists than to the schoolmen. Occam and Gerson exhibit many modern features; and among the mod- erns there are many wide differences, not only in doc- trine, but in character. Hence other divisions, more precise than are attainable by these indistinct chrono- logical periods, have latterly won more favor. The fol- lowing may be offered as an example of such distribu- tion :
I. The commencements of philosophy, chiefly among the Orientals, with whom philosophy, mythology, and the- ology were inseparably intertwined.
II. The philosophy of the Greeks, which comprehends of course the philosophy of the Romans, as it was essen- tially Greek from Cicero to Boi-thius.
III. The philosophy of the Schoolmen, which in part over- laps modern systems. To this the philosophy of the Jews and Saracens may be joined as an appendix, since it affords the transition to it from the Greeks.
IV. The philosophy of the Renaissance, or Transition Age, commencing with Gemistus Pletho and the Medicean Academy, and ending with Pascal and Gasseudi.
V. The philosophy of Modern Times — from Francis Bacon and Descartes.
Each of these periods has many subdivisions, which have been variously constituted by different historians, and necessarily vary with the variation of the aspects under which philosophy is contemplated by the several chroniclers of its fluctuations.
Literature. — The fullest repertory of works on the several schemes of philosophy, on its general and special history, and on the history of the philosophers them- selves, and of particular doctrines, may be found in Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, translated by George S. Morris (N. Y. 1875, 2 vols. 8vo). Up to the date of that work the fullest treatise on the subject was H. Eitter's Geschichte der Philosophic (Gotha, 1854, 12 vols. 8vo). A convenient summary is Maurice's Moral
and Metaphysical Philosophy (Lond. 1850-56, and later, 4 vols. 8vo), which gives a historical review of the whole subject. (G. F. H.)
Philosophy, Chald.ean. See Magi; Philoso- phy, Hebrew.
Philosophy, Greek. It is not in accordance with the scope of this Cyclopaedia to give a full account of the various philosophical systems of the ancient Greeks. These are sufficiently discussed under the names of their respective founders. Our purpose here is only to give so much as will serve to show their relations to Christianity. (In doing this, as well as in the follow- ing article on Hebrew Philosophy, we avail ourselves largely of the statements in Kitto's and Smith's Dic- tionaries.)
I. The Development of Greek Philosophy.— The com- plete fitness of Greek philosophy to perform a propae- deutic office for Christianity, as an exhaustive effort of reason to solve the great problems of being, must be ap- parent after a detailed study of its progress and con- summation ; and even the simplest outline of its history cannot fail to preserve the leading traits of the natural (or even necessary) law by which its development was governed.