HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

oped, and which can be fully brought out only in a system of epistemology,
consists in the circumstance that that which is given in experience never meets
completely the conceptional demands which, in elaborating the same according
to the inner nature of the reason, we set up, at first naively and immediately,
and later with reflective consciousness. This antinomism (or failure to meet
the laws of thought) can be escaped by ordinary life, or even by experiential
12 Introduction.
this reason this material contains the real presuppositions and the
logical constraining forces for all rational reflection upon it, and
because from the nature of the case these are always asserting
themselves anew in the same way, it follows that not only the chief
problems in the history of philosophy, but also the chief lines along
which a solution is attempted, are repeated. Just this constancy
in all change, which, regarded from without, makes the impression
that philosophy is striving fruitlessly in ever-repeated circles for
a goal that is never attained, proves only this, that the problems
of philosophy are tasks which the human mind cannot escape. 1
And so we understand how the same logical necessity in repeated
instances causes one doctrine to give birth to another. Hence prog
ress in the history of philosophy is, during certain periods, to be
understood entirely pragmatically, i.e. through the internal necessity
of the thoughts and through the " logic of things."
The mistake of Hegel s mentioned above, consists, then, only in his wishing to
make of a factor wliich is effective within certain limits, the only, or at least
the principal, factor. It would be the opposite error to deny absolutely the
"reason in history," and to see in the successive doctrines of philosophy only
confused chance- thoughts of individuals. It is rather true that the total
content
of the history of philosophy can be explained only through the fact that the
necessities existing in the nature of things assert themselves over and over in
the thinking of individuals, however accidental the special conditions of this
latter may be. On these relations rest the attempts made to classify all philo
sophical doctrines under certain types, and to establish a sort of rhythmical
repetition in their historical development. On this basis V. Cousin 2 brought
forward his theory of the four systems, Idealism, Sensualism, Scepticism, Mys
ticism ; so too August Comte 3 his of the three stages, the theological, the meta
physical, and the positive. An interesting and in many ways instructive
grouping of philosophical doctrines about the particular main problems is
afforded by A. Renouvier in his Esquisse d une Classification Systematique
des Doctrines Philosophiques (2 vols., Paris, 1885 f.). *A school-book which