A Critical History of Greek Philosophy

young mind up against the few broad elemental questions
that are the

questions of metaphysics.... We do not make it discuss,
correct it,

elucidate it. That was the way of the Greeks, and we wor-
ship that

divine people far too much to adopt their way. No, we
lecture to our

young people about not philosophy but philosophers, we
put them

through book after book, telling how other people have
discussed these

questions. We avoid the questions of metaphysics, but we
deliver

semi-digested half views of the discussions of, and answers
to these

questions made by men of all sorts and qualities, in various
remote

languages and under conditions quite different from our
own.... It

is as if we began teaching arithmetic by long lectures upon
the origin

of the Roman numerals, and then went on to the lives and
motives of

the Arab mathematicians in Spain, or started with Roger

Bacon in

chemistry, or Sir Richard Owen in comparative anatomy

.... It is time

the educational powers began to realise that the questions

of

metaphysics, the elements of philosophy, are, here and now

to be done

afresh in each mind .... What is wanted is philosophy, and

not a

shallow smattering of the history of philosophy ... {vii}

The proper

way to discuss metaphysics, like the proper way to discuss

mathematics

or chemistry, is to discuss the accumulated and digested

product of

human thought in such matters.”

[Footnote 1: H. G. Wells in “First and Last Things.”]

Plausible words these, certain to seem conclusive to the

mob,

notwithstanding that for one element of truth they contain

nine of

untruth! The elements of truth are that our educational

system