A Critical History of Greek Philosophy

unwarrantably leaves unused the powerful weapon of oral
discussion—so

forcibly wielded by the Greeks—and develops book knowl-
edge at the

expense of original thought. Though even here it must be
remembered,

as regards the Greeks, (1) that if they studied the history
of

philosophy but little, it was because there was then but
little

history of philosophy to study, and (2) that if anyone imag-
ines that

the great Greek thinkers did not fully master the thought
of their

predecessors before constructing their own systems, he is
grievously

mistaken, and (3) that in some cases the over-reliance on
oral

discussion—the opposite fault to ours—led to intellectual

dishonesty, quibbling, ostentation, disregard of truth, shal-
lowness,

and absence of all principle; this was the case with the
Sophists.

As to the comparisons between arithmetic and philosophy,
chemistry and

philosophy,etc., they rest wholly upon a false parallel, and

involve

a total failure to comprehend the nature of philosophic

truth, and its

fundamental difference from arithmetical, chemical, or

physical truth.

If Eratosthenes thought the circumference of the earth to

be so much,

whereas it has now been discovered to be so much, then the

later

correct view simply cancels and renders nugatory the older

view.

{viii} The one is correct, the other incorrect. We can ignore

and

forget the incorrect view altogether. But the development

of

philosophy proceeds on quite other principles. Philosophi-

cal truth is

no sum in arithmetic to be totted up so that the answer is

thus

formally and finally correct or incorrect. Rather, the philo-

sophical

truth unfolds itself, factor by factor, in time, in the succes-

sive