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TWO:If Zellers semi-Hegelian theory of history does scant justice to the variety and complexity of causes determining the evolution of philosophy, it also draws away attention from the ultimate elements, the matter, in an Aristotelian sense, of which that evolution consists. By this I mean the development of particular ideas as distinguished from thexvii systems into which they enter as component parts. Often the formation of a system depends on an accidental combination of circumstances, and therefore cannot be brought under any particular law of progress, while the ideas out of which it is constructed exhibit a perfectly regular advance on the form under which they last appeared. Others, again, are characterised by a remarkable fixity which enables them to persist unchanged through the most varied combinations and the most protracted intervals of time. But when each system is regarded as, so to speak, an organic individual, the complete and harmonious expression of some one phase of thought, and the entire series of systems as succeeding one another in strict logical order according to some simple law of evolution, there will be a certain tendency to regard the particular elements of each as determined by the character of the whole to which they belong, rather than by their intrinsic nature and antecedent history. And I think it is owing to this limitation of view that Zeller has not illustrated, so fully as could be desired, the subtler references by which the different schools of philosophy are connected with one another and also with the literature of their own and other times.In the last chapter we considered the philosophy of Plato chiefly under its critical and negative aspects. We saw how it was exclusively from that side that he at first apprehended and enlarged the dialectic of Socrates, how deeply his scepticism was coloured by the religious reaction of the age, and how he attempted, out of his masters mouth, to overturn the positive teaching of the master himself. We saw how, in the Protagoras, he sketched a theory of ethics, which was no sooner completed than it became the starting-point of a still more extended and arduous enquiry. We followed the widening horizon of his speculations until they embraced the whole contemporary life of Hellas, and involved it in a common condemnation as either hopelessly corrupt, or containing within itself the seeds of corruption. We then saw how, by a farther generalisation, he was led to look for the sources of error in the laws of mans sensuous nature and of the phenomenal world with which it holds communion; how, moreover, under the guidance of suggestions coming both from within and from without, he reverted to the earlier schools of Greek thought, and brought their results into parallelism with the main lines of Socratic dialectic. And finally, we watched him planting a firm foothold on the basis of mathematical demonstration; seeking in the very constitution of the soul itself for a derivation of the truths which sensuous experience could not impart, and winning back from215 a more profoundly reasoned religion the hope, the self-confidence, the assurance of perfect knowledge, which had been formerly surrendered in deference to the demands of a merely external and traditional faith. That God alone is wise, and by consequence alone good, might still remain a fixed principle with Plato; but it ceased to operate as a restraint on human aspiration when he had come to recognise an essential unity among all forms of conscious life, which, though it might be clouded and forgotten, could never be entirely effaced. And when Plato tells us, at the close of his career, that God, far more than any individual man, is the measure of all things,133 who can doubt that he had already learned to identify the human and divine essences in the common notion of a universal soul?
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TWO:"'I might quote another small detail. Before the train228 arrived at Landen I had had a very pleasant chat in the corridor with a German soldier, who seemed tolerably humane and civilised, even in his talk. After the departure from Landen I again got into conversation with him, and did not fail to express my indignation; and then he gave me the following reply: "Oh well, one must think of the position of our soldiers, who have been for days in the trenches under the murderous fire of the enemy. Later on they will themselves repent for what has happened." Perhaps the German government may be able to discover who that soldier is, if I add that he went home for good because he was suffering from heart-disease.
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TWO:Of course I did not allow the little girl to go by herself, but took her with me. It was a wearying expedition in the excessive heat of that day. Very soon the child was no longer able to carry her small belongings, and, though already sufficiently loaded myself, I had to take her bundle as well. She was scarcely able to walk more than a thousand yards at a stretch, and had then to sit down on the grass by50 the roadside and rest. She did not quite understand what was going on, but she had an undefined feeling of fear on that long, deserted road, where we did not meet anybody except some well-hidden or stealthily moving German patrols who suddenly pointed their rifles at us.
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