A History Of Philosophy Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from A Student's History of Philosophy These concepts, then, or notions which we frame to serve as shorthand expressions for certain facts, or aspects of reality, come to us with so little labor on our part, that we often are tempted to regard them as self-evident, and certain to present themselves as the manifest points of view whenever men stop to think. But a little examina tion will show that this is a mistake. We are the heir of all the ages in our intellectual life, and so can utilize the results of those who have gone before us. In their 'origin, however, these results were reached in no such simple way as their obviousness to us would seem to suggest, but were wrought laboriously with pain and travail. It is a com mon experience, after we have arrived at the solution of some problem that has been engaging us, to be struck with wonder that we should so long have been baffled by it, when in reality the matter is so plain yet, as a matter of fact, it did bafl'le us. Now every point of view from which man regards the world, is thus at some period of his history a hard-won acquisition. It may stand for a truth - an obvious truth even - when it comes to be recog nized. But the mere existence of a truth is nothing to us, until we have brought it into connection with the current of our own experience and knowledge; and this requires special circumstances and conditions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.