BY
DR. ALBERT SCHWEGLER.
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN,
BY
JULIUS H. SEELYE.
THIRD EDITION.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
443 & 445 BROADWAY.
LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN.
1864.
Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1856,
By Julius H. Seelye,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Northern District of New York.
The History of Philosophy, by Dr. Albert Schwegler, isconsidered in Germany as the best concise manual uponthe subject from the school of Hegel. Its account of theGreek and of the German systems, is of especial valueand importance. It presents the whole history of speculationin its consecutive order. Though following themethod of Hegel’s more extended lectures upon the progressof philosophy, and though it makes the system ofHegel to be the ripest product of philosophy, yet it alsorests upon independent investigations. It will well rewarddiligent study, and is one of the best works for a[Pg iv]text-book in our colleges, upon this neglected branch ofscientific investigation. The translation is made by acompetent person, and gives, I doubt not, a faithful renderingof the original.
Henry B. Smith.
Union Theological Seminary, New York, Nov. 6, 1855.
Schwegler’s History of Philosophy originally appeared inthe “Neue Encyklopädie für Wissenschaften und Künste.”Its great value soon awakened a call for its separate issue,in which form it has attained a very wide circulation inGermany. It is found in the hands of almost every studentin the philosophical department of a German university,and is highly esteemed for its clearness, conciseness,and comprehensiveness.
The present translation was commenced in Germanythree years ago, and has been carefully finished. It wasundertaken with the conviction that the work would notlose its interest or its value in an English dress, and withthe hope that it might be of wider service in such a form[Pg vi]to students of philosophy here. It was thought especially,that a proper translation of this manual wouldsupply a want for a suitable text-book on this branch ofstudy, long felt by both teachers and students in ourAmerican colleges.
The effort has been made to translate, and not to paraphrasethe author’s meaning. Many of his statementsmight have been amplified without diffuseness, and mademore perceptible to the superficial reader without losingtheir interest to the more profound student, but he has sohappily seized upon the germs of the different systems,that they neither need, nor would be improved by anyfarther development, and has, moreover, presented the