philosophy that
seems beyond us, we shall generally find that the root of the trouble
is that we are trying to think non-sensuous objects in a sensuous way,
that is, we are trying to form mental pictures and images of them, for
all mental pictures are composed of sensuous materials, and hence no
such picture is adequate for a pure thought. It is impossible to
exaggerate this difficulty. Even the greatest philosophers have
succumbed to it. We shall constantly have to point out that when a
great thinker, such as Parmenides or Plato, fails, and begins to
flounder in difficulties, the reason usually is that, though for a
time he has attained to pure thought, he has sunk back exhausted into
sensuous thinking, and has attempted to form mental pictures of what
is beyond the power of any such picture to represent, and so has
fallen into contradictions. We must keep this constantly in mind in
the study of philosophy.

In modern times philosophy is variously divided, as into metaphysics,
which is the theory of reality, ethics, the theory of the good, and
aesthetics, the theory of the beautiful. Modern divisions do not,
however, altogether fit in with Greek philosophy, and it is better to
let the natural divisions develop themselves as we go on, than to
attempt to force our material into these moulds.

If, now, we look round the world and ask; in what countries and what
ages the kind of thought we have described has attained a high degree
of development, we shall find such a development only in ancient
Greece and in modern Europe. There were great civilizations in Egypt,
China, Assyria, and so on. They produced art and religion, but no
philosophy to speak of. Even {14} ancient Rome added nothing to the
world's philosophical knowledge. Its so-called philosophers, Marcus
Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Lucretius, produced no essentially new
principle. They were merely disciples of Greek Schools, whose writings
may be full of interest and of noble feeling, but whose essential
thoughts contained nothing not already developed by the Greeks.

The case of India is more doubtful. Opinions may differ as to whether
India ever had any philosophy. The Upanishads contain
religio-philosophical thinking of a kind. And later we have the six
so-called schools of philosophy. The reasons why this Indian thought
is not usually included in histories of philosophy are as follows.
Firstly, philosophy in India has never separated itself from religious