ered,
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 imagines 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, shallowness,
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. Philosophical truth is
no sum in arithmetic to be totted up so that the answer is thus
formally and finally correct or incorrect. Rather, the philosophical
truth unfolds itself, factor by factor, in time, in the successive
systems of philosophy, and it is only in the complete series that the
complete truth is to be found. The system of Aristotle does not simply
cancel and refute that of Plato. Spinoza does not simply abolish
Descartes. Aristotle completes Plato, as his necessary complement.
Spinoza does the same for Descartes. And so it is always. The
calculation of Eratosthenes is simply wrong, and so we can afford to
forget it. But the systems of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibniz,
etc., are all alike factors of the truth. They are as true now as they
were in their own times, though they are not, and never were, the
whole truth. And therefore it is that they are not simply wrong, done
with, finished, ended, and that we cannot afford to forget them.
Whether it is not possible to bring the many lights to a single focus,
to weld the various factors of the truth into a single organic whole
or system, which should thus be the total result to date, is another
question. Only one such attempt h