ght possessed by some great mind. In the
crucible of such an intellect, old truths take on a new aspect,
familiar facts acquire a new and a richer meaning. But we also make a
mistake if we fail to see in the writings of such a man one of the
stages which has been reached in the gradual evolution of human
thought, if we fail to realize that each philosophy is to a great
extent the product of the past.

When one comes to understand these things, the history of philosophy no
longer presents itself as a mere agglomeration of arbitrary and
independent systems. And an attentive reading gives us a further key
to the interpretation of what seemed inexplicable. We find that there
may be distinct and different streams of thought, which, for a while,
run parallel without commingling their waters. For centuries the
Epicurean followed his own tradition, and walked in the footsteps of
his own master. The Stoic was of sterner stuff, and he chose to travel
another path. To this day there are adherents of the old church
philosophy, Neo-Scholastics, whose ways of thinking can only be
understood when we have some knowledge of Aristotle and of his
influence upon men during the Middle Ages. We ourselves may be
Kantians or Hegelians, and the man at our elbow may recognize as his
spiritual father Comte or Spencer.

It does not follow that, because one system follows another in
chronological order, it is its lineal descendant. But some ancestor a
system always has, and if we have the requisite learning and ingenuity,
we need not find it impossible to explain why this thinker or that was
influenced to give his thought the peculiar turn that characterizes it.
Sometimes many influences have conspired to attain the result, and it
is no small pleasure to address oneself to the task of disentangling
the threads which enter into the fabric.

Moreover, as we read thus with discrimination, we begin to see that the
great men of the past have not spoken without appearing to have
sufficient reason for their utterances in the light of the times in
which they lived. We may make it a rule that, when they seem to be
speaking arbitrarily, to be laying before us reasonings that are not
reasonings, dogmas for which no excuse seems to be offered, the fault
lies in our lack of comprehension. Until we can understand how a man,
living in a certain century, and breathing a certain moral and
intellectual atmosphere, could have said what he did, we should