Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/27

 PHILOSOPHY AND THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHERS. 13 and since his time the materials for the history of Greek philosophy have not only increased in bulk but have been more critically estimated and made more intelligible and accessible, so that much of what Hegel has to say on the subject is out of date. Nevertheless to Hegel our whole study of Greek thought owes an enormous debt ; and his influence may be traced, not only in his acknowledged disciples like Michelet and Schwegler, not only among those who came under his influence and passed out of it, like Zeller, but among many who have never directly owned allegiance to him and are even unaware how much of his thinking they have inherited. That we now study Plato without Neoplatonic and Aristotle without scholastic glosses is largely due to Hegel's historical spirit in seeking always to understand a philosopher in the light of his own particular environment. His wonderful in- sight into the real significance of the Greek Sophists (an insight which anticipates Grote without Grote's exaggeration and one-sidedness) may be taken as a crucial instance of his objectivity of outlook, freedom from bias and historical sym- pathy. I do not mean to assert that Hegel's historical^ judgments are always equally sound. Much has been dis- covered about the origins of civilisation since his days ; much of what he says about the Oriental world was based on imperfect knowledge and has lost its interest ; he does not perhaps sufficiently appreciate the work of the Roman spirit. Reaction against the unhistorical rationalism of the eighteenth century x leads him to be somewhat unfair to the newer type of constructive historical criticism which Niebuhr represented in his time. Teutonism, as with many of his patriotic countrymen, bulks excessively, it may be, in his 1 interpretation of the modern world. But when he is dealing^ with the Hellenic world, he is dealing with what he had studied carefully and in the ardour of his youth. And I think, if we were to try to characterise Hegel's philosophical position briefly, the least inaccurate statement would be to say, that the main stream of German philosophy, which descended from Kant though Fichte and Schelling, was met in Hegel's mind by another and equally powerful current coming straight from Plato and Aristotle as well as by 1 Yet Hegel was on the whole less influenced by mere reaction than most of the intellectual leaders of his age. He never disowned the debt even of Germany to the French Revolution. With all his enthusiasm for the Greeks he would not assent to Cousin's exaltation of ancient above modern philosophy (Cf. Briefe, ii., p. 297). Cousin indeed, after telling of an indignant outburst of Hegel's about Catholic superstitions, remarks that Hegel had retained the prejudices of an eighteenth century philosophe (Art. in Revue des deux mondes, August, 1866).