Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/658

640 blindly accepted him as a guide. We understand that he writes from a certain standpoint, and that unconsciously and inevitably he will see things, not just as they are, but as tinged by his own subjective light. Where, for instance, shall we find a perfectly just history of philosophy? Not in Schwegler, who glances over the past through a pair of thick Hegelian spectacles; nor in Lewes, who apperceives the opinions of thinkers with a positivistic bias. Theology is quite a different science as presented by a St. Augustine and a Pelagius, by a Protestant and a Romanist. The Socrates of Grote is not the same man as the Socrates of Cousin. Jesus, even, is seen in an entirely different light by Fleetwood and by Renan. The Greek thinkers, especially Aristotle and Plato, have suffered much at the hands of modern writers, being used as props to bolster up every man's system of science or philosophy.

Over-interpretation is really only the logical outcome of another wide-spread evil, that of over-systemization. This is a prevalent modern vice. It is the abuse of classification, or the scientific method. It is the tendency to group under any outlined system or theory more facts than properly belong to it. We fall in love with our favorite theory, and it seems to us to possess exaggerated virtues, and to be able to explain all phenomena. Darwinism in biological science, utilitarianism in ethics, and Hegelianism in philosophy, are examples. The latter is a very beautiful illustration of over-systemization. Hegel, with his thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, fondly thought he had spread a net that should capture the universe. But the strain appears to have been too great, and already we see the ruins of a great collapsed philosophy. Over-systemization is apparent also in the present rage for publication, especially in Germany. Every university man must publish a book, and every book must present either some theory or the results of some original research. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the demand for new material exceeds the supply. The result is, that the author falls back upon his own mental resources. He makes a new and original hypothesis and apperceives his facts to fit his theory. Adopting, as it would seem, the maxim that it is better to be original than reasonable, it is considered no disadvantage if the new hypothesis is somewhat fanciful and startling, as for instance that Schiller, not Goethe, was the author of "Faust," or that Shakespeare's plays were written by Bacon.

I have explained the narrowing effect of "schools" and systems, and the mental bias which results from over-systemization; but the use as well as the abuse of systems must not pass unnoticed. There is good in them as well as evil. Trendelenburg says that a system is as necessary for a thinker as a house. We