Critical History of Philosophy

direct human life, and set forth what the necessity of law, the utility of society, and the prudence of living require. From an accurate knowledge of all these things, it is easily gathered—from the very end of reasoning concerning human happiness—that the genuine principles of all science, upon which the entire edifice of philosophy must be built as upon foundations, must be posited beforehand. This distribution of the parts of philosophy, as it is quite evident and clear to one who considers the matter with moderate attention, and correctly expresses the end of philosophy—indeed, of wisdom, which refers all things to true utility and happiness—so, from it, those things which the ancients said variously regarding the parts of philosophy may be judged; these must not be neglected, lest we stumble at the very threshold of philosophical history. For they, in the most ancient times and in the very infancy of philosophy, referred it to both God and man, and placed the duty of wisdom in the consideration of this double object. Whence HOMER, from whom a great crowd of the ancients persuaded themselves that all wisdom flowed down to posterity:

The division of philosophy among the ancients.

Ἀχλὺν δ’ αὖτοι ἀπ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν
Ὄφρ’ εὖ γινώσκοις ἠ μὲν Θεὸν ἠδὲ καὶ ἄνδρα.

I have removed from your eyes the mist which previously was upon them,
So that you may clearly distinguish both God and man.

And the whole school of the Pythagoreans and Plato aimed at this, which divided all philosophy into the consideration of divine things, that is, the truly existent things which generate certain knowledge, and human things, which pertain to the life of man and are subject to the senses, insofar as they are referred to and prepare one for divine things.a) ARISTOTLE, however, acted somewhat differently; while he departs from the entire body of antiquity and places the highest good in contemplation and the perfection of the intellect, he holds the most powerful reason for theoretical disciplines in such a way that he constitutes three kinds of theoretical disciplines: physics, mathematics, and theology,b) and to these he finally joins the active and the effective;c) of which the former comprises ethics, politics, and economics, and the latter comprises medicine, poetics, grammar, sculpture, and painting, insofar as they can set forth and demonstrate by reasoning the principles and causes of their constitution, nature, and operations.d) Whence dialectic, as an instrument of philosophy, was not omitted by the philosopher. The Stoics, indeed, said that there are three parts of philosophy: moral, natural, and rational; the first composes the soul, the second investigates the nature of things, the third demands the properties of words, and structure, and arguments lest

z) Iliad. ε. v. 127. 128.
a) PSELLUS Comm. on the Five Voices; cf. JO. SCHEFFER on the nature and constitution of Italian philosophy, ch. VIII, pp. 65, 66; from the ancients, SENECA ep. 89.
b) I. VI. Metaphysics, ch. 1, II, ch. 7.
c) on the soul, bk. I, ch. 3.
d) cf. JONSIUS on the writers of the history of philosophy, bk. I, ch. 1, § 3, pp. 4, 5.
e) Thus SENECA, ep. 89, who should be read in his entirety regarding the definition and division of philosophy.