BY A SLIGHT CHANGE in the title this edition is separated from its predecessors, as if it were a new work, which indeed in many respects it is. The first edition appeared in 1845-6 in four pocket-volumes; addressed to the general public rather than to well-read students, it had no pretensions to the completeness or crudition displayed in many other Histories, being little more than a rapid survey of the course of metaphysical speculation, written with the avowed purpose of dissuading the youth of England from wasting energy on insoluble problems, and relying on a false Method. With this object of turning the mind from Metaphysics to Positive Philosophy, it employed History as an instrument of Criticism to disclose the successive failures of successive schools.
In 1857, after a sale of several thousand copies of the stereotyped edition, the Library Edition, in one volume octavo, was prepared with a view of rendering the book more acceptable to students. A graver, fuller treatment of various portions, some important additions, and considerable alterations in the style were found necessary, but no change in purpose or doctrine.
In the edition now issued my readers of twenty years ago will hardly recognise the Biographical History of Philosophy, so considerable have been the alterations and enlargements. They will see, indeed, the spirit and the purpose still unchanged; but it will be like re-cognising in an iron-grey citizen the features of the third-form boy. I adhered to the Positive Philosophy in 1845, and I adhere to it still. But much that was dim to me then has become clear now, much that was convic-tion then has ceased to be conviction now; my estimates of men and theories have altered in the course of years. The reader will doubtless feel, even more than I can feel, the want of unity in various parts of this product of changing years. I have done my best to lessen the discordance between 1845 and 1867, and would gladly have rewritten the whole had health permitted such a task.
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