A MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF TENNEMANN, BY THE REV. ARTHUR JOHNSON, M.A. REVISED, ENLARGED, AND CONTINUED, BY J. R. MORELL. LONDON: BELL & DALDY, 6, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, AND 186, FLEET STREET. THE basis of the present edition of Tennemann's Manual of the History of Philosophy will be found in the Rev. Arthur Johnson's translation, printed at Oxford in 1832. Since that time a revised edition of the original work has been published at Leipzic, and M. Cousin has issued a new and improved edition of his French version. Both these have been carefully consulted and compared. Mr. Johnson, though entitled to commendation on the score of elegance and perspicuity, is open to the charge of inaccuracy. This might be expected: few men were competent to such a task at that period. Now, however, the case is different. England has become familiar with the German mind, through the many valuable philosophical works and translations which have appeared or become accessible during the last twenty years; and most of the recondite terms have received conventional renderings. Notwithstanding these advantages, however, it is still no easy task to give at once a readable and accurate English rendering of German Metaphysics. The translator's office is at no time a sinecure. He has to retain the author's thoughts, and at the same time to clothe them in appropriate diction, in a sometimes widely diverging dialect. These remarks apply with two-fold force to scientific works. The subtlety of the German tongue and thought renders it nearly impossible to do justice to every shade of expression. Indeed, the only chance of correctly interpreting many of their peculiar phrases is by coining new words or enlisting them from foreign languages. Tennemann, being himself a Kantian, naturally views the History of Philosophy with a Kantian bias. Hence, the reader would do well to acquire some previous acquaintance with Kant's principles and terminology, by consulting the sections on his Philosophy at page 400 and seq. (§ 388-395.) With the view of further elucidation, an explanatory vocabulary of some of the principal Kantian expressions is subjoined at page vii. 59297 |