History of Philosophy #222903

IS the history of philosophy only a history of error? The history of philosophy is also a true and real philosophy. It is not, as some uninformed individuals have incorrectly supposed, a history of errors. Rightfully and manfully did Hegel refute a conception of the history of philosophy that made of it a disorderly aggregation of opinions. Profound thinkers are fully aware that the history 'of philosophy is an arduous and honorable search for truth. Not only is it an honorable search, but it is a constant one as well, possessing inner continuity. Or the truth in its entirety? But neither is it true that such a history is, as Hegel, who falls into an error at the other extreme, so boldly states, a system in evolution. It is not a presentation of the gradual and progressive self-revelation of the mind and of truth, in which everything follows so logically that we may anticipate the shape of things to come from what has gone before, just as in a textbook of geometry one proposition is developed from the preceding.