History of the intellectual development of Europe / John William Draper.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Draper, John William, 1811-1882, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Europe--Civilization.

Europe.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (631 pages)

Edition:

Fifth edition.

Other Title:

History of the intellectual development of Europe

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Harper, 1875.

Summary:

At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Oxford in 1860, I read an abstract of the physiological argument contained in this work respecting the mental progress of Europe, reserving the historical evidence for subsequent publication. This volume contains that evidence. It is intended as the completion of my work on Human Physiology, in which man was treated of as an individual. In this he is considered in his social relation. But the reader will also find, I think, that it is a history of the progress of ideas and opinions from a point of view heretofore almost entirely neglected. There are two methods of dealing with philosophical questions--the literary and the scientific. Many things which in a purely literary treatment of the subject remain in the background, spontaneously assume a more striking position when their scientific relations are considered. It is the latter method that I have used. Social advancement is as completely under the control of natural law as is bodily growth. The life of an individual is a miniature of the life of a nation. These propositions it is the special object of this book to demonstrate. No one, I believe, has hitherto undertaken the labor of arranging the evidence offered by the intellectual history of Europe in accordance with physiological principles, so as to illustrate the orderly progress of civilization, or collected the facts furnished by other branches of science with a view of enabling us to recognize clearly the conditions under which that progress takes place. This philosophical deficiency I have endeavored in the following pages to supply. Seen thus through the medium of physiology, history presents a new aspect to us. We gain a more just and thorough appreciation of the thoughts and motives of men in successive ages of the world.

Contents:

On the government of nature by law

Of Europe: Its topography and ethnology

Digression on Hindu theology and Egyptian civilization

Greek age of inquiry

The Greek age of faith

The Greek age of reason

The Greek age of intellectual decrepitude

Digression on the history and philosophical influences of Rome

The European age of inquiry

The European age of faith

Premature end of the age of faith in the East

The age of faith in the West

Digression on the passage of the Arabians to their age of reason

The age of faith in the West

(Continued) [1]

The age of faith in the West. The three attacks: Northern or moral; Western or intellectual; Eastern or military

(Continued) [2]

(Continued) [3]

(Concluded)

Approach of the age of reason in Europe [1]

Approach of the age of reason in Europe [2]

Digression on the condition of England at the end of the age of faith

The European age of reason

The European age of reason

Conclusion.

The future of Europe.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.