ter.

1. THE BEGINNINGS OF PHILOSOPHY.--The Greek historian Herodotus
(484-424 B.C.) appears to have been the first to use the verb "to
philosophize." He makes Croesus tell Solon how he has heard that he
"from a desire of knowledge has, philosophizing, journeyed through many
lands." The word "philosophizing" seems to indicate that Solon pursued
knowledge for its own sake, and was what we call an investigator. As
for the word "philosopher" (etymologically, a lover of wisdom), a
certain somewhat unreliable tradition traces it back to Pythagoras
(about 582-500 B.C.). As told by Cicero, the story is that, in a
conversation with Leon, the ruler of Phlius, in the Peloponnesus, he
described himself as a philosopher, and said that his business was an
investigation into the nature of things.

At any rate, both the words "philosopher" and "philosophy" are freely
used in the writings of the disciples of Socrates (470-399 B.C.), and
it is possible that he was the first to make use of them. The seeming
modesty of the title philosopher--for etymologically it is a modest
one, though it has managed to gather a very different signification
with the lapse of time--the modesty of the title would naturally appeal
to a man who claimed so much ignorance, as Socrates; and Plato
represents him as distinguishing between the lover of wisdom and the
wise, on the ground that God alone may be called wise. From that date
to this the word "philosopher" has remained with us, and it has meant
many things to many men. But for centuries the philosopher has not
been simply the investigator, nor has he been simply the lover of
wisdom.

An investigation into the origin of words, however interesting in
itself, can tell us little of the uses to which words are put after
they have come into being. If we turn from etymology to history, and
review the labors of the men whom the world has agreed to call
philosophers, we are struck by the fact that those who head the list
chronologically appear to have been occupied with crude physical
speculations, with attempts to guess what the world is made out of,
rather than with that somewhat vague something that we call philosophy
to-day.

Students of the history of philosophy usually begin their studies with
the speculations of the Greek philosopher Thales (b. 624 B.C.). We are
told that he assumed water to be the universal principle out of which
all things are made, and that he maintained that "all things a