"...Philosophy has a history of its origin diffusion maturity decay revival; a history of its teachers promoters and of its opponents often too of an outward relation to religion and occasionally to the State. This side of its history likewise gives occasion to interesting questions. Amongst other such it is asked why Philosophy the doctrine of absolute Truth seems to have revealed itself on the whole to a small number of individuals to special nations and how it has limited itself to particular periods of time. Similarly with respect to Christianity to the Truth in a much more universal form than the philosophical a difficulty has been encountered in respect to the question whether there is a contradiction in the fact that this religion should have appeared so late in time and that it should have remained so long and should still remain limited to special races of men. But these and other similar questions are too much a matter of detail to depend merely on the general conflict referred to and when we have further touched upon the peculiar character of philosophic knowledge we may go more specially into the aspects which relate to the external existence and external history of Philosophy..."