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Philosophical Society

AMER- ICAN, a learned society, the oldest now existing in America, being founded as early as the year 1727. At that time it was merely a club in Philadelphia where learned men repaired for conversation, and among them Benjamin Franklin.

In 1743 Franklin wrote "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among the British Plantations in America," in which he advocated the formation of a society with members from all the colonies. The society was formed the next year under the title of American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge.

Franklin was the first president and he was succeeded by David Rittenhouse and then by Thomas Jefferson. The present society is the result of a merger of two learned societies both situated in Philadelphia. In 1785 a London gentleman, de Magellan, presented 200 guineas to the society the interest on which was to be used to provide a gold medal to be awarded for the best discovery or im- Academy, 160 в. c.; the New Platonists, A. D. 200 (?). Of modern systems the perceptive and sensational philosophy of Locke arose about 1690; the idealistic of Berkeley and Hume, 1710; the commonsense philosophy of Re transcendental of Kant, 1770; the scien- Reid, etc., 1750; the tific philosophy of Fichte, 1800; the idealistic philosophy of Hegel in 1810; the positive philosophy of Comte in 1830, and the evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer in 1852, or more decidedly in 1855. Also the course of sciences read in the schools, and required for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the universities of Germany, etc., and corresponding to Arts in the United States. For more modern philosophy_consult the works of James, Royce, Bergson, Von Mach, Sidgwick, Taylor, ete.