“When advanced to such height wee look down to the bottom from which philosophy first took her rise, and see how great a progresse she hath made.”

He describes intellectual history as a vantage point from which the development of philosophy can be surveyed. · Preface, The History of Philosophy, 1655

• History
• Philosophy
• Progress

“It is manifest that the original of the Greek Philosophy is to be deriv'd from Thales, who travelling into the East, first brought Natural learning, Geometry, and Astrology thence into Greece.”

He presents philosophy as a tradition transmitted across cultures rather than arising in isolation. · Preface, The History of Philosophy, 1656

• History
• Knowledge
• Philosophy

“History is not unlike Painting: their scope is the same; to represent things absent as if present, and make us acquainted with persons whom we never saw.”

He compares historical writing with painting as ways of bringing absent people and events vividly before the mind. · Preface, The History of Philosophy, 1655

• Art
• History
• Memory