ECLECTICS, ECLEC'TICIS3I. Eclectics was the name given in ancient times to those philosophers who had no determinate system of their own, but who professed to choose (eklegein) from all systems the parts that they considered true. The systems from which the selections were originally made Wete those of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, but ultimately eclecticism lapsed into an attempt to reconcile Platonism and Christianity. The chief representatives of this school were Plotinus and Proclus, who, however, dun not so much make up a compound of doctrines gathered from without, as set up a view that endeavored to unite the results of previous systems into a consistent whole. Many of the early fathers of the Christian church who had been educated in the pagan schools of philosophy and rhetoric, and retained a fondness for their early studies, were E., such as Clemens Alexandrinus and Synesius of Cyrene. Modern eclecticism
is conceived by sonic to have originated with Bacon and Descartes, but Hegel may be more properly considered its founder. In his Philosophy of History and other works, ho endeavors, among other things, to point out the true and false tendencies of philosophic speculation in the various ages of the world; but it is to the lucid and brilliant eloquence of Victor Cousin (q.v.) that modern eclecticism owes its popularity, This system, if it can be so called, may best be defined as an effort to expound, in a critical and sym pathetic spirit, the previous systems of philosophy. Its aim is to apprehend the speculative of past ages in its historical development, and it is the opinion of sonic that such a method is the only one possible in our day in the region of metaphysics.