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The historiographical work produced in Germany during this period can be regarded as the equivalent of the type of scholarship that was being produced in the Netherlands and in England, during the same period, through the efforts of scholarly erudition and classical philology. While the German counterparts to the works of Vossius, Hornius, and Stanley were of lesser stature, a more important stage was reached with the historical-philosophical work of Jakob Thomasius (the teacher of Leibniz) and with the more modest, yet still significant, contributions of Tribbechow, Witte, and Colberg. There were particular social and cultural factors in Germany, by comparison with England and the Low Countries, that resulted in this difference in their intellectual production. There was no philosophical background comparable to that represented elsewhere by Bacon and the Cambridge Platonists, Descartes and Franco-Dutch Cartesianism. Instead, a grey and lifeless ‘school philosophy’ had developed, which managed to lay claim, with a degree of prudent caution, to its own limited sphere of action alongside the dominant orthodox Lutheran theology, and which, having embraced a certain type of Aristotelianism, remained strikingly closed and unreceptive to, as well as suspicious of, the Western novatores.

The historia philosophica first appeared as a literary genre in the Low Countries between 1540 and the end of the sixteenth century. Developments in historical, philological, and biblical studies in the universities, especially at Leiden, brought about an increased interest in the historical aspects of philosophy amongst scholars of both history and the humanities. Research into aspects of ancient thought (Lipsius) and Oriental philosophy (Heurnius) were decisive in focusing attention on history as an introduction to the more important representatives of classical thought. This new literary genre would not have been required, if it had not been for the considerable increase in classical studies, biblical exegesis, and above all philological research. Indeed, it was the technique of philology that created the way of examining all the works, authors, and main currents of thought that defined the historical and literary framework of the disciplines to be studied. For example, Heinsius with his poetic compositions on classical philosophy written in Greek verse, Vossius with his review of the history of historiography (De historicis graecis and De historicis latinis),and Grotius with his review of historical texts (Philosophorum sententiae de fato et de eo quod in nostra est potestate (Amsterdam, 1648)) all contributed to the application of philology to philosophical texts and sects, which sorted out their chronological order and doctrinal sources.

Theophilus Gale wrote his history no more than fifteen years after Thomas Stanley, but there are profound differences between the two works. Both written in English and both monuments of careful study and enormous learning, they are, however, based on completely different premisses; for during these fifteen years, English history of philosophy became an integral part of philosophical apologetics. This change was brought about by the group of thinkers traditionally referred to as the Cambridge Platonists. This philosophical school, centred on the University of Cambridge, sprang up in the mid-seventeenth century for a variety of religious and cultural reasons; it made a direct impact on the history of philosophy and must therefore be examined in detail.

The simultaneous publication in 1655 of Thomas Stanley’s History of Philosophy and Georg Hornius’ Historia philosophica gave evidence for the growing need in England and the Low Countries for systematic historical analysis of philosophy. This increasing awareness that philosophy needed its own history was confirmed four years later by the appearance in Frankfurt of Johannes Joensen’s De scriptoribus historiae philosophicae, whose title gave the final blessing to the term `history of philosophy’. The new genre was primarily concerned with those philological, literary, and scientific areas of scholarship that particularly interested the mid sixteenth century. The appearance of philosophical historiography was especially noteworthy in England, where the influence of Francis Bacon’s character and work was pervasive. Stanley’s History of Philosophy can only be understood in the light of the philological incentive arising from Bacon’s encyclopaedic ideal. Although there is no clear relationship between Bacon’s works and Stanley’s background or his classical inclinations, so closely linked with mid-seventeenth-century English poetic circles, there can be little doubt that he was influenced by Bacon’s advocacy of a history of `philosophers’ opinions’. We will examine first the History of Philosophy, because a grasp of the way in which Bacon’s concept of the history of philosophy established itself in England is necessary for an understanding of the contemporary development of philosophical historiography in the Low Countries, including Hornius’ Historia philosophica. Although in the mid sixteenth century Dutch philology and historical research were at a much higher level than in England, the new genre only really developed once scholars had understood the purpose of history of philosophy as proposed by Bacon.