Eclectic

selecting; relating to the Eclectics, philosophers of antiquity, who, without attaching themselves to any particular system, or: forming one of their own, profe ed to select from the various existing systems what they believed to be true, and thus to construct a new and complete whole. Modern eclecticism is considered to have taken its rise in the 17th century with Bacon and Des cartes; but in the 19th century it received a fresh impetus through the labors of the German philosopher Hegel, and of Victor Cousin.