Let a controversy begin in a
smoking-room anywhere, about free-will or God's omniscience, or good
and evil, and see how everyone in the place pricks up his ears.
Philosophy's results concern us all most vitally, and philosophy's
queerest arguments tickle agreeably our sense of subtlety and
ingenuity.
Believing in philosophy myself devoutly, and believing also that a
kind of new dawn is breaking upon us philosophers, I feel impelled,
per fas aut nefas, to try to impart to you some news of the
situation.
Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human
pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it opens out the
widest vistas. It 'bakes no bread,' as has been said, but it can
inspire our souls with courage; and repugnant as its manners, its
doubting and challenging, its quibbling and dialectics, often are to
common people, no one of us can get along without the far-flashing
beams of light it sends over the world's perspectives. These
illuminations at least, and the contrast-effects of darkness and
mystery that accompany them, give to what it says an interest that
is much more than professional.
The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain
clash of human temperaments.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25