Are not all our theories just remedies and places of escape?
And, if philosophy is to be religious, how can she be anything else
than a place of escape from the crassness of reality's surface? What
better thing can she do than raise us out of our animal senses and
show us another and a nobler home for our minds in that great
framework of ideal principles subtending all reality, which the
intellect divines? How can principles and general views ever be
anything but abstract outlines? Was Cologne cathedral built without
an architect's plan on paper? Is refinement in itself an
abomination? Is concrete rudeness the only thing that's true?
Believe me, I feel the full force of the indictment. The picture I
have given is indeed monstrously over-simplified and rude. But like
all abstractions, it will prove to have its use. If philosophers can
treat the life of the universe abstractly, they must not complain of
an abstract treatment of the life of philosophy itself. In point of
fact the picture I have given is, however coarse and sketchy,
literally true. Temperaments with their cravings and refusals do
determine men in their philosophies, and always will. The details of
systems may be reasoned out piecemeal, and when the student is
working at a system, he may often forget the forest for the single
tree.
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