n
toward the world the scientific disclosures exact of us we are raising a
philosophic question.

From this point of view, "totality" does not mean the hopeless task of a
quantitative summation. It means rather consistency of mode of response
in reference to the plurality of events which occur. Consistency does
not mean literal identity; for since the same thing does not happen
twice, an exact repetition of a reaction involves some maladjustment.
Totality means continuity--the carrying on of a former habit of action
with the readaptation necessary to keep it alive and growing. Instead of
signifying a ready-made complete scheme of action, it means keeping
the balance in a multitude of diverse actions, so that each borrows and
gives significance to every other. Any person who is open-minded
and sensitive to new perceptions, and who has concentration and
responsibility in connecting them has, in so far, a philosophic
disposition. One of the popular senses of philosophy is calm and
endurance in the face of difficulty and loss; it is even supposed to be
a power to bear pain without complaint. This meaning is a tribute to the
influence of the Stoic philosophy rather than an attribute of
philosophy in general. But in so far as it suggests that the wholeness
characteristic of philosophy is a power to learn, or to extract meaning,
from even the unpleasant vicissitudes of experience and to embody what
is learned in an ability to go on learning, it is justified in any
scheme. An analogous interpretation applies to the generality
and ultimateness of philosophy. Taken literally, they are absurd
pretensions; they indicate insanity. Finality does not mean, however,
that experience is ended and exhausted, but means the disposition to
penetrate to deeper levels of meaning--to go below the surface and find
out the connections of any event or object, and to keep at it. In like
manner the philosophic attitude is general in the sense that it is
averse to taking anything as isolated; it tries to place an act in its
context--which constitutes its significance. It is of assistance to
connect philosophy with thinking in its distinction from knowledge.
Knowledge, grounded knowledge, is science; it represents objects which
have been settled, ordered, disposed of rationally. Thinking, on
the other hand, is prospective in reference. It is occasioned by an
unsettlement and it aims at overcoming a disturbance. Philosophy is
thinking what the known