stinct of cosmic interrogation
follows hard upon the instinct of self-preservation.

In all the operations of nature, man's weal and woe are involved. A cold
wave sweeps from the north--rivers and lakes are frozen, forests are
buried under snows, and the fierce winds almost congeal the life-fluids
of man himself, and indeed man's sources of supply are buried under the
rocks of water. At another time the heavens are as brass, and the clouds
come and go with mockery of unfulfilled promises of rain, the fierce
midsummer sun pours its beams upon the sands, and blasts heated in the
furnace of the desert sear the vegetation; and the fruits, which in more
congenial seasons are subsistence and luxury, shrivel before the eyes of
famishing men. A river rages and destroys the adjacent valley with its
flood. A mountain bursts forth with its rivers of fire, the land is
buried and the people are swept away. Lightning shivers a tree and rends
a skull. The silent, unseen powers of nature, too, are at work bringing
pain or joy, health or sickness, life or death, to mankind. In like
manner man's welfare is involved in all the institutions of society. _How_
and _why_ are the questions asked about all these things--questions
springing from the deepest instinct of self-preservation.

In all stages of savage, barbaric, and civilized inquiry, every question
has found an answer, every _how_ has had its _thus_, every _why_ its
_because_. The sum of the answers to the questions raised by any people
constitute its philosophy; hence all peoples have had philosophies
consisting of their accepted explanation of things. Such a philosophy
must necessarily result from the primary instincts developed in man in
the early progress of his differentiation from the beast. This I
postulate: if demonstration is necessary, demonstration is at hand. Not
only has every people a philosophy, but every stage of culture is
characterized by its stage of philosophy. Philosophy has been unfolded
with the evolution of the human understanding. The history of philosophy
is the history of human opinions from the earlier to the later
days--from the lower to the higher culture.

In the production of a philosophy, phenomena must be _discerned_,
_discriminated_, _classified_. Discernment, discrimination, and
classification are the processes by which a philosophy is developed. In
studying the philosophy of a people at any stage of culture, to
understand what such a people ente