Project Gutenberg's Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge, by Alexander Philip

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Title: Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge

Author: Alexander Philip

Release Date: November 9, 2007 [EBook #23422]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE ***

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Transcriber's Note: Words in Greek in the original are transliterated
and placed between +plus signs+. Words italicized in the original are
surrounded by _underscores_. Characters superscripted in the original
are inclosed in {} brackets.

ESSAYS TOWARDS
A THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

_Rosalind:_ I pray you, what is't o'clock?

_Orlando:_ You should ask me, what time o' day;
there's no clock in the forest.

_As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2._

ESSAYS TOWARDS A
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

BY

ALEXANDER PHILIP
F.R.S.E

[Illustration]

LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1915

+he gar achromatos te kai aschematistos kai anaphes ousia ontos ousa
psyches kybernete monoi theatei no, peri hen to tes alethous epistemes
genos, touton echei ton topon.+--PHAEDRUS.

PREFACE

Two years ago, in the preface to another essay, the present writer
ventured to affirm that "Civilisation moves rather towards a chaos than
towards a cosmos." But he could not foretell that the _descensus Averni_
would be so alarmingly rapid.

When we find Science, which has done so much and promised so much for
the happiness of mankind, devoting so large a proportion of its
resources to the destruction of human life, we are prone to ask
despairingly--Is this the end? If not; how are we to discover and assure
for stricken Humanity the vision and the possession of a Better Land?

Not certainly by the ostentatious building of peace-palaces nor even by
the actual accomplishment of successful war. Only by the discovery of
true first principles of Thought and Action can Humanity be redeemed.
Undeterred by the confused tumult of to-