can be persuaded that the study of
philosophy is not a waste of time.

Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The
knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and
system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a
critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and
beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very
great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to
its questions. If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian,
or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been
ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are
willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he
will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved
positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is
true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as
definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject
ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The
whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once
included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical
principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human
mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from
philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great
extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those
questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in
the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer
can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

This is, however, only a part of the truth concerning the uncertainty of
philosophy. There are many questions--and among them those that are of
the profoundest interest to our spiritual life--which, so far as we
can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect unless its powers
become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has the
universe any unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse
of atoms? Is consciousness a permanent part of the universe, giving
hope of indefinite growth in wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on
a small planet on which life must ultimately become impossible? Are good
and evil of importance to the universe or only to man? Such questions
are as