ined by pursuing distinctively
philosophical studies. Why should those who go to college, or
intelligent persons who cannot go to college, care to interest
themselves in logic and ethics, psychology and metaphysics? Are not
these studies rather dry, in the first place, and rather profitless, in
the second?

As to the first point, I should stoutly maintain that if they are dry,
it is somebody's fault. The most sensational of novels would be dry if
couched in the language which some philosophers have seen fit to use in
expressing their thoughts. He who defines "existence" as "the still
and simple precipitate of the oscillation between beginning to be and
ceasing to be" has done his best to alienate our affections from the
subject of his predilection.

But it is not in the least necessary to talk in this way about matters
philosophical. He who is not a slave to tradition can use plain and
simple language. To be sure, there are some subjects, especially in
the field of metaphysics, into which the student cannot expect to see
very deeply at the outset of his studies. Men do not expect to
understand the more difficult problems of mathematics without making a
good deal of preparation; but, unhappily, they sometimes expect to have
the profoundest problems of metaphysics made luminous to them in one or
two popular lectures.

Philosophical studies are not dry, when men are properly taught, and
are in a position to understand what is said. They deal with the most
fascinating of problems. It is only necessary to pierce through the
husk of words which conceals the thoughts of the philosopher, and we
shall find the kernel palatable, indeed. Nor are such studies
profitless, to take up our second point. Let us see what we may gain
from them.

Let us begin with logic--the traditional logic commonly taught to
beginners. Is it worth while to study this? Surely it is. No one who
has not tried to introduce the average under-graduate to logic can
realize how blindly he uses his reasoning powers, how unconscious he is
of the full meaning of the sentences he employs, how easily he may be
entrapped by fallacious reasonings where he is not set on his guard by
some preposterous conclusion touching matters with which he is familiar.

And he is not merely unconscious of the lapses in his processes of
reasoning, and of his imperfect comprehension of the significance of
his statements; he is unconscious also of the mass of inherit