must be regarded as unchanging and
unchangeable, doomed for ever to reproduce and monotonously reiterate
whatsoever it had once done and been, the mind or spirit of Man in its
own realm seemed capable of going beyond all its past achievements and
rising to new heights, not merely here and there or in isolated
instances but in such numbers or masses as to raise for long periods of
history the general level of human efficiency and welfare. It is true
that many of those who noted these advances or profited by them did not
always admit that they took place in, or were due to the agency of,
Philosophy. The advances were most often credited to other powers and
the new territory claimed by their representatives. The contributions
made by Philosophy to the general improvement of human life were and are
obscure, difficult to trace, easily missed or forgotten. It came about
that the philosopher was misconceived as one indifferent to ordinary
human interests and disdainful of the more obvious advantages secured by
others, pressing and urging forward and upward into a cloudland where
the light was too dim for the eyes of man and the paths too uncertain
for his feet. Unsatisfied with the region where Man had learned by the
slow and painful lessons of experience to build himself a habitable city
he dreamed of something higher, aspiring to explore beyond and above
where the light of that experience shone and illuminated. Perhaps the
main idea that the name of Philosophy now to most suggests is that of a
Utopian ideal of knowledge so wide and so high that it must be by sane
and sober minds pronounced for ever set beyond the reach of human
faculty, an ideal which perhaps we cannot help forming and which
constantly tempts us forward like a mirage, but which like a mirage
leads us into waste and barren places, so much so that it is no small
part of human wisdom to resist its subtle seductions and to confine our
efforts to the pursuit of such ends as we may reasonably regard as well
within the compass of our powers of thought and action. It is folly, we
are told, to adventure ourselves upon the uncharted seas into which
philosophers invite us, to waste our lives and perhaps break our hearts
in the vain search for a knowledge that is for ever denied us. After
all, there is much that we can know, and in the knowledge of which we
can better the estate of Man, relieving him from many of his most
pressing terrors and distresses. To cherish other