d, if any advance anywhere is claimed or asserted, must we not
ask: Is the claim founded on truth, is the good or profit seemingly
attained a (or the) true good? To whom or to what is it good? Can we
stop short of the endeavour to assure ourselves beyond question or doubt
that we are right in what answers we render? And where or by what means
can we reach this save by turning inward on meditation or reflection,
that is by philosophizing? [Greek: Ei philosopheteon philosopheteon, ei
de me, philosopheteon; pantos ara philosopheteon]. Thither the mind of
man has always turned when the burden of the mystery of its nature and
fate has weighed all but intolerably upon it, and turning has never
found itself betrayed, but from knowledge of itself has drawn fresh hope
and strength to resume the uninterrupted march of Progress which is its
life and its history, its being, its self-formation, in courage moving
forwards in and towards the light. It is as if such light were not
merely the condition of its welfare, but the food on which it lived, the
stuff which it transmuted into substance and energy, out of it making,
maintaining and building its very self. So under whatever name, whether
we call what we are doing Philosophy or something else, the search for
more and more light upon ourselves and our world is the most
indispensable activity to which the leagued and co-operative powers of
Man can be devoted. Fortunately it is also that in which success or
failure depends most certainly upon ourselves and in which Progress can
with most confidence be looked for. In it we cannot fail if we will to
take sufficient trouble; the means to it are open and available; it is
our fault if we do not employ them and profit by them. If we have less
wisdom than we might have, it is never any one's fault but our own. The
door of the treasure-house of Wisdom stands ever open.

BOOKS FOR REFERENCE

C. C. J. Webb, _History of Philosophy_ (Home University Library).

Burnet, _History of Greek Philosophy_.

E. J. Bevan, _Stoics and Sceptics_.

Hoeffding, _History of Modern Philosophy_ (translated).

Royce, _The Spirit of Philosophy_.

Merz, _History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century_.

XII

PROGRESS AS AN IDEAL OF ACTION

J. A. SMITH

Throughout this course of lectures, now come to its close, we have
together been engaged in a theoretical inquiry. We have been looking
mainly towards the past, to something therefore for