ket-place. Certain weaknesses are developed in the academical
atmosphere as well as in the arenas of public discussion. Freeman used
to say that English historians had avoided certain errors into which
German writers of far greater knowledge and more thorough scholarship
had fallen, simply because points were missed by a professor in a
German university which were plain to those who, like many Englishmen,
had to take a part in actual political work. I think that this is not
without a meaning for us. We have learnt, very properly, to respect
German research and industry; and we are trying in various directions
to imitate their example. Perhaps it would be as well to keep an eye
upon some German weaknesses. A philosophy made for professors is apt to
be a philosophy for pedants. A professor is bound to be omniscient; he
has to have an answer to everything; he is tempted to construct systems
which will pass muster in the lecture-room, and to despise the rest of
their applicability to daily life. I confess myself to be old-fashioned
enough to share some of the old English prejudices against those
gigantic structures which have been thrown out by imposing
philosophers, who evolved complete systems of metaphysics and logic and
religion and politics and aesthetics out of their own consciousness. We
have multiplied professors of late, and professors are bound to write
books, and to magnify the value of their own studies. They must make a
show of possessing an encyclopaedic theory which will explain everything
and take into account all previous theories. Sometimes, perhaps, they
will lose themselves in endless subtleties and logomachies and
construct cobwebs of the brain, predestined to the rubbish-heap of
extinct philosophies. It is enough, however, to urge that a mere
student may be the better for keeping in mind the necessity of keeping
in mind real immediate human interests; as the sentimentalist has to be
reminded of the importance of strictly logical considerations. And I
think too that a very brief study of the most famous systems of old
days will convince us that philosophers should be content with a more
modest attitude than they have sometimes adopted; give up the
pretensions to framing off-hand theories of things in general, and be
content to puzzle out a few imperfect truths which may slowly work
their way into the general structure of thought. I wish to speak humbly
as befits one who cannot claim any particular authori