Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/130

114 It is true that, as has already been said, the question as to the nature and method of philosophy and the question as to the so-called 'practical' worth of philosophy are intimately related. The problem of definition and the problem of mission are interdependent. But, on the other hand, they are not precisely the same. What philosophy can contribute, and what it aims to contribute, to the realization of the Supreme Good for mankind is mainly an historical and practical inquiry. What philosophy really is, and whether any tenable conception of its peculiar work can be in any worthy measure realized, is mainly a speculative problem. Yet we may in some sort reverse the dependence of the two questions. We may argue that, on admitting tentatively some one of the several conceptions of philosophy, the justification of its value for mankind may be the more successfully accomplished. To state the inquiry in a more determinate and yet hypothetical form: If philosophy be conceived as in nature and method thus and so, what mission, therefore, will it fulfill that is entitled to commend it to the reasonable favor, or even the enthusiastic support, of humanity at large? It is this inquiry which I wish briefly to bring before you at the present time.

If now we consider the rather unhappy results of the efforts of successive generations of philosophers to agree upon an exact delimitation of the sphere of philosophy, there are certain consolations which the present situation administers to our mortified minds. No form of human science, in the larger and higher meaning of the word science (science = Wissenschaft), when asked for an exact definition of its own peculiar content, for such a delimitation of its sphere as shall separate it from all other particular sciences, is now able to respond with a formula of words which proves wholly satisfying to the critical inquirer. But the reason for this is not to the discredit of modern science. It is, the rather, to be credited to the wealth of the modern discoveries which have revealed the enormous complexity of those interactions and interrelations that constitute the unity of reality as known by man. The real world has not divided itself up in a way to meet the conveniences of the particular sciences. Nor does our total experience respond to a philosophy that would