Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/133

117 No. 2.] THE MISSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 1 1/ his purpose. The Kantian conception of what philosophy properly is, and of what sort of knowledge it conveys, certainly differs widely from the Cartesian conception. And yet, when it comes to the problem of justifying philosophy by way of the practical benefits which it is its proper mission to confer, Kant is more assured in his convictions, and even more dogmatic and less perplexed with doubts, than Descartes had allowed himself to be. "The use of the pure [practical] reason, if it is made out that there be such use," Kant declares to be "alone immanent." On the contrary, the empirically conditioned use, which assumes for itself the supremacy, is transcendent, and expresses itself in exhortations and commands that pass quite beyond its own domain,—"a thing which is just the opposite relation from that which could be said of the pure reason in its speculative use." Now this declaration with respect to the mission of philosophy, somehow to be attained, quite puts to shame the rather weakly sentimental statement of Novalis: "Philosophy can bake no bread, but she can procure for us God, freedom, and immortality." Something in a way similar to the Kantian limitation of human knowledge of the supersensible or the transcendent to its practical aspect, seems to have been the opinion of that other pioneer in modern philosophy, whose services we desire to honor at the present time,—namely, the author of the Essay concerning Human Understanding. For in Book I, chapter i, § 5, Locke declares himself as follows: "How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments, that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties."

If now we turn for a moment to the Oriental writers and thinkers and consider the characteristic differences between them and us of the Occident, there is scarcely one of these differences more impressive than the frank and unabashed way in which the practical mission of philosophy is given supremacy over the merely speculative. This is manifestly true of whatever goes under the name of philosophy which has its sources in Chinese or Japanese Confucianism. It is true that the so-called Hindu philosophy