Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/149

133 supreme purpose to be that of making room for faith in the verities of morals and religion. But the history of the period which has since elapsed only confirms what the history of all time since reflective thinking began most explicitly teaches: It is neither rational nor possible, on the one hand, to establish philosophy as a perfect and finished system of superior and incontestable cognitions; nor, on the other hand, as a demonstrated conclusion that all human knowledge is devoid of ontological value. In a word, philosophy cannot fulfill its mission either by trying to rival &#39;pure logic' and &#39;pure mathematics' so-called, or by ending in epistemological scepticism or agnosticism.

It seems to me absolutely essential, in case the mission of philosophy is to be at all worthily,—however imperfectly,—fulfilled, that the basic epistemological problem should be squarely and boldly faced; and that all the resources of information, and all the means of guidance which the last century has furnished, and which we owe chiefly to the unexampled stirring of thought so largely due to Kant, should be employed anew in the attempt at its better solution. What is it in human experience that has ontological value? Neither scepticism, nor a high and dry a priori dogmatism, has answered, or can answer, this question. But the critical reflection which attempts it to-day must be better informed, more hospitable to the many sides of the life of humanity, and more sobered by the history of this unfolding life, than it was a hundred years ago.

It also seems to me not arrogant or immodest to affirm that the development of philosophy during the nineteenth century has made important and permanently valuable contributions to the answer to this problem. The growth of the particular sciences, the growth of interest in the social life and social well-being of man, the growth of the historical spirit under the penetrating influence of the conception of development, are the principal causes for the improved condition of philosophy since the death of Kant. No student of philosophy, however vastly inferior to him in critical ability, can wholly escape the helpful discipline of these influences. Neither the dogmatism, however bigoted and pronounced, nor the scepticism, however shallow