Page:The World and the Individual, Second Series (1901).djvu/26



no question is the student of Philosophy more familiar than with the inquiry: Of what bearing upon life are the studies in which you are engaged? This challenge, when uttered by one not engaged in the study of philosophy, comes home with especial force to the investigator of the fundamental problems of metaphysics. For such problems are, upon their face, of the most universal character. It would seem as if their significance for the whole business of every man ought to be immediately obvious, unless indeed the philosopher who expounds them has failed in his task. What concerns any man more than his place in the world, and the meaning of the world in which he is to find this place?

But when the layman listens to the actual teachings of students of philosophy, as they discourse concerning knowledge and being, concerning truth and duty, and when, after listening, such a layman then asks afresh, “What is it that I have learned about my life, and my duty, and my world of daily business?” — the answer of many a listener is too well known: “I have learned,”