This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong conception of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of the kind of goods which philosophy strives to achieve. Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect on mankind in general. Thus utility does not belong to philosophy. If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it must be only indirectly3, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it. It is in these effects, therefore, if anywhere, that the value of philosophy must be primarily sought.
But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men. The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious4 of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain much to be done to produce a valuable society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at least as important as the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time.
Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity5 and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a mathematician6, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained7 by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid8, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology9. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty10 of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue11 which is called philosophy.
This is, however, only a part of the truth concerning the uncertainty of philosophy. There are many questions—and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual life—which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect unless its powers become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has the universe any unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Is consciousness a permanent part of the universe, giving hope of indefinite growth in wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on a small planet on which life must ultimately become impossible? Are good and evil of importance to the universe or only to man? Such questions are asked by philosophy, and variously answered by various philosophers. But it would seem that, whether answers be otherwise discoverable or not, the answers suggested by philosophy are none of them demonstrably true. Yet, however slight may be the hope of discovering an answer, it is part of the business of philosophy to continue the consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative12 interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable13 knowledge.
Many philosophers, it is true, have held that philosophy could establish the truth of certain answers to such fundamental questions. They have supposed that what is of most importance in religious beliefs could be proved by strict demonstration14 to be true. In order to judge of such attempts, it is necessary to take a survey of human knowledge, and to form an opinion as to its methods and its limitations. On such a subject it would be unwise to pronounce dogmatically; but if the investigations15 of our previous chapters have not led us astray, we shall be compelled to renounce16 the hope of finding philosophical17 proofs of religious beliefs. We cannot, therefore, include as part of the value of philosophy any definite set of answers to such questions. Hence, once more, the value of philosophy must not depend upon any supposed body of definitely ascertainable knowledge to be acquired by those who study it.
The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned19 in the prejudices derived20 from common sense, from the habitual21 beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar22 possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant23 dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating24 doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.
Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value—perhaps its chief value—through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates25, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation. The life of the instinctive26 man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish27 and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic18 life is calm and free. The private world of instinctive interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can so enlarge our interests as to include the whole outer world, we remain like a garrison28 in a beleagured fortress29, knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate surrender is inevitable30. In such a life there is no peace, but a constant strife31 between the insistence32 of desire and the powerlessness of will. In one way or another, if our life is to be great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife.
One way of escape is by philosophic contemplation. Philosophic contemplation does not, in its widest survey, divide the universe into two hostile camps—friends and foes33, helpful and hostile, good and bad—it views the whole impartially34. Philosophic contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe is akin35 to man. All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attained37 when it is not directly sought. It is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects. This enlargement of Self is not obtained when, taking the Self as it is, we try to show that the world is so similar to this Self that knowledge of it is possible without any admission of what seems alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-assertion and, like all self-assertion, it is an obstacle to the growth of Self which it desires, and of which the Self knows that it is capable. Self-assertion, in philosophic speculation38 as elsewhere, views the world as a means to its own ends; thus it makes the world of less account than Self, and the Self sets bounds to the greatness of its goods. In contemplation, on the contrary, we start from the not-Self, and through its greatness the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity39 of the universe the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in infinity.
For this reason greatness of soul is not fostered by those philosophies which assimilate the universe to Man. Knowledge is a form of union of Self and not-Self; like all union, it is impaired40 by dominion41, and therefore by any attempt to force the universe into conformity42 with what we find in ourselves. There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space and time and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable and of no account for us. This view, if our previous discussions were correct, is untrue; but in addition to being untrue, it has the effect of robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it value, since it fetters43 contemplation to Self. What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-Self, but a set of prejudices, habits, and desires, making an impenetrable veil between us and the world beyond. The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like the man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.
The true philosophic contemplation, on the contrary, finds its satisfaction in every enlargement of the not-Self, in everything that magnifies the objects contemplated44, and thereby45 the subject contemplating46. Everything, in contemplation, that is personal or private, everything that depends upon habit, self-interest, or desire, distorts the object, and hence impairs47 the union which the intellect seeks. By thus making a barrier between subject and object, such personal and private things become a prison to the intellect. The free intellect will see as God might see, without a here and now, without hopes and fears, without the trammels of customary beliefs and traditional prejudices, calmly, dispassionately, in the sole and exclusive desire of knowledge—knowledge as impersonal48, as purely49 contemplative, as it is possible for man to attain36. Hence also the free intellect will value more the abstract and universal knowledge into which the accidents of private history do not enter, than the knowledge brought by the senses, and dependent, as such knowledge must be, upon an exclusive and personal point of view and a body whose sense-organs distort as much as they reveal.
The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality50 of philosophic contemplation will preserve something of the same freedom and impartiality in the world of action and emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man's deeds. The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest. In this citizenship51 of the universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the thraldom52 of narrow hopes and fears.
Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
The End
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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controversies
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| 争论 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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mathematician
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| n.数学家 | |
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ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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residue
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| n.残余，剩余，残渣 | |
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speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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ascertainable
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| adj.可确定（探知），可发现的 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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liberating
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| 解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 ) | |
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contemplates
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的第三人称单数 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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infinity
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| n.无限，无穷，大量 | |
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impaired
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| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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conformity
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| n.一致，遵从，顺从 | |
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fetters
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| n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 )；束缚v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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impairs
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| v.损害，削弱( impair的第三人称单数 ) | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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impartiality
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| n. 公平, 无私, 不偏 | |
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citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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thraldom
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| n.奴隶的身份，奴役，束缚 | |
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