Many men, under the influence of science or of practical affairs, are inclined to doubt whether philosophy is anything better than innocent but useless, hair-splitting distinctions and controversies on matters concerning which, knowledge is impossible. This view of philosophy appears to result from a wrong conception of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of the kinds of goods which philosophy tries to achieve. Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of the physical sciences is to be recommended, not only or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather of the effect on mankind in general. This utility does not belong to philosophy, it must be only indirectly, through its effects on the lives of those who study it.

 

If we are not to fail in our endeavor 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 oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease were 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. Those who are not indifferent to the goods of the mind can be persuaded that the study of philosophy in 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 unity and system to the body of 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. This is partly accounted 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 part of  philosophy has now become the science of psychology. Those (questions) to which at the present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

 

There are many questions---and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual live�which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect. 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 become ultimately 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. 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 speculative interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.

 

 

 We cannot include as part of the value of philosophy any definite set of answers to it. The value of philosophy , is, in fact, to be sought largely in its uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or nation, and from convictions that have grown 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 arouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find , 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 feelings of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never traveled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect. 

 

Philosophic contemplation does not , in its widest survey, divide the world into two hostile camps�friends and foes, helpful and hostile, good and bad�it views the whole impartially. Philosophic contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that the universe is akin to man. All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self. 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 no knowledge of it is possible without any admission of what seems alien. In contemplation, on the contrary, we start from the not-Self, and through its greatness, the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe, the mind which contemplates it , achieves some share in infinity.

 

The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality 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 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 with all the rest. In this citizenship of the universe contains man�s true freedom, and his liberation from the thralldom 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�but rather for 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. Above all, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.