in THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY 201 



comparing doctrines that seem to have no common 

 point, no common measure, those of Fichte and Spencer 

 for instance, two names that we happen to have just 

 brought together. 



At the _root_.. of _these speculations, then, there are 

 the two convictions correlative ancTcompIementary, that 

 nature is one and that the function of intellect is to 

 embrace it in its entirety. The faculty of knowing 

 being supposed coextensive with the whole of experi 

 ence, there can no longer be any question of engendering 

 it. It is already given, and we merely have to use it, 

 as we use our sight to take in the horizon. It is 

 true that opinions differ as to the value of the result. 

 For some, it is reality itself that the intellect embraces ; 

 for others, it is only a phantom. But, phantom or 

 reality 3 what intelligence grasps is thought to be all 

 that can be attained. 



Hence the exaggerate9 confidence of philosophy in 

 the powers of the individual mind. Whether it is 

 dogmatic or critical, whether it admits the relativity of 

 our knowledge or claims to be established within the 

 absolute, a philosophy is generally the work of a 

 philosopher, a single and unitary vision of the whole. 

 It is to be taken or left. 



More modest, and also alone capable of being 



completed and perfected, is the philosophy we advocate. 

 Human intelligence, as we represent it, is not at all 

 what Plato taught in the allegory of the cave. Its 

 function is not to look at passing shadows nor yet to 

 turn itself round and contemplate the glaring sun. 

 It has something else to do. Harnessed, like yoked 

 oxen, to a heavy task, we feel the play of our muscles 

 and joints, the weight of the plough and the re 

 sistance of the soil. To act and to know that we are 



