Ill 



WHAT IS MEANT BY PHILOSOPHY? 



PHILOSOPHY, or the love of wisdom, is surely 

 one of the loftiest words in all language. But, 

 like so many more, it has lost its original meaning, 

 which was an expression of the humility of a school 

 of thinkers who proposed to repudiate the arrogant 

 claims of those who impudently called themselves 

 sophists. The term scientist or savant is preten- 

 tious enough, but to call oneself wise embodied a 

 greater claim than to call oneself knowing ; though 

 wisdom and knowledge are ultimately identical, as 

 the etymology of the word wise teaches us. 



Now it might reasonably be maintained that 

 the term philosophy should be reserved for the 

 highest conceivable kind of knowledge knowl- 

 edge of the greatest conceivable object. And 

 none will dispute that there is an object knowl- 

 edge of which would be the highest attainable, 

 would transcend and include all other knowledge 

 whatever ; and that object is Reality. Some may 

 object that in its highest sense philosophic should 

 be identical with religious knowledge ; but, indeed, 

 it will appear that, on the evolutionary conception 

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