EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



On the other hand, there are many illustrious 

 thinkers who teach that reality can be known. 

 It is true that most of them lived before the days 

 in which men began to study the knowing process ; 

 but their names compel our respect. It will prob- 

 ably be admitted that Democritus, Aristotle, and 

 Berkeley were of their number. But if the mutual 

 differences of the first the ultimately sceptical or 

 agnostic group are immense, profounder still are 

 the differences between the thinkers of the gnostic 

 or dogmatic group. For this method of classifica- 

 tion which I am nevertheless prepared to regard 

 as the primary classification of all philosophic sys- 

 tems groups together, in respect of their dog- 

 matism, the theologians of all creeds Christian, 

 Buddhist (if it be .not incorrect to speak of a Bud- 

 dhist theologian), Mohammedan, Hebrew, or what 

 you please since every religious system includes a 

 philosophy or theory of reality, and all such theories 

 are necessarily dogmatic or gnostic: the idealists, 

 who maintain that mind, which they regard as 

 obviously and immediately knowable, is the ulti- 

 mate reality; the materialists, who regard matter 

 or atoms as the (knowable) reality ; and their suc- 

 cessors; who answer the question of questions by 

 referring us to an (equally knowable) energy or 

 force. Thus, in respect of their belief that the 

 quest of philosophy is attainable, the theist, some 

 pantheists, and some atheists may be found to 

 agree. 



But in one respect, at any rate, all the philo- 

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