xviii Preface 



my thinking of Professor Howison and the idealistic philoso- 

 phy generally. That philosophic Idealism, no matter of 

 what variety, contains elements that are fundamentally er- 

 roneous seems to me to be proved more conclusively by its 

 inadequacy for understanding the world in its entirety than 

 by any particular errors of fact or reasoning which it can 

 be shown to contain. Were all men philosophical idealists, 

 there would be no natural science, merely because in the 

 domain of learning men will not choose as their primary 

 life work what they fully believe to be of secondary im- 

 portance. 



Fallaciousness or inconclusiveness of argument never de- 

 terred me half as much from embracing Professor Howison's 

 teachings in their entirety as did his usually dignified but 

 always-present presumption of professional self-superiority 

 over all his colleagues who did not come under the, to him, 

 sacred aegis of Philosophy. The reason why sincere humility 

 and the spirit of democracy are alien to all forms of idealis- 

 tic philosophy becomes clear once one attains a world view 

 which truly strives to include, but makes no pretense of hav- 

 ing already included, the whole world wholly in that view. 



There remains the pleasant though difficult task of men- 

 tioning the few among my numberless obligations which are 

 so personal and weighty that to leave them unacknowledged 

 would be to brand me as ungrateful, more conspicuously than 

 I can endure. 



First as to those persons and conditions which, during the 

 last ten years, have relieved me from the routine duties of a 

 University teacher, and also from most of the exactions 

 customarily attaching to an administrative post even in an 

 institution of scientific research, and have given me a status 

 the central purpose of which is scientific w^ork. Whatever 

 be the quality and final significance of my life-work, could 

 these, I ask myself, have reached as high a level as they 

 have reached had I not come into my present position? Al- 



