LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS 101 



claims of these problems, failing ih ; iespiect" -fa 

 them, to study them in the same way as an 

 ordinary question of biology or history, which 

 cannot be resolved save in an approximate, im- 

 perfect and provisional manner. No; it seems 

 that for the answer to these great problems some 

 great system is necessary in which solemnly and 

 immutably it may take its place, as a geometrical 

 theorem takes its final place in a book of Euclid. 

 The disadvantage of this way of proceeding is 

 that we thus put in the second place problems 

 which should be in the first; but, besides that, we 

 render the solution of these problems dependent 

 on general systems of philosophy, with which they 

 stand and fall. And then the solution shares in 

 the strictness and rigidity of the system to which 

 it is attached; it must be taken or left, just as it 

 is, and admits of no gradual development or 

 perfecting. 



Either I am much deceived or the future 

 belongs to a philosophy which will give back to 

 these problems their rightful place the first! 

 which will face them in themselves /and for them- 

 selves, directly; which, no longer returning to 

 these questions an answer deduced from syste- 

 matic principles (a self-styled " final " solution, 

 to be replaced in its turn by other solutions which 

 will claim equal finality), will be gradually per- 

 fectible, open to corrections, to retouchings and 

 unlimited amplifications; a philosophy that will 

 no longer pretend to have reached a solution of 



