fH. ii.] THE SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY. 27 



and useless ; we do not leave it nothing with which to occupy 

 itself. On the contrary, we do but enthrone it more securely 

 than ever; and we leave it in possession of quite as goodly a 

 realm as that in which our metaphysical predecessors would 

 fain have established it. 



In order to show how this can be true, it will be naracs&y 

 for me to define, somewhat at length, the Scope of Philosophy, 

 — to indicate the nature of the inquiries with which 

 philosophy may profitably be concerned. And since philo- 

 sophy may be correctly though rudely defined as a kind of 

 knowledge, it will first be desirable to indicate the essential 

 distinctions between the different orders of knowledge, — to 

 show in what respect philosophy differs from science, and in 

 what respect both philosophy and science differ from that 

 comparatively imperfect kind of knowledge which is the 

 common property of uncultivated minds. 



Though science has been often vaguely supposed to be 

 something generically distinct from ordinary knowledge, yet 

 the briefest consideration will suffice to show us that this is 

 not the case, but that scientific knowledge is only a higher 

 development of the common information of average minds. 

 In the first place we shall see that the process gone through, 

 and the results attained by the process, are not generically 

 different in scientific and in ordinary thinking. 



All knowledge whatever is, as we have seen, a classifica- 

 tion of experiences. No intelligence or intelligent action is 

 possible unless the distinctions among surrounding phenomena 

 be detected and registered in the mind. Even the lowest 

 animal can only preserve its existence on condition that 

 different external agencies shall affect it in different ways, — 

 that different sets of circumstances shall cause it to put forth 

 correspondingly different sets of correlated actions. Perhaps 

 it is sufficient for these simply constituted creatures to 

 distinguish between the organic and inorganic matters present 

 in their environment, or between light and darkness, as we 



