AN EXPOSITION AND CRITICISM. 301 



have throughout spoken in the person of Sir WilHam, and that, there- 

 fore, from this point " I " refers not to the philosopher's ex?ponent, 

 but to the philosopher himself. 



INTRODUCTION. 



§ 1 .— Definition of Philosophy. 



It is perhaps impossible adequately to comprehend philosophy in a 

 single definition ; for from different points of view it may be regarded 

 as either theoretical, i. e., in relation to man as an intelligence, or 

 practical, i.e., in relation to man as a moral agent, either objectively, 

 i. e., as a complement of truths, or subjectively, i. e., as a habit of 

 the mind. I shall therefore content myself with attempting to make 

 as precisely intelligible as the unprecise nature of the object matter 

 permits, what philosophy is and what are the sciences properly com- 

 prehended within its sphere (I. pp. 49-51). 



Philosophy then is a kind of knowledge, and of knowledge there 

 are two kinds : 



I. That which we obtain either (1) through sense, of what exists 

 and occurs in the material world, or (2) through self-consciousness, of 

 what exists and occurs in the world of thought. This is a knowledge 

 merely that things are, and may therefore be called historical or em- 

 pirical (I. pp. 53-6). 



II. But we never know, and cannot even conceive, things out of 

 connection with one another ; we cannot realize the possibility of a 

 phenomenon which is not the effect of some cause. Still the know- 

 ledge of the cause is not given in the knowledge of the effect ; and 

 therefore the necessity to think of every phenomenon, that it must 

 have some cause, compels us to search what that cause is. When we 

 have found its cause, we know lohy or how a thing is ; and this knowr 

 ledge \s pihilosophical or scientific or rational (I. pp. 56-8). 



Such is philosophical knowledge in its most extensive signification ; 

 and in this signification all the sciences, inasmuch as they are occupied 

 in the investigation of causes, may be viewed as so many branches of 

 philosophy (I. p. 61). 



There is, however, one section of the sciences, to which by pre-em- 

 inence the name of philosophy is applied, and on these grounds : 



I. Since philosophy is a knowledge, its primary problem must be to 

 investigate and determine the conditions under which knowledge is 

 realized, as these must form the conditions of philosophy itself. 



