PHILOSOPHY AND SPECIALTIES. 
15 
are presented to the Alma Mater; and their leading members, 
though they do not visit special societies other than their 
own, regularly attend the meetings of this Society, by which 
a true representative audience is preserved. The general 
result has been that the Philosophical Society’s sessions 
during the last year have been as agreeable, as useful, as 
varied, and as well attended as ever before. 
There is a good reason for this which, with its probable 
consequences, merits careful consideration. 
In entering upon this topic it is proper to dwell somewhat 
more upon the term Philosophy. It once pretended to be 
pansophy, but is now humble and receptive. It was once 
used, not as the practical mode of explaining phenomena, 
but as the converse—not to set forth what was understood, 
but what was confused and obscure, yet must be treated as 
fully knowm in scorn of the maxim “ Scire ignorare magna 
sciential’ Not to be certain was infidelity, which was crimi¬ 
nal. An honest avowal of intelligent ignorance, now styled 
agnosticism, w T as not permitted. The old philosophers ab¬ 
horred ignorance as they said nature abhorred a vacuum, 
until the vacuum was actually found, and then of course it 
was welcomed to a sphere of high utility. Perhaps value 
may sometime be recognized in the agnostic vacuum to 
measure the heights and depths of truth’s atmosphere. 
Tennyson used a questionable word “ faith,” but he had the 
right thought when he wrote— 
There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 
The old philosophers, with rare exceptions, while profess¬ 
ing to seek the truth did not do so, but asserted that they 
possessed it already, and their assumed office was to teach it 
to others. As before indicated, this philosophy was axiom¬ 
atic and often connected with theology. Its history is un¬ 
derstood. Man did not know, was impatient to know, and, 
when too lazy or stupid to learn in accordance with his 
conditions, relied upon some shaman, priest, jossakeed, or 
spiritualistic medium. The track of some variety of “ confi- 
