PART I PHILOSOPHY AND ITS BRANCHES CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY THERE is a prevalent idea that Philosophy is a subject accessible only to certain intellects, or that it is a study adapted to the pursuit of a few unpractical men who have nothing better to do than to worry their heads about the solution of problems belonging rather to heaven than to earth; that it deals with the pale ghosts of conceptions whose domain is abstract thought, but which have no application to real life. This is a mistake. What places man on a footing of superiority over the animal is his thinking, reasoning power. The animal sees, hears, and even remembers, but it makes use of these faculties only for its immediate necessity. Man, however, sees the various phenomena of life and nature, forms conceptions and ideas, and then tries to reason and to find out the relation existing between these various facts and phenomena, to conceive the whole, and thus gain a clear understanding of things. When man acts in this way, we say he philosophizes. What do we when we philosophize? We think about a certain object, concrete or abstract, and endeavour to reply to the following questions: (1) What is that particular object upon which our mind reflects? What is the origin of this object or idea? (3) In what relation does it stand to other objects or ideas? In other words, we reflect upon the essence or nature, the origin and relation of things and ideas. Every man does this at some time or other, and therefore every normal thinking man who has not absolutely become a prey to sensuous pleasure and engrossed in materialistic enjoyment, philosophizes to a certain extent and is more or less a philosopher. The normal thinking man, however, who occasionally considers and reflects, investigates or doubts, and is convinced of and holds certain views of his own about things, is not yet in the strict sense what we understand by philosopher, just as he who in daily life mends the broken pane or repairs the lock that is out of order is not yet a glazier or a locksmith. The professional glazier or locksmith is he who makes the work his sole and special pursuit in life, and who has not only had a proper training, but, as the result of constant practice, has become efficient and competent in his work. He knows the exact method and process by which to arrive with less labour at a more satisfactory result than the unskilled man. The professional philosopher is he who has made it the special aim of his life to study, to inquire into, and to reason upon the nature of things. His instruments are thoughts. Through practice he acquires a certain capacity to perceive things more rapidly. And just as the various artisans usually are, or at least ought to be, acquainted with the details of their work, and with the latest discoveries and inventions relating to them, the professional philosopher must know all that others preceding him have thought and said with regard to the questions that occupy his mind. But why should we philosophize? What do we gain by it? According to Aristotle, it was astonishment that first made man philosophize. Surrounded by the universe in its varying manifestations, face to face with life and its vicissitudes, man is seized with a feeling of wonder, and he begins to ask the why, the wherefore, and the whither. The universe, with all that it contains, is a riddle to him. The attempt to solve this riddle is Philosophy. There is first the interested aim of utility that prompts him. Thus it is stated that the science of geometry originated among the Egyptians in the necessity that arose of defining the |