“First Principles,” which undertakes to show what man can and what man cannot know; a treatise on the principles of biology; another on the principles of psychology; still another on the principles of sociology; and finally one on the principles of morality.  To complete the scheme it would have been necessary to give an account of inorganic nature before going on to the phenomena of life, but our philosopher found the task too great and left this out.

Now, Spencer was a man of genius, and one finds in his works many illuminating thoughts.  But it is worthy of remark that those who praise his work in this or in that field are almost always men who have themselves worked in some other field and have an imperfect acquaintance with the particular field that they happen to be praising.  The metaphysician finds the reasonings of the “First Principles” rather loose and inconclusive; the biologist pays little heed to the “Principles of Biology”; the sociologist finds Spencer not particularly accurate or careful in the field of his predilection.  He has tried to be a professor of all the sciences, and it is too late in the world’s history for him or for any man to cope with such a task.  In the days of Plato a man might have hoped to accomplish it.

6.  What philosophy means in our time.—­It savors of temerity to write down such a title as that which heads the present section.  There are men living to-day to whom philosophy means little else than the doctrine of Kant, or of Hegel, or of the brothers Caird, or of Herbert Spencer, or even of St. Thomas Aquinas, for we must not forget that many of the seminaries of learning in Europe and some in America still hold to the mediaeval church philosophy.

But let me gather up in a few words the purport of what has been said above.  Philosophy once meant the whole body of scientific knowledge.  Afterward it came to mean the whole body of knowledge which could be attained by the mere light of human reason, unaided by revelation.  The several special sciences sprang up, and a multitude of men have for a long time past devoted themselves to definite limited fields of investigation with little attention to what has been done in other fields.  Nevertheless, there has persisted the notion of a discipline which somehow concerns itself with the whole system of things, rather than with any limited division of that broad field.  It is a notion not peculiar to the disciples of Spencer.  There are many to whom philosophy is a “Weltweisheit,” a world-wisdom.  Shall we say that this is the meaning of the word philosophy now?  And if we do, how shall we draw a line between philosophy and the body of the special sciences?

Perhaps the most just way to get a preliminary idea of what philosophy means to the men of our time is to turn away for the time being from the definition of any one man or group of men, and to ask ourselves what a professor of philosophy in an American or European university is actually supposed to teach.