An Introduction to PhilosophyFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
An Introduction to Philosophy
Fullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
Again. Man is a social creature, and he is greatly fortified in his
opinions by the consciousness that others share them with him. If we
become adherents of a "school," we have the agreeable consciousness
that we are not walking alone through the maze of speculations that
confronts those who reflect. There appears to be a traveled way in
which we may have some confidence. Are we not following the crowd, or,
at least, a goodly number of the pilgrims who are seeking the same goal
with ourselves? Under such circumstances we are not so often impelled
to inquire anxiously whether we are after all upon the right road. We
assume that we have made no mistake.
Under such circumstances we are apt to forget that there are many such
roads, and that these have been traveled in ages past by troops very
much like our own, who also cherished the hope that they were upon the
one and only highway. In other words, we are apt to forget the lesson
of the history of philosophy. This is a serious mistake.
And what intensifies our danger, if we belong to a school which happens
to be dominant and to have active representatives, is that we get very
little real criticism. The books that we write are usually criticised
by those who view our positions sympathetically, and who are more
inclined to praise than to blame. He who looks back upon the past is
struck with the fact that books which have been lauded to the skies in
one age have often been subjected to searching criticism and to a good
deal of condemnation in the next. Something very like this is to be
expected of books written in our own time. It is, however, a pity that
we should have to wait so long for impartial criticism.
This leads me to say a word of the reviews which fill our philosophical
journals, and which we must read, for it is impossible to read all the
books that come out, and yet we wish to know something about them.
To the novice it is something of a surprise to find that books by men
whom he knows to be eminent for their ingenuity and their learning are
condemned in very offhand fashion by quite young men, who as yet have
attained to little learning and to no eminence at all. One sometimes
is tempted to wonder that men admittedly remarkable should have
fathered such poor productions as we are given to understand them to
be, and should have offered them to a public that has a right to be
indignant.
Now, there can be no doubt that, in philosophy, a cat has the right to
look at a king, and has also a right to point out his misdoings, if
such there be. But it seems just to indicate that, in this matter,
certain cautions should be observed.
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