To annul the idea of a "general" philosophy is at the same time to annul the "static" concept of the philosophic system, replacing it with the dynamic concept of simple historical "systemizations" of groups of problems, of which particular problems and their solutions are what remain, not their aggregate and external arrangement. This latter satisfies the needs of the times and of authors and passes away with them, or is preserved and admired solely for æsthetic reasons when it possesses them. But those who retain some superstitious reverence for "General Philosophy" or "Metaphysic" have still a superstitious reverence for what are known as static systems. In so doing they behave in a rational manner, for they cannot altogether free themselves from the claims of a definitive philosophy which is to solve once and for all the so-called "enigma of the world" (imaginary because there are infinite enigmas which appear and are solved in turn, but there is not the Enigma), and is to provide the "true system" or "basis" of the true system. Nevertheless I hope that good fortune will attend the doctrine of the concept here set out, not only because it seems to me to afford the satisfaction proper to every statement of truth, namely, to accord with the reality of things, but also (if I may so express myself) because it carries with it certain immediate and tangible advantages. Above all, it relieves the student of philosophy of the terrible responsibility--which I should never wish to assume--of supplying the Truth, the unique eternal Truth, and of supplying it in competition with all the greatest philosophers who have appeared in the course of centuries. Further, it removes from him together both the hope of the definitive system and the anxious fear of the mortal doom which will one day strike the very system that he has so lovingly constructed, as it has struck those of his predecessors. At the same time it sets him out of reach of the smiling non-philosophers who foresee with accuracy and are almost able to calculate the date of that not distant death. Finally, it frees him from the annoyance of the "school" and of the "scholars"; "school" and "scholars" in the sense of the old metaphysicians are no longer even conceivable, when the idea of "systems" having-their "own principles" has been abolished. All dynamic systems or provisory systemizations of ever new problems have the same principle, namely, Thought, _perennis philosophia._ There has not been and never will be anything to add to this. And although the many propositions and solutions of problems strive among themselves to attain harmony, yet to each, if it be truly thought, is promised eternal life, which gives and receives vigour from the life of each of the others. This is just the opposite of what takes place with static systems which collapse, one upon the other, only certain portions of good work surviving them in the shape of happy treatment of special