ever-growing domains of experience that are being constantly explored by the special sciences, can never be the work of any individual: it can be accomplished only by the earnest co-operation of Christian philosophers in every part of the civilized world.(44) In carrying on this work we have not to build from the beginning. “It has sometimes been remarked,” as Newman observes,(45) “when men have boasted of the knowledge of modern times, that no wonder we see more than the ancients because we are mounted upon their shoulders.” Yes; the intellectual toilers of to-day are heirs to the intellectual wealth of their ancestors. We have tradition: not to despise but to use, critically, judiciously, reverently, if we are to use it profitably. Thomas Davis has somewhere said that they who demolish the past do not build up for the future. And we have the Christian Revelation, as a _lamp_ to our _feet_ and a _light_ to our _paths_(46) in all those rational investigations which form the appointed task of the philosopher. Hence, Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster.(47) CHAPTER I. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS. 1. OUR CONCEPT OF BEING: ITS EXPRESSION AND FEATURES.—The term “_Being_” (Lat. _ens_; Gr. ὤν; Ger. _Seiend_; Fr. _étant_) as present participle of the verb _to be_ (Lat. _esse_; Gr. ἔιναι; Ger. _Sein_; Fr. _être_) means _existing_ (_existens_, _existere_). But the participle has come to be used as a noun; and as such it does not necessarily imply actual existence _hic et nunc_. It does indeed imply some relation to actual existence; for we designate as “being” (in the substantive sense) only whatever we conceive as actually existing or at least as capable of existing; and it is from the participial sense, which implies actual existence, that the substantive sense has been derived. Moreover, the intelligible use of the word “being” as a term implies a reference to some actually existing sphere of reality.(48) It is in the substantive meaning the term will be most frequently used in these pages, as the context will show. When we speak of “a being” in the concrete, the word has the same meaning as “thing” (_res_) used in the wide sense in which this latter includes persons, places, events, facts and phenomena of whatsoever kind. In the same sense we speak of “a reality,” this term having taken on a concrete, in addition to its original abstract, meaning. “Being” has also this abstract sense when we speak of “the being or reality of things”. Finally it may be used in a collective sense to indicate the sum-total of all that is or can be—all reality.