What is claimed for (or denied to it) under the name of Progress is an advance in knowledge, knowledge clear-sighted, grounded, and assured, knowledge of some authentic and indubitable reality. It is by the attainment of such knowledge, by progress in and towards it, that the claim of Philosophy to be progressive must stand or fall. To the question whether it can make good its claim to the possession and increase of this knowledge we must give special attention, for if Philosophy fails in this it fails in all. The oldest name for the knowledge in question was simply Wisdom and, in some ways, in spite of its apparent arrogance this is the best name for what is sought--or missed. Yet from the beginning the name was felt not sufficiently to distinguish what was meant from the high skill of the cunning craftsman and the worldly wisdom of the man of affairs, the statesman or soldier or trader. In the case of all these it was difficult to disengage the knowledge involved from natural or trained practical dexterity. What was desired and required was knowledge distinguished but not divorced from practice and application--'pure knowledge' as it was sometimes called; not divorced, I repeat, for it was not conceived as without bearing upon the conduct of life, but still distinguished, as furnishing light rather than profit. For good or evil Philosophy began by considering what it sought and hoped to reach as pre-eminently knowledge in some distinctive sense, and having so begun it turned to reflect once more upon what it meant by so conceiving it and to make this meaning more precise and clear. So it came to present to itself as its aim or goal a special kind or degree of knowledge, to be inspired and guided by the hope of that. Practical as in many ways was the concern of ancient philosophy--its whole bent was towards the bettering of human life--it sought to achieve this by the extension and deepening of knowledge, and not either through the cultivation or refinement of emotion or the organization of practical, civil or social or philanthropic activities. It laboured--and laboured not in vain--to further the increase of knowledge by defining to itself in advance the kind or degree of knowledge which would accomplish the ultimate aim of its endeavour or subserve its accomplishment. Hence we must learn to view with a sympathetic eye its repeated essays to give precision and detail to the conception or ideal of knowledge.