IV. What is philosophy? The study of philosophy is the study of the laws which govern the spiritual realm, as the study of natural science is the study of the laws which govern the natural and the physical realm. It is not studying Hegel, and Kant, and Schleiermacher; it is not studying Hickock or Hopkins; it is not studying what philosophers have thought—they are the mere translators, the mere “ponies.” Philosophy is the law of humanity, either social or individual. The study of philosophy is the study of the laws which God has ordained for the binding of men together into a common organism, or for the government of their individual lives. Men believed that the foundation of the State was a compact, and that each citizen gave up something of his rights for the common welfare; they believed that the foundation of the Nation was a compact in which each State gave up something which it had of right to secure the advantage of a commonwealth. So believing, they concluded that any State might withdraw from its allegiance, and they might have easily concluded that any individual might withdraw from his allegiance. It is only as we learned that we are born into the government and made a part of the State from the beginning by the ordinance of God, that we have learned what is the bond that has bound the nation together. Revolting from the Romish doctrine that marriage is a sacrament, Protestantism has been teaching for years that it is merely a civil contract. We are reaping the result of this false teaching. To-day in Puritan Connecticut, the minister can not tie the marriage bond much faster than the courts across the street can dissolve it. We have yet to learn that marriage is more than a civil contract, that it is an ordinance of God; that he who made man and woman made them that these twain should become one flesh, and made the home to be the first Church and the first State. When we have learned that, we shall have learned the foundation of the home as we have learned the foundation of the State. To study philosophy is to study the laws which govern society in its organism. All text-books are only instructions to teach us how to study life itself, which is the great text-book. To study philosophy is also to study the laws which govern the individual. It is to know that God has made you body, soul and spirit; that he has given you a physical organism, wonderful, but simply a mechanism in your hands; that he has given you a mental power wonderful in its reasoning qualities, but with its partial parallels in the animals about you; it is to know that far above the body and the mind is the spirit—reverence, and love, and hope, and a living faith—that makes you one with God, and that points you to your eternal habitation. This it is to study mental and moral philosophy. It is to know how to read the secrets of your own soul. It is to know how to read the inner life of the souls of others. Books will help;