The World We Live In; Or, Philosophy and Life in the Light of Modern Thought (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE WORLD AS IDEA We do a grievous wrong to the independent genius of that most original thinker Berkeley, if we confuse his bold solution of the world-problem with the efforts of any of his predecessors. The problem which confronted him was, of course, the same as that which stared them in the face. It is the same that challenges our curiosity and enchains our interest. Everybody's World existed for the ancient Greek and for the medieval Churchman as it exists for the modern American or European. There it stood with all its seeming inconsistency, as it stands now; unmistakably there, but enshrouded in obscurity, half- revealed, making a mock of men's efforts at reflection, beckoning them on to draw aside the veil and to shed the light of day upon the mystery of its being. Spontaneous generation has yet to be established by the man of science. Of the spontaneous generation of the philosopher we need take no account at all. A Kant or a Hegel who should start up unannounced on the banks of the Congo or on the uplands of Thibet would be a lusus natura, a philosophic monstrosity; either a thing to dismiss at once with those whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, or a creature to be recognized as a clever fraud. There are no Melchisedecs in philosophy. This does not mean that there is no such thing as originality; but it does mean that philosophical systems have some relation to the culture of their time; they are the natural fruit of some particular tree, and no theory of mutation justifies us in planting thistle seeds if we seek to have figs. But the acute realization of this truth may lead us into error.Every thinking man has his world-problem laid before him by his own experience, and he has whatever suggestions toward its solution he may gather from h...