philosophy, to say that a thing is true, if he can possibly help thinking it to be true. No man is entitled, in philosophy, to take any one step, if he could possibly have taken any other.[1]
Why the question—What is knowledge? cannot be the starting-point.§ 80. Why, then, can we not take up and discuss at once the question—What is knowledge? For this very sufficient reason, that it is not intelligible. No intellect can attach any but the very vaguest meaning to the question as it stands. It is ambiguous; it has more meanings than one; and therefore it cannot be understood in its present form. We are, therefore, forced to turn away from it; because no man can deal with what cannot be understood. Thus our relinquishment of the question is not optional, but necessitated; it is not chosen, but compulsory: and thus, too, our selection of a new question, as our starting-point, is not simply convenient; it is constraining: it is not eligible, but inevitable. So far, therefore, our procedure is not arbitrary, but compelled—as it always must be, if any good is to come of our speculations.
§ 81. The question, however, which we are seeking, must still have some reference to the question—- ↑ A popular error in regard to philosophy is, that it consists of truths which man, at his best, alone can think; whereas the right view is, that philosophy consists of truths which man, at his worst, do what he will, cannot help thinking—only he does not know that he is thinking them.
