Page:W. H. Chamberlin 1919, The Study of Philosophy.djvu/44

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
The Study of Philosophy.


REFERENCES.

Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chapter 6.
Kent, Histories of the Hebrew People.
Kent, History of the Jewish People.
Rhees, Life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Sanday, Outlines of the Life of Christ.
Burton and Mathews, The Life of Christ.
Purves, Apostolic Age.


Section 21.

In concluding our study of philosophy we again call attention to the fact that it is the science of the world-whole. In this science the ideas used are very largely tested in the more special sciences, just as in the science of geology the ideas used are tested by the more special sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology. The genesis of mountains is a geological question, yet mountain formation illustrates the idea of the contraction of cooling bodies, an idea developed and tested in physics. The relationship between the fauna and flora of Australia and that of the continent of Asia is a geological question, but it can not be dealt with save as a set of illustrations of the ideas of adaptation, ideas developed and tested in biology. The genesis of the world-whole, or the genesis of the human body and brain, is a philosophical question, but its consideration is impossible without a use of ideas developed and tested in psychology and biology. The development of civilization is a philosophical question, yet its consideration depends upon the use of ideas worked out by the more special sciences of anthropology, history, and theology. Any whole that can be recognized can be analyzed into parts, and the ideas of these parts can be organized into a science of the whole recognized. Thus there can be a science of the automobile, a science of living organisms, biology, and a science of the earth, geology. As there is a world-whole, so there is a science of philosophy.

Sciences are studied by man in order to better fulfil his interest in dealing with the objects studied. As he through his ideas brings the parts of objects into effective relationship to each other, he can adjust his life to the objects, or use them. And man studies his life as a part of the world-whole in order to be able to bring his life into effective relationship to the world-whole. As every man recognizes the world-whole, he can not avoid the formation of a notion of the world-whole; and that notion, no- matter how vague and childish, is his notion of the world-whole, his philosophy. As the crude notion fails to satsify