OF THE

W Ethics and Social Philosophy in London, the

HEN it was proposed to found a School of

most common objection that the promoters had to meet was this—that a School of Philosophy had no definite relation to life. Ethical Societies, it was said, meet a practical demand. The School of Economics, the analogy of which suggested a School of Ethical Philosophy, also appealed to certain definite classes— to bank clerks, Government officials, and to the great business world generally; above all, it appeals to social and political reformers. But it did not seem so obvious that the subjects we proposed to deal with here had any similar clientèle to draw upon.

This objection seems to reflect the common view of the relation of philosophy to life. It is pretty generally admitted that life is a good thing for the philosopher. It broadens him, and soon convinces him that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy." But people are not at all so clear that philosophy is a good thing for life. There are some, indeed, who go so far as to doubt whether 1 Lecture delivered at the Passmore Edwards Settlement, London, in 1899.

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philosophy has any connection with the serious questions of everyday life—indeed, whether it is a serious subject at all. They regard it as a kind of pastime, a kind of "blind man's buff," in which able and leisurely persons from the University sometimes indulge. This seems to have been the view that the late Charles Bowen took of it when he defined metaphysics as groping about in a dark room for a black hat which was not there!"

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There are others who take a more serious, if not a more favourable, view of the function of philosophy. They think that philosophy has a definite relation to life, but that this relation is rather of a negative than a positive character, inasmuch as from the time of Socrates downwards it has been on uncomfortable terms with some of our common opinions and conventions. It has got a reputation for saying nasty things about those useful and comfortable assurances on which our ordinary life is based. Indeed, the philosopher is openly suspected by some of entertaining designs upon our most cherished convictions, and people nervously grip their principles when he is by, as they grip their purses when pickpockets are about.

This seems to be the view which was held by the late Master of Balliol, if one may judge by some passages in his Life and Letters. Philosophy, he thought, was a very good thing, because of the tendency among philosophers to attack common-sense opinions and set up idols of their own in place of them. This could only be counteracted by a little more philosophy, which was therefore chiefly useful in dispelling the illusions which it had itself created. A little metaphysics, he thought, was useful in order to get rid of

metaphysics-a view which reminds one of Professor Sidgwick's humorous account of the philosopher as a species of policeman performing a wholesome function. in protecting us from other philosophers.

All these views seem to me to be founded upon a misunderstanding of what philosophy really is, and before I approach my subject more definitely I wish to ask what we are to understand by philosophy. This seems more necessary in London, because there is a certain confusion, even in the minds of people who are well disposed to it, as to what it really is. Thus there is a tendency to identify it with psychology, or mental science, the name by which, indeed, it commonly goes in the newer schools. Now if by psychology we mean what J. S. Mill meant by the word-e.g. in his LogicI have no objection to this use, for what Mill meant by it was philosophy in general. But psychology in recent years has come to be something much more special than this. It has come definitely to be recognised as a special science with experimental methods, and even laboratories and apparatus of its own.

With this youthful science we have no quarrel here. On the contrary, we have great expectations in connection with it, I merely wish to point out that it is not philosophy, and perhaps I shall best make clear to you what I mean by the latter if I try to bring it into sharp contrast with the science of psychology as just defined.

Philosophy and psychology are both mental, but psychology has two characteristics in which it contrasts with philosophy. In the first place it is empirical, by which I do not mean anything disrespectful-I mean simply that it treats the facts of life as events, events that happen like other events in the world, in time,

with origins, causes, courses of their own. The aim of psychology is to analyse these events, seeking for their causes in other events, discovering identities between them and others of a simpler or, again, a more complex type. This feature may be said to unite psychology with other sciences. All the sciences with which we are familiar deal with events, with phenomena, as they are called; they analyse and explain phenomena.

But, secondly-and this differentiates it from other sciences - the object of psychology is mind. The events take place in the mind; they are subjective, individual, personal to each of us, being generally opposed, as such, to the "objects" of the external world with which the physical sciences deal.

Now I wish to contrast this other mental science, or theory of the mind, in these respects with psychology.

In the first place, I wish you to notice that it is not empirical. It treats of the mind, but it does not treat of the mind as a product, as something produced by causes. How does it treat of it? It treats of the mind as a producer, as a creator, as the creator of science and literature, of morality and society, of art and religion. Hence it is sometimes called speculative, by which is not meant anything transcendental or specially recondite, but merely that it treats of these things, not from the point of view of cause and effect, but of their purpose, meaning, and significance. It asks, What is the significance of these things? What do they mean for the human soul? Philosophy tries to trace, as it were, the lines of mind in those great realities. It tries to trace the lines of its own nature as reflected in them. Remembering this, we under