The Picture Which The Philosopher Draws Of

Wisdom Is Not To Be Obtained From Textbooks, But Must Be Coined Out Of Human Experience In The Flame Of Life.

By No Amount Of Reasoning Can We Altogether Eliminate All Contingency From Our World. Moreover, Pure Speculation Alone Will Not Enable Us To Get A Determinate Picture Of The Existing World. We Must Eliminate Some Of The Conflicting Possibilities, And This Can Be Brought About Only By Experiment And Observation.

Conservatism Clings To What Has Been Established, Fearing That, Once We Begin To Question The Beliefs That We Have Inherited, All The Values Of Life Will Be Destroyed.

Again, Both Literature And Philosophy Work By Appealing To Certain Reigning Idols.

It Is Not Impossible To Think That The Minds Of Philosophers Sometimes Act Like Those Of Other Mortals, And That, Having Once Been Determined By Diverse Circumstances To Adopt Certain Views, They Then Look For And Naturally Find Reasons To Justify These Views.