The Present Dilemma in Philosophy

In the preface to that admirable collection of essays of his called
'Heretics,' Mr. Chesterton writes these words: "There are some
people--and I am one of them--who think that the most practical and
important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We
think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to
know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We
think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to
know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the
enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory
of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the long run,
anything else affects them."

I think with Mr. Chesterton in this matter. I know that you, ladies
and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the
most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which
it determines the perspective in your several worlds. You know the
same of me. And yet I confess to a certain tremor at the audacity of
the enterprise which I am about to begin. For the philosophy which
is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our
more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It
is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just
seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos. I have
no right to assume that many of you are students of the cosmos in
the class-room sense, yet here I stand desirous of interesting you
in a philosophy which to no small extent has to be technically
treated. I wish to fill you with sympathy with a contemporaneous
tendency in which I profoundly believe, and yet I have to talk like