And if this is true in the case of the tradesman, it is scarcely necessary to point out that the physician, the lawyer, the clergyman, and the whole army of those whom we regard as the leaders of men and the molders of public opinion have spheres of non-professional activity of great importance to the state.  They cannot be mere specialists if they would.  They must influence society for good or ill; and if they are ignorant and unenlightened, their influence cannot be good.

When we consider the life of man in a broad way, we see how essential it is that many men should be brought to have a share in what has been gained by the long travail of the centuries past.  It will not do to ask at every step whether they can put to direct professional use every bit of information gained.  Literature and science, sweetness and light, beauty and truth, these are the heritage of the modern world; and unless these permeate its very being, society must undergo degeneration.  It is this conviction that has led to the high appreciation accorded by intelligent men to courses of liberal study, and among such courses those which we have recognized as philosophical must take their place.

81.  WHY PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES ARE USEFUL.—­But let us ask a little more specifically what is to be gained by pursuing distinctively philosophical studies.  Why should those who go to college, or intelligent persons who cannot go to college, care to interest themselves in logic and ethics, psychology and metaphysics?  Are not these studies rather dry, in the first place, and rather profitless, in the second?

As to the first point, I should stoutly maintain that if they are dry, it is somebody’s fault.  The most sensational of novels would be dry if couched in the language which some philosophers have seen fit to use in expressing their thoughts.  He who defines “existence” as “the still and simple precipitate of the oscillation between beginning to be and ceasing to be” has done his best to alienate our affections from the subject of his predilection.

But it is not in the least necessary to talk in this way about matters philosophical.  He who is not a slave to tradition can use plain and simple language.  To be sure, there are some subjects, especially in the field of metaphysics, into which the student cannot expect to see very deeply at the outset of his studies.  Men do not expect to understand the more difficult problems of mathematics without making a good deal of preparation; but, unhappily, they sometimes expect to have the profoundest problems of metaphysics made luminous to them in one or two popular lectures.

Philosophical studies are not dry, when men are properly taught, and are in a position to understand what is said.  They deal with the most fascinating of problems.  It is only necessary to pierce through the husk of words which conceals the thoughts of the philosopher, and we shall find the kernel palatable, indeed.  Nor are such studies profitless, to take up our second point.  Let us see what we may gain from them.