Education and the Philosophical Ideal by Horatio W. Dresser - Read the Complete Text for free at NewThoughtLibrary.com

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Horatio W. Dresser's

Education and the Philosophical Ideal

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Preface - Introduction - The New Point of View - Educational Ideals - Equanimity - The Subconscious Mind - The Spiritual Ideal in Childhood - An Experiment in Education - The Expression of the Spirit - An Ideal Summer Conference - The Ministry of the Spirit - The Mystery of Pain and Evil - The Philosophical Ideal - The Criteria of Truth - Organic Perfection - Immortality - Index - p. 247

advocates are not content to throw light on the points which their specialty illumines, frankly saying, "Beyond this we do not know." They offer ignorance-concealing formulas which assume to be universal solvents, as if a poor answer were better than sincerity. The genuine philosopher would say, "The future history of philosophy is the only authority capable of answering that question."

If we have only hopes to offer, let us therefore frankly confess it, and not pretend to know, for philosophy brooks no dogmatism. If, as Huxley once admitted, our most assured scientific results are only hypotheses of a highly probable character, then publish this fact universally. If the world owns possibilities, chances, do not talk knowingly about fate. Let your "x" be known as such, and if you are an agnostic do not parade as a gnostic.

In philosophy, any man's thought is instructive who will sincerely and logically maintain a point of view, even if it be subversive of ethics, for example, the precept, "all is good." Such a point of view is instructive because it brings into bold relief the ethical criteria of right and wrong, because it is untrue to the facts of organic evolution. Yet the moment the advocate of such a doctrine begins to dogmatise, to assume some occult point of view from which all is said to be absolutely good, philosophical discussion necessarily ceases.¹

(1) For really philosophical theories of ethics, consult such works as Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory (Macmillan, 1891); Germ, Prolegomena to Ethics, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, (1890).

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