Philosophy, Its Scope and Relations; An Introductory Course of Lectures

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ... APPENDIX TO LECTURE II RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO RELIGION The reference to the 'problem of Evil' (p. 30) leads me to a topic which finds no place in this lecture--the relation of Philosophy to Keligion. The importance of this relation, and the prominence given to it in some attempts to define the Scope of Philosophy (e.g. Wundt's, and--in a negative way--Spencer's), render it desirable that I should give my reasons for the omission. In the first place, I may say that it was not due to any desire to depreciate the importance of Theology or to leave it on one side. On the contrary, as I have tried to indicate, the fundamental question to which Theology gives an answer--as to the relation of what is to what ought to be--represents, in my view, "the final and most important task of philosophy." And the answer which Theology gives to this question--to whatever criticisms it may be legitimately open--must be admitted, in the view of the common sense of mankind, to 'hold the field.' I have referred to this again in Lecture IV.,1 and what is there said will partly explain why I have omitted any discussion of the relation of Philosophy to Keligion in this lecture. As I there intimate, there are two essentially distinct methods of attaining the intellectual convictions which constitute the essential framework for the play of religious emotion and the exercise of religious worship. I distinguish these methods and their results as Bational and Revelational Theology. As to Rational Theology, it seems to me that the questions with which it deals--questions relating to the One Universal and Eternal Mind, which we conceive God to be, and His relation to the physical world and to human minds--are primd facie philosophical questions, according to my...