You are now in a position to judge how far the hopes held out to you at the beginning of this course have been fulfilled, and to measure the merits and the demerits, the claims and the limitations, of the scheme I have endeavoured to expound.
I disowned, as you remember, any intention of providing you with a philosophical system—not because I despise philosophical systems or those who labour to construct them, but in part because I have none to recommend, and in part because it seems to me doubtful whether at our present stage of development a satisfactory system is possible.
But how (you may ask) does my point of view differ from a philosophical system? It may be a bad system, as it certainly is a most imperfect one. Yet, seeing that it touches on everything in heaven and earth, seeing that its very title embraces God and man, why should it repudiate a description which seemingly is not a whit in excess of its pretensions?
The question thus raised is more than a merely verbal one, and a few observations upon it may fittingly conclude the course. Note, then, in the first place, that my scheme of beliefs does not show itself unworthy to be considered systematic merely because it is incomplete. All systems are incomplete. All systems, however ambitious, admit their inability to exhaust reality. Nor is its unworthiness due to any mere accident of execution, such as inferior workmanship or defective learning. Its failures are essential and irremediable. They are inseparable from “the point of view.”
Let me explain. Every system that deserves to be described as a constructive philosophy—be it dogmatic, critical, empirical, idealist, what you will—conceives itself not merely to be rooted in reason, but to be rationalised throughout. The conceptions with which it works should be sifted, clarified, defined. It should assume nothing which requires proof. It should rest nothing (in the last resort) on faith or probability. It should admit no inexplicable residues.
Philosophers seem to me entirely right if they think that this is what a system ought to be; but not entirely right if they think that this is what any system is, or has ever been. In any case, no description could be less applicable to the point of view which I am provisionally recommending. The philosopher refuses—in theory—to assume anything which requires proof. I assume (among other things) the common-sense outlook upon life, and the whole body of the sciences. The philosopher admits—in theory—no ground of knowledge but reason. I recognise that, in fact, the whole human race, including the philosopher himself, lives by faith alone. The philosopher asks what creed reason requires him to accept. I ask on what terms the creed which is in fact accepted can most reasonably be held. The philosopher conceives that within the unchanging limits of his system an appropriate niche can be found for every new discovery as it arises. My view is that the contents of a system are always reacting on its fundamental principles, so that no philosophy can flatter itself that it will not be altered out of all recognition as knowledge grows.
This last statement may look like a truism; but it is a truism which few philosophers are, in practice, disposed to accept; and the generality of mankind are perhaps even less disposed to accept it even than philosophers. That there are beliefs which can and should be held, with the same shade of meaning, by all men, in all ages, and at all stages of culture, is a view to which by nature we easily incline. But it is, to say the least, most doubtful. Language is here no true or certain guide. Even when beliefs have not outgrown the formulas by which they have been traditionally expressed, we must beware of treating this fixity of form as indicating complete identity of substance. Men do not necessarily believe exactly the same thing because they express their convictions in exactly the same phrases. And most fortunate it is, in the interests of individual liberty, social co-operation, and institutional continuity that this latitude should be secured to us, not by the policy of philosophers, statesmen, or divines, but by the inevitable limitations of language.
This, however, by the way. The point I wish to press is that, speaking generally, we must not conceive the development of knowledge as a process of adding new truths to old truths, in the course of which old truths are supplemented but are not changed. It rather resembles the increase of some plastic body which, wherever it takes place, involves a readjustment of every part. Add brick to brick, and you may finish your house, yet never alter its foundation. Add belief to belief, and you will set up strains and stresses within your system of knowledge which will compel it to move towards some new position of equilibrium.
Sometimes, no doubt, the process is more violent and catastrophic than this metaphor naturally suggests. Then occurs in the moral world the analogue of the earthquake, the lava flood, and the tidal wave, which shatter mountains and sweep cities to destruction. Men’s outlook on the universe suffers sudden revolution: the obvious becomes incredible, and the incredible obvious; whole societies lose their balance, and stately systems are tumbled in the dust.
More often, however, the movements of belief are gradual. They resemble the slow rise or fall of ancient coast-lines, where, by imperceptible degrees, sea turns into land, or land into sea. So, without shock or clamour, man smoothly modifies his point of view, till, gazing over the spaces he has traversed, he greatly marvels at the change.