It is not likely that Rembrandt had any one philosopher in mind as the subject of his picture. That his philosopher is something of a scholar, we judge from the table at which he sits, littered with writing materials. Yet he seems to care less for reading than for thinking, as he sits with hands clasped in his lap and his head sunk upon his breast. He wears a loose, flowing garment like a dressing-gown, and his bald head is protected by a small skull cap. His is an ideal place for a philosopher's musings. The walls are so thick that they shut out all the confusing noise of the world. A single window lets in light enough to read by through its many tiny panes. It is a bare little room, to be sure, with its ungarnished walls and stone-paved floor, but if a philosopher has the ordinary needs of life supplied he wants no luxuries. He asks for nothing more than quiet and uninterrupted leisure in which to pursue his meditations.

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Our philosopher is well taken care of; for while his thoughts are on higher things and eternal truths, an old woman is busy at the fire in the corner. Evidently she looks after the material and temporal things of life. She kneels on the hearth and hangs a kettle over the cheerful blaze. The firelight glows on her face and gleams here and there on the brasses hanging in the chimney-piece above. Here is promise of something good to come, and when the philosopher is roused from his musings there will be a hot supper ready for him.

There are two mysteries in the room which arouse our curiosity. In the wall behind the philosopher's chair is a low, arched door heavily built with large hinges. Does this lead to some subterranean cavern, and what secret does it contain? Is it a laboratory where, with alembic and crucible, the philosopher searches the secrets of alchemy and tries to find the "philosopher's stone?" Is some hid treasure stored up there, as precious and as hard to reach as the hidden truths the philosopher tries to discover?

At the right side of the room a broad, winding staircase rises in large spirals and disappears in the gloom above. We follow it with wondering eyes which try to pierce the darkness and see whither it leads. Perhaps there is an upper chamber with windows open to the sky whence the philosopher studies the stars. This place with its winding staircase would be just such an observatory as an astrologer would like. Indeed it suggests at once the tower on the hillside near Florence where Galileo passed his declining years.

Our philosopher, too, is an old man; his hair has been whitened by many winters, his face traced over with many lines of thought. Even if his problems have not all been solved he has found rich satisfaction in his thinking; the end of his meditations is peace. The day is drawing to a close. The waning light falls through the window and illumines the philosopher's venerable face. It throws the upper spiral of the stairway into bold relief, and brings out all the beautiful curves in its structure. The bare little room is transfigured. This is indeed a fit dwelling-place for a philosopher whose thoughts, penetrating dark mysteries, are at last lighted by some gleams of the ideal.