“‘I understand very few things that my reason compels me to accept,’ answered Mr. Everett. ‘I do not understand the chemical change which transmutes my food into living animal matter, and I do not understand a million things which I believe. Certainly we must have faith. All business and all life depends upon faith. But by faith I do not mean the simple credulity of my childhood in everything that I was taught. By faith I mean a steadfast reliance on what my reason tells me is true, even though I have no immediate evidence of it, and imagination and understanding fail to compass it. When I see the apparently useless suffering and cruelty which the Supreme Power has permitted, I have faith in his infinite goodness, not because any man or book has told me that it is so, but because, thank God, I see that it is so; and it is philosophic study alone which has made me see this. He who is afraid to study and question into the nature of the universe “and trust the Rock of Ages to his chemic test” is the man who has no true faith.’
“‘But after all,’ I said, ‘you must admit that the philosophers are but little read. It is the practical, common-sense people of the world who have done the work, and they have got on very well, too, without all this theorizing.’
“‘There was never a greater mistake in the world,’ replied Mr. Everett vehemently, too deeply in earnest to remember anything but the point that he was trying to make. ‘The philosophers certainly have not been widely read, but that by no means measures their influence. It is they who have taught the teachers who have taught the masses, and as the traveler knows perhaps nothing of the inventor of the engine which carries him safely from one side of the continent to the other, and makes life larger for him in a hundred ways, so we all, reaping every day in every one of our human institutions the rich benefits which the thinkers of the ages have bestowed upon us, say ungratefully that we owe them nothing. We attribute all our speed to the visible engineer and conductor who by another man’s genius have brought us to our destinations.’
“‘Would you advise me to study philosophy?’ I inquired humbly, much impressed with the point of his reply to what I had flattered myself was a rather bright remark.
“‘That depends,’ he said, ‘on what and how you study. If you wish to study simply to be able to say or to feel that you have studied philosophy, and can quote from this or that man, I advise you not to study.’
“I must have flushed and looked a little hurt, for he quickly added, ‘Pardon me, Miss Brewster, I think that you are far too much in earnest for that; but I have seen too many begin to read philosophy as a mere amusement, a sort of fad, and with no real earnest purpose, learning just enough to make them conceited or discouraged, and doing no good to themselves or any one else, and bringing the study of philosophy into disrepute. To me my philosophy has been a search for God, for truth. I have studied for my soul’s sorest need, and in all my intellectual life I have found nothing so satisfying, nothing that gives me such hope and courage.’
“‘Should you advise me to begin with Herbert Spencer?’ I asked, thinking that I would come to something definite.
“‘No, as you value your power to grow. You are not ready for him yet. He would fascinate you, and you could not refute his fallacies; but read Plato, read Kant, Fichte, Hegel. Don’t begin with them, though. Read first, perhaps, the “Introduction to Philosophy” by the man whom we heard this morning. I will give you also an article of his which deals with Spencer in a way that opened my eyes.
“‘Don’t read much at a time, else it will utterly daunt you. Come back to it again and again at intervals. You will be astonished to see your growth. You will be surprised to find how digging at these tough problems makes such mental muscle as renders other tasks easy.
“‘It will open a new world to you; but you must have infinite patience. I have made up my mind to that. I shall be more than thankful if in twenty years I have mastered this book;’ and he drew a volume of Hegel from his pocket.