On the contrary, I hold that, with an increased confidence in the capacity of human reason to discover and validate the most secret and profound, as well as the most comprehensive, of truths, philosophy may well put aside some of its shyness and hesitancy, and may resume more of that audacity of imagination, sustained by ontological convictions, which characterized its work during the first half of the nineteenth century. And if the latter half of the twentieth century does for the constructions of the first half of the same century, what the latter half of the nineteenth century did for the first half of that century, this new criticism will only be to illustrate the way in which the human spirit makes every form of its progress.
Therefore, a summons of all helpers, in critical but fraternal spirit, to this work of reconstruction, for which two generations of enormous advance in the positive sciences has gathered new material, and for the better accomplishment of which both the successes and the failures of the philosophy of the nineteenth century have prepared the men of the twentieth century, is the winsome and imperative voice of the hour.
SECTION A—METAPHYSICS
SECTION A—METAPHYSICS
(Hall 6, September 21, 10 a. m.)
| Chairman: | Professor A. C. Armstrong, Wesleyan University. |
| Speakers: | Professor A. E. Taylor, McGill University, Montreal. |
| Professor Alexander T. Ormond, Princeton University. | |
| Secretary: | Professor A. O. Lovejoy, Washington University. |
The Chairman of the Section, Professor A. C. Armstrong, of Wesleyan University, in opening the meeting referred to the continued vitality of metaphysics as shown by its repeated revivals after the many destructive attacks upon it in the later modern times: he congratulated the Section on the fact that the principal speakers were scholars who had made notable contributions to metaphysical theory.