fication of his ideal would involve a true knowledge of the essential character of the universe. For such knowledge he substitutes either authority or his own imperfect insight. But in either case his life is naturally and organically correlated with a thought about the universe in its totality, or in its deepest and essential character. Such thought, the activity and its results, is philosophy. Hence he who lives is, ipso facto, a philosopher. He is not only a potential philosopher, but a partial philosopher. He has already begun to be a philosopher. Between the fitful or prudential thinking of some little man of affairs, and the sustained thought of the devoted lover of truth, there is indeed a long journey, but it is a straight journey along the same road. Philosophy is neither accidental nor supernatural, but inevitable and normal. Philosophy is not properly a vocation, but the ground and inspiration of all vocations. In the hands of its devotees it grows technical and complex, as do all efforts of thought, and to pursue philosophy bravely and faithfully is to encounter obstacles and labyrinths innumerable. The general problem of philosophy is mother of a whole brood of problems, little and great.

But

whether we be numbered among its devotees, or their beneficiaries, an equal significance attaches to the truth that philosophy is continuous with life.

CHAPTER II

POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY

Philosopher

87. As the ultimate criticism of all human interests, philosophy may be approached by avenues Who is the as various as these interests. Only Poet? when philosophy is discovered as the implication of well-recognized special interests, is the significance of its function fully appreciated. For the sake of such a further understanding of philosophy, those who find either inspiration or entertainment in poetry are invited in the present chapter to consider certain of the relations between poetry and philosophy.

We must at the very outset decline to accept unqualifiedly the poet's opinion in the matter, for he would not think it presumptuous to incorporate philosophy in poetry. "No man," said Coleridge," was ever yet a great poet without being at the same time a great philosopher." This would seem to mean that a great poet is a great philosopher, and more too. We shall do better to begin with the prosaic and matter of fact minimum of

truth: some poetry is philosophical. This will enable us to search for the portion of philosophy that is in some poetry, without finally defining their respective boundaries. It may be that all true poetry is philosophical, as it may be that all true philosophy is poetical; but it is much more certain that much actual poetry is far from philosophical, and that most actual philosophy was not conceived or written by a poet. The mere poet and the mere philosopher must be tolerated, if it be only for the purpose of shedding light upon the philosopher-poet and the poet-philosopher. And it is to the philosopher-poet that we turn, in the hope that under the genial spell of poetry we may be brought with understanding to the more forbidding land of philosophy.

§ 8. Poetry is well characterized, though not defined, as an interpretation of life. The term "life" here signifies the human pur

Poetry as Appreciation.

posive consciousness, and active pursuit of ends. An interpretation of life is, then, a selection and account of such values in human experience as are actually sought or are worth the seeking. For the poet all things are good or bad, and never only matters of fact. He is neither an annalist nor a statistician, and is even an observer

only for the sake of a higher design. He is one who appreciates, and expresses his appreciation so fittingly that it becomes a kind of truth, and a permanently communicable object. That "unbodied joy," the skylark's song and flight, is through the genius of Shelley so faithfully embodied, that it may enter as a definite joy into the lives of countless human beings. The sensuous or suggestive values of nature are caught by the poet's quick feeling for beauty, and fixed by his creative activity. Or with his ready sympathy he may perceive the value of some human ideal or mastering passion, and make it a reality for our common feeling. Where the poet has to do with the base and hateful, his attitude is still appreciative. The evil is apprehended as part of a dramatic whole having positive moral or æsthetic value. Moral ideas may appear in both poetry and life as the inspiration and justification of struggle. Where there is no conception of its moral significance, the repulsive possesses for the poet's consciousness the æsthetic value of diversity and contrast. Even where the evil and ugly is isolated, as in certain of Browning's dramatic monologues, it forms, both for the poet and the reader, but a part of some larger perception of life or character, which is sub