THE DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY(THE FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE) Philosophy is a well coordinated and systematised attempt at evaluating life and the universe as a whole, with reference to first principles that underlie all things as their causes and are implicit in all experience. It all experience. It is an impartial approach to all problems and aspects of life and existence, and its studies are not devoted merely to the empirical world, as in the case of the physical sciences; not restricted to the provinces of faith and authority or to the questions of the other world, as in the case with theological disquisitions; not confined to investigation of the mind and its behavior, as in psychology; not given over merely to casuistry and ethology, as in the normative science of morality and ethics; not taken up with the consideration of civic duties and problems of administration and constitution, as in the politics; not concerned with the solution of problems and techniques of adjusting and ordering and discovering the origin and organization and development of human society, like economics and sociology; but are adapted for an exhaustive treatment of the basic presuppositions of each and every one of these, as also of what other than and beyond all these, that on which all these are ultimately founded and which is the ground of all knowledge and experience in general. Philosophy investigates the very possibility and conditions of knowledge, its extent, nature and value. It bases itself on facts already known and rises above them to absolute verities, on which all phenomena depend and by which alone they can be rationally explained. It is not circumscribed by the limitations of the past, present and future, by the laws of this place or that country, but refers to all times, places and conditions. Philosophy is the most inclusive of all branches of learning, and acts as a touchstone to all other aspects of human knowledge. THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY (THE NEED FOR A THEORY OF LIFE) Philosophy is generally defined as love of wisdom or the knowledge of things in general by their ultimate causes, so far as reason can attain to such knowledge. It is a comprehensive and critical study and analysis of experience as a whole. Whether it is consciously, deliberately and rationally adopted an conviction or consciously or unconsciously followed in life through faith or persuasion, every man constructs for himself a fundamental philosophy as the basis of life, a theory of the relation of the world and the individual, and this shapes his whole attitude to life. Aristotle called metaphysics the fundamental science, for, a correct comprehension of it is enough to give man a complete knowledge of every constituent or content of human experience. All persons live in accordance with the philosophy of life that they have framed for themselves, consciously or unconsciously. Even the uneducated and the uncultured have a rough and ready philosophy of their own. Life without a philosophy is unimaginable. It is only when we confine the concept of philosophy to the labored edifices of academic men that we are inclined to think that only a few in the world have any philosophy, or study or understand it. Even those who hold that there is no need of any philosophy have a secret philosophy of their own. They have a theory of reality, though it may consist only in denying it altogether. They have a theory of the world, though it may be only one of crass material perception, or of a superstitious belief in the supremacy of the personalities and forces of myth and fable. We have an ethics, an epistemology and even a logic of our own, though it may be purely personal or limited to a certain group of persons of kindred ideas and temperaments. Under these conditions, it is certainly advisable for as to frame a systematic and intelligent philosophy for our life, after critically examining and understanding the nature of the world and our experiences in it, at least so far as it is possible for the powers that we are endowed with. And if we consistently carry our sincere efforts, with critical intelligence, to their logical limits, we will find that philosophies are not pet theories or private affairs of different individuals, but from a science and an art of human life taken into completeness. We would then arrive at a philosophy, not of this or that school, but of humanity in general. We would reach a most catholic and flexible theory of the universe and its contents, acceptable to all men of reason, a universal philosophy based on experiences that common to all persons. Difficulties and problems, however, arise only because of our definitions of experience or of the limits we set to it. We may limit philosophy to sense-experience, to understanding, to reason or to intuition. Finally it is only intuition that enjoys the greatest universality of scope and dive deepest into the mysteries of existence. A perfect philosophy ought, therefore, to be one springing from an intuition of Reality.