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their scriptures. For, if the individual bias is allowed, from the very start, to sway the reason in favour of one particular system, and, therefore, necessarily against all the rest, how shall choice be made between the scripture or system of truth and that which is corrupt and false. For the same reason intuition has to be left out of account, till at least such time as a teacher is discovered whose intuitive wisdom can be relied upon as sound and free from error and flaws of any kind whatsoever. It is obvious that if private intuitions be allowed to sway philosophical investigation, every lunatic will have a right to fill the chair of philosophy and every morbid subject of hysteria and hallucination to rank as a patron of science and metaphysics.
We may, then, define philosophy as the process or expression of reflection on the facts of experience, culminating in an all-comprehensive consistent system of thought that is explanatory of the nature of our surroundings, and, therefore, capable of being harnessed into our service for the obtainment of the highest good. Here we may be seen to part company from those who would dabble in metaphysics as a mere scholarly pastime or for its own sake, as they put it. As is well known to scholars, this practical utility of philosophy has not been kept in view in the western systems, and one cannot but notice the deprecatory
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