Academic education should aim at giving, as a corrective of the specialization which increase of knowledge has made unavoidable, as much as time will permit of what has cultural value in such studies as history, literature, and philosophy. It should be made easy for a young man who knows no Greek to acquire through translations some understanding, however inadequate, of what the Greeks accomplished. Instead of studying the Anglo-Saxon kings over and over again at school, some attempt should be made to give a conspectus of world history, bringing the problems of our own day into relation with those of Egyptian priests, Babylonian Kings, and Athenian reformers, as well as with all the hopes and despairs of the intervening centuries. But it is only of philosophy, treated from a similar point of view, that I wish to write. Metaphysics, accoridng to F.H. Bradley, ‘is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.’ It is curious to find this pungent dictum at the beginning of long book cf earnest and even unctuous metaphysics, which, through much ardues argumentation, leads up to the final conclusion: ‘Outside of spirit there is not, and there cannot be, any reality, and, the more that anything is spiritual, so much the more is it veritably real.’ A rare moment of self-knowledge must have inspired the initial aphorism, which was made bearable to its author by its semi-humorous form; but throughout the rest of his labours he allowed himself to be claimed by ‘ the instinct to find bad reasons’. When he was serious he was sophistical, and a typical philosopher; when he jested, he had insight and uttered unphilosophical truth. Philosophy has been defined as ‘an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly’; I should define it should define it rather as ‘an unusually ingenious attempt to think fallaciously’ The philosopher’s termperament is rare, because it has to combine tow somewhat conflicting characteristics: on the one hand a strong desire to believe some general proposition about the universe of human life; on the other hand, inability to believe contentedly except on what appear to be intellectual grounds. The more profound the philosopher, the more intricate and subtle must his fallacies be in order to produce in him the desired state of intellectual acquiescence. That is why philosophy is obscure. To the completely unintellectual, general doctrines are unimportant; to the man of science, they are hypotheses to be tested by experiment; while to the philosopher they are mental habits which must be justified somehow if he is to find life endurable. The typical philosopher finds certain beliefs emotionally indispensable, but indispensable, difficult; he therefore goes through long chains of reasoning, in the course of which, sooner or later, a momentary lack of vigilance allows a fallacy to pass undetected. After the one false step, his mental agility quickly takes him far into the quagmire of falsehood.