The name is absent

III

FOLLOWING THE CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION
AFTER THE WAR, TUESDAY MORNING,

NOVEMBER 26

IR HENRY JONES: I want to say one word about mental philoso-
phy. Philosophy is no good at all unless it rests upon history, and
unless it has the spirit of science. But if it does rest upon the study and
endeavors to find the meaning of man’s history, interpreting his experi-
ence, if it tries to understand that experience by the methods and in the
inquiring spirit of science, then it is fortified with the possession of the
best theme, the richest in significance of all things in this wonderful
world of ours.

History when it has become philosophy is superb; for history at its
best reveals fundamental principles, working in human society, as con-
stantly, as necessarily, as unchangeably, as the forces that keep the physi-
cal world together. But, permanent and changeless as they are, these
social principles, or, in one word, these moral powers are like other
forces of nature, in that they take on an infinite variety of forms. I do
not know whether I speak with scientific accuracy when I speak of this
old world as having in the last result but one life. It must in any case
be some single principle that breaks out into the infinite number of forms
of beauty that you have in tree and flower, and in all the wonderful
variety of the mineralogical kingdom. It is that also which manifests
itself in our own life, and in the justice, temperance, kindliness, which
are its forms of highest activity. The principles of human society are
capable of finding an infinitude of forms. In the principle of the Chris-
tian life there is made articulate that need of man for man which binds
them together, and at its highest is love. It has clothed itself, incarnated
itself, in an ascending series of civilizations and formed societies, whose
splendor is yet to grow and which we can no more anticipate than the
cave-man could have anticipated the civilized life of to-day. When the
life which is rational has shown the fullness of its force, when we have
learned as nations not only to tolerate one another, but to sustain and
help one another as members of one family, there will indeed be some-
thing new in the world; and yet it will be but an old, nay, an ultimate
principle breaking out into a new form. Now, history is magnificent
when it is also philosophic; for what does philosophy do? According to
one very great writer, philosophy appears on the scene of history when
some civilization is about to perish. It is the reflection into which tragedy
throws men and nations, turning their minds questioning back upon them-

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