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Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and
science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has,
so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority,
whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge--so I should contend--
belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But
between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this
No Man's Land is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are
such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so
convincing as they did in former centuries. Is the world divided into mind and matter, and, if so,
what is mind and what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent
powers? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really
laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? Is man what he
seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotently crawling on a small
and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both at once? Is there
a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? If
there is a way of living that is noble, in what does it consist, and how shall we achieve it? Must
the good be eternal in order to deserve to be valued, or is it worth seeking even if the uni
verse is inexorably moving towards death? Is there such a thing as wisdom, or is what seems such
merely the ultimate refinement of folly? To such questions no answer can be found in the
laboratory. Theologies have professed to give answers, all too definite; but their very definiteness
causes modern minds to view them with suspicion. The studying of these questions, if not the
answering of them, is the business of philosophy.