It is difficult for a philosopher to contemplate with equanimity the fate which is overtaking, if it has not already overtaken, the word logical. “Logical” is one of a trio of words selected by the Greeks to represent the three main departments of philosophy; and of this trio the other two members, the words “ethical” and “physical,” have at least remained respectable; and to be called “philosophical” is almost a compliment. But to be logical is apparently, at least in England, to enter on very questionable courses: it is to class yourself with every reckless extremist, with the latest and wildest ism in art, politics, and literature, with Russians and Frenchmen and the “Latin mind.” No less a person than H.M. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on no less an occasion than an Assembly of the League of Nations, has lately proclaimed proudly to the gathered nations that lack of logic is the special virtue and privilege of the British Empire. The “lesser breeds within the law” heard no doubt and trembled, wondering how they could ever compete with a Power to which the laws of thought themselves were mere expediencies. Thus it appears, if Sir Austen Chamberlain is right, that to be logical is to fall into a human weakness or vice, and that this weakness or vice is fortunately commoner outside than inside the British Empire.

In various ways literature and the arts, science, religion and politics, come home to the ordinary man and are real for him. It is easy to see how they affect his life. Philosophy seems a thing more remote. Has it, too, had its influence on mankind? Can it point, directly or indirectly, to services rendered, work done, in the service of civilization?.

The problem of individuality, physical and mental, is one which obviously has great interest for philosophy. The unity and continuity of the ordinary human consciousness—the “ ego,” the “personality—give us the concrete standard by which we ordinarily judge other systems which have tended towards individuation. A comparative and evolutionary study of biological data, however, will provide us with many facts which throw a new light on the problem. They are often puzzling, but must be taken into account.

Of late years, even in Italy, no really new personalities or original orientations of thought have made their appearance in philosophy. The best that has been done in our studies consists in ample work consolidating the mental positions already gained during the prewar period, and in slow but unceasing efforts of philosophic thought to permeate the other strata of our culture. It is not paradoxical to affirm that to-day the best fruits of the renewed philosophic education are to be gathered not in books of philosophy, but in books of literary and artistic criticism, of history, and of political and moral science. All this is not merely fortuitous, but proceeds directly and consciously from the trend of the new Italian philosophic thought, which shrinks from isolating itself in an intellectual and fictitious superworld, preferring on the contrary to be a living methodology of the sciences, and to give to its universals the relief and, I might almost say, the savour, of particular things.

To this, his first book, the author owed the opportunities of travel and leisure which enabled him to perfect his second, the Wealth of Nations, 1776. It has needed all the fame of the second to keep alive the memory of the first. The Moral Sentiments founded no school, and is usually passed over with the faint praise due to the author's reputation. Yet Burke welcomed its theory as “in all its essential parts just” (Annual Register, 1759, p. 484; Rae's Life of Adam Smith, p. 145); and it was treated by Lessing with respect, though not agreement, in the Laocoon, 1766 (ch. iv).

“No man can see farther into a generalization than his knowledge of detail extends.” That saying of William James is true of all the branches of science; but it has a special value for students of social philosophy. Social life is so obviously a matter of personal experience that an academic Robinson Crusoe may easily be less competent in his knowledge of detail than a business man, if the business man thinks at all. This is not a compliment to the business man, nor an insult to the academic scholar; for the majority of those who deal with practical issues seem to be far more incompetent than the majority of scholars. But it is essential for social philosophy that practical experience of some kind should be used. Indeed, just as a student of chemistry nowadays depends at every step upon experiment, so a student of social life should take care to play a part in some form of active social life, whether as directing, co-operating, or obeying. One cannot get chemistry out of books; still less can one find social philosophy there. Therefore the number of books written or read is no criterion of the vigour of social philosophy in any generation—it is so easy to write books about other books, and so easy to read the same material many times.