I have not been unmindful of these professors and
this literature; I have taken such opportunities as I have found, to
test my propositions by them. But I feel that such apology as one makes
for amateurishness in this field has a lesser quality of
self-condemnation than if one were dealing with narrower, more defined
and fact-laden matters. There is more excuse for one here than for the
amateur maker of chemical theories, or the man who evolves a system of
surgery in his leisure. These things, chemistry, surgery and so forth,
we may take on the reputation of an expert, but our own fundamental
beliefs, our rules of conduct, we must all make for ourselves. We may
listen and read, but the views of others we cannot take on credit; we
must rethink them and "make them our own." And we cannot do without
fundamental beliefs, explicit or implicit. The bulk of men are obliged
to be amateur philosophers,--all men indeed who are not specialized
students of philosophical subjects,--even if their philosophical
enterprise goes no further than prompt recognition of and submission to
Authority.
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