Philosophy As Practice Does Not Mean Its

Philosophic Meditation Is An Accomplishment By Which I Attain Being And My Own Self, Not Impartial Thinking Which Studies A Subject With Indifference.

Only Then, Approaching My Fortieth Birthday, I Made Philosophy My Life's Work.

The History Of Philosophy Is Not, Like The History Of The Sciences, To Be Studied With The Intellect Alone. That Which Is Receptive In Us And That Which Impinges Upon Us From History Is The Reality Of Man's Being, Unfolding Itself In Thought.

If Philosophy Is Practice, A Demand To Know The Manner In Which Its History Is To Be Studied Is Entailed: A Theoretical Attitude Toward It Becomes Real Only In The Living Appropriation Of Its Contents From The Texts.

The 'public' Is A Phantom, The Phantom Of An Opinion Supposed To Exist In A Vast Number Of Persons Who Have No Effective Interrelation And Though The Opinion Is Not Effectively Present In The Units. Such An Opinion Is Spoken Of As 'public Opinion,' A Fiction Which Is Appealed To By Individuals And By Groups As Supporting Their Special Views. It Is Impalpable, Illusory, Transient; "'tis Here, 'tis There, 'tis Gone"; A Nullity Which Can Nevertheless For A Moment Endow The Multitude With Power To Uplift Or Destroy.