Tragic Sense Of Life

he philosopher
philosophizes for something more than for the sake of philosophizing.
_Primum vivere, deinde philosophari_, says the old Latin adage; and as
the philosopher is a man before he is a philosopher, he must needs live
before he can philosophize, and, in fact, he philosophizes in order to
live. And usually he philosophizes either in order to resign himself to
life, or to seek some finality in it, or to distract himself and forget
his griefs, or for pastime and amusement. A good illustration of this
last case is to be found in that terrible Athenian ironist, Socrates, of
whom Xenophon relates in his _Memorabilia_ that he discovered to
Theodata, the courtesan, the wiles that she ought to make use of in
order to lure lovers to her house so aptly, that she begged him to act
as her companion in the chase, _suntherates_, her pimp, in a
word. And philosophy is wont, in fact, not infrequently to convert
itself into a kind of art of spiritual pimping. And sometimes into an
opiate for lulling sorrows to sleep.

I take at random a book of metaphysics, the first that comes to my hand,
_Time and Space, a Metaphysical Essay_, by Shadworth H. Hodgson. I open
it, and in the fifth paragraph of the first chapter of the first part I
read:

"Metaphysics is, properly speaking, not a science but a philosophy--that
is, it is a science whose end is in itself, in the gratification and
education of the minds which carry it on, not in external purpose, such
as the founding of any art conducive to the welfare of life." Let us
examine this. We see that metaphysics is not, properly speaking, a
science--that is, it is a science whose end is in itself. And this
science, which, properly speaking, is not a science, has its end in
itself, in the gratification and education of the minds that cultivate
it. But what are we to understand? Is its end in itself or is it to
gratify and educate the minds that cultivate it? Either the one or the
other! Hodgson afterwards adds that the end of metaphysics is not any

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (September 29, 1864December 31, 1936) was an essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher from Spain.

John Middleton Murry (August 6, 1889 March 12, 1957) was an English writer. A prominent critic, Murry is best remembered for his association with Katherine Mansfield, whom he married, as her second husband, in 1918. Following her death, he edited her work. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, along with the writer Joyce Cary, a lifelong friend.

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