Man came into his own in Greece, some two-and-a-half thousand years ago. The
birth of philosophy marked his adulthood; not the content of any particular
system of philosophy, but deeper: the concept of philosophy—the realization
that a comprehensive view of existence is to be reached by man’s mind.
Philosophy is the goal toward which religion was only a helplessly blind
groping. The grandeur, the reverence, the exalted purity, the austere
dedication to the pursuit of truth, which are commonly associated with
religion, should properly belong to the field of philosophy. Aristotle lived up
to it and, in part, so did Plato, Aquinas, Spinoza—but how many others? It is
earlier than we think.
If you observe that ever since Hume and Kant (mainly Kant, because Hume was
merely the Bertrand Russell of his time) philosophy has been striving to prove
that man’s mind is impotent, that there’s no such thing as reality and we
wouldn’t be able to perceive it if there were—you will realize the magnitude
of the treason involved.