its problems. And the centering of existential philosophy upon the human problem is some-thing that binds it to ethics, religion, politics, society, and all the problems of the human personality, and to God — before it binds it to nature and its laws and structures, and to existence in general and its principal categories.

(c) The third distinction follows from these two: these two philosophical types differ in their kind. Academic philos-ophy is an intellectual philosophy, in which the mind treats a "question" in the abstract, as though it were amusing itself with the solving of riddles. It is no exaggeration to call it, in its treatment, a mind indifferent to the result — disinterested. It does not matter to the mind what result it reaches; what matters to it is the clarity of the result and its logical coher-ence, in harmony with the other truths. Hence arose Aristotle's saying that true philosophy is a "useless" effort, a "luxu-rious" effort. Existential philosophy, however, is a philosophy that does not abstract the mind from the human being in his entirety — from his consciousness and his unconscious, from his hidden impulses and his desires, from his heart and his conscience. It therefore cannot be indifferent; rather it cares with all caring and concerns itself with all concern. It watches, with atten-tiveness and care and concern, the course of its treatment of its prob-lems, and the results it reaches, because they are the problems of its life or its death, its anxious existential prob-lems. Existential philos-

ophy counts itself not among the luxuries but among the necessities. And here applies what Socrates said about the raising of problems: that the life in which these problems are not raised is not worth the living. The existential philoso-pher, faced with the problems of his destiny and his being and his values, cannot amuse himself with indifferent spectatorship; rather he pours himself out upon his problems — an out-pouring that embraces all his powers, an out-pouring not intellectual only but total!

(d) The fourth distinc-tion concerns the results of the two philosophical types. The result of academic philosophy is a theoretical, intellectual harmony and clarity. Existential philosophy, however, does not exist unless it expresses itself — from within its own measure and bond — by its fusion with the life of the philosopher. Existential philosophy does not stand apart from human life as an independent, self-subsis-tent effort, as a circle of life closed upon itself: existential philosophy enters into the very core of life, and this entering belongs to its own core. Existential philosophy acts in life, and it does not exist if it exists only in the thinking mind and is not manifested also in the life of the thinker. Existential philosophy refuses to acknowledge the parti-tioning of human being into different circles of activity; rather it sees in these circles an organic cohesion and interpene-tration. Existential phi-losophy, which refuses to grant the abstraction of the mind at the origin of philosophy and in the course of the philosophi-

cal process, refuses also, in a special way, to grant the abstraction of the mind in the result of philosophy. For the mind is a part of life: by life it is affected in the raising of problems and in their treatment, and upon life it acts once it has reached the result. Indeed, existential phi-losophy holds that the truth it seeks is not theories of finished for-mulation, not opinions or conceptions, but life. And existential philoso-phy holds that it does not attain this truth theoretically; it attains it when this truth is made manifest in the soul of the philosopher, when the philosopher's new life springs forth — and that is truth itself! Truth is the inwardness of man, not one object among man's objects. Truth is human life. "The Word," in exis-tential philosophy, does not symbolize theories, but flesh and blood that make, among us, a man... (in the expression of John the Evangelist).

(e) The two philo-sophical types differ, finally, in the form in which each expresses itself. Academic philos-ophy creates philosoph-ical systems — cast, cohesive, harmonious. In the philosophical system we find this philosophy a center for every truth it reaches, and an answer for every question; so there arises for it a system like the system of Aristotle, or of the Scholastic school, or of Hegel, or sys-tems less finished than these in their casting, but rivaling them in the intention of cast-ing, like the systems of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Royce, and Whitehead. And by the measure of how far the philosopher has attained

a system tightly cast, closed upon itself, clasp-ing truth to its breast in monopoly, academic philosophy measures the philosopher's success or his failure.

Existential philosophy, however, holds that its final concern must not lie in this rigid logical formulation; it must turn rather to going deep in the treatment of problems, and to the inward, per-sonal appropriation of the truth attained. And who knows — perhaps human being is built upon a fundamental contradiction, such that it does not permit of the cast system? Who knows — perhaps the truths of our being are in themselves a seething revolt, rebelling against their own actuality, refusing to be confined in theories beautifully formulated? The exis-tential philosopher does not care, in the first place, to arrive at a philosophical system, but to be faithful to his own soul in treating its problems, and in the anxious, violent verifica-tion of himself within its contradiction. A sinner, he seeks salvation; lim-ited in his actuality, he refuses limitation in his hopes; a slave to nature and to others, he refuses

slavery, and seeks the freedom of his soul, and refuses to be enslaved even by his very free-dom; alone, melancholy in his solitude, he refuses to surrender this solitude for a superficial sociability which is a kind of annihilation of his personality. In these contradictions he is too rich for his actuality to be confined in a geomet-rical system of exquisite casting, which freezes his vitality and petrifies his being, so that the theoretical mind may