Philosophy once meant the whole body of scientific knowledge.
Afterward it came to mean the whole body of knowledge which could be attained by the mere light of human reason, unaided by revelation.

The several special sciences sprang up, and a multitude of men have for a long time past devoted themselves to definite limited fields of investigation with little attention to what has been done in other fields.

Nevertheless, there has persisted the notion of a discipline which somehow concerns itself with the whole system of things, rather than with any limited division of that broad field.

It is a notion not peculiar to the disciples of Spencer.

There are many to whom philosophy is a "_Weltweisheit_," a world-wisdom.