I do believe that a university which was organized on this basis could not help being more authoritarian than others not so constituted. In metaphysics we are seeking the causes of the things that are. It is the highest science, the first science, and as first, universal. It considers being as being, both what it is and the attributes which belong to it as being. The aim of higher education is wisdom.
Wisdom is knowledge of principles and causes.
Metaphysics deals with the highest principles and causes. Therefore metaphysics is the highest wisdom. If this statement does not imply a hierarchy in the order of truths and the subordination of physical and social knowledge to first truths which are attained and guaranteed by a method which is unlike and superior to the methods of the natural and social sciences, I am unable to read the English language. For otherwise they are of the same experimental and hypothetical order as that which they are supposed to control. The tone and substance of President Hutchins' reply would lead one to suppose that after all he was not raising or meaning to raise any fundamental issue.