If the philosopher can be called a "specialist," he is a specialist in the general. Socrates (in Plato's Republic) defines the philosopher as "the spectator of all time and all existence"; and William James declares that philosophy deals "with the principles of explanation that underlie all things without exception, the elements common to gods and men and animals and stones, the first whence and the last whither of the whole cosmic procession, the conditions of all knowning, and the most gneral rules of human conduct."