Realism the anti-Realistic doctrines-or rather one of them; for it will be needless to go farther. We will take Hypothetical Realism, which is the comparatively-unassuming parent of the rest. No one can define this, or frame for himself any conception of it, without abandoning that state of consciousness in which he is simply percipient, and taking up a mental position from which he may perceive the act of percipience. Instead of this book which he holds and recognizes as existing, being the sole content of his consciousness, he has also to bring definitely into consciousness that highlycomplex conception which he knows as self; and then he has to conceive the one as affecting the other. He postulates the book, he postulates himself, he postulates the power by which the first works a change in the last. The original cognition of the book as existing, cannot be even conceived to be a compound cognition without a roundabout process. Whereas this which is proposed in place of it, cannot be even conceived without assuming at least three things: each of three distinct propositions must be posited as true because the negation of it is inconceivable.

But the contrast is far more marked than this. No such doctrine as that of Hypothetical Realism can be framed without language. Shut out all words and all the speculations conveyed through words, and though the Realistic conception of the object remains as vivid as ever, the conception of Hypothetical Realism vanishes utterly. To bring it back again, you have not only to use the papercurrency of thought, and instead of your experiences themselves use symbols of your experiences (many of them doubly and triply symbolic); but you have to bring in those. generalized ideas of forces, and actions, and causes, and effects, which severally postulate the validities of countless by-gone mental acts. Nor is this all. Beyond the numerous assumptions of the Universal Postulate implied in the words and in the generalized ideas without which Hypothetical Realism cannot even be conceived, there are those

numerous assumptions implied in the argument by which it is sought to be justified.

Even supposing, then, that each of these multitudiacus assumptions of the Universal Postulate was equally unquestionable with that which Realism makes-even supposing each act by which I know the meaning of a word, or frame the abstract idea of a cause, was as irreversible as that which makes me join to the consciousness of a body's resistance the consciousness of its externality; it would still hold that, since each of these many assumptions has but at best the same warrant as the single assumption, the conclusion reached through the many must at best be far less certain than the conclusion reached through the one, because of the multiplied possibilities of error.

Of course, the reasoning which thus shows that Hypothetical Realism can never have a logical validity equal to that of Positive Realism, applies with still greater force to the derivative hypotheses of Idealism, Absolute Idealism, and Scepticism.

§ 441. We must, therefore, confess that Reason is utterly incapable of showing the unreasonableness of those primary deliverances of consciousness which yield Subject and Object as independent existences. While, as we before saw, it is impossible for Reason to prove its own superior trustworthiness, it is quite possible for it to prove its own inferior trustworthiness. Self-analysis shows that all its dicta being derivative, are necessarily less certain than those from which they are derived. To carry out the simile before used, if, as witnesses, Reason and Perception give opposite testimonies, and Reason claims to be believed in preference, cross-examination brings out the fact that Reason's testimony is nothing more than hearsay gained from Perception. By its own account, it cannot possibly have done anything more than compare and interpret the evidences which Perception has given. So long as it limits itself to detecting

incongruities among these, and finding out where they have arisen, Reason performs an all-important function; but it exceeds its function, and commits suicide, when it concludes the evidence to be false in substance.

In this sphere, as in other spheres, Reason can do nothing more than reconcile the testimonies of Perception with one another. When it proved that the Sun does not move round the Earth, but that the Earth turns on its axis, Reason substituted for an old interpretation which was irreconcilable with various facts, a new interpretation which was reconcilable with them, while it equally well accounted for the more obvious facts. Reason did not question the existence of the Sun, the Earth, and their relative motion; but simply furnished an alternative conception of their relative motion. And, similarly, Reason in being brought to bear on those deliverances of consciousness which we distinguish as perceptions of the external world, has to rectify many of these by expelling the crude interpretations ordinarily bound up with them; but it has to do this in such subordination to the perceptions as to leave their essential testimonies unquestioned.

Finding that while Reason can do this it can never do more than this—finding that any hypothetical doubtfulness of the Realistic conception must be immeasurably exceeded by the resulting doubtfulness of every anti-Realistic argument, we find that Realism is negatively justified.

CHAPTER XIV.

POSITIVE JUSTIFICATION OF REALISM.

§ 442. Among the many contradictions which anti-Realistic hypotheses involve, is the contradiction between the assertion that consciousness cannot be transcended and the assertion that there exists nothing beyond consciousness. For if we can in no way be aware of anything beyond consciousness, what can suggest either the affirmation or the denial of it? and how can even denial of it be framed in thought? The very proposition that consciousness cannot be transcended, admits of being put together only by representing a limit, and consequently implies some kind of consciousness of something beyond the limit.

And then after this contradiction, there comes a further contradiction. The assertion that consciousness cannot be transcended, is accompanied by a tacit demand for some other proof of an external world than that which is given in states of consciousness. While that complex deliverance of consciousness which asserts its own limits is regarded as above question; and while its simple deliverance that something exists outside its limits is held to be invalid; there seems to be required of it some proof of this outer existence other than that given in terms of inner existence.

Clearly, one of two things—either objective existence can be known otherwise than in states of consciousness, which is granting everything; or else neither proof nor disproof

of objective existence can be given otherwise than in states of consciousness. And in this case, if states of consciousness are held adequate to frame a disproof, they must be held adequate to frame a proof. Otherwise the whole. question is prejudged by affirming the power to give a negative answer and denying the power to give an affirmative answer.

§ 443. Realism, then, is positively justified, if it is shown to be a dictum of consciousness working after its proper laws. When normal acts of thought, like those which establish the truths we hold most certain, are proved to be the acts of thought which yield the antithesis of Subject and Object, no further demonstration can be asked.

Hence we have to trace the processes by which the Realistic conception is built up. Its relative validity we have already seen to be immeasurably greater than that of any counterconception; and now we have to test its absolute validity. Its absolute validity will be shown if we find it to be a necessary product of thought proceeding according to laws. of thought that are universal.

Our analysis and our subsequent synthesis will be psychological rather than logical. We must here examine the fabric of consciousness itself, to ascertain in what way its components are united. The ultimate answer to the question-Why do we think certain things true rather than others? involves the question-Why do our states of consciousness hang together in this way rather than in that?

§ 444. In carrying on this inquiry, we shall have to shut. out, so far as may be, the ordinary implications of thought. We cannot shut them out actually; we can shut them out only hypothetically. The Realistic interpretation of our states of consciousness, deep as the very structure of the nervous system, cannot for an instant be actually expelled. All we can do by way of maintaining the needful attitude is per