[10]. See Bosanquet, Essentials of Logic, Lect. 8. As an illustration we may take an extreme case: “The Jabberwock was not killed yesterday.” What is the ground of this denial? At first sight it appears to be merely negative, “there are no such things as Jabberwocks to kill.” But before I can say “there are no such things as Jabberwocks” with confidence, I must have enough positive information about the structure and habits of animals to be aware that the qualities ascribed to the Jabberwock conflict with the laws of animal life. Or, if I deny the existence of Jabberwocks simply on the ground that I have never come across a specimen, this involves a positive judgment as to the relation between the animal world and the part of it I have examined, such as, “if there were Jabberwocks, I should have come across one”; or, “my acquaintance with the varieties of animals is sufficiently exhaustive to afford ground for a valid generalisation.” The fact that symbolic Logic finds it convenient to treat the universal affirmative as a double negative must not mislead us as to its actual priority in thought.
[11]. To meet the kind of criticism which finds it humorous to jest at the expense of those who “take consolation from spelling Reality with a big R,” may I once for all say that when I spell Reality thus it is simply as a convenient way of distinguishing the ultimately from the merely relatively real?
[12]. We shall meet this same difficulty again later on as the principle of the famous Kantian objection to the “ontological proof” of God’s existence. Infra, Bk. IV. chap. 5. § 8.
[13]. Take a concrete example. A theory as to the early religious history of the Hebrews, let us say, is put forward upon grounds derived from Semitic philology. Though unacquainted with Semitic philology in particular, I may be able to form some sort of estimate of the cogency of the professed reasoning if I already have an adequate acquaintance with the use and value of philological evidence in parallel cases, say, in the study of Greek antiquities. But if I have no positive acquaintance at all with the use of philology in antiquarian research, it would be the merest impertinence for me to offer any opinion whatever.
[14]. What follows must be regarded as a mere outline which awaits subsequent filling up by the more concrete results of Bk II. chap. 1.
[15]. For the modern logical doctrine of possibility consult Bradley, Principles of Logic, 192-201; Bosanquet, Logic, i. chap. 9.
[16]. This is—apart from non-essential theological accretions—the principle of Berkeley’s argument for the existence of God (Principles of Human Knowledge, §§ 146, 147).
[17]. I should explain that I use “feeling” and “apprehension” indifferently for immediate and non-reflective awareness of any psychical content. The exclusive restriction of the term to awareness of pleasure and pain seems to me to rest on a serious mistake in psychology, and I therefore avoid it.
[18]. In fact, we shall see in Bk. II. chap. 1 that in virtue of its unity with immediate feeling, all experience is essentially connected with purpose.
[19]. I take “fact” as equivalent to “what is directly apprehended in a single moment of consciousness.” In a previous work (The Problem of Conduct, chap. 1) I used the word in a different sense for “the contents of a true description of experience.” This employment of the word, however, seems at variance with established philosophical usage, and I therefore abandon it as likely to lead to misapprehension.