Another instance of the way in which Mr. Sidgwick evolves an incongruity which he considers fundamental, out of what I should have thought he would see is a {241} defective expression, I will give in his own words. Speaking of a certain view of mine, he says:—

“He tells us that ‘logic . . . contemplates in its propositions certain connexions predicated, which are necessarily involved with certain other connexions given: regarding all these connexions as existing in the non-ego—not, it may be, under the form in which we know them, but in some form.’ But in § 473, where Mr. Spencer illustrates by a diagram his ‘Transfigured Realism,’ the view seems to be this: although we cannot say that the real non-ego resembles our notion of it in ‘its elements, relations, or laws,’ we can say that ‘a change in the objective reality causes in the subjective state a change exactly answering to it—so answering as to constitute a cognition of it.’ Here the ‘something beyond con­scious­ness’ is no longer said to be unknown, as its effect in con­scious­ness ‘constitutes a cognition of it.’”

This apparent inconsistency, marked by the italics, would not have existed if, instead of “a cognition of it,” I had said, as I ought to have said, “what we call a cognition of it”—that is, a relative cognition as distinguished from an absolute cognition. In ordinary language we speak of as cognitions, those connexions in thought which so guide us in our dealings with things, that actual experience verifies ideal anticipation: marking off, by opposed words, those connexions in thought which mis-guide us. The difference between accepting a cognition as relatively true and accepting it as absolutely true, will be clearly shown by an illustration. There is no direct resemblance whatever between the sizes, forms, colours, and arrangements, of the figures in an account-book, and the moneys or goods, debts or credits, represented by them; and yet the forms and arrangements of the written symbols, are such as answer in a perfectly-exact way to stocks of various commodities and to various kinds of transactions. Hence we say, figuratively, that the account-book will “tell us” all about these stocks and transactions. Similarly, the diagram Mr. Sidgwick refers to, suggests a way in which symbols, registered in us by objects, may have forms and arrangements wholly unlike their objective causes and the nexus among those causes, while yet they are so related as to guide us correctly in our transactions {242} with those objective causes, and, in that sense, constitute cognitions of them; though they no more constitute cognitions in the absolute sense, than do the guiding symbols in the account-book constitute cognitions of the things to which they refer. So repeatedly is this view implied throughout the Principles of Psychology, that I am surprised to find a laxity of expression raising the suspicion that I entertain any other.

To follow Mr. Sidgwick through sundry criticisms of like kind, which may be similarly met, would take more space than I can here afford. I must restrict myself now to the alleged “fundamental incoherence” of which he thinks these inconsistencies are signs. I refer to that reconciliation of Realism and Idealism considered by him as an impossible compromise. A difficulty is habitually felt in accepting a coalition after long conflict. Whoever has espoused one of two antagonist views, and, in defending it, has gained a certain comprehension of the opposite view, becomes accustomed to regard these as the only alternatives, and is puzzled by an hypothesis which is at once both and neither. Yet, since it turns out in nearly all cases that, of conflicting doctrines, each contains an element of truth, and that controversy ends by combination of their respective half-truths, there is a priori probability on the side of an hypothesis which qualifies Realism by Idealism.

Mr. Sidgwick expresses his astonishment, or rather bespeaks that of his readers, because, while I accept Idealistic criticisms, I nevertheless defend the fundamental intuition of Common Sense; and, as he puts it, “fires his [my] argument full in the face of Kant, Mill, and ‘metaphysicians’ generally.”

“He tells us that ‘metaphysicians’ illegitimately assume that ‘beliefs reached through complex intellectual processes,’ are more valid than ‘beliefs reached through simple intellectual processes;’ that the common language they use refuses to express their hypotheses, and thus their reasoning inevitably implies the common notions which they repudiate; that the belief of Realism has the advantage of ‘priority,’ ‘simplicity,’ ‘distinctness.’ {243} But surely this prior, simple, distinctly affirmed belief is that of what Mr. Spencer terms ‘crude Realism’, the belief that the non-ego is per se extended, solid, even coloured (if not resonant and odorous). This is what common language implies; and the argument by which Mr. Spencer proves the relativity of feelings and relations, still more the subtle and complicated analysis by which he resolves our notion of extension into an aggregate of feelings and transitions of feeling, lead us away from our original simple belief—that (e.g.) the green grass we see exists out of con­scious­ness as we see it—just as much as the reasonings of Idealism, Scepticism, or Kantism.”

On the face of it the anomaly seems great; but I should have thought that after reading the chapter on “Transfigured Realism,” a critic of Mr. Sidgwick’s acuteness would have seen the solution of it. He has overlooked an essential distinction. All which my argument implies is that the direct intuition of Realism must be held of superior authority to the arguments of Anti-Realism, where their deliverances cannot be reconciled. The one point on which their deliverances cannot be reconciled, is the existence of an objective reality. But while, against this intuition of Realism, I hold the arguments of Anti-Realism to be powerless, because they cannot be carried on without postulating that which they end by denying; yet, having admitted objective existence as a necessary postulate, it is possible to make valid criticisms upon all those judgments which Crude Realism joins with this primordial judgment: it is possible to show that a transfigured interpretation of properties and relations, is more tenable than the original interpretation.

To elucidate the matter, let us take the most familiar case in which the indirect judgments of Reason correct the direct judgments of Common Sense. The direct judgment of Common Sense is that the Sun moves round the Earth. In course of time, Reason, finding some facts at variance with this, begins to doubt; and, eventually, hits upon an hypothesis which explains the anomalies, but which denies this appar­ent­ly-cer­tain dictum of Common Sense. What is the reconciliation? It consists in showing {244} to Common Sense that the new interpretation equally well corresponds with direct intuition, while it avoids all the difficulties. Common Sense is reminded that the apparent motion of an object may be due either to its actual motion or to the motion of the observer; and that there are terrestrial experiences in which the observer thinks an object he looks at is moving, when the motion is in himself. Extending the conception thus given, Reason shows that if the Earth revolves on its axis, there will result that apparent motion of the Sun which Common Sense interpreted into an actual motion of the Sun; and the common-sense observer thereupon becomes able to think of sunrise and sunset as due to his position as spectator on a vast revolving globe. Now if the astronomer, setting out by recognizing these celestial appearances, and proceeding to evolve the various anomalies following from the common-sense interpretation of them, had drawn the conclusion that there externally exist no Sun and no motion at all, he would have done what Idealists do; and his arguments would have been equally powerless against the intuition of Common Sense. But he does nothing of the kind. He accepts the intuition of Common Sense respecting the reality of the Sun and of the motion; but replaces the old interpretation of the motion by a new interpretation reconcilable with all the facts.

Everyone must see that here, acceptance of the inexpugnable element in the common-sense judgment, by no means involves acceptance of the accompanying judgments; and I contend that the like discrimination must be made in the case we are considering. It does not follow that while, against the con­scious­ness which Crude Realism has of an objective reality, the arguments of Anti-Realism are futile, they are therefore futile against the conceptions which Crude Realism forms of the objective reality. If Anti-Realism can show that, granting an objective reality, the interpretation of Crude Realism contains insuperable {245} difficulties, the process is quite legitimate. And, its primordial intuition remaining unshaken, Realism may, on reconsideration, be enabled to frame a new conception which harmonizes all the facts.

To show that there is not here the “mazy inconsistency” alleged, let us take the case of sound as interpreted by Crude Realism, and as re-interpreted by Transfigured Realism. Crude Realism assumes the sound present in con­scious­ness to exist as such beyond con­scious­ness. Anti-Realism proves the inadmissibility of this assumption in sundry ways (all of which, however, set out by talking of sounding bodies beyond con­scious­ness, just as Realism talks of them); and then Anti-Realism concludes that we know of no existence save the sound as a mode of con­scious­ness: which conclusion, and all kindred conclusions, I contend are vicious—first, because all the words used connote an objective activity; second, because the arguments are impossible without postulating at the outset an objective activity; and third, because no one of the intuitions out of which the arguments are built, is of equal validity with the single intuition of Realism that an objective activity exists. But now the Transfigured Realism which Mr. Sidgwick thinks “has all the serious incongruity of an intense metaphysical dream,” neither affirms the untenable conception of Crude Realism, nor, like Anti-Realism, draws unthinkable conclusions by suicidal arguments; but, accepting that which is essential in Crude Realism, and admitting the difficulties which Anti-Realism insists upon, reconciles matters by a re-inter­pre­ta­tion analogous to that which an astronomer makes of the solar motion. Continuing all along to recognize an objective activity which Crude Realism calls sound, it shows that the answering sensation is produced by a succession of separate impacts which, if made slowly, may be separately identified, and which will, if progressively increased in rapidity, produce tones higher and higher in pitch. It {246} shows by other experiments that sounding bodies are in states of vibration, and that the vibrations may be made visible. And it concludes that the objective activity is not what it subjectively seems, but is proximately interpretable as a succession of aërial waves. Thus Crude Realism is shown that while there unquestionably exists an objective activity corresponding to the sensation known as sound, yet the facts are not explicable on the original supposition that this is like the sensation; while they are explicable by conceiving it as a rhythmical mechanical action. Eventually this re-inter­pre­ta­tion, joined with kindred re­in­ter­pre­ta­tions of other sensations, comes to be itself further transfigured by analysis of its terms, and re-expression of them in terms of molecular motion; but, however abstract the interpretation ultimately reached, the objective activity continues to be postulated: the primordial judgment of Crude Realism remains unchanged, though it has to change the rest of its judgments.