The Making of a Man

by James W. Lee

In calling objective reality truth, we tacitly assume the laws and relations constitutive of it. We could not speak of the truth of the globe, had there been no method in its formation, no order in its development, no system in its parts, and no relations between its constituent elements. To speak of the truth of it, is to imply the thought of it, the intelligibility of it. Were it not the expression of mind, man’s reason could find no truth in it. Scholars have been able, after long and painstaking study, to understand the meaning of Egyptian and Assyrian hieroglyphics, but they never could have found thought in them, had they contained no thought. The original elements which make up the matter of the globe, have come into such relations with one another as that they make up the soil, rocks, water, trees, and animals we see. Thought, then, is the result of the internal relations of the particles which compose it. These internal relations, too, constitute its intelligibility. The globe that wheels on its axis is objective. This may be taken into the mind, and by its synthesizing, organizing activity converted into a subjective globe. The difference between the objective and the subjective globe will be, that one will be thought and the other will be thing. But the same internal relations found in the objective globe will be preserved in the subjective, and the transcript of the globe that is held in thought will be truth in exact proportion as it corresponds to the material globe that rolls out of the mind. That an objective globe, which is a thing, may become a subjective globe, which is a thought and not a thing, implies that there is something in common between thoughts and things; that is, the mind, by its constitution, is capable of apprehending and taking into itself the constitution and relations of things. This is its capacity for truth, and shows that truth is not foreign to it, but one with itself.

The sides and angles of a right angle triangle have certain relations to one another. The square described on the hypotenuse of such an angle is equal to the squares described on the other two sides. This may be demonstrated on a piece of blank paper, or the mind may conceive a right angle triangle, and prove the proposition without making any marks at all. The constitutional relations which were in the nature of a right angle triangle are the same, whether it be drawn on paper or conceived by the imagination. The relations of the triangle make it intelligible, because they constitute its truth.

I.

To truth the intellect is related, as is the eye to light, and the ear to sound. If the eye were destroyed, the sun would not cease to shine. His light would still come upon hill and plain to feed the flowers and to disclose their beauty, but without the organ of vision no creature in the universe would be able to see the things which his light reveals. The ear does not create sound. Let it be forever sealed, and the Niagaras would still continue to fall and the thunders to shake the heavens, but they would not be heard. The intellect does not create truth, but it is the only faculty with which man is endowed by which he is able to discover it.

It was the error of the idealists that they made the order, laws, and relations of things as so many principles projected out of the observer’s own mind into the universe about him. What he seemed to see in things, were but modifications of his own mental states. The only order things had was in the observer’s own mind. It was regarded not only as the pivot upon which the universe turned, but also as the creative principle from which the universe took form. Apparently this was a great gain to mind, but it was at the expense of any real world for the mind to contemplate. It seemed to win a victory for the intelligence absolute and entire, but it was by shutting it up to its own shadowy abstractions, and abandoning it in a shoreless and bottomless void to its own vain musings. The personal pronoun I was extended perpendicularly and horizontally, till topways and sideways the whole of space and time was filled with it. No solid earth, no burning sun, no rolling orbs were left. A great, illimitable, irresponsible ego became the sole occupant of all that is.

This extreme idealism is in direct contrast to the realism of the early thinkers. They taught that things depended on man neither for their existence nor their intelligibility. That each thing carried the real intelligible essence as an ultimate fact in itself. Thought in man was but the reflection of this intelligible essence in the thing, as the light in the mirror is but the reflection of the light of the lamp.

Of the two systems, extreme idealism is preferable to extreme realism. All mind and no matter, is better than all matter and no mind. Thought with no place to stand, is better than a place to stand and no thought. The eye with nothing to see, is better than something to see and no eye.

The solution which realism gave of the problem of existence, left no place for mind, the solution which idealism gave of it left no place for matter. But both the external world, upon which realism was founded, and the intelligence, upon which idealism was founded, are expressions of mind. The one as intelligible content, the other as combining active capacity and the intelligibility of the content, exactly corresponds to the active grasp of the capacity.

II.

But it must be remembered that the intellect which is the organ of truth, and objective reality which is abstract truth, do not come together to form knowledge in any accidental way.