[ ON REALISM AS AN INVESTMENT ]
[ TO A CITIZEN OF THE OLD SCHOOL ]
The author wishes to express his thanks to the Editors of the Atlantic Monthly and the Century Magazine for their courtesy in permitting the publication in this volume of certain essays which have appeared in their magazines.
HUMANLY SPEAKING
"Humanly speaking, it is impossible." So the old theologian would say when denying any escape from his own argument. His logical machine was going at full speed, and the grim engineer had no notion of putting on the brakes. His was a non-stop train and there was to be no slowing-down till he reached the terminus.
But in the middle of the track was an indubitable fact. By all the rules of argumentation it had no business to be there, trespassing on the right of way. But there it was! We trembled to think of the impending collision.
But the collision between the argument and the fact never happened. The "humanly speaking" was the switch that turned the argument safely on a parallel track, where it went whizzing by the fact without the least injury to either. Many things which are humanly speaking impossible are of the most common occurrence and the theologian knew it.