THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF METAPHYSICS 247 



ern mind has been so imbued with this pretension as to have almost 

 completely forgotten the fact that the distinction of phenomenon 

 and ground is one of science's own making. Neither the plain man 

 nor the cultured man, if he happens not to be tinctured with science, 

 finds his world a duality. The things he deals with are the realities, 

 and it is only when his naive realism begins to break down before 

 the complex demands of his growing life, that the thought occurs to 

 him that his world may be more complex than he has dreamed. It is 

 clear, then, that the distinction of our world into phenomena and 

 ground, on which science so largely rests, is a first product of reflec- 

 tion, and not a fact of observation at all. 



If this be the case, it may be possible and even necessary for 

 reflection at some stage to transcend this distinction. At least, there 

 can be no reason except an arbitrary one for taking this first step of 

 reflection to be a finality. And there would be the same justification 

 for a second step that would transcend this dualism, as for the initial 

 step out of which the distinction arose; provided, it should be found 

 that the initial distinction does not supply an adequate basis for a 

 rational interpretation of the world that can be taken as final. Now, 

 it is precisely because the dualistic distinction of the sciences does fail 

 in this regard, that a further demand for a reflective transformation 

 of the data arises. Let us bear in mind that the data of the sciences 

 are not the simple facts of observation, but rather those facts trans- 

 formed by an act of reflection by virtue of which they become phe- 

 nomena distinguished from a more fundamental nature on which 

 they depend and which itself is not open to observation. The real 

 data of science are found only when the world of observation has been 

 thus transformed by an act of reflection. If then at some stage in our 

 effort to interpret our world it should become clear that the sciences 

 of phenomena, whatever value their results may possess, are not giv- 

 ing us an interpretation in terms that can be taken as final, and that in 

 order to ground such an interpretation a further transformation of our 

 data becomes necessary, I do not see why any of the sciences should 

 feel that they have cause to demur. In truth, it is out of just such a 

 situation as this that the metaphysical interpretation arises (as I 

 propose very briefly here to show) , a situation that supplies a genuine 

 demand in the light of which the effort of metaphysics to understand 

 its world seems to possess as high a claim to legitimacy as that of the 

 sciences of phenomena. Let us take our stand with the plain man or 

 the child, within the world of unmodified observation. The things 

 of observation, in this world, are the realities, and at first we may 

 suppose have undergone little reflective transformation. The first re- 

 flective effort to change this world in any way will, no doubt, be an 

 effort to number or count the things that present themselves to observa- 

 tion, and out of this effort will arise the transformation of the world 



