TEE WORLD VERSUS MATTER 273 



ist; or, as I prefer, natural historian. This means a descent from the 

 dizzy perch of " the world " to the humble, particular things of which 

 the world is composed. Or, expressed in the vernacular, it means 

 " coming down to brass tacks." Exactly ! Imagine, if you will, a rep- 

 resentative emotional naturalist, a representative realist in art, a rep- 

 resentative humanitarian religionist, a representative ascetic religionist, 

 a representative "man of the world," a representative subjective ideal- 

 ist, and representatives of as many other types of world-viewing as you 

 like, each one taking his turn in stepping, barefoot, on the upturned 

 point of a brass tack. Is there anything in the result upon which they 

 all agree? Note particularly that I do not ask, "Is there anything 

 in the result about which they, or some of them, disagree?" Almost 

 certainly there will be disagreement as to some of the details of the re- 

 sult; but these disagreements will not invalidate nor make meaningless 

 the points on which they do agree. Very well, then, as to this experi- 

 ment the general conclusion is that brass tacks are neither totally dif- 

 ferent nor absolutely alike, as interpreted by these several observers. 



You will not miss my point: This rosebush in the front yard, that 

 house across the street — is there the slightest disagreement among us, 

 no matter how divergent our points of view, my ten-year-old boy friend, 

 my man-of-the-world friend, my subjective-idealist friend, my artist 

 friend, my Christian science friend, and all the rest, that this is a rose- 

 bush, and that that is a house? Does any one hedge or qualify in 

 answering ? Is or is not this a big rock on which we sit, an automobile 

 in which we ride ? Imagine yourselves, each one of you, under demand 

 to choose in just three seconds between an unqualified "yes" and an 

 unqualified " no " as an answer, the demand being backed up by a 

 Winchester rifle leveled at your head. The first point to be gained in 

 this is to see whether you will or will not make the choice, not to find 

 what the choice will be. Either the "yes" or the "no" will save your 

 life. What the demander is after is to find, first of all, whether or not 

 you can choose instantly, when the issue is one of life or death. Having 

 decided that, the question of what the choice is, is greatly interesting. 

 Do you doubt that you would choose? And do you doubt that the 

 " ayes would have it " unanimously ? There is then, is there not, some- 

 thing about the world on which we can all agree ? Is there not, in fact, 

 a great deal about it on which we can agree when we come down to 

 "brass tacks"; that is when common sense is appealed to, and life or 

 death the issue ? 



I am speaking under the auspices of a scientific society to a more or 

 less general audience. The occasion seems fitting, therefore, to raise the 

 question as to what science is doing and may do toward finding what is 

 solid in the world for all mankind — ground on which all may stand with 

 equal unobstructedness of view for looking at the vast complex of things 



vol. lxxxiv. — 19. 



