So SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY 



all logical grounds for supposing the world of sense to be 

 illusory disappear. If this is to be supposed, it must be 

 frankly and simply on the ground of mystic insight 

 unsupported by argument. It is impossible to argue 

 against what professes to be insight, so long as it does not 

 argue in its own favour. As logicians, therefore, we may 

 admit the possibility of the mystic's world, while yet, so 

 long as we do not have his insight, we must continue to 

 study the everyday world with which we are familiar. 

 But when he contends that our world is impossible, then 

 our logic is ready to repel his attack. And the first 

 step in creating the logic which is to perform this service 

 is the recognition of the reality of relations. 



Relations which have two terms are only one kind of 

 relations. A relation may have three terms, or four, or 

 any number. Relations of two terms, being the simplest, 

 have received more attention than the others, and have 

 generally been alone considered by philosophers, both 

 those who accepted and those who denied the reality of 

 relations. But other relations have their importance, and 

 are indispensable in the solution of certain problems. 

 Jealousy, for example, is a relation between three people. 

 Professor Royce mentions the relation "giving": when 

 A gives B to C, that is a relation of three terms. 1 When 

 a man says to his wife : " My dear, I wish you could 

 induce Angelina to accept Edwin," his wish constitutes 

 a relation between four people, himself, his wife, Angelina, 

 and Edwin. Thus such relations are by no means 

 recondite or rare. But in order to explain exactly how 

 they differ from relations of two terms, we must embark 

 upon a classification of the logical forms of facts, which is 

 the first business of logic, and the business in which the 

 traditional logic has been most deficient. 



1 Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, vol. i. p. 97. 



