THE EXTERNAL WORLD 93 



intervening medium. The aspects of a thing in different 

 perspectives are to be conceived as spreading outwards 

 from the place where the thing is, and undergoing various 

 changes as they get further away from this place. The 

 laws according to which they change cannot be stated if 

 we only take account of the aspects that are near the 

 thing, but require that we should also take account of the 

 things that are at the places from which these aspects 

 appear. This empirical fact can, therefore, be interpreted 

 in terms of our construction. 



We have now constructed a largely hypothetical picture 

 of the world, which contains and places the experienced 

 facts, including those derived from testimony. The 

 world we have constructed can, with a certain amount of 

 trouble, be used to interpret the crude facts of sense, the 

 facts of physics, and the facts of physiology. It is there- 

 fore a world which may be actual. It fits the facts, and 

 there is no empirical evidence against it ; it also is free 

 from logical impossibilities. But have we any good 

 reason to suppose that it is real ? This brings us back 

 to our original problem, as to the grounds for believing 

 in the existence of anything outside my private world. 

 What we have derived from our hypothetical construction 

 is that there are no grounds against the truth of this 

 belief, but we have not derived any positive grounds in 

 its favour. We will resume this inquiry by taking up 

 again the question of testimony and the evidence for the 

 existence of other minds. 



It must be conceded to begin with that the argument 

 in favour of the existence of other people's minds cannot 

 be conclusive. A phantasm of our dreams will appear 

 to have a mind a mind to be annoying, as a rule. It 

 will give unexpected answers, refuse to conform to our 

 desires, and show all those other signs of intelligence to 



