288 REALITY 



and all that is reached by it are of worth in the eyes of 

 an Absolute Valuer. 



Whatever justification at the source we accept to 

 vindicate the reality of the external world, it can scarcely 

 fail to admit on the same footing much that is outside 

 physical science. Although no long chains of regularised 

 inference depend from them we recognise that other 

 fibres of our being extend in directions away from 

 sense-impressions. I am not greatly concerned to borrow 

 words like "existence" and "reality" to crown these 

 other departments of the soul's interest. I would rather 

 put it that any raising of the question of reality in its 

 transcendental sense (whether the question emanates 

 from the world of physics or not) leads us to a perspective 

 from which we see man not as a bundle of sensory 

 impressions, but conscious of purpose and responsi- 

 bilities to which the external world is subordinate. 



From this perspective we recognise a spiritual world 

 alongside the physical world. Experience — that is to 

 say, the self cum environment — comprises more than 

 can be embraced in the physical world, restricted as it 

 is to a complex of metrical symbols. The physical world 

 is, we have seen, the answer to one definite and urgent 

 problem arising in a survey of experience; and no other 

 problem has been followed up with anything like the 

 same precision and elaboration. Progress towards an 

 understanding of the non-sensory constituents of our 

 nature is not likely to follow similar lines, and indeed 

 is not animated by the same aims. If it is felt that this 

 difference is so wide that the phrase spiritual world is a 

 misleading analogy, I will not insist on the term. All 

 I would claim is that those who in the search for truth 

 start from consciousness as a seat of self-knowledge with 

 interests and responsibilities not confined to the material 



