SIGNIFICANCE AND VALUES 331 



fundamental are essential properties of consciousness or 

 have been evolved through interplay with the external 

 world. In that case the values given by mind to the 

 external world have originally come to it from the 

 external world-stuff. Such a tossing to and fro of values 

 is, I think, not foreign to our view that the world-stuff 

 behind the pointer readings is of nature continuous with 

 the mind. 



In viewing the world in a practical way values for 

 normal human consciousness may be taken as standard. 

 But the evident possibility of arbitrariness in this 

 valuation sets us hankering after a standard that could 

 be considered final and absolute. We have two alter- 

 natives. Either there are no absolute values, so that the 

 sanctions of the inward monitor in our consciousness are 

 the final court of appeal beyonu which it is idle to in- 

 quire. Or there are absolute values; then we can only 

 trust optimistically that our values are some pale 

 reflection of those of the Absolute Valuer, or that we 

 have insight into the mind of the Absolute from whence 

 come those strivings and sanctions whose authority we 

 usually forbear to question. 



I have naturally tried to make the outlook reached in 

 these lectures as coherent as possible, but I should not 

 be greatly concerned if under the shafts of criticism it 

 becomes very ragged. Coherency goes with finality; 

 and the anxious question is whether our arguments have 

 begun right rather than whether^ they have had the good 

 fortune to end right. The leading points which have 

 seemed to me to deserve philosophic consideration may 

 be summarised as follows: 



(1) The symbolic nature of the entities of physics 

 is generally recognised; and the scheme of physics is 

 now formulated in such a way as to make it almost 



