THE NATURE OF REALITY 441 



tendency in any explanatory act for the explaining entity 

 to assume greater importance than the explained entity. 

 Explaining is almost always assumed to be equivalent to 

 explaining away. When heat has been explained in terms of 

 molecular motion there seems to be no further occasion to 

 refer to heat since the molecules have taken its place; hence 

 heat is put into a subjective realm, or a realm of appearance, 

 and the molecules are located in the "real" world. That 

 which is logically more basic seems necessarily more funda- 

 mental in the structure of the world; consequently it tends 

 to displace that which is psychologically more primitive. 

 The most real aspect of the world then becomes not that 

 which is most obviously given, but that from which the given 

 can be derived by logical processes. The given then becomes 

 appearance, and the logically basic becomes reality. It is 

 only in this sense that the speculative problem may be said 

 to be a search for reality. In each case there is a search for 

 something beyond the obviously given in terms of which it 

 may be rendered intelligible. When this has been found, 

 and when it has been shown to explain the given, it takes on 

 a greater importance than the given and becomes thereby 

 more real. Nothing of a more metaphysical character should 

 be attributed to the word "real" than this. 



The third feature of the speculative problem is the religious 

 tinge which is commonly given to it. The "reality " which is 

 found is frequently identified with the God of the religious 

 experience. The reasons for this identification are well 

 recognized, and probably, in ^ome sense, justify it. But 

 this close association of an emotional ideal with a more or 

 less rational hypothesis results in a certain amount of con- 

 fusion. It turns out, more often than not, that the essential 

 grounds for inference to a realm "behind" the given are 

 not the feature of science to which acknowledgment is made 

 but a much more subtle intuitive or mystic experience. As 

 a result the problem is not one of inferring to a realm of 

 reality but rather one of reconciling the facts of science 

 with the information disclosed by the emotional experience. 



