i ETHICAL BASIS OF METAPHYSICS 9 



r 



said to assign metaphysical validity to the typical method 

 of ethics. At a blow it awards to the ethical conception 

 of Good supreme authority over the logical conception of 

 True and the metaphysical conception of Real. The 

 Good becomes a determinant both of the True and of the 

 Real. For from the pursuit of the latter we may never 

 eliminate the reference to the former. Our apprehension 

 of the Real, our comprehension of the True, is always 

 effected by beings who are aiming at the attainment of 

 some Good, and it seems a palpable absurdity to deny 

 that this fact makes a stupendous difference. 



I should confidently claim, therefore, that by Prag 

 matism a further step has been taken in the analysis of 

 our experience which amounts to an important advance in 

 that self-knowledge on which our knowledge of the world 

 depends. Indeed, this advance seems to me to be of a 

 magnitude comparable with, and no less momentous than, 

 that which gave to the epistemological question priority 

 over the ontological. 



It is generally recognised as the capital achievement 

 of modern philosophy to have perceived that a solution 

 of the ontological question What is Reality? is not 

 possible until it has been decided how Reality can come 

 within our ken. Before there can be a real for us at all, 

 the Real must be knowable, and the notion of an un 

 knowable reality is useless, because it abolishes itself. 

 The true formulation therefore of the ultimate question of 

 metaphysics must become What can I know as real? 

 And thus the effect of what Kant called the Copernican 

 revolution in philosophy is that ontology, the theory of 

 Reality, comes to be conditioned by epistemology, the 

 theory of our knowledge. 



But this truth is incomplete until we realise all that is 

 involved in the knowledge being ours and recognise the 

 real nature of our knowing. Our knowing is not the 

 mechanical operation of a passionless pure intellect, 

 which 



Grinds out Good and grinds out 111, 

 And has no purpose, heart, or will. 



