io HUMANISM i 



Pure intellection is not a fact in nature ; it is a logical 

 fiction which will not really answer even for the purposes 

 of technical logic. In reality our knowing is driven and 

 guided at every step by our subjective interests and 

 preferences, our desires, our needs and our ends. These 

 form the motive powers also of our intellectual life. 



Now what is the bearing of this fact on the traditional 

 dogma of an absolute truth and ultimate reality existing 

 for themselves apart from human agency ? It would 

 utterly debar us from the cognition of Reality as it is in 

 itself and apart from our interests if such a thing there 

 were. 



For our interests impose the conditions under which 

 alone Reality can be revealed. Only such aspects of 

 Reality can be revealed as are not merely knowable but 

 as are objects of an actual desire, and consequent attempt, 

 to know. All other realities or aspects of Reality, which 

 there is no attempt to know, necessarily remain unknown, 

 and for us unreal, because there is no one to look for 

 them. Reality, therefore, and the knowledge thereof, 

 essentially presuppose a definitely directed effort to 

 know. And, like other efforts, this effort is purposive ; 

 it is necessarily inspired by the conception of some good 

 at which it aims. Neither the question of Fact, therefore, 

 nor the question of Knoivledge can be raised without 

 raising also the question of Value. Our Facts when 

 analysed turn out to be Values, and the conception of 

 Value therefore becomes more ultimate than that of 

 Fact. Our valuations thus pervade our whole experience, 

 and affect whatever fact, whatever knowledge we 

 consent to recognise. If, then, there is no knowing without 

 valuing, if knowledge is a form of Value, or, in other 

 words, a factor in a Good, Lotze s anticipation x has 

 been fully realised, and the foundations of metaphysics 

 have actually been found to lie in ethics. 



In this way the ultimate question for philosophy 

 becomes What is Reality for one aiming at knowing 

 what ? Real means, real for what purpose ? to what 



1 Metaphysics (Eng. Tr. ), ii. p. 319. 



