BELIEFS AND EXISTENCES 171 



in a mechanical or logical or psychological sense. 

 &quot; Reality &quot; naturally instigates belief. It ap 

 praises itself and through this self-appraisal man 

 ages its affairs. As things are surcharged valua 

 tions, so &quot; consciousness &quot; means ways of believing 

 and disbelieving. It is interpretation ; not merely 

 existence aware of itself as fact, but existence dis 

 cerning, judging itself, approving and disapprov 

 ing. 



This double outlook and connection of belief, its 

 implication, on one side, with beings who suffer 

 and endeavor, and, its complication on the other, 

 with the meanings and worths of things, is its glory 

 or its unpardonable sin. We cannot keep con 

 nection on one side and throw it away on the 

 other. We cannot preserve significance and de 

 cline the personal attitude in which it is inscribed 

 and operative, any more than we can succeed in 

 making things &quot; states &quot; of a &quot; consciousness &quot; 

 whose business is to be an interpretation of things. 

 Beliefs are personal affairs, and personal affairs 

 are adventures, and adventures are, if you please, 

 shady. But equally discredited, then, is the uni 

 verse of meanings. For the world has meaning 

 as somebody s, somebody s at a juncture, taken for 

 better or worse, and you shall not have completed 

 your metaphysics till you have told whose world 

 is meant and how and what for in what bias and 

 to what effect. Here is a cake that is had only 



