240 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



But what now shall we say of the doctrine, that reality is to 

 be identified with the immediate? Surely if immediatism means 

 that all things are what they are experienced as, then it is not 

 true to say that all things as they are experienced are real; for 

 they are not experienced as real. The doctrine of immediatism 

 can no more legitimately supply a definition of reality than it can, 

 for example, of causality. All it can with any semblance of 

 consistency claim to offer is a method for discovering either. If 

 as immediatists we would discover the nature of reality, we must, 

 in Professor Dewey s words, go to experience and see what it is 

 experienced as; and, still imitating his language, one may say 

 that this would be found no short and easy method. 



It is not my purpose, however, simply to convict immediatism 

 of self-contradiction. Let it be admitted for argument s sake 

 that the self-contradiction just pointed out is merely verbal, and 

 that, in Professor Dewey s thought, the term reality is used 

 as synonymous with things as immediately experienced ; and 

 let us consider on its own merits the doctrine that things are 

 what they are experienced as. No difficulty may, at first sight, 

 seem to arise, so long as we consider experiences of particular 

 things. The noise which alarms us in the night is a fearsome 

 thing; and, when later we find it to be caused by the wind, it is, 

 again, a harmless thing. So the horse we use for our afternoon 

 drive is the means of relief from the pressure of the day s cares; 

 although later, when we learn that it grows frantic with fear 

 when it meets a motor-car, it becomes no longer a means of 

 recreation but an unwelcome responsibility. So far we may per 

 haps follow the immediatist dictum, that things are what they 

 are experienced as. But suppose the case in point be the nature 

 of some universal ; say, for instance, the universal horse. What 

 is horse experienced as? How, in general terms, can the im 

 mediatist describe the difference between the experience of a 

 universal and that of a particular? The discussions of imme 

 diatism by Professor Dewey have given me no material help 

 toward an answer to this question. In regard to one universal, 7 



