VII 

 REALITY AND IDEALISM 1 



ARGUMENT 



Four questions about Reality (i) how do we come to assert it, (2) its 

 primary character, (3) its criteria, (4) its ultimate character. Epistemo- 

 logical and metaphysical reality. Primarily everything is real, but none 

 of the current criteria for sifting it absolutely trustworthy in theory. 

 Their value is practical, and practical value is really the ultimate 

 criterion. Can we claim speculative value for such a test ? Yes, if the 

 whole process of knowing be conceived as an attempt to render our 

 experience harmonious. At present our success is imperfect, and so 

 divergent views may still be taken of ultimate reality. Hence it is 

 unnecessary to regard the real as a combination of abstract universals, 

 and quite possible to treat a plurality of individual persons as ultimate. 



THE readers of Mr. Ritchie s papers will have learnt by 

 this time that they may expect to be entertained with 

 a clear account of his views, neatly phrased and intelligibly 

 presented, and not disdainful of an occasional touch of 

 humour. And in these respects they will have not been 

 disappointed by his brilliant disquisition on What is 

 Reality ? in the May number of the Philosophical 

 Review. But if they sought fresh light on one of the 

 most puzzling and fundamental of philosophic problems, 

 it is to be feared that they were not equally well satisfied. 

 Mr. Ritchie s paper is polemical rather than investigatory, 

 and he seems more concerned to make dialectical points 

 against his adversaries than to probe his subject to the 

 bottom. And as his adversaries views are very various, 

 and often have little in common but their disagreement 



1 From the Philosophical Review of September 1892. The late Professor D. G. 

 Ritchie, whose premature demise I, in common with all his pupils, have not 

 ceased to deplore, reprinted the article to which this is a reply in a volume ot 

 essays entitled Darwin and Hegel (1893), pp. 77-108. 



no 



