xi ON PRESERVING APPEARANCES 193 



at all, retains its modicum of reality, and remains, from 

 one important point of view, fundamentally real. 



For let us consider how we proceed to ascertain the 

 higher realities which are rashly thought to abrogate the 

 lower. We start, indubitably, with an immediate ex 

 perience of some sort. But we do not rest therein. If 

 we could, there would be no further question. Our 

 immediate experience would suffice ; it would be the sole 

 and complete reality. Appearances would be the reality 

 and reality would truly appear. In heaven, no doubt, 

 such would be the case. But our case, as yet, is different : 

 our experience is woefully discordant and inadequate. In 

 other words, our experience is not that of a perfect world. 

 We are neither disposed, therefore, nor able, to accept it 

 as it appears to be. Its surface-value will not enable us 

 to meet our obligations : we are compelled therefore to 

 discount our immediate experience, to treat it as an 

 appearance of something ulterior which will supplement 

 its deficiency. We move on, therefore, from our starting- 

 point, taking our immediate experience as the symbol 

 which transmits to us the glad tidings of a higher reality, 

 whereof it partly manifests the nature. 



The realities of ordinary life and science, such as the 

 1 external world and the existence of other persons, are all 

 of this secondary order : they rest upon inferences from 

 our immediate experience which have been found to 

 work. 1 They are thus pragmatically true, and the 

 process of reaching them is everywhere the same : 

 we experiment with notions which are suggested to 

 our intelligence by our immediate experience, until we 

 hit upon one which seems to be serviceable for some 

 purpose which engrosses us. We then declare real the 

 conception which serves our purpose, nay more real, 

 because more potent, than the immediate experience for 

 the satisfaction of our desire. Only, as life is complex, 



1 Of course I do not deny, and indeed in a different context I should 

 even insist, that the assumption of these higher realities alters our immediate 

 experience for us. That indeed is the chief proof of their value : assumptions 

 which make no difference are otiose and so invalid. And we should hardly get 

 where we want, if we could not each day start a little higher up, 



O 



