254 HUMANISM 



XIV 



modern philosophy), Fichte and Lotze (because they were 

 German idealists), all personal idealists, pragmatists and 

 humanists en bloc and as a matter of course, and last, but 

 not least, Dr. Rashdall, who was even said to be the 

 typical solipsist. Evidently, if these voces populi are to be 

 believed, the solipsists are a very formidable band, both 

 here and in Hades. On the other hand some may 

 perversely think that these dicta are not so much con 

 tributions to the history of philosophy as reflections upon 

 the way this subject is taught in Oxford. 



5. Still Solipsism is strangely insinuating, beyond 

 doubt, and, especially when disguised as Crypto-Solipsism, 

 worms its way into the most unlikely places. It has for 

 example a curious affinity for the New Realism. To 

 illustrate this it will happily not be necessary to examine 

 all the New Realisms seriatim ; for their name is legion, 

 and they agree in little but this that none of them can 

 find any obvious escape from the old difficulties of the 

 Old Realism. It will suffice therefore if we try to under 

 stand the reason of this affinity, and then trace its working 

 in two or three of the most notable brands of New 

 Realism. 



To attribute solipsistic leanings to New Realisms seems 

 at first a paradox which is not adequately vindicated by 

 the common experience of the meeting of extremes. 

 But there are in this case real logical grounds for the 

 coincidence. The New Realist gets so absorbed in his 

 object that he entirely neglects his subject, and so is not 

 on his guard against his own subjectivity. Hence his 

 account of the Real becomes de facto his own private 

 view of it, which cannot be accommodated to any one 

 else s and is at bottom a fabrication of his own idio 

 syncrasy. Thus Solipsism finds it easy to enter into New 

 Realisms and to possess them in at least four distinct ways. 



(i) New Realisms are mostly uncritical because they 

 are so unpsychological. Despising the study of the 

 history and pedigree of mind, the New Realist accepts as 

 real whatever he thinks he perceives, without inquiring as 

 to how he came to perceive it. Consequently he is hardly 



