260 HUMANISM 



XIV 



human science can express them ; yet they may still be 

 worlds apart in their attitude towards them. What the 

 one hails with joy, the other may recoil from with abhor 

 rence. For example, one may worship the syllogism, and 

 another despise it, though both may agree upon the 

 perfection of its form. One man may shrink from 

 immortality, another from extinction. To one the belief 

 that all is one may be an inspiring gospel, to another the 

 paralysis of all effort and the grave of all interest in life. 

 Does it not seem piteously inadequate, then, to decree all 

 such differences out of existence by calling them differ 

 ences of opinion, proving only that there is no Knowledge 

 of the matters they concern ? Moreover it is vain ; for 

 men differ as to the truth about all things (even about 

 mathematics so soon as one gets beyond the merest 

 verbal trifling), 1 and differ most signally about the matters 

 of the highest import, such as God, Freedom and Im 

 mortality, and the meaning and value of life. This New 

 Realism, therefore, has either to confine itself to the 

 abstract enunciation of the veriest platitudes, such as 

 that everything either is or is not, though no one can 

 tell which, or to exclude from the realm of knowledge 

 proper everything that is really important and therefore 

 in dispute, and to assume an agnostic attitude on such 

 questions as, e.g., whether God exists and the like. 



Hence once more a great temptation comes upon the 

 New Realist. He could treat the whole body of his own 

 opinions as Knowledge, if only he could suppress the 

 pestilent opinions that conflict with his. This be could 

 do in two ways, either practically or theoretically. Of 

 these the practical way would doubtless be preferable in 

 itself, were it not impracticable ; however much he may 

 desire to produce unanimity by the old effective methods, 

 ruthless persecution for the sake of establishing a philo- 



1 Nay, Prof. Poincare&quot; has recently declared (1912) that the difference between 

 the pragmatist, and the Cantorian attitude in mathematics is theoretically in 

 soluble, because it proceeds from a difference in mental type. As, however, it is 

 part of the pragmatists case that such differences exist, and can only be evaluated 

 practically, this is in effect a verdict in their favour. Cp. Studies in Humanism, 

 ch. xii. 10. 



