xiv SOLIPSISM 265 



postulate than that it seems to provide a congenial and 

 adequate way of handling the facts of human experience. 

 If that experience should alter, it admits that it might be 

 necessary to revise our postulates. But while it endures 

 as it is, a successful postulate is as true and as reasonable 

 as truth can be. 



But does not this concede too much and admit that a 

 reasonable Solipsism also may be possible ? To deny 

 this possibility a priori would be to deny that there may 

 be legitimate differences of opinion, conditioned by the 

 deep-seated differences of human personalities. It would 

 imply a relapse into that absolutistic intolerance, which 

 has provoked so many inhuman attempts to reduce all 

 thought to the level of a mechanical uniformity, and 

 renders the pretensions of metaphysical system-mongers 

 so ludicrous a series of failures. It does not follow then 

 from the fact that Solipsism may reasonably be denied 

 that it may not reasonably be upheld. This latter con 

 tention therefore demands distinct examination. 



(2) If the belief in other minds is a postulate, any one 

 may, if he chooses, try to dispense with it. But he still 

 remains under the obligation of devising an alternative 

 scheme for the conduct of his life. Let him, therefore, 

 try. His position is that his whole experience is like a 

 dream, and he interprets his waking experience by his 

 dream experience, instead of vice versa, like the generality 

 of men. He believes that he makes his dream and all 

 the creatures in it, and this belief he extends to all the 

 incidents of his life. 



There seems to be nothing theoretically absurd or 

 untenable about such Solipsism : it may even claim the 

 merit of greater consistency as compared with the vulgar 

 view that interprets solipsistically dreams alone. 1 But 

 the solipsist would have of course to adapt his theory 

 somehow to his practice. He must not for example be 

 led to imagine that because life was a dream of his, he 

 could know beforehand how the dream was going. For 

 if he imagined this, events would soon refute his theory. 



1 Cp. Studies in Humanism, ch. xx. 16-18. 



