xiv SOLIPSISM 267 



their own ; and besides the subject is too recent, too 

 sensational, and above all too psychological, to appeal to 

 them. 



For a philosophy, however, which is content to stop 

 short at the theoretic level there is no other way of 

 refuting the Solipsism which we have described. But 

 for a philosophy which insists that theoretic doctrines 

 must be capable of application to practice the last word 

 is not yet said. It will fasten on the very feature in this 

 Solipsism which exempted it from theoretic refutation, 

 and justify thereby its final condemnation. A Solipsism, 

 it will say, which must in practice recognize other minds 

 and acts as if they were real and makes no practical 

 difference in the solipsist s behaviour, does not logically 

 differ from the view it simulates in practice. 



On pragmatic principles this objection seems sound and 

 insuperable. If a solipsism admits that it must in practice 

 behave as if other beings were real, then it has plainly 

 passed into its other, and can no longer boast of a separate 

 existence : it has suffered the same fate as an offensive 

 ghost which, according to Plutarch, once made itself a 

 nuisance in the Plataean territory. When it declined to 

 yield to entreaty or exorcism, the Plataeans simply caused 

 an image of it to be placed over the spot it haunted, and 

 then, though no doubt it continued to occupy the same 

 space, it was no longer a supernatural, but merely an 

 aesthetic, eyesore a. hideous statue being something 

 wholly natural. To any solipsism, on the other hand, 

 which will not in practice admit the existence of other 

 minds, the sufficient reply is that it is impracticable. And 

 the fact that neither of these retorts constitutes a con 

 clusive refutation of Solipsism in the eyes of philosophies 

 which have assumed a different conception of the relation 

 of theory to practice, leaves Solipsism a thorn in the flesh 

 (or perhaps a squib in the vitals) only of those other 

 philosophies. 



