WHAT IS MEANT BY PHILOSOPHY? 



Now all men have at one time in their mental 

 development tacitly accepted the theory which 

 we may call unqualified realism; and, in point of 

 fact, it is only the very few who do not accept it 

 without any question from first to last. According 

 to this theory, which any plebiscite in any age or 

 place would approve, things are what they seem 

 a table is simply a table. There can be no doubt 

 about it. Behold it a hard, flat, wooden object, 

 supported upon four legs. Room for refinement 

 or argument there is none: no sane man say 

 realism and its countless adherents can possibly 

 dispute the unequivocal evidence of his senses. 

 There can be no use in discussing the nature and 

 conditions of human knowledge in such a con- 

 nection as this. The man who would dispute that 

 a table is precisely what it appears to be can never 

 have seen a table or must be moon-struck and 

 outside serious consideration, save as a pathological 

 product. 



If this is so, then science, which deals with tables 

 and stars and plants and rocks and other material 

 objects, is not subject to any necessary limitations. 

 The eye may be short-sighted, but the telescope 

 will remedy that. The sense of touch may be 

 coarse, but the scales will do its weighing for it. 

 We have merely to invent suitable instruments for 

 reinforcing and supplementing our senses and all 

 may be known if we persevere. As for Reality 

 well, the capital letter is misplaced : what could more 

 palpably be a solid chunk of Reality than a table ? 

 35 



