THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONS 



Even less plausible is the converse theory of 

 those who hold that reality is knowable. Whereas 

 materialism, to use the old term, teaches that mind 

 is in the brain, idealism, as held by its greatest 

 representative, Bishop Berkeley, teaches that the 

 brain and all else that is not mind are in mind, 

 which is the knowable and only reality. The ul- 

 timate reality is the idea; and as it is assuredly 

 ideas of which we have immediate and unqualified 

 knowledge, reality may be known to us if we will 

 but earnestly pursue it. 



Modern science, however, guided by its most sub- 

 tle and important study, which is that of mind, 

 declares neither for crude realism nor for idealism, 

 but for what we may know as transfigured realism. 

 This teaches that the external world does indeed 

 exist, whether we be there to perceive it or not ; but 

 that our sense-knowledge of it is conditional and 

 qualified by the nature of the sensory process. 

 The most noble presentation of this theory is as- 

 suredly to be found we need not now inquire into 

 its author's own meaning in that moving and 

 memorable fable of Plato, 1 who pictures a group 

 of men doomed forever to sit facing a blank wall, 

 upon which are thrown the shadows of the real, 

 which moves behind them. Might such an one 

 but turn his head for a moment and then resume 

 his doom, could he, like his comrades, remain con- 

 tent with shadows ? Not so ; for to him has been 



1 In the Republic. 

 3 2 9 



