48 THE MISUSE OF METAPHORS IN 



We are thinking in metaphors and passing counters for true 

 coin. It is assumed that character and environment are 

 separate things, acting and reacting upon each other like 

 impinging natural objects. The relation between man and 

 his world is treated precisely as if it were a relation between 

 two physical things, in spite of all the accent that modern 

 thought has laid on the fact that man is a subject, that his 

 self and his world exist only in their mutual relation, and 

 that they interpenetrate so as to constitute in truth but 

 one fact. In a word, the old error persists in this new 

 science. It is not realised that nothing which man does 

 can be explained from the point of view of " either," " or," 

 not the making of a simple judgment, such as "The 

 grass is green," far less the building of character, or of 

 society, which is the greatest and most complex of his 

 achievements. 



The truth is that man does nothing by himself ; for he 

 is nothing by himself. He is, in fact, only another name 

 for his world. What we call character from one point of 

 view, we call environment from another. Character and 

 environment are not even separate elements, far less 

 are they independent, isolated, externally interacting 

 objects. 



Now, such a doctrine may seem to be a mere paradox, 

 and merely to confuse differences : it is the Hegelian 

 "theory of the altogetherness of everything." For is it 

 not evident that the "self" is here, and the " world " there, 

 and is not the distinction between them the deepest known ? 

 And does not the obliteration of this distinction destroy the 

 very principle of freedom on which the possibility of char- 

 acter rests? What remains on such a view except either 

 the naturalisation of man or the spiritualisation of nature ? 



