THE DEFENCE 211 



the same results would appear. We should observe the 

 same apparent incompatibilities. They are in the facts. 



Now it may, or it may not, be true that under such 

 circumstances no explanation of the facts is possible, and 

 that we must either say that the world is in itself irrational 

 or that human reason cannot deal with it. I cannot here 

 stop to deal with this question. But the attitude of 

 Idealism towards it is instructive. It contends that if 

 human reason is what it is usually thought to be that is, 

 if its function is that which ordinary logicians say and 

 "plain men" believe, namely, that of abolishing either 

 unity or difference then it can make nothing of facts. 

 The world will not yield its truth, nor will any part of it, 

 if it is attacked by the old method of exclusives. But it is 

 precisely the presupposition of absolute exclusion which 

 Idealism considers false. Whether it can prove its case or 

 not, I do not now enquire ; nor whether the principle and 

 method which it offers itself will ultimately prove more 

 effective. My present task is more simple. It is to point 

 out that Idealism has, in any case, performed one great 

 service, or is, at least, in process of performing it. It is 

 sweeping away the false negations, the empty alternatives, 

 the shallow simplicities of the older abstract theories, which 

 constitute the unconscious philosophy of the ' ' plain man " 

 of Mr. Hobhouse. It is bringing us back to the com- 

 plexities of facts. As if it were heedless whether it can 

 or cannot explain the facts, reconciling the antagonisms 

 and bringing back into intelligible harmony the conflicting 

 phases of human experience, it points out their presence 

 in every department of it. And who will deny that the 

 first, the indispensable step towards comprehending facts 

 is to face them ? 



