62 The Concept of Method 



us take the case of the other side of the moon, which no one has 

 ever seen. As in the case of the other side of the hill before 

 the common-sense man had stood on its crest and seen what lay 

 beyond him; as in the case of the undiscovered America while 

 the Santa Maria was still out of sight of land, — so here in the 

 case of the moon, who throughout the centuries has never turned 

 her back upon the earth, we have the simplest instance of some- 

 thing of which we can think, and yet of which we can say noth- 

 ing else than that it exists, unless we go beyond our immediate 

 experience and take things on faith, and that is an attitude of 

 which the common-sense man will have none. 



Yet — and here comes the crux of the question — hozv much 

 reality had it for us? Is the mere fact of existence sufficient to 

 make it a real part of our experience and of our activity? What 

 must things possess besides mere existence to be of value in 

 human life and in the development of the individual's experi- 

 ence? It follows from this that there must be three levels of 

 existence, which may be characterised as follows : 



(i) Mere Existence 

 Here we have the simplest form of reality in relation to human 

 experience. Existence is a category of the possibility of experi- 

 ence. It is a significant Form of reality in which the mind or 

 emotions of man must discover the hitherto insignificant content. 

 Reality cannot be conceived of as otherwise than existing either 

 in a world of matter or in a world of ideas. To say that a thing 

 is non-existent is to destroy its reality and render it meaningless 

 except as the negation of a logical concept. Existence therefore 

 means reality for some consciousness ; and in practical experi- 

 ence the mind never rests content with this colourless ineffectual 

 form of reality, but continually strives through its activity to 

 pass onward to the next higher stage. Existence involves some 

 sort of material vXrj, as the basis of human experience. This 

 level necessarily leads to the higher levels of reality. 



(2) Potentiality 



The mind soon discovers that if various phases of reality are 



to form either a stimulus or a basis for its activity, they must 



possess other qualities besides that of mere existence. The fact 



of existence, being a necessary condition of all that comes within 



