2 THE WOKLD-ENEKGY 



From the confidence with which this rule has com- 

 monly been urged, it would seem that there could be 

 no question as to the precision and adequacy of its sig- 

 nificance. And yet it can require no very prolonged or 

 very profound reflection to discover that if a fact is to 

 be truly a fact for us, it must first be subjected to 

 interpretation by us. We can never know a fact until 

 we have given it some sort of interpretation. And our 

 knowledge of the fact will depend, for its completeness,, 

 precisely upon the adequacy of our interpretation. 



But "interpretation" is substantially the construction 

 of a "theory." For theory is primarily just a look- 

 ing-at or contemplation, which in turn unfolds into a 

 conviction of the mind requiring nothing but conscious 

 formulation to render it clearly recognizable as a "theory," 

 in the ordinary sense of the term. Hence a fact becomes 

 real and trustworthy as a fact to us, only in so far as we 

 have formed a theory concerning it. 



It appears then, that, in our experience, "facts," 

 without theories, are just as empty and worthless as are 

 theories without facts. Or rather, it would agree with 

 the truth still more precisely to say that, so far as the 

 experience of any thinking being is concerned, it is 

 impossible that there should be any such thing, either 

 as a fact without a theory or a theory without a fact. 

 The fact may be misapprehended that is, misinter- 

 preted but it does not become a fact at all for the indi- 

 vidual otherwise than through his giving it his interpre- 

 tation, however distorted the interpretation may be. 



Thus it can become a fact in its truth for him only 

 in so far as he gives it a true interpretation, only in so 

 far as he forms a rational theory concerning it. And 



