64 TWO THEORIES OP KNOWLEDGE 



follow the progress of the battle, but the battle 

 is something other than a cloud of smoke. 



We are, as Plato told us in his famous allegory, 

 like prisoners in a cave our attitude averted from 

 the aperture, and it is only by the shadows cast upon 

 the cavern wall that we can interpret the events 

 which are transacting themselves outside. 



In one sense, therefore, the whole sensible and 

 spatial World is real. At least it is actual ; and it 

 affords us the materials from which we construct 

 our scheme of phenomena, and by which the kinetic 

 process of Reality is denoted and conceived. 



The question ever and anon occurs to us How 

 upon this view can we solve the problem of tran- 

 scendence ? How even on this view of the case do we 

 manage to get beyond ourselves ? How are we 

 in any way helped thereto by the fact that Reality 

 consists in potent action rather than in Sensation ? 



Again, the answer is significant. In action, that 

 is, in exertional action, we are really part of a 

 larger whole. Our exertional action is ab initio 

 mingled in and forms really an integral part of the 

 dynamic system in which our life is involved. The 

 ever operative forces of Gravity, Cohesion, Chemical 

 Affinity, and so forth are the phenomenal expression 

 of the laws of energetic transmutation in which we 

 partake and of which we are organically a part, 



