66 The Scientific Method. 



with yon, and thereby seem to treat you as real beings, it 

 is only to amuse myself with a conversation which is, in fact, 

 only a soliloquy, just as in dreams I seem to talk with per- 

 sons who seem to be real, yet are nothing but myself in dis- 

 guise. However harsh this conclusion may be, it is the only 

 logical consequence of the fundamental principles of ideal- 

 ism namely, that my knowledge is only my thought, and 

 my ignorance is only my ceasing to think. These principles 

 I apply rigorously to every problem without exception, and 

 therefore I do not hesitate to declare myself a solipsist 

 that is, one who denies all real existence except his own. 

 So long as these principles stand unshaken, it is absurd to 

 call me ignorant merely because I assert that ' the sun do 

 move ' ; for this assertion, being my expressed thought, is a 

 part of my knowledge, not of my ignorance. And you, gen- 

 tlemen phantoms, whom I indulge in this pleasant pastime 

 of calling me ignorant, only betray your own phantasmal 

 and untrustworthy character when you utter that very amus- 

 ing bit of nonsense. Laugh as you may, you can never 

 begin with the principle that knowledge is nothing but 

 thought, and yet end with any other logical conclusion than 

 mine." 



The last word in this instructive controversy, however, 

 lies not with the idealist Jasper, but with his realist critics. 

 The idealist has been at last driven to a frank avowal of 

 solipsism or absolute individualism to a frank confession 

 that he knows nothing but himself and denies the existence 

 of anything but himself. But this is the reduction of ideal- 

 ism itself to glaring absurdity ; for thus idealism denies all 

 universal science, the surest fact of human life, the knowl- 

 edge by all men of a real universe in which the individual is 

 only a part, and a very small part at that. Hence the con- 

 troversy comes to a necessary close in this final response of 

 the critics : 



" We admit your candor, your courage, and your logical 

 consistency, in starting with the principle that knowledge 

 is nothing but your own thought, and ending with the con- 

 clusion that the universe is nothing but yourself. There 

 stands the whole philosophy of idealism, carried out heroic- 

 ally to its only logical completion. But now we join issue 

 on your original first principle. We deny that your knowl- 

 edge is nothing but your individual thought, and your ig- 

 norance nothing but your ceasing to think. Knowledge is 

 thinking rightly, and ignorance is thinking wrongly ; and 



