84 Presidential Address 



psychologists and others, make experi- 

 ments. They can formulate our processes 

 of digestion, and the material concomi- 

 tants of willing, of sensation, of thinking; 

 but the hidden guiding entities they do 

 not touch. 



So also if any philosopher tells you that 

 you do not exist, or that the external 

 world does not exist, or that you are an 

 automaton without free will, that all 

 your actions are determined by outside 

 causes and that you are not responsible, 

 or that a body cannot move out of its 

 place, or that Achilles cannot catch a 

 tortoise, then in all those cases appeal 

 must be made to twelve average men, 

 unsophisticated by special studies. There 

 is always a danger of error in interpreting 

 experience, or in drawing inferences from 

 it; but in a matter of bare fact, based on 

 our own first-hand experience, we are 

 able to give a verdict. We may be mis- 

 taken as to the nature of what we see; 

 stars may look to us like bright specks in 

 a dome; but the fact that we see them 

 admits of no doubt. So also Conscious- 



