perience experiences two things, one of which is a non-mental ob- 

 ject, it would yet be utterly impossible for him to observe likewise 

 that the non-mental object exists as perceived, or in any other 

 supposed manner, by itself before and after it is known. Such an 

 hypothesis can never in any way be proved, and yet, upon that 

 hypothesis, the whole fabric of neo-realism rests. 



If it be said that it is only by such an assumption that the nature 

 of our scientific knowledge can be explained, then all one asks is 

 that that statement be proved. And to do that requires that the 

 operations of knowledge be first thoroughly investigated without 

 assumption or presupposition. After such an investigation, one 

 may then, if necessary, legitimately make use of theory or hypo- 

 thesis without incurring the danger of having one's whole investiga- 

 tion vitiated by preliminary suppositions. Even before this analy- 

 sis is made and at the risk, therefore, of being himself charged with 

 dogmatism, one may, nevertheless, venture the statement that 

 the neo-realistic conception of an independently existing real world 

 can never be a tenable theory simply because such a world must 

 itself be a product of thinking, and, as such, can never transcend 

 all thought. It may nevertheless be necessary for the complete 

 understanding of the facts of science and morals and religion to 

 posit objects which transcend sense experience, and such objects 

 might then quite properly be called transcendent; but it must not be 

 supposed that they would transcend all experience, all thought. 

 They would be in no sense extra-mental, whatever that can mean, 

 and it would become a genuine problem to determine more fully 

 the nature and relations of such transcendents. 



The history of these recent developments, and indeed the whole 

 history of philosophy teaches us this important lesson, any system 

 of philosophy to be adequate and to be scientific must build upon 

 the solid foundation of fact. And this recalls the conception of 

 philosophy which, in an earlier chapter, resulted from our survey of 

 the first great philosophers. Philosophy was there defined as the 

 scientific attempt to form a world-view which gives a rightful place 

 to all the known facts. It Is the attempt to give a view of the world, 

 but a view which has as its task that of coordinating into a system 

 the stock-in-trade of the sciences, i.e., their data, as well as the 

 operations of the sciences. Such a system must have within it the 



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