268 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



explained as arising from confusion and mutual misunder- 

 standings. In the case of the good, for example, it is 

 suggested that people are really agreed about ultimate ends, 

 but differ as to means, while misunderstanding on the ulti- 

 mate question arises from the confusion of means and ends. 

 But the admission of such confusion is fatal to the inherent 

 sufficiency of self-evidence. It may be that there is always 

 a kernel of truth within the husk, but if so, we must be 

 sure that we have stripped off all the husk before we pro- 

 claim our certainty. That is to say, our axiom must be 

 subject to criticism, and criticism means comparison and 

 interconnection with other judgments, other data of experi- 

 ence or products of thought. We can no longer take the 

 self-evident as an isolated datum. We have to treat it as 

 part of a comprehensive system of thought wherein it may 

 undergo correction. 



The difficulty that appears in this view is that we seem 

 to have no fixed starting-point or given basis for the opera- 

 tions of thought. Instead of being furnished with first 

 principles, which we can apply without any shade of doubt, 

 we have to build up our principles as we go along, and it 

 is hard to see how, in so doing, we can escape a vicious 

 circle. If, however, we analyse the conception of ration- 

 ality more closely, we shall see that on the one hand it 

 excludes the notion of an axiom detached from those forms 

 of connection with the totality of experience which consti- 

 tute proof and explanation, while on the other it enables 

 us to understand how our thought-system takes gradual 

 shape by the mutual determination of its parts rather than 

 by crystallisation around a core of unchanging principle. 

 To understand this result, let us conceive the rational prin- 

 ciple at work on a limited scale. Let us suppose that we form 

 a judgment, no matter what or how, so that it be a genuine 

 thought, asserting, let us say, some relation between two 

 terms, and held with a certain degree of assurance or con- 

 viction. Now, if we are asked for a reason or ground for 

 this judgment, we naturally look to some further thought 

 or some further experience that can be rendered in thought. 

 We do that alike whether we wish to prove the original 

 judgment or to explain the relation which it asserts. Proof 



