S6 :SCEPTICISM. 



we were confined, for ihe symbols of our thought 

 cannot Interpret reaHty. This Is not only, as has 

 been shown, an Inevitable result of the different 

 natures of thought and feeling, but It Is confirmed 

 by the character of all our knowledge. For all our 

 knowledge, every statement about the world which 

 can possibly be made, deals with realities In terms 

 of thought, states facts In terms of thought-relations. 

 But these thought-relations are not facts, and dis- 

 aster swiftly overtakes the attempt to treat them 

 as such. For in the first place things cannot be 

 analysed Into thought-relations ,; one may make any 

 number of statements about a thing and yet never 

 be assured that all has been stated that could be 

 said about the thing. In other words, any real 

 thing possesses an infinity of content, which no 

 amount of thought-relations can exhaust. 



But what is this but an Indirect admission that 

 the analysis of things in terms of thought has failed ; 

 just as the Infinite regress of causes was -an Indic- 

 ation that the category of causation had broken 

 down (§ ii) ? 



And, secondly, even if we supposed that the 

 whole meaning <of a thing could be stated by our 

 thought, even so, things would not be complexes 

 of thought-relations. For our statements would 

 remain a series of propositions adozi^ the thing, 

 which would for ever fail to make or de the thing. 

 They would remain a series to be discursively 

 apprehended, unable again to coalesce "Into a real 

 whole. And thus every attempt to symbolize feeling 

 in terms of thought is not merely misrepresentation, 

 but futile misrepresentation, which does not In the 

 end succeed in Its endeavour. 



§ 17. But this divorce of Truth and Fact, this 



