268 MAN AND THE WORLD. 



This choice is decided in favour of the former, 

 not only by the contradictions which the assumption 

 of the ultimate reality of the phenomenal world in- 

 volves {cp, ch. iil. .§§ 2-12, and § 21), but also by the 

 fact that one of the factors in the phenomenal world 

 lays claim to ultimate reality. For each of us is 

 strongly persuaded of the absolute existence of his 

 own self. And the proper inference from this is, 

 not that the phenomenal world exists in an absol- 

 ute Self, but that a transcendent world of ultimate 

 reality corresponds to the reality of the: Self 



Of this existence of ultimate realities outside our- 

 selves we can have no direct proof: there can be 

 no direct disproof of subjective idealism, just as 

 there can be no direct disproof of pessimism. It is 

 sufficient to show that it is practically impossible 

 and absurd, and that its competitor can give an 

 alternative interpretation of the facts, which gives a 

 rational and harmonious solution. And indeed it 

 is a mistake to suppose that all things require to be 

 proved {pp. ch. ii. § 5), for proof is an activity of 

 thought, and thought does not constitute the whole 

 of consciousness. A fact may be as surely attested 

 by feeling or will, as by the most rigorous demon- 

 stration, and ultimately all demonstration rests on 

 such self-evident facts. ^ The existence of a reality 



1 The only alternative to this view of ultimate certainty is that 

 which regards consistency as the basis of proof.. But consistency 

 may mean two very different things. If we mean by it that the 

 premisses of arguments do not contradict one another, and that 

 on the strength of this we can go on proving everything by every- 

 thing else all round, we are surely deluded. For such an argu- 

 ment in a circle is fallacious, as Aristotle pointed out long ago, 

 even though the circle be as large as the universe. If, on the 

 other hand, it means that things are so fitted together as to excite 

 no sense of incongruity, then consistency just describes one of 



