PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS 233 



persons is evidence of its validity. We no longer suppose 

 what is " believed always, everywhere, and by all" to be 

 true merely because of its wide acceptance, as was once the 

 case; for all may labor under similar delusions and thus hold 

 the same false belief. It means that facts, which have been 

 established by individuals competent in particular instances, 

 remain constant, that is to say common, for other trained 

 minds that examine the phenomena. The difference between 

 this species of commonness and that supposed to be obtained 

 by the esoteric insight of mysticism is that it rests upon 

 sense-impressions, and not upon states which are purely 

 subjective, and therefore individualistic. When these 

 sense-impressions are sufficiently checked, common con- 

 clusions follow. But this does not mean that later sense- 

 impressions of another sort may not alter these conclusions 

 in the future. 



The question as to who are the normal individuals also 

 arises. To this one can only reply that the normal man is, 

 like the average man a creation of the mind. Every individ- 

 ual has his abnormalities and his incompetencies, the sub- 

 jective feature termed the personal equation must be ac- 

 knowledged. But as a practical matter, those who are not 

 too divergent get on well together. Obviously no two in- 

 dividuals can have identical sense-impressions of any so- 

 called external object, but this does not prevent a measure 

 of agreement. The more extensive is this agreement, in 

 both time and place, the more certainty may be attached to 

 an interpretation. 



Again, it may be asked, in view of the frequent differences 

 of opinion among scientific men, whether any common in- 

 terpretation of phenomena does actually exist. To which 

 it may be answered that there are common interpretations 

 with respect to certain phenomena, and such interpretations 

 are increasing in number and importance with the advancs 

 of science. To illustrate specifically: It is a familiar fact 

 that all living bodies are composed of units known as cells. 



