fowELLj SOPHIOLOG Y CXOI 



prices vary from da}- to daj-; the credits may not survive the next 

 panic; the constitution may verj' slowly evolve for ages. None of 

 these objects, moreover, can be called mere ideas inside of any man's 

 head. None of them are arbitrary creations of definition. The indi- 

 vidual may lind them as stubborn facts as are material objects. The 

 prices in the stock market may behave like irresistible pliysical forces. 

 And yet none of these objects would continue to exist, as they are now 

 supposed to exist, unless somebody f recjuently thought of them, recog- 

 nized them, and agreed with his fellows about them. Their fashion 

 of supposed lieing is thus ordinarily conceived as at once ideal and 

 extraideal. They are not "things in themselves," and they are not 

 mere facts of private consciousness. You have to count upon them 

 as objective. But if ideas vanished from the world, they would vanish 

 also. Tliey. then, are the objects of the relatively external meanings 

 of ideas. Yet they are not wholly separable from internal meanings. 

 Well, all of these facts are examples of beings of which it seems 

 easiest to say that they are real mainly in so far as they serve to give 

 truth or validity to a certain group of assertions about each one of 

 them. 



Yes, if ideas were to vanish from tlie world, ([ualities would 

 vanish also. 



What, then, are qualities; and can we define them? Quali- 

 ties are attributes to good and evil. This definition is per- 

 fect, for it is inclusive of all and exclusive of others. All that 

 has been written in this series of articles is designed to set 

 forth their nature. Qualities naturally fall into five grotips: 

 There are esthetic qualities, or qualities of pleasure and pain; 

 there are industrial qualities, or qualities of welfare andillfare; 

 there are institutional qualities, or (pialities of morality and 

 immorality; there are linguistic qualities, or qualities of truth 

 and falsehood; there are sophiological qualities, or qualities of 

 wisdom and folly. 



Those attributes which we call (jualities are always found 

 in antithetic pairs. All human activities are jjerformed for 

 purposes, and tliese purposes are either good or evil; no pur- 

 poses can be neutral. Hence we see that purposes play a role 

 of transcendent importance in human affairs. Notwithstanding 

 this, there are other categories of reality in the universe, but 

 personal interest in qualities masks them from the considera- 

 tion of the metaphysician. 



If there has been one cause for the longevity of mvtlis more 



