4 o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



so guide us in our dealings with things that actual experience verifies 

 ideal anticipation. There is no direct resemblance whatever between 

 the sizes, forms, colors, and arrangements, of the figures in an account- 

 book, and the moneys or goods, debts or credits, represented by them ; 

 and yet the forms and arrangements of the written symbols are such 

 as to answer in a perfectly exact way to stocks of various commodi- 

 ties and to various kinds of transactions. Hence we say, figuratively, 

 that the account-book will " tell us " all about these stocks and trans- 

 actions. Similarly, the diagram Mr. Sidgwick refers to illustrates the 

 way in which symbols, registered in us by objects, may have forms 

 and arrangements wholly unlike their objective causes and the nexus 

 among those causes, while yet they are so related as to guide us cor- 

 rectly in our transactions with those objective causes, and in that sense 

 constitute cognitions of them ; though they no more constitute cogni- 

 tions in the absolute sense than do the guiding symbols in the account- 

 book constitute cognitions of the things to which they refer. So re- 

 peatedly is this view implied throughout the " Principles of Psy- 

 chology," that I am surprised to find a laxity of expression raising 

 the suspicion that I entertain any other. 



To follow Mr. Sidgwick through sundry criticisms of like kind, 

 which may be similarly met, would take more space than I can here 

 afford. I must restrict myself now to that which he seems to regard 

 as the " fundamental incoherence " of which these inconsistencies are 

 signs. I refer to that reconciliation of Realism and Idealism consid- 

 ered by him as an impossible compromise. A difficulty is habitually 

 felt in accepting a coalition after long conflict. Whoever has es- 

 poused one of two antagonist views, and, in defending it, has gained a 

 certain comprehension of the ojDposite view, becomes accustomed to 

 regard these as the only alternatives, and is puzzled by an hypothesis 

 which is at once both and neither. Yet, since it turns out in nearly all 

 cases, that of conflicting doctrines each contains an element of truth, 

 and that controversy ends by combination of their respective half- 

 truths, there is an a priori probability on the side of an hypothesis 

 which qualifies Realism by Idealism. 



Mr. Sidgwick expresses his astonishment, or rather bespeaks that 

 of his readers, because, while I accept idealistic criticisms, I neverthe- 

 less defend the fundamental intuition of Common-Sense, and, as he 

 puts it, " fires his [my] argument full in the face of Kant, Mill, and 

 ' metaphysicians ' generally." 



" He tells us that ' metaphysicians ' illegitimately assume that * beliefs reached 

 through complex intellectual processes ' are more valid than ' beliefs reached 

 through simple intellectual processes ;' that the common language they use re- 

 fuses to express their hypotheses, and thus their reasoning inevitably implies 

 the common notions which they repudiate ; that the belief of Eealism has the 

 advantage of 'priority,' 'simplicity,' 'distinctness.' But surely this prior, sim- 

 ple, distinctly affirmed belief is that of what Mr. Spencer terms ' crude Realism,' 



