The Metaphysics of a Naturalist 
89 
Professor Royce states that 
our human type of knowledge never shows us existent individuals as 
being truly individual. Sense, taken by itself, shows us merely sense 
qualities — colors, sounds, odors, tastes. These are general characters. 
Abstract thinking defines for us types. ^^Even if by comparisons and 
discriminations we had found how one being appears to differ from all 
other now existent beings, we should not yet have seen what it is that 
distinguishes each individual being from all possible beings. Yet such a 
difference from all possible beings is presupposed when you talk, for 
instance, of your own individuality.’’ “For I must still insist, — not 
even in case of our most trusted friends, — not even after years of closest 
intimacy, — no, not even in the instance of Being that lies nearest to 
each one of us, — not even in the consciousness that each one has of his 
own Self, — can we men as we now are either define in thought or find 
directly presented in our experience (italics mine) the individual beings 
whom we most of all love and trust, or most of all presuppose and regard, 
as somehow certainly real. For even within the circle of your closest 
intimacies our former rule holds true, that, if you attempt to define by 
your thought the unique, it transforms itself into an unsatisfactory ab- 
straction, — a type and not a person, — a mere fashion of possible existence 
that might as well be shared by a legion as confined to the case of a single 
being. ” 
If one were limited to the abstract and objective logic or were to 
attempt the problem simply as a speculative attempt to form 
individuals out of algebraic combinations of qualities, this would 
be true. But it is far otherwise when we turn to what is directly 
presented by our experience.’’ The fallacy of Dr. Boyce’s 
entire discussion crops out finally, as we conceive, in his defini- 
tion of reality. The conclusion is that ^^you must define the whole 
Reality of things in terms of Purpose.” Accordingly individ- 
uality is a conception expressible only in terms of satisfied will. 
^^An individual is a being that adequately expresses a purpose.” 
Such limitation as this would imply that a sense of reality is 
possible only after a complicated process of ratiocination quite 
out of the question in most cases. We wonder whether the mother 
is not a ^ Teal being ’ ’ and an ^ ^ individual” to her babe. Asa matter 
of fact, reality and with it individuality are among the first attri- 
butes consistent with mentality. We may insist that our con- 
cept of individuals does not wait on a philosophical analysis of 
teleology. Nor are we denying that in Dr. Royce’s statement 
there is an important element of truth. When we as philosophers 
begin to seek the last ground of validity and to drive skepticism 
into its last ditch, that arch enemy of philosophy is driven out 
only by the recognition of a teleology or coherence in an organized 
