reasons operate unchecked according to their own laws, and how far they are slaves to the rest of the man, being given us only to enable us to invent plausible theories, excuses and justifications for what we instinctively wish to do. It is not pretended for one moment that even on the writer's premises the above comprise all the subjects about which something of importance can be said. They present however the salient features of a philosophy of which the main function seems to be to throw doubt on the conclusions of others. The New Realism I am afraid seems a pedestrian and commonplace affair enough after the ambitious edifices reared by the Idealist systems against which it is very largely a reaction. In attempting to square with the facts and to give countenance to the beliefs of common sense, it loses much of the dignity and comprehensiveness of other philosophies, and is termed unphilosophical. And there is no doubt that it has taken much of the stuffing out of philosophy; it confines it in scope and function, it regards many of the problems it has attempted and even claimed to solve as insoluble,at any rate by philosophy; it even restricts the number of questions about which philosophy may claim to have a say. As a consequence it is regarded by adherents of the old systems as at best devoid of interest, and at worst as something of a traitor to the cause. Philosophy has a hard time enough of it in these days, when men tumble over each other in their admiration for its old enemy science, and that philosophers themselves should belittle the importance and restrict the functions of philosophy, seems like treachery within the gates. But philosophy is, after all, only one of the means by which we seek for truth, and truth is more important than the manner of our search of it. If therefore we come to the conclusion that the road which has been followed by most philosophers is not the road which we should follow, our defection. must be regarded not so much as an affront to philosophy, but rather as one more sacrifice on that altar of truth which philosophy herself professes to serve. OUR KNOWLEDGE OF SENSIBLE OBJECTS Y sensible objects I mean the common objects of the every day world, tables, chairs, eggs, roses, etc., which the plain man believes to exist, and with which he believes himself to be acquainted by means of his five senses. Many philosophers, perhaps the majority, have doubted whether such objects can be said to exist at all except as affections of mind, or at least of some divine mind. Practically all philosophers have believed that even if such objects can be said to exist independently of any mind, and to be non-mental in structure, we can nevertheless have no knowledge of them as they really are: we know in fact only their appearances, and their appearances may be quite different from the real nature of the object. A few philosophers, including those who are called the "New Realists " believe that these objects exist independently of us and that we know their nature approximately as it really is. I propose in this essay to state what appear to me to be the main alternatives in regard to the problem of our knowledge of external objects, and to indicate certain arguments in favour of the view that sensible objects exist independently and that the knowledge of them given by our senses is not illusory; that they exist in fact very much as we know them. The views which philosophers have taken of this problem appear to be reducible to three main attitudes, commonly known as Representationalism, Subjective Idealism, and Realism. Innumerable modifications of these views exist, but all these modifications appear to me on analysis to reduce themselves to one or other of these three main theories. It will be convenient to examine each of these theories separately. I. Representationalism is a view prominently advocated in the Philosophy of Descartes. Locke also was a representationalist; and I shall try to show later that the views of such different philosophers as Bradley, Lotze and Stout, all resolve themselves into forms of this supposedly outworn and discredited theory as regards their attitude to our knowledge of sensible objects. The theory of Representationalism is based upon a certain psychological theory of sensation. From objects which are perceived there emanate modes of energy, called in the language of modern scientists, transverse vibratory motions propagated longitudinally, or electro-magnetic waves ; these impinge upon the optical nerve and through it imprint upon the brain a picture or image of the object causing the waves. The mind, which is passive throughout the whole process, perceives these pictures or images thrown as it were upon a bright screen in a dark room, and it is these images which form the subject matter of all sensory knowledge. Each of these images, which are commonly called ideas, is distinct and isolated. "All our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, among which the mind never perceives any real connection," said Hume, who also believed in this psychological account of the machinery of sensation. Now it is to be noted that this theory of perception involves three distinct entities: The knowing mind (A), the idea or image known (B), and the physical object which is regarded as being the cause of the idea or image (C). (A) knows (B), but does not, and never can know (C). Now although (A) cannot know (C), most representationalists agree in regarding (C) as like (B). Descartes believed in what he calls" the agreement of our ideas with reality" apparently on the ground that the trustworthiness of God warrants our believing in the existence of what we clearly conceive, and we conceive an apple to be like our idea of an apple. Locke regarded our ideas as more or less exact copies of the things to which they refer, the world of ideas constituting a body of representations of real things. The defect of this view is obvious. All Representationalist theories have this in common, that they conceive of a third entity, a |