or define it apart from the assertion that there is, in truth, at the heart of the world, an Absolute and Universal Intelligence, for which thought and experience, so divided in us, are in complete and harmonious unity.
“Man is ignorant,” says one, — “ignorant of the true nature of reality. He knows that in the world there is something real, but he does not know what this reality is. The Ultimate Reality can therefore be defined, from our human point of view, as something unknowable.” Here is a thesis nowadays often and plausibly maintained. Let me remind you of one or two of the customary arguments for this thesis — a thesis which, for us on this occasion, shall constitute a sort of first attempt at a definition of the nature of our human ignorance.
All that we know or can know, so the defenders of this thesis assert, must first be indicated to us through our experience. Without experience, without the element of brute fact thrust upon us in immediate feeling, there is no knowledge. Now, so far, as I must at once assure you, I absolutely accept this view. This is true, and there is no escape from the fact. Apart from — that is, in divorce from — experience there is no knowledge. And we can come to know only what experience has first indicated to us. I willingly insist that philosophy and life must join hands in asserting this truth. The whole problem of our knowledge, whether of Nature, of man, or of God, may be condensed into the one question: What does our experience indicate? But, to be sure, experience, as it first comes to us mortals, is not yet insight.
