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506 W. JEFFEEY WHITE : PHILOSOPHY OF A SUPPOSITION. must have these characteristics of truth ; that it is possible in it- self, and compatible with other truths. An untrue or an impossible supposition may lead to the discovery of truth, but not directly. If the alternatives are limited, to show that one or more is untrue or impossible is a help as limiting investigation, and may lead to the truth if only one alternative is left not disproved. Every in- direct proof is an example, as Ueberweg points out, of reaching truth by way of a false supposition. The extensive use of indirect proof shows that when error is conceived clearly enough to be developed into its consequences it tends to its own destruction : as Bacon says, truth will sooner come out of error than out of con- fusion. The last class of suppositions to be considered is suppositions that are not made as means, but for their own sake their ends are immanent. Examples of suppositions of this sort are to be found in what may be called artistic suppositions that is supposi- tions that are made and developed, because they appeal to the sense of beauty, the sense of humour, or what other feeling prompts to artistic activity. And in order to be true to facts, artistic supposition in this connexion must be taken widely enough to include not only artistic masterpieces, but the humblest efforts of the creative instinct, even a passing fancy that never finds expression ; because, philosophically, the explanation of the crudest narrative that a child ever told its companion, prefaced with the magic words " once upon a time," or the idlest day dream, gone almost before its presence is realised, and the finest story in the world, is the same. To prevent misapprehension it may be well to remind the reader that it is the theory of a supposition this paper is concerned with, not the theory of art.. Not every product of artistic activity is a supposition. A supposi- tion is representative in character. Some of the fine arts are not even apparently representative : neither architecture nor music, for example, are representative arts. But while the philosophy of a supposition and the theory of art are two things, does not the foregoing discussion seem to throw some light on two theories of representative art, the theory of realism, and the didactic theory ? The element of error in realism is in making the artistic supposition a means to the scientific end, truth. The element of error in didactic art is in making the artistic supposition a means to the practical end, good. The artistic supposition, the practical supposition, and the scientific supposition are three things, subject to different conditions, and to the extent to which they are identi- fied, there is error. The true, the good, the beautiful may in last analysis be connected intimately, but suppositions framed in view of the true, the good, the beautiful are different, they are subject to* different conditions, and developed according to different laws. W. JEFFREY WHITE.