Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/337

THE NEW EEALISM AND THE OLD IDEALISM. sophical theory is in a different position. Well, no doubt it is ; and, indeed, Shakespeare's poetry is in a different position from the sugar. But what I mean is that, in all cases, we can only prove things by the kind of proof that is appropriate to them derivative things by showing from what they are derived, ultimate things by giving grounds for regarding them as ultimate. And, in the case of a philosophical theory, the only ultimate kind of proof that can be given is that the theory seems to make the universe intelligible to- us, and that we cannot think of any alternative theory that does. But, you may object, can any idealistic view of the universe claim to be thoroughly intelligible? Are there not serious gaps in every attempted construction ? Well, if you mean by this to ask whether there is any idealistic theory that enables us to explain every particular fact in the universe, then it must certainly be confessed that this is not the case ; and, speaking for myself, I am enough of an agnostic to suspect that, in this present life at any rate,, I am not likely ever to meet with such a theory. No one, I suppose, at the present time, expects any philosophy to do for us what Socrates is represented in the Phado as saying that he had expected from Anaxagoras. " I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round ; and then he would further explain the cause and the necessity of this, and would teach me the nature of the- best and show that this was best ; and if he said that the earth was in the centre, he would explain that this position was the best, and I should be satisfied with the explanation given, and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go on and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and he would explain to me their compara- tive swiftness, and their returnings and various states, active and passive, and how all of them were for the best." A philosophy which could explain all this might also be ex- pected to tell us who was the author of the Letters of Junius, or why the present Government was put in power with the precise majority that it has. It would evidently be absurd to expect any system of Idealism to show the rationality of the universe in such a sense as this. Perhaps it is even true that there is no idealistic theory that makes the significance of every leading aspect of our experience thoroughly transparent. Even this degree of light I certainly do not expect speedily to attain. But what I do venture to maintain is, that it is quite possible to think out an idealistic interpretation which enables us to view the universe as a system that is intrinsically intelligible throughout ; and, so