It may not be out of place here to point out that the method of investigation which the nature of the subject prescribes is by no means singular. Professor Ormond has shown that all the things we seem to ourselves to know may be put in one or the other of three classes: things known through lower immediacy, things known through mediacy, and things known through higher immediacy.

Things Known Through Lower Mediacy. As examples of the first class we may cite our knowledge of divers states of consciousness, of the external world, and of the axioms of mathematics. All men know intuitively the various pleasures and pains they experience, the existence of some sort of external reality, and the truth of a proposition, such as, A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Since they are known immediately, not as the result of processes of reasoning, they are examples of things known through immediacy. And since in order to be known they do not require any special development on the part of the individual or of the society which constitutes his social environment, they are illustrations of things known through lower immediacy.

Things Known Through Mediacy. What we know through mediacy includes everything that we have learned through processes of reasoning, whether inductive or deductive. Not merely the conclusions of science, but those which we reach from day to day in the performance of our ordinary pursuits, and in our observations of men and. things, are examples of this class,

If we

Things Known Through Higher Immediacy. make a survey of the beliefs by which our lives are guided, we shall find that some of the most fundamental and farreaching of them cannot be twisted so as to fit into either of these classes. Every normal American, for example, believes in the practical universality of law, and in the reality of distinctions of right and wrong, which should govern man as man in all his dealings with his fellows. But these beliefs are, so to speak, late achievements of the human race. They are a part of the social inheritance of civilized man, a part of the system of beliefs whicn the growing mind absorbs from society and which it finds constantly confirmed by its experience. But they differ from the first class above mentioned in that they are entirely unnecessary to the mature mind as such. It is inconceivable that a human being could ever have been in doubt as to the reality of his pleasures and pains, and as to the existence of some sort of external reality. And that only amounts to saying that the very nature of the mind is such that it must accept these things as realities. But this is far from being the case with the class of beliefs we are considering. For not only is it possible to suppose a mature and powerful mind not believing in the universality of law and in the reality of ethical distinctions which should govern man as man in his dealings with his fellows; we are taught by anthropology that, as a matter of fact, these beliefs come late in the scale of human development. We know that even now they are held only by the most highly civilized peoples, and that within the historic period they were not entertained by the most advanced peoples. Even Plato, the man who makes such "havoc of our originalities," believed that right and wrong were one thing

between Greek and Greek, and another between Greek and barbarian.

Having admitted that the reality of duty and the universality of law which I have cited as examples of higher immediacy are believed by civilized men, not by thinking them out, but because those things have become established conventions, it may be urged that, in the last analysis, there is no difference between those beliefs and beliefs of the second class; that, as we accept them on the authority of society, precisely as we do the Copernican theory, society, or some member of it, really originated them in the same way that Copernicus evolved his theory.

An adequate reply to this objection would involve an excursion into the domain of metaphysics which cannot here be undertaken. I must content myself with pointing out that while it is easily conceivable that a normal mind may not entertain those beliefs which we have been considering as examples of higher immediacy, it is impossible to imagine a man, in howsoever low a stage of development, as not having conceptions which, when logically developed and freed from all inner contradictions, would lead to those beliefs. A man without any belief in law would be unable to profit by experience. That fire once burnt him, that water once quenched his thirst, that food once nourished him, would constitute to his mind no reason for believing that these causes could be depended on to produce the same effects. Such a being could not live in the world. Nature would crush him utterly and remorselessly.

In like manner, it is impossible for man to live alone, and he cannot live with his fellows without some sort of ethical creed. We sometimes say that the hand of this or

that man is raised against all his fellows. Such a statement is wide of the truth. There is always some one, generally some group of men, with whom the most hardened man considers himself under obligations to keep faith. We all know the meaning of the proverb, "There is honor even among thieves." What we need to note here is that the proverb not only states a fact, but illustrates a profound sociological truth. Man can exist, as Plato long ago taught, only provided in his dealings with some of his fellows, at least, he assumes that there is such a thing as right. The bad man of whatever type — criminal, corrupt politician, dishonest business man will be found, as a rule, to derive all his power from the fact that he is not wholly bad, from the fact that there is always a larger or smaller group to whom he feels himself "in honor bound." An utterly bad man is a man with a minimum

of

power for evil, a man whom society is sure to hound to destruction sooner or later.

We see, then, that the difference between the attitude of what we may call prehistoric man and that of the highest product of civilization towards the beliefs which we have been considering is this: the former believed in law as governing some of the events which came under his observation-fire always burns, food always nourishes; the latter believes in law as coextensive with the universe. The former believed in ethical distinctions as holding, first, between the members of his family, later as applied to his tribe or clan, and later still as applied to his city or state. The latter believes in those distinctions as holding between man and man. In other words, the slow evolution and growth of society have enabled it to make explicit and universal some of the beliefs which were held in an

implicit, particular form by primitive man; and these beliefs, become explicit and general, are examples of higher immediacy.

All this may seem an unnecessary digression. It has been entered upon because the opinion is prevalent among educated men that all of their beliefs are the results of processes of reasoning. To say to such men that they are expected to believe certain things without proof seems an insult to their intelligence. As to a business man it would seem inconceivably absurd to be asked to give something for nothing, not as a matter of charity but as a matter of business, so to these men it seems "unscientific" to believe what they cannot prove: and to be unscientific is to be an intellectual barbarian. This digression will have accomplished its purpose if it succeeds in suggesting that after all there was a profound truth expressed by St. Anselm when he said, "I believe that I know' may if it succeeds in making clear the fact that though what may be proposed as the ends of education and of life are not matters that are susceptible of proof, we may nevertheless be bound as rational beings to accept them as true.

One of these ends may be illustrated by the following passage from the Greek poet Euripides:

"Happy is he who has learned

To search out the secret of things,
Not to the townsmen's bane,

Neither for aught that brings

An unrighteous gain.

But the ageless order he sees

Of nature that cannot die,

And the cause whence it springs,

And the how and the why.

Never have thoughts like these

To a deed of dishonor been turned."