Page:What We Want.djvu/17

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somehow of the ultimate reality. What they do deny is the sufficiency of any metaphysical explanation of the universe. For such explanations proceed on the assumption that it is the province of the intellect to establish an absolute conception of reahty which will be valid before all experience, and even apart from all experience. Experience must either be juggled with till it fits into this preliminary conception, or be finally left outside it as inherently irrational. But the modern habit of mind cannot be satisfied with either an arbitrary dogmatism or a despairing scepticism. It admits, indeed, that there is something prior to all experience, or, rather, that there is a governing element involved in all experience. But this element is not knowledge, but faith, the life-attitude which instinctively trusts human experience as deter-