activity is held in check, by the presence of our external experiences, which come and go whether or no we wish them to do so, we secondarily, and by a process of mediate reasoning, conclude from this our own relative impotence the existence of causes which limit us, and which are therefore independent of us, although their power is expressed in those of our experiences which are beyond our own control.
These and other realistic interpretations of the facts of experience have in common the recognition of one very important character of our present consciousness, namely, its essentially fragmentary, its immediately unstable character, in so far as it is regarded with reference to its meaning. That our consciousness, as it comes, means more than it presents, and somehow implies a beyond for which it insistently seeks, — this indeed is a central characteristic of our experience, and one upon which all insight and all philosophy depend. The anxiety of ordinary thought to interpret this reference in terms of an “independently real” world, which shall “transcend” all consciousness whatever, is due to manifold motives, and in part to relatively unphilosophical motives, whose origin I take to be largely social.[1] But no idealist can doubt the presence in consciousness of those primary tendencies upon which realists of all types have laid such stress. The question is as to the interpretation of such motives. In what sense is it that our consciousness is always pointing beyond itself?
- ↑ I may here refer to my paper on The External World and the Social Consciousness, in the Philosophical Review for September, 1894.
