idea of the whole world, as whole. No matter how we came by this idea, the question inevitably arises: Is there any whole world of fact at all, or is this fragment of experience before us all the fact that there is? Or, again, we have the general idea of experience, as such. The question arises: Is this experience before us the only experience? Or is there, as a matter of fact, other experience than this which is now presented? All such questions involve the general considerations upon which I laid stress in my chapter on “The Possibility of Error” (The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, Chap. XI). Such questions have a definite answer, or they have no definite answer; and this is true, whatever our present state of knowledge. In other words, such questions, in themselves considered, can either be truly answered in one way, and in one way only, or they would admit, however much we knew, of no definite answer whatever. But in the latter case, the impossibility of giving any answer to them would become manifest to us, upon a large knowledge of truth, by virtue of facts that would then get presented to our insight, and that would then make obvious to us that there is something meaningless about the questions. Such facts could only get presented, however, to one who actually knew a larger whole of experience than is presented to us. And thus we can at least say, that already, at the present time, there is “possible experience” which, if presented, would throw light upon the meaninglessness of our questions concerning actual experience beyond our own. A fortiori, if our questions admit of definite answer, there is now
