CHAPTER XI.
THE POSSIBILITY OF ERROR.
- On ne sert dignement la philosophie qu’avec le même feu qu’on sent pour une maîtresse. — Rousseau, Nouvelle Heloïse.
We have before us our theorem, and an outline
of its proof. We are here to expand this argument.
We have some notion of the magnitude of the
issues that are at stake. We had found ourselves
baffled in our search for a certainty by numerous
difficulties. We had found only one way remaining
so far quite clear. That was the way of postulating
what the moral consciousness seems to demand
about the world beyond experience. For many
thinkers since Kant, that way has seemed in fact
the only one. They live in a world of action.
“Doubt,” they say, “clouds all theory. One must
act as if the world were the supporter of our moral
demands. One must have faith. One must make
the grand effort, one must risk all for the sake of
the great prize. If the world is against us, still we
will not admit the fact until we are crushed. If the
cold reality cares naught for our moral efforts, so be
it when we come to know the fact, but meanwhile
we will act as if legions of angels were ready to
support our demand for whatever not our selfish
interest, but the great interest of the Good, requires.”
