ABSTRACT

A good illustration of his insinuating method is afforded by his lecture on common sense. The categories of common sense, as he points out, and as we may all agree, embody discoveries of our remote ancestors; but these discoveries cannot be regarded as final, because science, and still more philosophy, finds common-sense notions inadequate in many ways. Common sense, science, and philosophy, we are told, are all insufficiently true in some respect; and to this again we may agree. But he adds: ‘It is evident that the conflict of these so widely differing systems obliges us to overhaul the very idea of truth, for at present we have no definite notion of what the word may mean’ (p. 192). Here, as I think, we have a mere non sequitur. A damsontart, a plum-tart, and a gooseberry-tart may all be insufficiently sweet; but does that oblige us to overhaul the very notion of sweetness, or show that we have no definite notion of what the word ‘sweetness’ may mean? It seems to me, on the contrary, that if we perceive that they are insufficiently sweet, that shows that we do know what ‘sweetness’ is; and the same surely applies to truth. But this remark is merely by the way.