IMPENDING ANARCHY W S S MEBBERD AUTHOR Ol THE "I'HIIOSOI'ilV <)l His I OK Impending Anarchy S. S. HEBBERD Author of "The Philosophy of History ' MASPETH PUBLISHING HOUSE 76 Milton Street, Borough of Queens New York juBHARYofCONWRESS? iwoCouies nece»»^ JUN 16 W>8 Copyright, 1908 BY S. S. HEBBERD TO HON. WILLIAM J. BRYAN The Great Commoner of the West This Book is Dedicated PREFACE It is very difficult, almost impossible, to gain a hearing for a philosophic work now unless it is written by some distinguished teacher in the univer- sities. Works of thought seem to be judged as fac- tory products are, by the label of the manufacturer. If the label is all right, any kind of nonsense — pragmatism, for example — will be received with reverence. Another difficulty in my case is the American zeal for imitation in which we excel all nations except, perhaps, the Chinese. This trait is the main source of our inferiority in art and literature which so many just now are trying to explain. And it has made American philosophy farcical. Recall, for instance, Professor Royce's sneer — in his "Spirit of Modern Philosophy" — at any writer who dares to deviate from the past tenor of philosophy. Cervantes describes Sancho Panza as "so impressed by what his master had told him about enchanters, that he would not believe his own eyes." What a wonderful forecast of American philosophy, the Sancho Panza to a German Don Quixote ! A third difficulty may be illustrated by an inci- dent. Some months ago copies of my Philosophy of History were sent to forty of the most prominent PREFACE clergymen of New York City. Of these, one read it and praised it very highly; two others acknowl- edged its receipt, the rest did not have the courtesy to do even that. Now I knozv that my demonstra- tion of God's existence — given in Chapter II of this book — is new and that it carries upon its face con- vincing power enough to entitle it to some attention, especially in an age like this when the wiser theists do not pretend to have any support for their belief except the thin vapors and vagaries of "feeling." But the thirty-seven would probably say that not being experts upon these deep questions, they leave them to the college professors. So those rebuked by Jesus for building upon the sand might say that they were not expert enough in geology to know the difference between sand and rock. Urged by these and other difficulties I have com- pacted my philosophy in this little book. The book will be sent to every college in the land ; and surely among all these teachers, graduate students, etc., there will be someone able and eager to point out the fatal flaw, if there is one. CONTENTS PACE Chapter I. The Secret of Thought . 9 " II. God . . . . .49 " III. Morality . . . .62 " IV. Pragmatism and Politics . 77 CHAPTER I THE SECRET OF THOUGHT I. Schopenhauer and Hume The aim of this little book is to briefly indicate the only possible barrier which reason offers against the religious, moral and political anarchy now threaten- ing all Christendom, and especially the people of America. That, of course, outlines a gigantic task. So much so that I should never dream of entering upon it if there had not more than thirty years ago dawned upon me an undiscovered and yet very sim- ple principle which seemed to me to instantly illum- ine the whole darkened sphere of modern thought. And it is an evident necessity that every such dis- covery must be of extreme simplicity. Otherwise it could never hope to triumph over the might of routine and mental inertia. Consider for instance the fortunes of the Copernican theory, simple enough for a child to understand and yet failing of general acceptance even among astronomers for almost a century. What would have been its fate if it had come couched in the ambiguous mystifying phrases of, say, Hegelism? Furthermore, philosophy in its 9 IO IMPENDING ANARCH? present sad estate as a mere jumble of paradox and dispute, is so much neglected by all save a few com- mitted to some special system that unless a new principle was very simple and clear, it would not have the slightest chance of a hearing. Let none of those, then, who have wandered long in that maze of subtleties and high-sounding phrases called Modern Philosophy turn away in scorn because my thesis is neither obscure nor intri- cate. The secrets of Nature always seem open and evident where once we have found them out. But it is not so easy to find them out ; it is far easier for thought to' wander about amid non-essentials and verbiage, to move around in aimless circles like a man lost in the woods. The principle then, which I here seek to prove and establish as the basis of all mental science, is simply this : All thinking is a relating of cause and effect. In other words, there is no form of thought, no percept, concept, judgment or relation that does not enfold within it some- causal relation, lacking which it would become unintelligible and meaning- less. But before proceeding to our proof one or two preliminary considerations are necessary. Schopenhauer. First, let no one confound this principle with Schopenhauer's doctrine that all the twelve categories which Kant had found in the human understanding were reducible to a single one, that of causality. For Schopenhauer, like Kant, regarded the understanding as but a part of the in- tellect, and a very inferior part, the fatal source of THE SECRET OF THOUGHT II all illusions. Its categories, therefore, whether twelve or one, lacked all true universality ; they applied only to mere "phenomena" ; and the upshot was an illu- sionism far more thorough than that of Kant, since it went boldly on to that pessimism which — as the history of India so painfully shows — is the inevit- able outcome of every fully developed theory of Maya or illusion. My doctrine is the exact opposite of all this, both in scope and purpose. Its scope is completely uni- versal, maintaining that every possible form of thinking, as distinguished from mere feeling, in- volves a causal relation as its essence. And one of my chief purposes is — through the inductive proof of the universality of the causal element in all think- ing — to establish an ultimate criterion of truth ; and thus build a barrier against both the Kantian illu- sionism and the "pragmatism" now taking its place. In fine, Schopenhauer's view of causality instead of being imitated, is shattered by mine. The Criterion of Truth. One chief curse of our vaunted modernism is that its destructive criticism has broken down the old criteria of truth, but has not been able to put anything else in their place. It has torn down, but knows not how to rebuild. Even through all the storm and stress of the eigh- teenth century the primary convictions of mankind were conserved by the doctrine of "intuitions," or "innate ideas," or "universal and necessary truths." But finally Kant came forward with a suggestion very simple, very true, and yet leading to the most 12 IMPENDING ANARCHY tragic results. He suggested that the doctrine of intuitions really discredited what it had been sup- posed to guarantee. If man was thus driven irre- sistibly to so many beliefs which he could not prove, might not these beliefs be mere delusions forced upon us all by some twist in our "mental make-up" ? His successors, instead of allaying this suspicion, intensi- fied it ; and Hegel ended by repudiating even the law of contradiction. From that day to this paradox and non-sense have seemed to reign supreme in philosophy. At least the old doctrine of intuitions, etc., has been riddled and hopelessly wrecked. And for a century our most elementary convictions, our most sacred truths, moral as well as religious, have beefi hanging in cloud-land, like castles in the air. But even if Kant has wrecked the intuitional the- ory, there must be some more enduring support for the moral and religious life of mankind than vague feeling or the evanescent moods of sentimentalism. And my doctrine, I think, opens a way to the satisfy- ing of this demand, this most vital and urgent need of the age. It provides far better than the exploded intuitions ever did for an unassailable and ultimate critierion of truth. For if I can prove that every act of thinking implies a causal relation, then plainly to cancel causality is to render all thinking impos- sible. The argument is in fact, a reductio ad absnr- dum, in the completest form imaginable. The ge- ometer proves his theorem by showing that its denial would logically lead to the denial of some universally THE SECRET OF THOUGHT 1 3 accepted principle and would, therefore, be absurd. We prove our theorem by showing that its denial would involve the overthrow of all principles, the effacing of all distinctions between the true and the false, appearance and reality, existence and non- existence — in fine, would involve the utter extinction of thought. Hume's Problem. In this way I expect to solve Hume's celebrated problem which, according to Hoffding, "even Kant failed to solve and which indeed is insoluble." But that problem is instantly solved the moment I prove that the idea of causality is logically involved in all acts of perceiving, con- ceiving, judgment or inference. Hume claimed that causation was nothing but the uniform succession of phenomena in space and time. But I shall prove that each word in the substituted phrase — uniformity, succession, things or phenomena, space, time — has involved within it the idea of causality. The rela- tions severally indicated by these words all rest pri- marily upon causal relations and when the latter are cancelled these words lose all their meaning. Thus in the very act of denying or doubting causal- ity, Hume is really affirming it over and over again. II. Cause and Reason It will probably be objected to my argu- ment that I confound different kinds of caus- ality so' diverse that nothing can be predi- cated of them in common, But my best 14 IMFRNDING ANARCHY answer to this will he the entire course of my expo-! sition wherein these distinctions will not only be! carefully kept in mind, but will be more fully and clearly explained than ever before. Here 1 confine, myself to that distinction which in recent philosophy; seems to have almost entirely swallowed up or sub- merged the rest — the distinction between cause and; reason or ground. Bradley devotes an entire chapter of his Logic' to emphasizing the immensity of this contrast be- 1 tween cause and reason. And yet the gist of his 1 whole argument is given in a single one of three illustrations which he uses. "Two coins," he says, "are proven to have similar inscriptions because they each are like to a third; but the cause is not found in this interrelation. The cause is the origin from a common die.'' Could anything be sillier than that? Here are two different effects : on the one hand, two similar inscriptions; on the other, our knozvl- edge of their similarity. Certainly the two results are not produced by the same cause — to-wit, the common die. But how does that prove any anti- thesis between a cause and a reason? In fact, it proves absolutely nothing but the mere truism thai two such utterly dissimilar effects as a physical fact and our mental recognition of that fact cannot have the same cause. The other two illustrations are of like character but even more fantastic. Indeed, the entire chapter is little more than an incessant repeating of the ar- gument just given. p THE SECRET OF THOUGHT 15 But a more familiar and also far less absurd argu- ment for the alleged antithesis between cause and reason is as follows : Cause refers only to 1 changes or events, but reason refers to truths which are not changes in time but are immutable and eternal. But even here, I think, there is the same confounding of a fact with our knowledge of the fact. The intricate chain of reasons which the geometer gives as proof, for example, of the ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle are causes not of the fact but of our belief in the fact. And beliefs or other mental events are as much changes as any physical event. What indeed is more changeful and fugacious than the movement of thought ? Reason and cause then are in no wise discrepant : the former is simply one kind of the latter. III. Relations of Resemblance Man's mental life starts from the mere noting of resemblances. This purely automatic process of de- tecting similarities is one which the brutes can per- form as well as man and often better; witness, for instance, a dog scenting the foot-prints of his prey. But that this automatic noting of resemblances is not genuine thinking is evident at a glance. For the moment we try to express it in clear, exact propo- sitions or judgments it shows itself as incurably vague, incoherent and even self-contradictory. We can affirm of anything that it is like anything else, l6 IMPENDING ANARCHY and in the same breath we can affirm with equal truth that it is not like that other thing. How now can this vagueness, and self-contra- diction be transformed into real thinking? Simply by reaching down to that upon which this incoherent, self -contradictory relation of resemblance depends. Thus two yellow objects are made alike by the pro- cess of color, by the conjoint action of aether- waves, nerve-currents, etc. ; at the same time they are made | unlike by other causes. In fine, the moment we reach the causal relation underlying the likeness or difference we begin to think. All that seems plain and simple enough. And yet I stand ready to maintain that this simple thought of a transition from relations of resemblance to causal ones enfolds almost the whole sum and sub- stance of a true Theory of Knowledge. The recog- nition of it would have saved modern philosophy I from most of the errors, paradoxes and puerilities that have so sorely afflicted it. For example, the writer already quoted, Bradley, has sent forth an- other famous volume, the key-note of which is as follows: "A relational way of thinking — any one that moves by the machinery of terms and relations, must give appearance and not truth." But scrutinise his argument for this amazing proposition and you discover that like all Hegelizers, he is occupied solely with relations of likeness and difference. And con- fined within that sphere, his paradox is but a truism. All relations of resemblance are indeed delusive and self -contradictory unless we point out that upon THE SECRET OF THOUGHT 1 7 which the resemblance depends — in other words, unless they are transformed into causal relations. Does some one say that instead of making the above sweeping assertion concerning this argument against relations I ought to gO' into details and prove my point? But 1 have neither space nor pa- tience to repeat Bradley's long, wire-drawn dialectic and then criticise it line by line ; it may be well, how- ever, to fix attention upon his main point and error. Note then what appears upon the most cursory in- spection that he is crusading solely against relations betzveen qualities. He rejects the thing as aught beyond a mere group or sum of attributes ; and also scouts at causality. Now surely no one will deny that qualities thus conceived, without things, dis- connected "wandering adjectives," cannot possibly have any other relations to each other except likeness and difference. Undeniably then he is dealing solely with those vague inchoate relations of resemblance which, as I have shown, are always incoherent and self-contradictory. And thus he finds it easy enough to prove to' an astonished world that all relational modes of thought "give appearance and not truth." But this fallacy of resemblance seems omnipresent and almost omnipotent. The empiricists are still more in bondage to it than the Hegelians; they would reduce all thinking to the blind working of the psychical mechanism that associates similarities. Ordinary idealism or illusionism also has its main source in this fallacy of resemblance. It is taken for granted that perceptions are copies or pictures 1 8 IMPENDING ANARCHY of the things perceived, and so the perfectly hopeless question arises : "How do we know that these pic- tures secreted within, really resemble the world with- out? Berkeley's argument constantly hinges upon the impossibility of any such resemblance. 1 Scho- penhauer boldly claims that we are "conscious of these pictures within the brain." 2 And Spencer even gives us diagrams showing the degree of correspond- ence between the images and the reality. 3 But these paradoxes all vanish before my simple discovery — almost a truism — that a relation of re- semblance by itself is necessarily crude, incoherent and self-contradictory, that it never becomes really intelligible until it is converted into a causal rela- tion by showing that upon which the resemblance depends. IV. Substance and Attribute We have here another difficulty from which modern idealism or illusionism has germinated. Common-sense and scholasticism had found no way of comprehending the relation of substance and at- tribute except through the crude metaphor of in- herence. Attributes inhered in the substance like pins stuck in a pin-cushion. But real light began to dawn through Herbart's famous suggestion that "substantiality is causality." 1 Principles of Knowledge, S. 8-15, especially. 2 Schopenhauer, The World as Will, II. 400. 3 Spencer Psychology, II. 225. THE SECRET OE THOUGHT 19 But that principle needs to be modified by recalling the scientific doctrine of the complexity of all physi- cal processes of causation. No thing is the entire cause of any of its attributes, a host of other agen- cies are also* requisite. The thing, for example, is but a single factor in the intricate process of causa- tion which produces the color of that thing. But it is also a factor in each and all the other processes whereby the other attributes of that thing are pro- duced. Thus we find in the thing a permanence which is more or less lacking in its adjectives. Each of the latter disappears or changes when any factor essential to its production is withdrawn or modified. The color fades when the sun goes down; the size changes with a change of temperature. But the thing endures; this one factor in all the processes remains. Herbart's discovery then, as we have explained it, is incontrovertible : substantiality is causality. That would be amply sufficient for our present purpose which is to' prove that every relation of substance and attribute is a causal relation. In fact our entire thesis is demonstrated by this one insight. For all thinking as distinct from mere feeling, is reducible to affirmation, judgment or predication. And the re- lation of subject and predicate which constitutes a judgment, everywhere runs precisely parallel to> the relation of substance and accident. (1) But in addition behold the enigmas, in the philosophy of the past which this insight unravels. Take first the old dilemma long observed by logi- 20 IMPENDING ANARCHY cians, that if we abstract all the attributes all knowledge of the substance vanishes. That plainly is but a case of our fundamental law of knowledge that causes are knowable only through their effects, and conversely effects through their causes. But in dealing with this dilemma there was an oversight which has passed unnoticed and has led to most dis- astrous results. Let me describe this oversight by presenting its most famous example. (2) The first principle of Hegelism, as everybody knows, is that pure or abstract Being=0. The oversight here is the one referred to above — the confounding of the knowledge of a cause with the existence thereof. It is quite true that we can know nothing of a thing apart from some of its known effects. But it is not true that a thing might not exist independently of these effects. And caring little for these out-worn' paradoxes, I leave the mat- ter thus. (3) It is more important, however, to consider the now* very common tendency to regard the sub- stance as but a name for a special group of attrib- utes. The strength of this tendency is laughably shown by the case of Hobhouse, who writes an im- mense volume in defense of natural realism and then throws it all to the winds by proclaiming that a thing is naught but the group of its attributes. And yet it does not seem hard to get rid of this para- dox. We have only to remember that an. effect can- not be known nor even exist apart from the cause whence it has been abstracted. Modern science has THE SECRET OF THOUGHT 21 taught us that the attributes of things are but so many different forms of motion. And it seems quite evident that a motion cannot exist apart from some moving thing. (4) When it occurred to Berkeley that attributes instead of inhering in, might be effects of things, he answered that things being inert could not be causes. But inertia means only that a thing cannot act in isolation, but only in conjunction with other things. And that is precisely what is emphasized in my doctrine : The thing or substance is not the entire cause but only a factor in many causal processes. (5) Another strange freak of bewildered meta- physics is Lotze's conception of a thing as an ''indi- vidual or realized law." 1 Even Lotze concedes that this theory of his contains "something intrinsically unthinkable." But substitute for this impossible conception that of the thing as the persistent factor in each and all of the causal processes whereby its attributes are produced. Thus you retain whatever truth the idea of a law or formula sought to retain and your theory is not what Lotze conceded his to be, "the putting together of two< words, on which the ordinary course of thinking has stamped two> in- compatible and contradictory meanings." Other errors invite our consideration, but lack of space forbids. But enough has been said, I think, to 1 Lotze, Metaphysics, I. 93. Also Bowne, Metaphysics, 39-43- IMPENDING ANARCHY prove that the relation of substance and attribute becomes really intelligible — is freed from the ob- scurities and paradoxes heretofore investing it — only by conceiving it as a causal relation. V. Identity and Change Here we encounter another tangle of obscurities, and riddles which both the skeptic and the illusion- ist have freely used to advance their respective the- ories. The difficulties, however, investing this rela- tion of identity and change are too well known to need recital here : it is only necessary to attempt their solution. And the key to this solution is to be found, I think, in what has already been said concerning the crud- ness and self-contradictoriness of all relations of resemblance. For the relation of identity and change evidently belongs in this catagory : it is but a modified form of the relation of likeness and dif- ference. The only contrast between them is that in the latter the likeness or difference is that between different things or objects ; but identity and change refer to the likeness and unlikeness of the same body to itself at successive periods of time. There- fore it follows, as a matter of course, that this rela- tion of identity and change, like all others of the same class, should be elusive, incoherent and self- contradictory. And that it has been so is painfully proved by the whole history of thought. Over this THE SECRET OF THOUGHT 23 riddle of identity and change, Greek philosophy at an early day split into two parties, the followers of Parmenides and those of Herakleitos. And the discussion has continued ever since with unabated vigor but with slight increase of knowledge or any other valuable result. Light, however, begins to dawn when we conceive this relation of identity and change as a causal rela- tion. Anything whatsoever may be considered as the embodiment of a particular process of causation all its own ; this constitutes its permanent character or identity. And the changes through which it passes are in large degree the results of this special or individual process. Thus a tree embodies a par- ticular process of growth from the germ on through successive stages until the tree is destroyed. Still more is this the case with a human body which may cast off every one of its constituent atoms over and over again and suffer a host of other changes, but still retain its* identity as a single, permanent em- bodiment of an invariable process of organic life. Nevertheless this concept of identity will necessar- ily remain always more or less obscure on account of its close kinship with that of resemblance — the chief source of all fallacy and confused thought. But whatever of clearness and intelligibility is possible must always come through stress upon the causal relation underlying it. And so we turn to another relation far more important, equally chaotic and perplexing at present, but more capable of be- ing cleared of vagueness and ambiguity. 24 IMPENDING ANARCHY VI. The One and the Many There is truth in Professor James' dictum that the relation of "the One and the Many forms the most central of all philosophic problems, central because so pregnant/' 1 But so far its pregnancies seem to have given birth to nothing but an amazing brood of disputes and futilities. All agree that the human mind yearns after some sort of unity. But there are so many different and conflicting kinds of this unity that the quest after it has ever ended in a desert wider and more barren than Sahara. But from our present vantage-ground, it seems to me that true answers can be found to the three funda- mental questions involved in this troublous theme. First, what kind of unity does the mind seek ? Sec- ond, why does it seek it? Third, and most import- ant of all, how can this unity be reconciled with the manifest plurality of things? ( i ) My answer to the first question is, that the only self-consistent and really intelligible kind of unity is causal unity. Both the two so-called Mon- isms which divide the empire of modern speculation between them, have their origin and find their chief defense in the plea that the mind longs for unity. But what a pitiful and preposterous unity it is which either of these two systems has to offer ! Consider naturalistic monism which seeks to satisfy this rational demand for unity by picturing a universe 'James, Pragmatism, 129. THE SECRET OF THOUGHT 25 consisting solely of an infinite host and whirl of invisible atoms? Is not that plurality incarnate, a false abstraction, a phantom with the label of ''Unity" pinned upon its back? On the other hand, idealistic monism seeks the same end by blotting out the universe as an idle dream, leaving not a wrack behind, but an empty "Absolute" which has nothing to do* except to "reject inconsistencies." 1 Where, on this globe, is there a healthy mind that is really longing after any such unity as that? Less absurd than these are "the unities of dis- course — the universal, the natural kind, etc. — which have played so great a part in modern theorizing. But, as I shall show a few pages farther on, natural systems of classification have been established and universals can be made really self-consistent and comprehensible only by turning from mere resem- blances to find the true import of every universal or class in the causal process whereby the members of that class have been produced. In fine, it is only causal unity which gives intelligibility and satisfies the longing of the human mind. Even Art, although resting more upon an appeal to' the emotions than upon definite formulas of thought, furnishes full proof that the real craving of the intellect is for causal unity. But for the evi- dence of this I must refer the reader to my Phil- osophy of History. 2 There it is shown that all aesthetic values in their three grand divisions—- ' Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 139. 2 Philosophy of History, 66-78; 135-142; 198 and 270 seq. 26 IMPENDING ANARCHY beauty of form, of color and of sound — come not from mere imitation but from the dim revelation of some latent cause, principle or power upon which the infinite variety of nature depends. It is there shown, too, that in this respect the history of art confirms its theory. The noblest and most produc- tive of all aesthetic emotions — the love of nature — springs up only among peoples, like those of India or of Mediaeval Europe, who were inspired and thrilled by the thought of an Infinite Cause pervad- ing all things. And in our own times we see the love of nature perishing, and. with it all artistic ex- cellence, because faith in God as an effective power in the world has virtually vanished. To quote the magnificent saying of Ruskin : "The modern love of nature is a sort of vanity. It is self and its moods, not God that we see mirrored in nature." A similar proof might be drawn from the history of the origin of science. But enough has been said, perhaps, to prove what is so nearly self-evident ; to- wit, that the only unity which really satisfies the mind is causal unity. (2) We come now to the second question : Why does the human mind crave this causal unity ? And the evident answer is, because the very nature of thinking" consists in a relating" of cause and effect. Reason may be deluded for a while by false anal- ogies, metaphors, dialectics of "identity and differ- ence," or "the whole and its articulated J>arts," or some other crude fallacy of resemblance. But these are only inbecilities of thought which inevitably end THE SECRET OF THOUGHT 2,*] in confusedness and self-contradiction. Therefore the mind seeks after causal unity. It can never rest or find any lasting delight in the Many until it grasps the One, upon which they all depend. That is the Monism of the future. (3) And so we come to the third question : How shall we conceive of perfect unity without effacing the evident plurality of things? That is the most difficult of all cosmological questions, the rock upon which all previous monisms have gone to pieces. To save the One, they have had to sacrifice the Many : things became mere phantoms; even to association- ists like Mill and Bain they evaporated into "possi- bilities of sensation." Religion faded into a dead, stupid pantheism. As one American philosopher, quite orthodox but a most ingenious Monist puts it : "In the fullest sense of the word only the infinite exists; all else is relatively phenomenal and non- existent." A little farther on he ascribes to the finite "non-existent existence." Then he adds : "But these utterances are so easily misunderstood that they should be reserved for esoteric use and frugal- ity is to be recommended even there." 3 But there is no need of thus making shipwreck both O'f sense and morals. There must indeed be One infinite cause of all. But as we shall see later on, that One out of self-sacrificing love has voluntarily limited his own activity by imparting something of his power to finite beings. Each thing is a factor in countless processes of causation planned and 1 Bowne, Metaphysics, 101-2. 28 IMPENDING ANARCHY maintained by the Infinite. As thus a factor, the thing acts ; and whatever acts, exists. Nor is there the slightest reason for conceiving this as "a sort of non-existent existence.'' VII. Relations of Space and Time The method which has proved so effective al- ready in clearing up the perplexities of the old phil- osophy, we have now to apply to spatial and tem- poral relations. These indeed are not so utterly vague and self-contradictory as those of mere re- semblance. Still they have a certain obscurity of their own which can be dispelled only by unveiling the causal relations implicit within them. Let me add that here I shall speak solely of space-relations leaving the reader to apply the argument to those of time. (i) The Reality of Space. Does space actually exist or is it but an illusion forced upon us by some unhappy twist of the human mind? In answering this question I pass over the rather dubious conten- tion of realists that we actually perceive so-called perceptual space. Instead of that I present what seems to me conclusive proof that it is literally im- possible to think of space as non-existent. That proof can be given in a few words as follows : We know our sensations, we discriminate one of them from another not through any attributes of their own but only through attributes of spatial ob- jects perceived. THE SECRET OF THOUGHT 2