'
Absolute oneness remains, but only as an hypothesis, and that
hypothesis is reduced nowadays to that of an omniscient knower who
sees all things without exception as forming one single systematic
fact. But the knower in question may still be conceived either as an
Absolute or as an Ultimate; and over against the hypothesis of him
in either form the counter-hypothesis that the widest field of
knowledge that ever was or will be still contains some ignorance,
may be legitimately held. Some bits of information always may
escape.
This is the hypothesis of NOETIC PLURALISM, which monists consider
so absurd. Since we are bound to treat it as respectfully as noetic
monism, until the facts shall have tipped the beam, we find that our
pragmatism, tho originally nothing but a method, has forced us to be
friendly to the pluralistic view. It MAY be that some parts of the
world are connected so loosely with some other parts as to be strung
along by nothing but the copula AND. They might even come and go
without those other parts suffering any internal change. This
pluralistic view, of a world of ADDITIVE constitution, is one that
pragmatism is unable to rule out from serious consideration. But
this view leads one to the farther hypothesis that the actual world,
instead of being complete 'eternally,' as the monists assure us, may
be eternally incomplete, and at all times subject to addition or
liable to loss.
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