It
seems too economical to be all-sufficient. Profusion, not economy,
may after all be reality's key-note.
I am dealing here with highly technical matters, hardly suitable for
popular lecturing, and in which my own competence is small. All the
better for my conclusion, however, which at this point is this. The
whole notion of truth, which naturally and without reflexion we
assume to mean the simple duplication by the mind of a ready-made
and given reality, proves hard to understand clearly. There is no
simple test available for adjudicating offhand between the divers
types of thought that claim to possess it. Common sense, common
science or corpuscular philosophy, ultra-critical science, or
energetics, and critical or idealistic philosophy, all seem
insufficiently true in some regard and leave some dissatisfaction.
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. I shall face that
task in my next lecture, and will add but a few words, in finishing
the present one.
There are only two points that I wish you to retain from the present
lecture. The first one relates to common sense.
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