We may glimpse it, but we never grasp it;
what we grasp is always some substitute for it which previous human
thinking has peptonized and cooked for our consumption. If so vulgar
an expression were allowed us, we might say that wherever we find
it, it has been already FAKED. This is what Mr. Schiller has in mind
when he calls independent reality a mere unresisting [u lambda nu],
which IS only to be made over by us.
That is Mr. Schiller's belief about the sensible core of reality. We
'encounter' it (in Mr. Bradley's words) but don't possess it.
Superficially this sounds like Kant's view; but between categories
fulminated before nature began, and categories gradually forming
themselves in nature's presence, the whole chasm between rationalism
and empiricism yawns. To the genuine 'Kantianer' Schiller will
always be to Kant as a satyr to Hyperion.
Other pragmatists may reach more positive beliefs about the sensible
core of reality. They may think to get at it in its independent
nature, by peeling off the successive man-made wrappings. They may
make theories that tell us where it comes from and all about it; and
if these theories work satisfactorily they will be true. The
transcendental idealists say there is no core, the finally completed
wrapping being reality and truth in one.
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