The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)James, William
Science
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
Habitually and practically we do not _count_ these disregarded things
as existents at all. For them _Væ victis_ is the law in the popular
philosophy; they are not even treated as appearances; they are treated
as if they were mere waste, equivalent to nothing at all. To the
genuinely philosophic mind, however, they still have existence, though
not the same existence, as the real things. _As_ objects of fancy,
_as_ errors, _as_ occupants of dreamland, etc., they are in their way
as indefeasible parts of life, as undeniable features of the Universe,
as the realities are in their way. The total world of which the
philosophers must take account is thus composed of the realities _plus_
the fancies and illusions.
Two sub-universes, at least, connected by relations which philosophy
tries to ascertain! Really there are more than two sub-universes of
which we take account, some of us of this one, and others of that.
For there are various categories both of illusion and of reality, and
alongside of the world of absolute error (i.e., error confined to
single individuals) but still within the world of absolute reality
(i.e., reality believed by the complete philosopher) there is the
world of collective error, there are the worlds of abstract reality,
of relative or practical reality, of ideal relations, and there is the
supernatural world. The popular mind conceives of all these sub-worlds
more or less disconnectedly; and when dealing with one of them, forgets
for the time being its relations to the rest. The complete philosopher
is he who seeks not only to assign to every given object of his thought
its right place in one or other of these sub-worlds, but he also seeks
to determine the relation of each sub-world to the others in the total
world which _is_.
The most important sub-universes commonly discriminated from each other
and recognized by most of us as existing, each with its own special and
separate style of existence, are the following:
(1) The world of sense, or of physical 'things' as we instinctively
apprehend them, with such qualities as heat, color, and sound, and such
'forces' as life, chemical affinity, gravity, electricity, all existing
as such within or on the surface of the things.
(2) The world of science, or of physical things as the learned conceive
them, with secondary qualities and 'forces' (in the popular sense)
excluded, and nothing real but solids and fluids and their 'laws'
(i.e., customs) of motion.[295]
(3) The world of ideal relations, or abstract truths believed
or believable by all, and expressed in logical, mathematical,
metaphysical, ethical, or æsthetic propositions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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