Page:Adventures of Ideas.djvu/20



. In its widest possible extension the title of this book — Adventures of Ideas — might be taken as a synonym for The History of The Human Race, in respect to its wide variety of mental experiences. In this sense of the title, the Human Race must experience its own history. It cannot be written in its total variety.

Throughout this book I propose to consider critically the sort of history which ideas can have in the life of humanity, and to illustrate my thesis by an appeal to some well-known examples. The particular topics chosen for illustration will be dictated by the arbitrary limitations of my own knowledge, and by the consideration of their general interest and importance in our modern life. Also for our purpose in the book the notion of History includes the present and the future together with the past, affording a mutual elucidation and wrapped in common interest. For the facts in detail we shall be dependent upon that great band of critical scholars whose labours to-day, and for the past three centuries, lay upon mankind the obligation to deepest reverence.

Theories are built upon facts; and conversely the reports upon facts are shot through and through with theoretical interpretation. Direct visual observation is concerned with the vision of coloured shapes in motion — ‘questionable shapes’. Direct aural observation is concerned with auditions of sounds. But some contemporary observer of such shapes