Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/130

114 I repeat, like that of the artificial isolation of a physical fact from its usual context. The transformation of this logical advantage into a matter of superior excellence in the order of existence, is the root of the materialistic fallacy. It is this unjustfiable transference which calls out those protests referred to early in this paper; which have led the idealists to protest against the industry of explaining conscious facts in evolutionary terms. It is assumed that the earlier fact somehow sets the standard of reality and of worth for the entire series. In practice, though not in express formulation, it is assumed that the earlier stages, being 'causal,' somehow are an exhaustive and adequate index of reality, and that consequently all later terms can be understood only when reduced to equivalent terms. It is this supposed reduction of the later into the earlier, that the idealist rightly holds is not to explain but to explain away; not to analyze but to ignore and deny.

The procedure is the counterpart of the Greek and mediæval theories of the universe, in assigning differences of value to different parts of space. We have ceased regarding the celestial universe as of higher rank in the hierarchy of being than the terrestrial. Homogeneity of existence in space has become such an integral part of the working apparatus of the modern scientist that he can hardly put himself into the older attitude. Nevertheless, he is quite likely to fall into exactly the same sort of fallacy, when it comes to time instead of space. The earlier is regarded as somehow more 'real' than the later, or as furnishing the quality in terms of which the reality of all the later must be stated.

There is, indeed, a point of view from which the earlier in time is of greater value; but it is that of method, not of existence. That which is presented to us in the later terms of the series in too complicated and confused a form to be unravelled, shows itself in a relatively simple and transparent mode in the earlier members. Their relative fewness and superficiality makes it much easier to secure the mental isolation needful.

The fallacy of the standard character of the earlier is so intrenched and widespread that it can hardly be dismissed with