Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/179

142 “agnostic” tendencies; and I tried to show that, whether they will it or not, the thinkers referred to cannot consistently deal with the Real, as experience shows it, without, in the end, coming face to face with the Absolute, so that every assertion of the compulsion which forces upon us finite Facts, must in the end imply, with an equal necessity, the unity of all facts in one Absolute Reality, whose nature we can in general determine, despite our ignorance of the details of its life. But in developing this argument, I was necessarily forced, by the lack of space, to ignore many of even the most familiar efforts to state the more ordinary type of Realism in such fashion as to avoid accepting my definition, or in fact any definition, of the Absolute. The questions that have been raised by my critics, however, as to the true scope, meaning, and outcome of my argument, can best be answered through a careful review of the essence of the argument itself. And this careful review, in its turn, can best be accomplished, less by a direct onslaught upon my idealistic friends than by a more minute comparison of my notion with those realistic arguments in conflict with which it was, in the first place, developed. I myself came into this field, originally, not to war with fellow-idealists, but to criticise the Realism of ordinary tradition. A contrast with the metaphysical views of our common opponents will therefore help us, who are engaged in this discussion, to comprehend better the scope and implications of our own theory.

On the other hand, here as everywhere in philosophy, refutation is never our whole business. Even