Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/450



It only remains now in bringing these lectures to a close to summarize briefly the main course of our inquiry, to state as positively as may be the results that we seem to have attained and finally to glance at some topics for further reflexion which they suggest.

At the outset we disavowed any attempt completely to solve the so-called riddle of the universe. This much modesty is common to all schools of philosophy alike in our day. The universe as a whole is but partially accessible to us at the best; but we make up for this defect to some extent by viewing it from different standpoints. It is therefore important first of all, if we can, to ascertain which of these is the most fundamental and to orientate the rest to this. One characteristic belongs to them all — that duality of subject and object that enters into all experience. But the subject’s attitude towards the object is twofold: it is both cognitive and conative, or, as we often say, both theoretical and practical Though these subjective attitudes are not strictly separable, yet the practical terminates in the theoretical so soon and so far as what we immediately want is only to know. And so it comes about that, ignoring the subject and its practical