Page:The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892).djvu/37

Rh all manifold, and especially is the truth about man’s relation to the universe nmuifold. The most fleeting passion, if so be it is only deep and humane, may reveal to us some aspect of truth which no other moment of life can fully express. I know how difficult it is to comprehend that seemingly opposing assertions about the world may, in a deeper sense, turn out to be equally true. I must leave to later discussions a fuller illustration of how, for instance, the optimist, who declares this world to be divine and good, and the pessimist, who finds in our finite world everywhere struggle and sorrow, and who calls it all evil, may be, and in fact are, alike right, each in his own sense; or of how the constructive idealist, who declares all reality to be the expression of divine ideals, and the materialist, who sees in nature only matter in motion and law absolute, may be but viewing the same truth from different sides. All this, I say, will be touched upon hereafter. What I here want to suggeest is that the truth about this world is certainly so manifold, so paradoxical, so capable of equally truthful and yet seemingly opposed descriptions, as to forbid us to declare a philosopher wrong in his doctrine merely because we find it easy to make plausible a doctrine that at first sight appears to conflict with his own. Young thinkers always find refutation easy, and old doctrines not hard to transcend: and yet what if the soul of the old doctrines should be true just because the new doctrines seemingly oppose, but actually complete them? Our reflective insights, in following our life, will find now this, now that aspect of things prominent. What if all the aspects should contain truth? What if our failure thus far to find and to state the absolute philosophy were due to the fact, not that all the philosophies thus far have been essentially false, but that the truth is so wealthy as to need not only these, but yet other and future expressions to exhaust its treasury? I speak thus far tentatively and vaguely. I