Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/222

Rh of Being we mean a definitely Possible Fact of experience, viewed just as something possible for us. Or, again, let us say that by Being in general we mean precisely what Kant called Mögliche Erfahrung. For is it not also plain that we are trying to find out, in all our search for Being, precisely what experience we may hope to get under given conditions, and what experience we may not expect to get? Can we not then reduce to just these terms the whole inquiry after Being in the province of common sense, in the world of science, and even in the more mysterious realms of religion? If, hearing strange sounds in the street, I look out of the window, am I not trying to define or to confirm some idea of a possible experience? If an astronomer searches a star-cluster for variables, or a stellar spectrum for familiar lines, is he not verifying assertions as to possible contents of experience? If the devout man prays, and expects an answer, or hopes for immortality, is he not looking for possible empirical data? What is, is then for me what, under certain definable conditions, I should experience. To be is precisely to fulfil or to give warrant to ideas by making possible the experience that the ideas define.

Well, let us next generalize this notion a little, let us state it more impersonally, and then let us see what we get. I have ideas; present experience does not present to me all that they mean. I look to see how they are related to Being. What then, apart from my private and momentary point of view, is Being in general? Is it not what renders my ideas Valid or Invalid? When I say, There is a real world, what do I mean except that