Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/223

204 some of my ideas are already, and apart from my private experience, valid, true, well-grounded? When the mystic himself defined his Absolute, what was he defining but the supposed possible goal of a process of finite purification of ideas and of experiences? When the realist spoke of the Independent Beings, what did he himself mean except that certain of our ideas are true or false despite our own desires, or even quite against our wishes? And to set aside as we have done either Mysticism or Realism, what was it but to point out that certain ideal definitions, being contradictory, are necessarily invalid? What is Being then but the Validity of Ideas?

Is not here, then, the true definition of Being? As you may remember, this was, in fact, the third on our list of the historical conceptions of Being. And to consider in detail this Third Conception, which identifies Reality with Validity, the Being of the world with the truth of certain ideas, is our next task.

This new conception of Being, as we shall at once be able to see, is one that, just at the present time, is of exceeding importance in connection with the contemporary discussion of all ultimate problems.

True metaphysical Realism, in all its abstractness, still survives amongst us, and will no doubt, as an opinion, last as long as our race. For man might be defined as an animal who ought to reflect, but who very generally cannot. But you all know a class of persons whom I may as well call, at once, the Critical Rationalists of our