Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/286

Rh the conception has an obvious foundation in the popular consciousness. Not only does the ontological vocabulary of ordinary speech illustrate this third conception in several ways; but, amongst the beings known to common sense, there are many that are regarded as real beings, but that are still explicitly defined only in terms of validity. Such beings are the prices and credits of the commercial world, the social standing of individuals, the constitutions of Empires, and the moral law.

In the second place, in science, mathematics deals exclusively with entities that are explicitly conceived by the science in question as of this third type, and of this type only. In the next place, as we found, the Being usually ascribed to the laws and to the objects of physical science, is capable, at least in very large part, of being interpreted in terms of this third conception. Such conceived entities as Energy are typical instances of beings of this sort. And, finally, all the entities of even a metaphysical Realism proved to be such that when one tries not to leave them unintelligibly independent, but to tell what they are, there is no means to define their character which does not first of all declare that their reality involves the validity of certain of our ideas, and the truth of the assertion that, under definable conditions, particular experiences would be possible. What else the Being of such entities would mean, remained for us so far undefinable.

On the other hand, as we concluded our former discussion, considerations crowded upon us, which forced us to observe that in some way this Third Conception of Being, despite all the foregoing, is inadequate.