In the ultimate analysis, all philosophical differences are verbal. If by some intellectual X-Ray we could see into the minds of others, and perceive the exact nature of their concepts, we should be force to concede the correctness of their conclusions. The only alternative is that the mental processes—the laws of thought—differ from individual to individual.

To one not philosophically inclined, idealism seems a rather fantastic doctrine—one quite obviously false. The great Dr. Johnson thought he could adequately refute it by kicking his toe against a stone. In one form or another, however, it has existed wherever men have thought deeply on the fundamental nature of mind and of the external world. One cannot go far in a study of the sources of knowledge without becoming aware that the only immediate evidence of external objects lies in (...) our sense impressions. The mind has no way of putting itself in contact with things external to itself except through the five senses. Up to this point there is fairly general unanimity. The difficulty lies in correctly interpreting this fact. (shrink)

There are styles in thinking just as there are in dress. Their justification is often as slight, and once a style in thought has been established, it is followed with the same unconscious readiness. The possibility of styles lies, of course, in a lack of fixed criterions. In dress, the choice to a large extent is a matter of taste, and because taste varies from individual to individual and from time to time, styles also change. Although the foundations of science (...) are far more stable than those of taste, they yet have some touch of uncertainty. We live in a relative world, not an absolute one, and thus there is always room for the point of view to shift. We like to feel that we ourselves and the world in general are growing wiser, and thus that while there were errors in the thinking of the past, they are now being rapidly eliminated. The discovery that some philosopher of several thousand years ago held almost our identical views is always disconcerting. (shrink)

So obviously and blatantly real is the world around us—our own bodies and all things within reach of our senses—that from time immemorable man has tended to give it exclusive status—to feel that things in and related by space are the only realities. Such a belief is adequate for all practical affairs, but philosophers have always recognized that something is lacking in it. The very statement of the existence and reality of the external world brings in a second element: the (...) mind that recognizes and admits it; the agent that by its own consciousness establishes the contrast of internal and external. This mind—the group of all our interrelated mental faculties, conceptions, and perceptions, and our consciousness of them—is definitely not something external, not something in space that can be handled physically, and studied in its mechanical and geometrical relationships. It is completely invisible, intangible, and inaudible, and obviously we neither taste nor smell it. It forms no part of the external world, and yet the very fact that we are conscious of the world is a tacit recognition of the mind that perceives it. An inevitable dualism seems to result between the internal mind and the external world it perceives, between the subjective and the objective. (shrink)