A Theory of Reality Author:George Trumbull Ladd Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER III ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY What is it that gives to the word "Reality" the feeling-full significance with which men so frequently employ it ? That this term, a... more »nd all other terms which convey meanings similar to it, have an uncommon power over the mind, he cannot doubt who has observed the language and conduct of men. The explanation which answers, partially at least, the question just raised would have to notice the following three classes of particulars. The search after what we feel ourselves entitled to call actual, and our debate about the actuality of any particular being, event, or relation, is often a matter chiefly of scientific and speculative interest. It is a search and a debate which are forced upon the mind in all its keen pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. For the terms employed by the knower are meaningless unless they are understood as having an onto- logical reference, an implicate of, or a hint toward the transcendent. The truth is that the mind never affirms knowledge — whether the object of the cognitive activity be a fact, a relation, a law, or what-not — until it feels that it has somehow obtained a grasp upon the transcendent. It is not conceivable, therefore, that any being which desires textit{knowledge, as men are obliged to understand this term, should be otherwise than interested, in a somewhat emotional way, in all that is conveyed to thought by the word reality. In this connection it may be noted that men feel a sort of insult offered, and wrong done, to the cognitive faculties when they are accused, in particular instances, of inability to lay agrasp upon reality. The modern dilettante agnostic, indeed, within his scholastic retreat or in the confidences of his club, debates with indifference the question whether all human knowledge be not i...« less