F. C. S. Schiller

“ For, as has already been remarked, there ever remains a discrepancy between the identity of the real and the logical ideal, a discrepancy to which we have grown accustomed, a discrepancy on which the use of the concept depends, but which, indubitably, renders identity a postulate rather than a ‘law.’
For in strict fact nothing ever is, everything becomes, and turns our most conscientious predications into falsehoods. The real is here, there, and everywhere, until we stop breathless in our chase and point, gasping. ”

“ What the data of such an ultimate explanation of the world should be, admits, of course, of further discussion; but I can see no reason in the nature of philosophy as such why the characteristic of Time should not be one of them. And if by a frank recognition of the reality of Time, Imperfection and Individuality we can reach a deeper, more complete and workable insight into the facts of experience, why should our philosophy be worse than one which is driven to reject them by ancient prejudices concerning the perfections which the world ought to possess? ”

“ From time to time doubts may well arise as to how far it succeeds in steering the best course. Oxford at present is in the throes of such a discussion. Always critical, she is more critical of herself than of anything less near and dear, and is now enjoying a perfect orgie of self-criticism. But such emotional delights should not lead to oblivion of the fundamental facts of academic life.
Oxford has to find a working compromise between four distinct functions which lead up to four distinct ideals (or exaggerations) of a university. ”

“ The human race has continued to progress in its culture, in its knowledge, in its power over nature, because it has devised institutions which have created for it a continuous social memory that defies death. Now, as ever, the wisest and the best must die, while their place is taken by babies born as ignorant and void of knowledge as in the beginning. Only there has been invented apparatus which relieves the civilized baby of his hereditary ignorance, and renders him potentially the heir to all the wisdom of the ages. ”

“ For the first time he consciously realizes that he is the Spectator of it all, that the whole world’s infinite complexity exists in relation to him, and that he has not merely an eye to see but also a mind to devise and a hand to execute, if he but has a spirit to dare, that if he will but strive patiently and resolutely to co-ordinate his powers, he may aspire to control the flux and to divert it into channels conducive to the attainment of his highest ends. ”

“ And this is how and why we construct the qualities of our ideal geometrical space. We make it one and identical by correlating our sense-spaces, by fusing the multitude of fields of vision and by refusing to recognise the spaces of our dream experiences, in order that we may have a common standard to which we can refer all our space-perceptions. We make it empty and invariable by abstracting from that which fills it and changes in it, in order that nothing may distract us from the contemplation of its pure form. ”

“ For certainly, if one does not scruple to regard utter ignorance as the possibility that ’may be,’ and the subjective need of saving one’s own theory as the necessity that ‘must be,’ there is no difficulty which cannot be evaded by the application of that maxim and no contradiction which cannot be so ‘reconciled.’ My only fear would be that if such an axiom were admitted at the beginning of philosophy, it would also prove its end. ”

“ But only a mind thoroughly corrupted with dialectic and corroded with scepticism will base on its existence a charge that to recognize these facts is to abolish the conception of Truth. In reality we are here on the holy ground where, by the continuous revision of values and the rejection of ‘errors,’ Truth is made, where knowledge is alive and growing. And the fertile soil yields the only sort of truth that has use or meaning for man. ”

“ The interest of the professor is to become more unassailable, and so more authoritative. He achieves this by becoming more technical. For the more technical he gets, the fewer can comprehend him; the fewer are competent to criticize him, the more of an oracle he becomes; if, therefore, he wishes [24] for an easy life of undisturbed academic leisure, the more he will indulge his natural tendency to grow more technical as his knowledge grows, the more he will turn away from those aspects of his subject which have any direct practical or human interest. ”

“ If we take it as it appears in our experience as now organised, we are, similarly, met with the difficulty that what it now is is nothing definitive, but merely a term in a long development the end of which is not yet in sight. And if, led by such considerations, we look forward and declare that the objective world most truly is whatever it develops into, who will take it upon himself to prophesy concerning its future developments, and guarantee that it will always remain objective in the way it is at present, that it will continue to resist and constrain? ”

“ We stand to lose nothing and to gain everything by making a postulate which is both a practical necessity and an obvious methodological assumption, pointing out a way of investigating a subject with which we must grapple, if we will to carry on the struggle which is life.
Quid plura? Experience has shown that Nature condones our audacity, and step by step our assumption has been confirmed. The ‘reign of law’ has turned out to be as absolute as ever we chose to make it, and our assumption has worked wherever we have chosen to apply it. ”