But, fortunately,
their being does not depend on the idea we have formed of them: it
partially reveals itself to us in our idea of them, and partially is
obscured by it. It is a fact of our experience, or a fact experienced
by us. We interpret it, and to some extent misinterpret it, as we do
all other facts. If this partly true, and partly false, interpretation
is what we mean by the word 'idea,' then it is the idea which is an
inference from the being of our neighbour--an inference which can be
checked by closer acquaintance--but we do not first have the idea of
him, and then wonder whether a being, corresponding more or less to
the idea, exists. If we had the idea of our fellow-beings
first--before we had experience of them--if it were from the edge of
the idea that we had to leap, we might reasonably doubt whether to
fling ourselves into such a logical, or rather into such an illogical,
abyss. But it is from their being as an experienced fact, that we
start; and with the intention of constructing from it as logical an
idea as lies within our power. What is inference is not the being but
the idea, so far as the idea is thus constructed.

The idea, thus constructed, may be constructed correctly, or
incorrectly. Whether it is constructed correctly or incorrectly is
determined by further experience. What is important to notice is first
that it is only by further experience, personal experience, that we
can determine how far the construction we have put upon it is or is
not correct; and, next, that so far as the construction we have put
upon it is correct, that is to say is confirmed by actual experience,
it is thereby shown to be not inference--even though it was reached by
a process of inference--but fact. The process of inference may be
compared to a path by which we struggle up the face of a cliff: it is
the path by which we get there, but it is not the firm ground on which
eventually we rest. The path is not that which upholds the cliff; nor
is the inference that on which the being of God rests. The being of
God is not something inferred but something experienced. It is by
experience--the experience of ourselves or others--that we find out
whether what by inference we were led to expect is really something of
which we can--if we will--have experience. And that which is
experienced ceases, the moment it is experienced, to be inferential.
The experience is fact: the statement of it in words is truth. But
apart from t