utes for the real dog, as the representation was a
practical substitute for them, that real dog being a lot of atoms, say,
or of mind-stuff, that lie _where_ the sense-perceptions lie in his
experience as well as in my own.

III

The philosopher here stands for the stage of thought that goes beyond
the stage of common sense; and the difference is simply that he
'interpolates' and 'extrapolates,' where common sense does not. For
common sense, two men see the same identical real dog. Philosophy,
noting actual differences in their perceptions, points out the duality
of these latter, and interpolates something between them as a more real
terminus--first, organs, viscera, etc.; next, cells; then, ultimate
atoms; lastly, mind-stuff perhaps. The original sense-termini of the two
men, instead of coalescing with each other and with the real dog-object,
as at first supposed, are thus held by philosophers to be separated by
invisible realities with which, at most, they are conterminous.

Abolish, now, one of the percipients, and the interpolation changes into
'extrapolation.' The sense-terminus of the remaining percipient is
regarded by the philosopher as not quite reaching reality. He has only
carried the procession of experiences, the philosopher thinks, to a
definite, because practical, halting-place somewhere on the way towards
an absolute truth that lies beyond.

The humanist sees all the time, however, that there is no absolute
transcendency even about the more absolute realities thus conjectured or
believed in. The viscera and cells are only possible percepts following
upon that of the outer body. The atoms again, though we may never attain
to human means of perceiving them, are still defined perceptually. The
mind-stuff itself is conceived as a kind of experience; and it is
possible to frame the hypothesis (such hypotheses can by no logic be
excluded from philosophy) of two knowers of a piece of mind-stuff and
the mind-stuff itself becoming 'confluent' at the moment at which our
imperfect knowing might pass into knowing of a completed type. Even so
do you and I habitually represent our two perceptions and the real dog
as confluent, though only provisionally, and for the common-sense stage
of thought. If my pen be inwardly made of mind-stuff, there is no
confluence _now_ between that mind-stuff and my visual perception of
the pen. But conceivably there might come to be such confluence; for, in
the case of my hand, the