e your eyes, to express what
we call a truth or an excellence.

Existence naturally precedes any idealisation of it which men can
contrive (since they, at least, must exist first), yet in the order of
values knowledge of existence is subsidiary to knowledge of ideals. If
it be true that a good physics is as yet the predominant need in
science, and that man is still most troubled by his ignorance of matters
of fact, this circumstance marks his illiberal condition. Without
knowledge of existence nothing can be done; but nothing is really done
until something else is known also, the use or excellence that existence
may have. It is a great pity that those finer temperaments that are
naturally addressed to the ideal should have turned their energies to
producing bad physics, or to preventing others from establishing natural
truths; for if physics were established on a firm basis the idealists
would for the first time have a free field. They might then recover
their proper function of expressing the mind honestly, and disdain the
sorry attempt to prolong confusion and to fish in troubled waters.

[Sidenote: Maladjustments to nature render physics conspicuous and
unpleasant.]

Perhaps if physical truth had not been so hugely misrepresented in men's
faith and conduct, it would not need to be minutely revealed or
particularly emphasised. When the conditions surrounding life are not
rightly faced by instinct they are inevitably forced upon reflection
through painful shocks; and for a long time the new habit thus forced
upon men brings to consciousness not so much the movement of
consciousness itself as the points at which its movement impinges on the
external world and feels checks and frictions. Physics thus becomes
inordinately conspicuous (as when philology submerges the love of
letters) for lack of a good disposition that should allow us to take
physics for granted. Much in nature is delightful to know and to keep in
mind, but much also (the whole infinite remainder) is obscure and
uninteresting; and were we practically well adjusted to its issue we
might gladly absolve ourselves from studying its processes. In a world
that in extent and complexity so far outruns human energies, physical
knowledge ought to be largely virtual; that is, nature ought to be
represented by a suitable attitude toward it, by the attitude which
reason would dictate were knowledge complete, and not by explicit ideas.

[Sidenote: Physics should be