We Cannot Begin With Complete Doubt.

Every Man Is Fully Satisfied That There Is Such A Thing As Truth, Or He Would Not Ask Any Question.

By An Object, I Mean Anything That We Can Think, I.e. Anything We Can Talk About.

I Think Of Consciousness As A Bottomless Lake, Whose Waters Seem Transparent, Yet Into Which We Can Clearly See But A Little Way.but In This Water There Are Countless Objects At Different Depths; And Certain Influences Will Give Certain Kinds Of Those Objects An Upward Influence Which May Be Intense Enough And Continue Long Enough To Bring Them Into The Upper Visible Layer. After The Impulse Ceases They Commence To Sink Downwards.

The Real, Then, Is That Which, Sooner Or Later, Information And Reasoning Would Finally Result In, And Which Is Therefore Independent Of The Vagaries Of Me And You. Thus, The Very Origin Of The Conception Of Reality Shows That This Conception Essentially Involves The Notion Of A Community, Without Definite Limits, And Capable Of A Definite Increase Of Knowledge.

Theoretically, I Grant You, There Is No Possibility Of Error In Necessary Reasoning. But To Speak Thus "theoretically," Is To Uselanguage In A Pickwickian Sense. In Practice, And In Fact, Mathematics Is Not Exempt From That Liability To Error That Affects Everything That Man Does.