It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a
gentleman was discussing ghosts—that is, the supposed apparition of the
living and the dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though
absent.
Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human
discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern
people call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective?
In old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not?
The most elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the
matter is not susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude
in any matter of perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the
thing he perceives is external to himself. He is the only witness; no
one can corroborate or dispute him. The seer may be right or he may be
wrong, but we have no proof—and only according to our temperament, our
fancy, our experience, our mood, do we decide with one or the other of
the two great schools.
Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in
plain English this phrase (read it carefully):—“Science teaches us that
these phenomena are purely subjective.”
Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but
a handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god.
Some read it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with
acquiescence.
That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the
other each of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so
simple a corrective as the use of the term “physical research” instead
of the sacred term “science” had been applied; the hierarchic title
“Science” did the trick.
I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean.
You have an authority which is called, where documents are concerned,
“The Best Modern Criticism.” “The Best Modern Criticism” decides that
“Tam o’ Shanter” was written by a committee of permanent officials of
the Board of Trade, or that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a
matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not usually venture upon ground so
near home, but it talks rubbish just as monstrous about a poem a few
hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great personality a few
hundred or a few thousand years old.
Now if you will look at that phrase “The Best Modern Criticism” you
will see at once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology.
But it does more and worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority
must of its own nature be perpetually wrong.
Even supposing that I have the most “modern” (that is, merely the
latest) criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience
of mine I can tell which is “the best” (that is, which part of it has
really proved most ample, most painstaking, most general, and most
sincere), even then the phrase fatally condemns me. It is to say that
Wednesday is always infallible as compared with Tuesday, and Thursday
as compared with Wednesday, which is absurd.
The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no
origins anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a
B.M.C. and nothing more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change
its opinion, that is the law of its being, since an integral factor in
its value is its modernity. In 1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of
Roland can be traced to origins far earlier, let us say to 912.
In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions—the Song of Roland is
certainly as late as 1115 ... and so forth.
Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect
upon sane men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would
laugh at the idea of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as
a matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day
and makes cowards of the most learned.
Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way
error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to
accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the
philosophers call things, “Reality.” Error does not wash.
To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor
reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no.
I think you will find the word “subjective” an astonishingly thin
one—if, at least, I catch you early after the experience.