ical independence has its origin in an aspect of things which is found in experience, and which is called their independence. There is certainly an aspect of a large part of the world which, as an experience-character must be called independence, and in order to distinguish between this empirical character and the metaphysical meaning, I shall use the two words ‘independent’ and ‘transcendent.’ The transcendence-character is a metaphysical character, the independence-character is a strictly empirical one. We instinctively regard our fellows as transcendent objects. They may be or may not, but they are certainly independent objects. In speaking of independent objects I shall therefore not be speaking metaphysically. And as for transcendent objects, I shall discuss not them but the idea of them.
This distinction between the independent and the transcendent is an important one. It does not, however, occur at all to the ‘plain man,’ nor does it occur to the rest of us most of the time. For him who is unconcerned with philosophical problems, the independent object is a transcendent object. He will not doubt that the church, the city hall and the bank stand up on their foundations without any assistance from experience, finite or absolute.
I hope this will not seem like attributing reflective metaphysical opinions to the man who is understood not to reflect at all along these lines. He does not, of course, distinguish the independent and the transcendent and then say they are two aspects of one and the same object. He has no such ideas at all clearly formulated, but he has very definite ideas about ‘real things’ which are not asking his permission to exist. He has, perhaps, left a plough up in the field. He is certain that the plough is just where he left it, unless some one has taken it away. Doubts about the transcendent reality of his plough would be quite unintelligible to him. And since he does not distinguish the independent from the transcendent character, his plough has both characters undistinguished. To say that he does indeed accept the independence-character, since he must, but that he can not be said to believe in the transcendence-character, is to say that he understands by the independence-character the limitations we have in mind, when we describe this character as a ‘merely’ empirical character. But this is to credit him with a distinction which not many writers on epistemology have thought of making.
I think we may be sure of these conclusions because there is so much of the ‘plain man’ in each of us. When we talk philosophy we do indeed steer a very different course, but when we simply experience the world we are all plain men together. That is, we are all thrown back on those natural functions which determine experience for us in these respects.
