multitude that peoples my present world. Such is the law. Each moment of time to itself is the whole; to each subsequent moment it is but a part. And it is known to each subsequent moment by a copy and not by the original.
I am not insensible of the light in which this view will appear. It will be set down as a piece of the most radical and audacious scepticism; so much may securely be predicted. Indeed it will, I fear, be regarded as a scepticism of a peculiarly absolute and insidious kind; as not merely inviting us to withhold our belief from certain matters of common credence, but as undermining belief itself. Many sceptical doctrines content themselves with perseveringly informing us that we have no right to believe in anything beyond the passing moment; but this view, while it cynically encourages the most irresponsible belief, empties all belief of its rationality and meaning.
I fear, too, that the view I have advanced lacks the only virtue that scepticism can possess, the grace of confessing its character. For certainly I shall protest to the last that it is in no sense sceptical. The imputation may be not only denied but refuted. And it may not only be refuted but explained. It is due to a failure to observe the elementary distinction between analyzing a conception into simpler elements and casting doubt upon its validity. Though the distinction is elementary, it cannot be said that the philosophical world consistently respects it. There is a wide-spread tendency to think that a philosophical category hitherto deemed unanalyzable is analyzed to its cost. To ascertain its composition is somehow to degrade it from its high estate and make it of little consequence in the world. Now it is of capital importance to the progress of speculation that we should free our minds from the last traces of this notion. For the subject-matter of philosophy is such that its investigators have not so much to ascertain the reality or unreality of supposed existences as to determine the nature and components of existences obviously real. The objects of metaphysical inquiry are almost always, not facts, but natures. The characteristic spirit in which philosophy should approach her tasks is not sceptical but analytic.
