process of finding hypotheses to explain facts, cannot but enforce the necessity of caution on the part of one who accepts it. If the only justification we can give to an hypothesis is that it explains the facts, there is surely the more urgent need that in an open-minded, cautious, painstaking way we make sure that it really explains all the pertinent facts, before we permit ourselves to accept it.
On the other hand, it may be said that its practical outcome is philosophical skepticism. If a Theory of Knowledge that maintains that we can find no justification for our beliefs, in the last analysis, that would satisfy the demands of a pure intellect, is skepticism, then this is skepticism. But in that sense the outcome of the common-sense philosophy is skepticism. Reid and Stewart, Hamilton, and McCosh, have all undertaken to find a foundation for philosophy in common sense, not in the insight of the pure intellect. In truth, he only can be charged with philosophical skepticism who holds that reason is hopelessly at war with itself; who holds that, no matter upon what subject or in what direction he tries his reason, it leads him into an inextricable tangle of inconsistencies and contradictions. Such a man could not trust his reason: he would be a skeptic in the only proper sense of the word.
This theory abolishes the distinction between Kant's speculative and his practical philosophy. Carry your analysis far enough, and it will be evident—according to this theory—that the justification for everything we believe is of the same nature that Kant sought to give to his belief in the freedom of the will, the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul.
It abolishes, also, the distinction between scientific method and philosophic method. Sidgwick aptly says, "Philosophy is only common sense with leisure to push inquiry further than usual, while common sense is only philosophy somewhat hurried and hardened by practical needs."[1] This theory holds that the method of common sense and the method of science, and the
- ↑ Distinction and the Criticism of Beliefs, p. 35.
