follow their complicated shape.
But these moments of difficulty and obscurity, these vague and
impalpable links in the chain, are only to be found in the
_process_ by which we arrive at our conclusion. When our
conclusion has been once reached it becomes suddenly manifest to
us that it has been there, with us, all the while, implicit in our
whole argument, the secret and hidden cause why the argument
took the form it did rather than any other. The test of any
philosophy is not that it should appeal immediately and directly to
what is called "common-sense," for common-sense is no better
than a crude and premature synthesis of superficial experiences; a
synthesis from which the supreme and culminating experiences of
a person's life have been excluded. For in our supreme and
culminating experiences there is always an element of what might
be called the "impossible" or of what must be recognized as a
matter of faith or imagination. It is therefore quite to be expected
that the conclusions of a philosophy like the philosophy of the
complex vision, which derives its authority from the exceptional
and supreme experiences of all souls, should strike us in our
moments of "practical common-sense" as foolish, impossible,
ridiculous and even insane. All desperate and formidable efforts
towards creation have struck and will strike the mood of "practical
common-sense" as ridiculous and insane. This is true of every
creative idea that has ever emanated from the soul of man.

For the mood of "practical common-sense" is a projection of the
baser instinct of self-preservation and is penetrated through and
through with that power of inert malice which itself might be
called the instinct of self-preservation of the enemy of life.
"Practical common-sense" is the name we give to that superficial
synthesis of our baser self-preservative instincts, which, when it is
reinforced and inspired by "the will of malice" out of the evil
depths of the soul, is the most deadly of all antagonists of new life.

We need suffer, therefore, no surprise or pain if we find the
conclusions of the philosophy of the complex vision ridiculous
and "impossible" to our mood of practical common-sense. If on
the contrary they did not seem insane and foolish to such a mood
we might well be profoundly suspicious of them. For although
there are very few certainties in this world, one thing at least is
certain, namely that for any truth or reality to satisfy the creati