irst principles. I
deal not with philosophers meditating upon Being and not-Being, but with
men actively engaged in framing political platforms and carrying on
popular agitations. The great majority even of intelligent partisans are
either indifferent to the philosophic creed of their leaders or take it
for granted. Its postulates are more or less implied in the doctrines
which guide them in practice, but are not explicitly stated or
deliberately reasoned out. Not the less the doctrines of a sect,
political or religious, may be dependent upon theories which for the
greater number remain latent or are recognised only in their concrete
application. Contemporary members of any society, however widely they
differ as to results, are employed upon the same problems and, to some
extent, use the same methods and make the same assumptions in attempting
solutions. There is a certain unity even in the general thought of any
given period. Contradictory views imply some common ground. But within
this wider unity we find a variety of sects, each of which may be
considered as more or less representing a particular method of treating
the general problem: and therefore principles which, whether clearly
recognised or not, are virtually implied in their party creed and give a
certain unity to their teaching.

One obvious principle of unity, or tacit bond of sympathy which holds a
sect together depends upon the intellectual idiosyncrasy of the
individuals. Coleridge was aiming at an important truth when he said
that every man was born an Aristotelian or a Platonist.[1] Nominalists
and realists, intuitionists and empiricists, idealists and materialists,
represent different forms of a fundamental antithesis which appears to
run through all philosophy. Each thinker is apt to take the postulates
congenial to his own mind as the plain dictates of reason. Controversies
between such opposites appear to be hopeless. They have been aptly
compared by Dr. Venn to the erection of a snow-bank to dam a river. The
snow melts and swells the torrent which it was intended to arrest. Each
side reads admitted truths into its own dialect, and infers that its own
dialect affords the only valid expression. To regard such antitheses as
final and insoluble would be to admit complete scepticism. What is true
for one man would not therefore be true--or at least its truth would not
be demonstrable--to another. We must trust that reconciliation is
achievable by showin