ave
something in the way of society, still I have, like petty princes, only
my own creatures to echo my words. . . . Every being, even the highest
Being, wishes something to love and to honor. But the Fichtean
doctrine that I am my own body-maker leaves me with nothing
whatever--with not so much as the beggar's dog or the prisoner's
spider. . . . Truly I wish that there were men, and that I were one of
them. . . . If there exists, as I very much fear, no one but myself,
unlucky dog that I am, then there is no one at such a pass as I."

Just how much Fichte's words meant to the man who wrote them may be a
matter for dispute. Certainly no one has shown a greater moral
earnestness or a greater regard for his fellowmen than this
philosopher, and we must not hastily accuse any one of being a
solipsist. But that to certain men, and, indeed, to many men, there
have come thoughts that have seemed to point in this direction--that
not a few have had doubts as to their ability to _prove_ the existence
of other minds--this we must admit.

It appears somewhat easier for a man to have doubts upon this subject
when he has fallen into the idealistic error of regarding the material
world, which seems to be revealed to him, as nothing else than his
"ideas" or "sensations" or "impressions." If we will draw the whole
"telephone exchange" into the clerk, there seems little reason for not
including all the subscribers as well. If other men's bodies are my
sensations, may not other men's minds be my imaginings? But doubts may
be felt also by those who are willing to admit a real external world.
How do we know that our inference to the existence of other minds is a
justifiable inference? Can there be such a thing as _verification_ in
this field?

For we must remember that no man is directly conscious of any mind
except his own. Men cannot exhibit their minds to their neighbors as
they exhibit their wigs. However close may seem to us to be our
intercourse with those about us, do we ever attain to anything more
than our ideas of the contents of their minds? We do not experience
these contents; we picture them, we represent them by certain proxies.
To be sure, we believe that the originals exist, but can we be quite
sure of it? Can there be a _proof_ of this right to make the leap from
one consciousness to another? We seem to assume that we can make it,
and then we make it again and again; but suppose, after all, that there
wer