accounts of
the races of men, and of the spontaneous generation of small animals,
no one has a right to despise his profound reflections upon the nature
of time and the problems which arise out of its character as past,
present, and future.

The fact is that metaphysics does not lag behind because of our lack of
material to work with. The difficulties we have to face are nothing
else than the difficulties of reflective thought. Why can we not tell
clearly what we mean when we use the word "self," or speak of
"knowledge," or insist that we know an "external world"? Are we not
concerned with the most familiar of experiences? To be sure we
are--with experiences familiarly, but vaguely and unanalytically, known
and, hence, only half known. All these experiences the great men of
the past had as well as we; and if they had greater powers of
reflection, perhaps they saw more deeply into them than we do. At any
rate, we cannot afford to assume that they did not.

One thing, however, I must not omit to mention. Although one man
cannot turn over bodily the results of his reflection to another, it by
no means follows that he cannot give the other a helping hand, or warn
him of dangers by himself stumbling into pitfalls, as the case may be.
We have an indefinite advantage over the solitary thinkers who opened
up the paths of reflection, for we have the benefit of their teaching.
And this brings me to a consideration which I must discuss in the next
section.

85. THE VALUE OF DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW.--The man who has not read is
like the man who has not traveled--he is not an intelligent critic, for
he has nothing with which to compare what falls within the little
circle of his experiences. That the prevailing architecture of a town
is ugly can scarcely impress one who is acquainted with no other town.
If we live in a community in which men's manners are not good, and
their standard of living not the highest, our attention does not dwell
much upon the fact, unless some contrasted experience wakes within us a
clear consciousness of the difference. That to which we are accustomed
we accept uncritically and unreflectively. It is difficult for us to
see it somewhat as one might see it to whom it came as a new experience.

Of course, there may be in the one town buildings of more and of less
architectural beauty; and there may be in the one community differences
of opinion that furnish intellectual stimulus and keep awake