But then loyalty and science alike deal with metaphors and
with myths. In the first case the spiritual unity of the life that we
lead is essentially vindicated. Causes such as the loyal serve are real.
The cause of science also is real. But in that case an essentially
spiritual realm, that of the rational unity of human experience, is
real; and possesses a grade both of reality and of worth which is
superior to the grade of reality that the phenomena of nature's
mechanism exhibit to us. In the other case the sciences whose results
are supposed to be discouraging and unspiritual vanish, with all their
facts, into the realm of fable, together with the world that all the
loyal, including the faithful followers of the sciences, believe to be
real.
I have here no time to discuss the paradoxes of a totally skeptical
philosophy. It is enough to say that such a total skepticism is, indeed,
self-refuting. The only rational view of life depends upon maintaining
that what the loyal always regard as a reality, namely, their cause, is,
indeed, despite all special illusions of this or of that form of
imperfect loyalty, essentially a type of reality which rationally
survives all criticisms and underlies all doubts.
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