Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... REALITY AND ILLUSION "Whoever will contribute any touch of sharpness will help us to make sure of what's what and who's who."--William James. "A few clear ideas are worth more than many confused ones. A young man will hardly be persuaded to sacrifice the greater part of his thoughts to save the rest, and the muddled head is the least apt to see the necessity of such sacrifice. "It is terrible to see how a single unclear idea, a single formula without meaning, lurking in a young man's head, will sometimes act like an obstruction of inert matter in an artery, hindering the nutrition of the brain, and condemning its victim to pine away in the fullness of his intellectual vigor and in the midst of intellectual plenty. Many a man has cherished for years as his hobby some vague shadow of an idea, too meaningless to be positively false. He has, nevertheless, passionately loved it, has made it his companion by day and by night, and has given to it his strength and his life, leaving all other occupations for its sake, and, in short, has lived with it and for it, until it has become, as it were, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone; and then he has waked up some bright morning to find it gone, clean vanished away like the beautiful Melusina of the fable, and the essence of his life gone with it. Who can say how many histories of circle-squarers, metaphysicians, astrologers, and what not, may not be told in the old German story?"--Charles SanDers Peirce. "Better not to know so much than to know so much that is not true."--Josh Billings. E word Truth is used with many different _f_ meanings. A description of an isolated fact is, in one sense of the word, a truth. A correct account of any sense-impression, stated in terms of common human...
