Pure anachronism! says the survival-theory;--anachronism for
which deanthropomorphization of the imagination is the remedy
required. The less we mix the private with the cosmic, the more
we dwell in universal and impersonal terms, the truer heirs of
Science we become.
In spite of the appeal which this impersonality of the scientific
attitude makes to a certain magnanimity of temper, I believe it
to be shallow, and I can now state my reason in comparatively few
words. That reason is that, so long as we deal with the cosmic
and the general, we deal only with the symbols of reality, but as
soon as we deal with private and personal phenomena as such, we
deal with realities in the completest sense of the term. I think
I can easily make clear what I mean by these words.
The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts,
an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be
incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter
can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the
sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of,
the subjective part is the inner "state" in which the thinking
comes to pass.
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