Creative art would thus
still have a ground of being under a sceptical philosophy; man would
delight to dream his dream. But it is not necessary to take this lower
line of argument.
It does not appear to me to be open to question that there is in the
soul of man a nature and an order obtaining in it as permanent and
universal as in the material world. The soul of man has a common being
in all. There could be no science of logic, psychology, or metaphysics
on the hypothesis of any uncertainty as to the identity of mind in all,
nor any science of ethics on the hypothesis of any variation as to the
identity of the will in all, nor any ground of expression even, of
communication between man and man, on the hypothesis of any radical
difference in the experience and faculties to which all expression
appeals for its intelligibility; neither could there be any system of
life in social groups, or plan for education, unless such a common basis
is accepted. The postulate of a common human nature is analogous to that
of the unity of matter in science; it finds its complete expression in
the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, for if race be fundamentally
distinguished from race as was once thought, it is only as element is
distinguished from element in the old chemistry.
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