"Philosophers as a rule take fright at the bare mention of solipsism. Immediately it comes in sight they shy to one side like a horse frightened of a piece of paper. It is common to read in their writings arguments such as the following: 'Such and such a line of thought will lead us into solipsism. Therefore we must avoid that line of thought since it must be wrong.' And with that unphilosophical attitude they are satisfied, never calmly facing the issue. They think that to admit that the solipsist position must be the initial position of the mind is an admission which will get them into difficulties. They dislike the idea. It arouses, perhaps, unpleasant feelings of loneliness and futility. Their objections are not based on any rational thought, but upon this emotional dislike or fear. Here, for example, is a passage from a lecture by Mr. C.C.J. Webb on Our Knowledge of One Another which has recently been issued:'I have a recollection of hearing the late Lord Balfour remark in the course of a philosophical discussion that he found it very difficult to deny 'solipsism' to be our original condition, but no less difficult to see how, if it were so, we could ever get out of it. The second difficulty appears to me insuperable, but as to the former I cannot believe that solipsism is a position that any one was ever really in.'
"'Found it very difficult to deny' are tell-tale words. They plainly indicate that there is a desire to deny it. In other words the question is not being viewed in the dry light of reason, but the wishes and feelings of the thinker are being allowed to dictate the conclusion. Lord Balfour felt forced to admit that the initial position of the mind is solipsism, but feared nevertheless to look the thought in the face. And Mr. Webb assumes without any argument that it cannot be accepted, and seems to think that the fact that one does not like the idea is a sufficient reason for its rejection.
"But philosophy, as I understand it, necessitates our following reason to the end. And if one is going to be frightened of the conclusions to which reason points, if one is going to philosophize half-way, and only so long as one likes the results, one might as well give up philosophizing altogether. Why not, then, rest in 'common sense' or in 'primitive belief' or in blind prejudice, and so sleep in peace untroubled by philosophic doubts?
"It seems to me that we ought to take philosophy seriously, loyally following wherever she leads. And I believe that any one who is prepared to follow reason absolutely, with no reservations, will be compelled to accept the philosophy to be developed in the next two chapters. I claim that it alone is the true rationalism. But as human nature is such that men will not follow reason, I predict that in fact very few will accept it, and that most will comfort themselves with some vain delusion imposed upon them, not by their reason, but by their hopes or fears. But for my part I shall proceed uncompromisingly to the end.
"It is evident that, however we may wish otherwise, we cannot, if we are honest, escape the conclusion that the initial position of every mind must be solipsistic. By this I do not mean that I shall remain in the belief that I alone exist. I think on the contrary that there is very good reason to believe in the existence of other minds. That is a question which I will discuss in Chapter VIII. But in the meanwhile I assert that each of us must begin from within his own consciousness. Belief in other minds is not a datum.
"That I am, to start with, only aware of my own thoughts and experiences, appears to be self-evident. Since it is the true beginning, it is clear that it cannot be an inference from anterior data, since in that case those anterior data would themselves constitute the beginning. We cannot prove the solipsist position in the sense of deducing it from some other position. But we can establish it by pointing out the given facts which constitute the position. This we have already to a large extent done, and nothing more is necessary here except once more to summarize those facts. They are as follows.
"I cannot experience anything except my own experience. I can see my red, but I can never see yours. I can feel a pain in my leg. But I can never feel the pain in your leg. I can feel my emotion, but not yours. Even if your anger infects me, so that I feel it in sympathy with you, it is yet, in so far as I feel it, my anger, not yours. I can never be you, nor you me. I cannot see through your eyes, nor you through mine. Even if you can telepathically transfer a mental state, say an image, from your mind to mine, yet, when I become aware of it, it is then my image and not yours. Even if, as some think, I can directly perceive your mind, without having to infer it from your body, still this perception of your mind will then be to me my perception, my experience.
"All knowledge, all philosophy, must be based upon experience. And from whose experience can I begin except from my own? Whatever belief I hold on whatever subject must be either a datum of my consciousness or else an inference or mental construction which I base upon my data. If I accept a scientific belief on your authority, this belief must be an inference which I make from the sounds (words) I hear you utter, and from my belief in your repute as a scientific authority. Whatever I believe rests in the end upon the data of my own consciousness. Therefore all knowledge must have had its beginning in my own self-enclosed personal experience. This original solipsism is utterly inescapable except by prejudice or by refusing to see it. Philosophers blink the fact or gloss it over. But we shall begin here and loyally accept whatever results may follow.
"We shall have to make further study of the world of the solipsistic or solitary mind, the world which the mind would inhabit but for its acquired communication with other minds. For it must be remembered that the solitary mind is no mere legend of a consciousness which may or may not have existed in remote past ages. It is true that we look upon it as, in a sense already explained, an historical as well as a logical beginning. But the solitary mind is also a present fact. For it is the mind of every one of us stripped of all accretions of knowledge, and push back upon its absolute foundation. The mind which is here described, and whose world is here discussed, exists here and now embedded in the counsciousness of every one of us. It is true that the mind of every one of us contains, and is, much more that this. But this it is at least. This is the underground foundation of the building. And the foundation is not abolished or rendered a legend by the building of the upper stories. It is still there. So, too, the world of the solitary mind is not an unreal or imaginary world. It is the world which every one of us inhabits even now, though we have added many riches of existence to it."
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