Commonplace Book

'"Things as they are" - the old phrase, no doubt is a trap. It implies some assumptions that seem to fade away into nonsense or nothing as soon as strict thought sets about its destructive work of analysis. Still, it may be used with due caution to signify those aspects of external things which fall under the jurisdiction of science rather than of art - all that can be measured, defined, referred to known causes and studied in its established effects. The phrase helps us to make clear to ourselves, so far as such clearness is not delusive, the distinction between our emotions and their objects, between our love and the beloved person, between fear and the enemy's attack or the storm's violence, between our own awe and the physical proportions of Westminster Abbey. Whatever philosophy may dissolve in the crucible minds of philosophers, we common people cling still to a working assumption that first there are things in existence outside our individual selves; that then we perceive them; and that, having perceived them, we then have, or may have, various feelings about them...'

from The Right Place by CE Montague (Chapter IV, Part V)