First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life

ruths about the nature of knowledge, about the meaning of truth and the value of words, that is to say I found I had to begin by being me

nd accumulated and alien literature to make metaphysics obscure, and some of the most fruitful and able metaphysical discussion in the world was conducted by a number of unhampered men in small Greek cities, who knew no language but their own and had scarcely a technical term. The true metaphysician is after all only a person who says, "Now let us take a thought for a moment before we fall into a discussion of the broad questions of life, lest we rush hastily into

aracters are, I think, more similar than their views, and if they had not needlessly different modes of expressi

. Men imagine they stand on the same ground and mean the same thing by the same words, whereas they stand on slightly different grounds, use different terms for the

ss people, but it seems to me it has been realised by very few - and until it is realised to the fullest extent, we

s a very importan

it must get to a common and general understanding upon what its ideas of truth, good, and beauty amount to, and upon the relation of the name to the thing, and of the relation of one mind to another mind in the matter of resemblance and the ma

l things lies the road, I believe, along which the human mind can escape, if ever it