That this answer is not a very satisfactory one occurred to men’s minds very early in the history of reflective thought.  The ancient skeptic said to himself:  The colors of objects vary according to the light, and according to the position and distance of the objects; can we say that any object has a real color of its own?  A staff stuck into water looks bent, but feels straight to the touch; why believe the testimony of one sense rather than that of another?

Such questionings led to far-reaching consequences.  They resulted in a forlorn distrust of the testimony of the senses, and to a doubt as to our ability to know anything as it really is.

Now, the distinction between appearances and realities exists for us as well as for the ancient skeptic, and without being tempted to make such extravagant statements as that there is no such thing as truth, and that every appearance is as real as any other, we may admit that it is not very easy to see the full significance of the distinction, although we are referring to it constantly.

For example, we look from our window and see, as we say, a tree at a distance.  What we are conscious of is a small bluish patch of color.  Now, a small bluish patch of color is not, strictly speaking, a tree; but for us it represents the tree.  Suppose that we walk toward the tree.  Do we continue to see what we saw before?  Of course, we say that we continue to see the same tree; but it is plain that what we immediately perceive, what is given in consciousness, does not remain the same as we move.  Our blue patch of color grows larger and larger; it ceases to be blue and faint; at the last it has been replaced by an expanse of vivid green, and we see the tree just before us.

During our whole walk we have been seeing the tree.  This appears to mean that we have been having a whole series of visual experiences, no two of which were just alike, and each of which was taken as a representative of the tree.  Which of these representatives is most like the tree?  Is the tree really a faint blue, or is it really a vivid green?  Or is it of some intermediate color?

Probably most persons will be inclined to maintain that the tree only seems blue at a distance, but that it really is green, as it appears when one is close to it.  In a sense, the statement is just; yet some of those who make it would be puzzled to tell by what right they pick out of the whole series of experiences, each of which represents the tree as seen from some particular position, one individual experience, which they claim not only represents the tree as seen from a given point but also represents it as it is.  Does this particular experience bear some peculiar earmark which tells us that it is like the real tree while the others are unlike it?

20.  REAL THINGS.—­And what is this real tree that we are supposed to see as it is when we are close to it?