How far I succeed or fail in that private and
personal attempt to behave well, has nothing to do with the matter of
this book. That is another story, a reserved and private affair. I offer
simply intellectual experiences and ideas.
It will be necessary to take up the most abstract of these questions of
belief first, the metaphysical questions. It may be that to many readers
the opening sections may seem the driest and least attractive. But I
would ask them to begin at the beginning and read straight on, because
much that follows this metaphysical book cannot be appreciated at its
proper value without a grasp of these preliminaries.
BOOK THE FIRST.
METAPHYSICS.
1.1. THE NECESSITY FOR METAPHYSICS.
As a preliminary to that experiment in mutual confession from which this
book arose, I found it necessary to consider and state certain truths
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 metaphysical.
In writing out these notes now I think it is well that I should state
just how important I think this metaphysical prelude is.
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