We have seen that an increase of knowledge about things compels a man to pass from the real things of common life to the real things of science, and to look upon the former as appearance.

Now, a man may arbitrarily decide that he will use the word "reality" to indicate only that which can never in its turn be regarded as appearance, a reality which must remain an ultimate reality; and he may insist upon our telling him about that.
How a man not a soothsayer can tell when he has come to ultimate reality, it is not easy to see.
Suppose, however, that we could give any one such information.

We should then be telling him about things _as they are_, it is true, but his knowledge of things would not be different in _kind_ from what it was before.

The only difference between such a knowledge of things and a knowledge of things not known to be ultimate would be that, in the former case, it would be recognized that no further extension of knowledge was possible.

The distinction between appearance and reality would remain just what it was in the experience of the plain man.
22.