The Psychological Effects of Regarding the Metaphysically Given as Mutable

If a thinker rejects the absolutism of reality, however, his mental set is reversed: he expects existence to obey his wishes, and then he discovers that existence does not obey. This will lead him to the idea of a fundamental dichotomy: he will come to view conflict with reality as being the essence of human life. He will feel that clash or warfare between the self and the external world is not a senseless torture caused by an aberration, but the metaphysical rule. On one side of the clash, he will feel, are the desires and fantasies he seeks to elevate above existence; on the other, the “brute” facts inexplicably impervious to them.¹