APPEARANCE AND REALITY

  A METAPHYSICAL ESSAY

 BY

  F. H. BRADLEY

Second Edition (Revised), with an Appendix

 1897

 Scanned and Edited by Robert Bamford

 Golden Gale Electronic Books

1995  --------------------------------------------------------

FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR  FULL NAME: Francis Herbert Bradley
BORN: 30 January 1846, Clapham DIED: 18 September 1924, Oxford, aged 78
AGE WHEN THIS BOOK WRITTEN: About 46 
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PUBLISHING HISTORY  

First published 1893. Second edition (revised) 1897. 
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notice applies to this computer program: Copyright 1995 Robert W.
Bamford.  --------------------------------------------------------

 HOW TO CONTACT THE PUBLISHER  

By Internet email: rbamford@acslink.net.au By post: P.O. Box 894, Sandy
Bay, TAS 7006, Australia 
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 TO MY FRIEND

  E---- R----

 THIS UNWORTHY VOLUME

IS RESPECTFULLY

DEDICATED

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  PREFACE (1893)  

I HAVE described the following work as an essay in metaphysics. Neither
in form nor extent does it carry out the idea of a system. Its subject
indeed is central enough to justify the exhaustive treatment of every
problem. But what I have done is incomplete, and what has been left
undone has often been omitted arbitrarily. The book is a more or less
desultory handling of perhaps the chief questions in metaphysics.

 There were several reasons why I did not attempt a more systematic
treatise, and to carry out even what I proposed has proved enough for my
powers. I began this more systematic treatise, and to carry out even
what I proposed has proved enough for my powers. I began this book in
the autumn of 1887, and, after writing the first two fifths of it in
twelve months, then took three years with the remainder. My work has
been suspended several times through long intervals of compulsory
idleness, and I have been glad to finish it when and how I could. I do
not say this to obviate criticism on a book now deliberately published.
But, if I had attempted more, I should probably have completed nothing.

 And in the main I have accomplished all that lay within my compass.
This volume is meant to be a critical discussion of first principles,
and its object is to stimulate enquiry and doubt. To originality in any
other sense it makes no claim. If the reader finds that on any points he
has been led once more to reflect, I shall not have failed, so far as I
can, to be original. But I should add that my book is not intended for
the beginner. Its language in general I hope is not over- technical, but
I have sometimes used terms intelligible only to the student. The index
supplied is not an index but a mere collection of certain references.

 My book does not design to be permanent, and will be satisfied to be
negative, so long as that word implies an attitude of active
questioning. The chief need of English philosophy is, I think, a
sceptical study of first principles, and I do not know of any work which
seems to meet this need sufficiently. By scepticism is not meant doubt
about or disbelief in some tenet or tenets. I understand by it an
attempt to become aware of and to doubt all preconceptions. Such
scepticism is the result only of labour and education, but it is a
training which cannot with impunity be neglected. And I know no reason
why the English mind, if it would but subject itself to this discipline,
should not in our day produce a rational system of first principles. If
I have helped to forward this result, then, whatever form it may take,
my ambition will be satisfied.

 The reason why I have so much abstained from historical criticism and
direct polemics may be briefly stated. I have written for English
readers, and it would not help them much to learn my relation to German
writers. Besides, to tell the truth, I do not know precisely that
relation myself. And, though I have a high opinion of the metaphysical
powers of the English mind, I have not seen any serious attempt in
English to deal systematically with first principles. But things among
us are not as they were some few years back. There is no established
reputation which now does much harm to philosophy. And one is not led to
feel in writing that one is face to face with the same dense body of
stupid tradition and ancestral prejudice. Dogmatic Individualism is far
from having ceased to flourish, but it no longer occupies the ground as
the one accredited way of "advanced thinking." The present generation is
learning that to gain education a man must study in more than one
school. And to criticise a writer of whom you know nothing is now, even
in philosophy, considered to be the thing that it is. We owe this
improvement mostly to men of a time shortly before my own, and who
insisted well, if perhaps incautiously, on the great claims of Kant and
Hegel. But whatever other influences have helped, the result seems
secured. There is a fair field for any one now, I believe, who has
anything to say. And I feel no desire for mere polemics, which can
seldom benefit oneself, and which seem no longer required by the state
of our philosophy. I would rather keep my natural place as a learner
among learners.

 If anything in these pages suggests a more dogmatic frame of mind, I
would ask the reader not hastily to adopt that suggestion. I offer him a
set of opinions and ideas in part certainly wrong, but where and how
much I am unable to tell him. That is for him to find out, if he cares
to and if he can. Would it be better if I hinted in effect that he is in
danger of expecting more, and that I, if I chose, perhaps might supply
it? I have everywhere done my best, such as it is, to lay bare the
course of ideas, and to help the reader to arrive at a judgment on each
question. And, as I cannot suppose a necessity on my part to disclaim
infallibility, I have not used set phrases which, if they mean anything,
imply it. I have stated my opinions as truths whatever authority there
may be against them, and however hard I may have found it to come to an
opinion at all. And, if this is to be dogmatic, I certainly have not
tried to escape dogmatism.

 It is difficult again for a man not to think too much of his own
pursuit. The metaphysician cannot perhaps be too much in earnest with
metaphysics, and he cannot, as the phrase runs, take himself too
seriously. But the same thing holds good with every other positive
function of the universe. And the metaphysician, like other men, is
prone to forget this truth. He forgets the narrow limitation of his
special province, and, filled by his own poor inspiration, he ascribes
to it an importance not its due. I do not know if anywhere in my work I
may seem to have erred thus, but I am sure that such excess is not my
conviction or my habitual mood. And to restore the balance, and as a
confession possibly of equal defect, I will venture to transcribe some
sentences from my note-book. I see written there that "Metaphysics is
the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to
find these reasons is no less an instinct." Of Optimism I have said that
"The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a
necessary evil." Eclecticism I have found preach that "Every truth is so
true that any truth must be false," and Pessimism that "Where everything
is bad it must be good to know the worst," or "Where all is rotten it is
a man's work to cry stinking fish." About the Unity of Science I have
set down that "Whatever you know it is all one," and of Introspection
that "The one self- knowledge worth having is to know one's mind." The
reader may judge how far these sentences form a Credo, and he must
please himself again as to how seriously he takes a further extract: "To
love unsatisfied the world is mystery, a mystery which love satisfied
seems to comprehend. The latter is wrong only because it cannot be
content without thinking itself right."

 But for some general remarks in justification of metaphysics I may
refer to the Introduction.
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

  IT is a pleasure to me to find that a new edition of this book is
wanted. I am encouraged to hope that with all its defects it has helped
to stimulate thought on first principles. And it has been a further
pleasure to me to find that my critics have in general taken this work
in the spirit in which it was offered, whether they have or have not
found themselves in agreement with its matter. And perhaps in some cases
sympathy with its endeavour may have led them to regard its shortcomings
too leniently. I on my side have tried to profit by every comment,
though I have made no attempt to acknowledge each, or to reply to it in
detail. But I fear that some criticisms must have escaped my notice,
since I have discovered others by mere chance.

 For this edition I have thought it best not to make many alterations;
but I have added in an Appendix, beside some replies to objections, a
further explanation and discussion of certain difficulties.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS  INTRODUCTION (1-7)

 Preliminary objections to metaphysics answered. The task is not
impossible (2), or indefensible (3-7).

 BOOK I--APPEARANCE  I. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES (11-18)

 Attempt to explain error by taking primary qualities alone as real
(11). The secondary shown to be unreal (12-14). But the primary have no
independent existence (14-17), save as useful fictions (17-18).  II.
SUBSTANTIVE AND ADJECTIVE (19-24)

 Problem of Inherence. Relation between the thing and its qualities is
unintelligible (19-24).  III. RELATION AND QUALITY (25-34)

 I. Qualities without relations are unintelligible. They cannot be found
(26-27). They cannot be got bare legitimately (27-28), or at all
(28-30).

 II. Qualities with relations are unintelligible. They cannot be
resolved into relations (30), and the relations bring internal
discrepancies (31).

 III. Relations with, or without, qualities are unintelligible (32-34). 
IV. SPACE AND TIME (35-43)

 Their psychological origin is irrelevant (35). Space is inconsistent
because it is, and is not, a relation (36-38), and its connection with
other content is unintelligible (38).

 Time, as usually taken, has the same vices (39, 40). And so has Time
taken otherwise, for the "now" is self- inconsistent (40-43)  V. MOTION
AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION (44-53)

 Motion is inconsistent; is not so fundamental as Change (44, 45).
Change is a new instance of our dilemma and is unintelligible (45-49).

 Perception of Succession is not timeless (49-51). Its true nature
(51-53).  VI. CAUSATION (54-61)

 Effort to avoid the contradiction of Change. But the Cause and its
Effect are not compatible (54, 55). Illusory attempt at explanation (55,
56). The Cause spreads to take in all the conditions, and yet cannot be
complete (56-58). Its relation to its effect is unintelligible (58).

 Causal sequence must be, and cannot be, continuous (58-61).  VII.
ACTIVITY (62-70)

 Whether an original datum, or not, is irrelevant (62). It has a meaning
which implies change in time (63), and self-caused change (64, 65).
Passivity what and how connected with Activity. Occasion what (65).
Condition and Sum of Conditions (66-68).

 Activity and Passivity imply one another, but are inconsistent (68-70).
 VIII. THINGS (71-74)

 Our previous results have ruined Things (71). Things must have identity
which is ideal, and so appearance (72, 73). Everyday confusion as to
Things' identity (73- 74).  IX. THE MEANINGS OF SELF (75-102)

 The Self at last, but what does it mean? (75, 76). Self as body
excluded (77). I. Self as total contents of experience at one moment
(77). II. Self as average contents of experience, (77-79). III.
Essential self (80, 81). Personal identity (81-86). IV. Self as Monad
(86-87). V. Self as what interests (88). VI. Self as opposed to Not-self
(88-96). Each is a concrete group (89, 90). But does any content belong
solely to self (90, 91), or to Not-self (91, 92)? Doubtful cases (92-
94). Self and Not-self on the whole are not fixed (95, 96). Perception
of Activity, its general nature (96- 100). VII. Self as Mere Self
(100-101).  X. THE REALITY OF SELF (103-120)

 Self is doubtless a fact, but, as it appears, can it be real?
(103-104). (a) Self as Feeling proves for several reasons untenable
(104-107). (b) Nor is self- consciousness in better case (107-111). (c)
Personal Identity useless, and so also functional unity of self
(112-114). (d) Self as Activity, Force, or Will (114- 117). (e) Self as
Monad (117, 118). Conclusion (119, 120).  XI. PHENOMENALISM (121-126)

 Result so far (121). Phenomenalism as a remedy (121, 122). But it does
not include the facts, itself for one (122). And its elements are
unintelligible (123). And difficulty as to past and future and Identity
(123, 124). And what are Laws (124, 125)? Final dilemma (125, 126). 
XII. THINGS IN THEMSELVES (127-132)

 Separation of Universe into two hemispheres is indefensible (127-129),
and only doubles our difficulties (129-131). Appearances are facts,
which somehow must qualify reality (131, 132).

 BOOK II--REALITY  XIII. THE GENERAL NATURE OF REALITY (135-143)

 Result, so far, mainly negative (135); but we have an absolute
criterion (136). Objection based on development (137). Our criterion is
supreme, and not merely negative. It gives positive knowledge about
reality (137-140). Further, the Real is one substantially. Plurality of
Reals is not possible (140-143).  XIV. THE GENERAL NATURE OF REALITY
(cont.) (144-161)

 The Absolute is one system, and its matter is Experience (144-147). But
has it more than theoretical perfection (147, 148)? No answer from any
practical postulate (148-155). Ontological Argument (149, 150).
Practical and theoretical Axioms (151-154).

 But, indirectly, theoretical perfection seems to imply perfection on
all sides (155-158).

 Our knowledge of the Absolute is incomplete, but positive. Its sources
(159-161).  XV. THOUGHT AND REALITY (162-183)

 Nature of Ideality (162, 163). This visible in judgment through
contrast of predicate with subject (161-165). Truth what (165); is based
on Ideality of the Finite (165-167).

 Puzzle about the relation of thought to reality (167). Thought is
dualistic, and its subject and predicate are different (168-170). And if
thought succeeded in transcending dualism, it would perish as thought
(170-172). But why should it not do so? (173- 175).

 But can we maintain an Other to thought (175, 176)? Yes, if this Other
is what thought itself desires and implies. And that is the case,
(176-180). The relational form implies a completion beyond itself
(180-182). Our Absolute is no Thing-in-itself (183).  XVI. ERROR
(184-196)

 A good objection must be founded on something discrepant, not merely
something unexplained (184-186). Problem of Error. It involves a dilemma
(186). Error is Appearance and false Appearance (187, 188). It is
rejected by Reality because it makes that discordant (188-191). But it
belongs to Reality somehow (191). Error can be made truth by division
and rearrangement (192-194). And its positive discordance can be
absorbed (194-196). This possible solution must be real (196).  XVII.
EVIL (197-204)

 Main difficulties made by an error (197). Several senses of evil. Evil
as pain (198-200); as failure to realize End (200, 201); and as
immorality (201-203). In no sense is it incompatible with the Absolute.
And no diversity is lost there (203, 204).  XVIII. TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL
APPEARANCE (205-222)

 Time and space are inexplicable, but not incompatible with our Absolute
(205). Question of origin irrelevant, and appeal to "fact of
consciousness" idle (206).

 Time points to something beyond itself in several ways (207-210). It is
transcended (210).

 Unity of Time. There is none (210-214). My "real" world--what (212).
Direction of Time. There is none, or rather there may be any number
(214-218). Sequence in Causation is but appearance (218-220).

 Space, whatever is its origin, transcends itself (221, 222).  XIX. THE
THIS AND THE MINE (223-240)

 Their general nature (223). They are positive and negative (224).
Feeling as immediate experience of reality (224, 225). The This as
feeling of reality, and as positive fragmentariness (226, 227).

 The This as negative. It transcends itself (227, 228). The This as
unique and as Self-Will (228, 229).

 Is there more than content in the This? (230-233). Does any content
stick in the This? (233). No, it only seems to do so through our failure
(234-240). The "merely mine," what (237).  XX. RECAPITULATION (241-246)

 Result so far (241, 242). Individuality and Perfection, are they merely
negative? (243-245). Perfection and quantity (245). There is but one
perfect being (246).  XXI. SOLIPSISM (247-260)

 Problem stated (247, 248). The Experience appealed to is Direct or
Indirect (248).

 I. Direct Experience does not give my self as sole substantive
(248-250).

 II. But can we transcend direct experience at all? Or is the this-mine
"unique"? No, not in sense of "exclusive," and we are forced to go
beyond (251-254). Then, if so, can we stop at our past and future self,
or must we conclude also to other souls (254, 255)? Neither can be
demonstrated, but both depend on the same argument (255-258). Nor would
unreality of other selves prove Solipsism (258). Everything is, and also
is not, my experience (258, 259). Truths contained in Solipsism (260). 
XXII. NATURE (261-294)

 Nature--meaning of, and origin of for us (261, 262). In its essence
there is an Antinomy. It is relation of unknown to unknown (263-265). It
is a mere system of the conditions of some phenomena, and an
inconsistent abstraction (266, 267).

 Is all Nature extended (267-269)? Is any part of Nature inorganic
(270-272)? Is it all relative to finite souls (273-280)? These questions
not important (280, 281). Identity of Nature (281-283). Position of
physical science (283-286). Unity of Nature (286-288). Solidity
(288-290). Infinity of Nature (290-292). Its Uniformity (292). Nature is
contingent, in what sense (293, 294).  XXIII. BODY AND SOUL (295-358)

 They are phenomenal and furnish no ground for an objection (295-297).
Body, what (297, 298). Soul, what (298). It is not the same as
experience. This shown from point of view of the individual (299-304);
and of the Absolute (305-307).

 Objections discussed. (1) If phenomenal, is the soul a mere appendage
to the organism? Problem of continuity and of dispositions. The soul an
ideal construction (307-316). (2) Does the series imply a transcendent
Ego (316)? (3) Are there psychical facts which are not events (317-323)?

 Relation of Body and Soul. They are not one thing (323, 358). They are
causally connected (324, 325). One is not the idle adjective of the
other (326-331). The true view stated (333-335); but the connection
remains inexplicable (336, 337). How far can body or soul be independent
(337-342)?

 Communication between Souls, its nature (342-347).

 Identity of diverse souls, its nature and action (347-352). Identity
within one soul, and how far it transcends the mechanical view
(353-357).  XXIV. DEGREES OF TRUTH AND REALITY (359-400)

 The Absolute has no degrees, but this not true of Existence (359, 360).
Truth--nature of (360, 361). It remains conditional (361). Hence no
total truth or error, only more or less of Validity (362, 363).

 The Standard, what. It has two features which are essentially connected
(363-365). Approach to this measures degree of relative truth (365). All
thought, even mere imagination, has some truth (365-370). The Standard
further specified, in relation to mere phenomena (370), and to higher
appearances (370-372). No other standard possible (372-374). And ours is
applicable everywhere (375-377). The world of Sense, its proper place.
Neither mere Sense nor mere Thought is real (378-381). The truer and
more real must appear more; but in what sense (381, 382)?

 Complete conditions not same as Reality (383). Unseen Nature and
psychical Dispositions (383, 384). Potential Existence, what (384-387).
Possibility and Chance and external Necessity, relative and absolute
(387-394). Degrees of Possibility (394). The Ontological Proof, its
failure and justification (395-397). Bastard form of it (398, 399).
Existence necessary, in what sense (400).  XXV. GOODNESS (401-454)

 Good and Evil and their degrees are not illusions, but still are
appearances (401, 402). Goodness, what (402). The merely pleasant, why
not good (403). Pleasure by itself not good (404-407). Good is not the
satisfied will, but is in general the approved (407, 408). How far is it
"desirable" (408, 409)?

 Goodness is a one-sided inconsistent aspect of perfection (409, 410).
The Absolute both is and is not good (411, 412).

 Goodness, more specially, as Self-realization (412, 413). Its double
aspect as Self-sacrifice and Self- assertion (414). What these are
(415-418). They come together but are transcended in the Absolute (419).
But popular Ethics asserts each as ultimate, and hence necessarily fails
(420-429). Relativity of Goodness (429, 430).

 Goodness as inner Morality (431, 432). Is inconsistent and ends in
nothing or in evil (432-436).

 The demands of Morality carry it beyond itself into Religion (436-438).
What this is, and how it promises satisfaction (439-442). It proves
inconsistent, and is an appearance which passes beyond itself (442-448);
but it is no illusion (448-450). The practical problem as to religious
truth (450-453). Religion and Philosophy (453, 454).  XXVI. THE ABSOLUTE
AND ITS APPEARANCES (455-510)

 Object of this Chapter (455-457). The chief modes of Experience; they
all are relative (458). Pleasure, Feeling, the Theoretical, the
Practical, and the AEsthetic attitude are each but appearance (458-466).
And each implies the rest (466-468).

 But the Unity is not known in detail. Final inexplicabilities
(468-470). The universe cannot be reduced to Thought and Will (469).
This shown at length (470-482). The universe--how far intelligible (482,
483). The primacy of Will a delusion (483-485).

 Appearance, meaning of the term (485, 486). Appearances and the
Absolute (486-489). Nature, is it beautiful and adorable (490-495)? Ends
in Nature--a question not for Metaphysics (496, 497). Philosophy of
Nature what (496-499).

 Progress, is there any in the Absolute (499-501); or any life after
death (501-510)?  XXVII. ULTIMATE DOUBTS (511-552) Is our conclusion
merely possible (512)? Preliminary statement as to possibility and
doubt. These must rest on positive knowledge (512-518).

 This applied to our Absolute. It is one (518-522). It is experience
(522-526). But it does not (properly speaking) consist of souls
(536-530); nor is it (properly) personal (531-533). Can the Absolute be
called happy (533-535)? Knowledge is conditional or absolute, and so is
impossibility (535-538). Finite knowledge is all conditional (539-542).
It varies in strength and in corrigibility (542, 543).

 In the end not even absolute truth is quite true, and yet the
distinction remains (544, 545). Relation of truth to reality (545-547).

 Our result reconciles extremes, and is just to our whole nature
(547-549). Error and illusion (549, 550). The presence of Reality in all
appearances, but to different degrees, is the last word of philosophy
(550- 552).  APPENDIX--

 Introduction (553)

 Note A. Contradiction and the Contrary (562)

 Note B. Relation and Quality (572)

 Note C. Identity (585)

 Explanatory Notes (598)  INDEX (623)
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INTRODUCTION  THE writer on metaphysics has a great deal against him.
Engaged on a subject which more than others demands peace of spirit,
even before he enters on the controversies of his own field, he finds
himself involved in a sort of warfare. He is confronted by prejudices
hostile to his study, and he is tempted to lean upon those prejudices,
within him and around him, which seem contrary to the first. It is on
the preconceptions adverse to metaphysics in general that I am going to
make some remarks by way of introduction. We may agree, perhaps, to
understand by metaphysics an attempt to know reality as against mere
appearance, or the study of first principles or ultimate truths, or
again the effort to comprehend the universe, not simply piecemeal or by
fragments, but somehow as a whole. Any such pursuit will encounter a
number of objections. It will have to hear that the knowledge which it
desires to obtain is impossible altogether; or, if possible in some
degree, is yet practically useless; or that, at all events, we can want
nothing beyond the old philosophies. And I will say a few words on these
arguments in their order.

 (a) The man who is ready to prove that metaphysical knowledge is wholly
impossible has no right here to any answer. He must be referred for
conviction to the body of this treatise. And he can hardly refuse to go
there, since he himself has, perhaps unknowingly, entered the arena. He
is a brother metaphysician with a rival theory of first  principles. And
this is so plain that I must excuse myself from dwelling on the point.
To say the reality is such that our knowledge cannot reach it, is a
claim to know reality; to urge that our knowledge is of a kind which
must fail to transcend appearance, itself implies that transcendence.
For, if we had no idea of a beyond, we should assuredly not know how to
talk about failure or success. And the test, by which we distinguish
them, must obviously be some acquaintance with the nature of the goal.
Nay, the would-be sceptic, who presses on us the contradictions of our
thoughts, himself asserts dogmatically. For these contradictions might
be ultimate and absolute truth, if the nature of the reality were not
known to be otherwise. But this introduction is not the place to discuss
a class of objections which are themselves, however unwillingly,
metaphysical views, and which a little acquaintance with the subject
commonly serves to dispel. So far as is necessary, they will be dealt
with in their proper place; and I will therefore pass to the second main
argument against metaphysics.

 (b) It would be idle to deny that this possesses great force.
"Metaphysical knowledge," it insists, "may be possible theoretically,
and even actual, if you please, to a certain degree; but, for all that,
it is practically no knowledge worth the name." And this objection may
be rested on various grounds. I will state some of these, and will make
the answers which appear to me to be sufficient.

 The first reason for refusing to enter on our field is an appeal to the
confusion and barrenness which prevail there. "The same problems," we
hear it often, "the same disputes, the same sheer failure. Why not
abandon it and come out? Is there nothing else more worth your labour?"
To this I shall reply more fully soon, but will at present deny entirely
that the problems have not altered. The assertion is about as true and
about as false as would  be a statement that human nature has not
changed. And it seems indefensible when we consider that in history
metaphysics has not only been acted on by the general development, but
has also reacted. But, apart from historical questions, which are here
not in place, I am inclined to take my stand on the admitted
possibility. If the object is not impossible, and the adventure suits
us--what then? Others far better than ourselves have wholly failed--so
you say. But the man who succeeds is not apparently always the man of
most merit, and even in philosophy's cold world perhaps some fortunes go
by favour. One never knows until one tries.

 But to the question, if seriously I expect to succeed, I must, of
course, answer, No. I do not suppose, that is, that satisfactory
knowledge is possible. How much we can ascertain about reality will be
discussed in this book; but I may say at once that I expect a very
partial satisfaction. I am so bold as to believe that we have a
knowledge of the Absolute, certain and real, though I am sure that our
comprehension is miserably incomplete. But I dissent emphatically from
the conclusion that, because imperfect, it is worthless. And I must
suggest to the objector that he should open his eyes and should consider
human nature. Is it possible to abstain from thought about the universe?
I do not mean merely that to every one the whole body of things must
come in the gross, whether consciously or unconsciously, in a certain
way. I mean that, by various causes, even the average man is compelled
to wonder and to reflect. To him the world, and his share in it, is a
natural object of thought, and seems likely to remain one. And so, when
poetry, art, and religion have ceased wholly to interest, or when they
show no longer any tendency to struggle with ultimate problems and to
come to an understanding with them; when the sense of mystery and
enchantment no longer draws the mind to wander  aimlessly and to love it
knows not what; when, in short, twilight has no charm--then metaphysics
will be worthless. For the question (as things are now) is not whether
we are to reflect and ponder on ultimate truth-- for perhaps most of us
do that, and are not likely to cease. The question is merely as to the
way in which this should be done. And the claim of metaphysics is surely
not unreasonable. Metaphysics takes its stand on this side of human
nature, this desire to think about and comprehend reality. And it merely
asserts that, if the attempt is to be made, it should be done as
thoroughly as our nature permits. There is no claim on its part to
supersede other functions of the human mind; but it protests that, if we
are to think, we should sometimes try to think properly. And the
opponent of metaphysics, it appears to me, is driven to a dilemma. He
must either condemn all reflection, on the essence of things,--and, if
so, he breaks, or, rather, tries to break, with part of the highest side
of human nature, --or else he allows us to think, but not to think
strictly. He permits, that is to say, the exercise of thought so long as
it is entangled with other functions of our being; but as soon as it
attempts a pure development of its own, guided by the principles of its
own distinctive working, he prohibits it forthwith. And this appears to
be a paradox, since it seems equivalent to saying, You may satisfy your
instinctive longing to reflect, so long as you do it in a way which is
unsatisfactory. If your character is such that in you thought is
satisfied by what does not, and cannot, pretend to be thought proper,
that is quite legitimate. But if you are constituted otherwise, and if
in you a more strict thinking is a want of your nature, that is by all
means to be crushed out. And, speaking for myself, I must regard this as
at once dogmatic and absurd.

 But the reader, perhaps, may press me with a  different objection.
Admitting, he may say, that thought about reality is lawful, I still do
not understand why, the results being what they are, you should judge it
to be desirable. And I will try to answer this frankly. I certainly do
not suppose that it would be good for every one to study metaphysics,
and I cannot express any opinion as to the number of persons who should
do so. But I think it quite necessary, even on the view that this study
can produce no positive results, that it should still be pursued. There
is, so far as I can see, no other certain way of protecting ourselves
against dogmatic superstition. Our orthodox theology on the one side,
and our common-place materialism on the other side (it is natural to
take these as prominent instances), vanish like ghosts before the
daylight of free sceptical enquiry. I do not mean, of course, to condemn
wholly either of these beliefs; but I am sure that either, when taken
seriously, is the mutilation of our nature. Neither, as experience has
amply shown, can now survive in the mind which has thought sincerely on
first principles; and it seems desirable that there should be such a
refuge for the man who burns to think consistently, and yet is too good
to become a slave, either to stupid fanaticism or dishonest sophistry.
That is one reason why I think that metaphysics, even if it end in total
scepticism, should be studied by a certain number of persons.

 And there is a further reason which, with myself perhaps, has even more
weight. All of us, I presume, more or less, are led beyond the region of
ordinary facts. Some in one way and some in others, we seem to touch and
have communion with what is beyond the visible world. In various manners
we find something higher, which both supports and humbles, both chastens
and transports us. And, with certain persons, the intellectual effort to
understand the universe is a principal way of thus  experiencing the
Deity. No one, probably, who has not felt this, however differently he
might describe it, has ever cared much for metaphysics. And, wherever it
has been felt strongly, it has been its own justification. The man whose
nature is such that by one path alone his chief desire will reach
consummation, will try to find it on that path, whatever it may be, and
whatever the world thinks of it; and, if he does not, he is
contemptible. Self-sacrifice is too often the "great sacrifice" of
trade, the giving cheap what is worth nothing. To know what one wants,
and to scruple at no means that will get it, may be a harder
self-surrender. And this appears to be another reason for some persons
pursuing the study of ultimate truth.

 (c) And that is why, lastly, existing philosophies cannot answer the
purpose. For whether there is progress or not, at all events there is
change; and the changed minds of each generation will require a
difference in what has to satisfy their intellect. Hence there seems as
much reason for new philosophy as there is for new poetry. In each case
the fresh production is usually much inferior to something already in
existence; and yet it answers a purpose if it appeals more personally to
the reader. What is really worse may serve better to promote, in certain
respects and in a certain generation, the exercise of our best
functions. And that is why, so long as we alter, we shall always want,
and shall always have, new metaphysics.

 I will end this introduction with a word of warning. I have been
obliged to speak of philosophy as a satisfaction of what may be called
the mystical side of our nature--a satisfaction which, by certain
persons, cannot be as well procured otherwise. And I may have given the
impression that I take the metaphysician to be initiated into something
far higher than what the common herd possesses. Such a doctrine would
rest on a most deplorable error,  the superstition that the mere
intellect is the highest side of our nature, and the false idea that in
the intellectual world work done on higher subjects is for that reason
higher work. Certainly the life of one man, in comparison with that of
another, may be fuller of the Divine, or, again, may realize it with an
intenser consciousness; but there is no calling or pursuit which is a
private road to the Deity. And assuredly the way through speculation
upon ultimate truths, though distinct and legitimate, is not superior to
others. There is no sin, however prone to it the philosopher may be,
which philosophy can justify so little as spiritual pride.
--------------------------------------------------------

BOOK I

APPEARANCE

 CHAPTER I PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES  THE fact of illusion and
error is in various ways forced early upon the mind; and the ideas by
which we try to understand the universe, may be considered as attempts
to set right our failure. In this division of my work I shall criticize
some of these, and shall endeavour to show that they have not reached
their object. I shall point out that the world, as so understood,
contradicts itself; and is therefore appearance, and not reality.

 In this chapter I will begin with the proposal to make things
intelligible by the distinction between primary and secondary qualities.
This view is old, but, I need hardly say, is far from obsolete, nor can
it ever disappear. From time to time, without doubt, so long as there
are human beings, it will reappear as the most advanced and as the one
scientific theory of first principles. And I begin with it, because it
is so simple, and in the main so easily disposed of. The primary
qualities are those aspects of what we perceive or feel, which, in a
word, are spatial; and the residue is secondary. The solution of the
world's enigma lies in taking the former as reality, and everything else
somehow as derivative, and as more or less justifiable appearance.

 The foundation of this view will be known to the reader, but for the
sake of clearness I must trace it in outline. We assume that a thing
must be  self- consistent and self-dependent. It either has a quality or
has not got it. And, if it has it, it can not have it only sometimes,
and merely in this or that relation. But such a principle is the
condemnation of secondary qualities.

 It matters very little how in detail we work with it. A thing is
coloured, but not coloured in the same way to every eye; and, except to
some eye, it seems not coloured at all. Is it then coloured or not? And
the eye --relation to which appears somehow to make the quality --does
that itself possess colour? Clearly not so, unless there is another eye
which sees it. Nothing therefore is really coloured; colour seems only
to belong to what itself is colourless. And the same result holds,
again, with cold and heat. A thing may be cold or hot according to
different parts of my skin; and, without some relation to a skin, it
seems without any such quality. And, by a like argument, the skin is
proved not itself to own the quality, which is hence possessed by
nothing. And sounds, not heard, are hardly real; while what hears them
is the ear, itself not audible, nor even always in the enjoyment of
sound. With smell and with taste the case seems almost worse; for they
are more obviously mixed up with our pleasure and pain. If a thing
tastes only in the mouth, is taste its quality? Has it smell where there
is no nose? But nose and tongue are smelt or tasted only by another nose
or tongue; nor can either again be said to have as a quality what they
sometimes enjoy. And the pleasant and disgusting, which we boldly locate
in the object, how can they be there? Is a thing delightful or sickening
really and in itself? Am even I the constant owner of these wandering
adjectives?--But I will not weary the reader by insistence on detail.
The argument shows everywhere that things have secondary qualities only
for an organ; and that the organ itself has these  qualities in no other
way. They are found to be adjectives, somehow supervening on relations
of the extended. The extended only is real. And the facts of what is
called subjective sensation, under which we may include dream and
delusion of all kinds, may be adduced in support. They go to show that,
as we can have the sensation without the object, and the object without
the sensation, the one cannot possibly be a quality of the other. The
secondary qualities, therefore, are appearance, coming from the reality,
which itself has no quality but extension.

 This argument has two sides, a negative and a positive. The first
denies that secondary qualities are the actual nature of things, the
second goes on to make an affirmation about the primary. I will enquire
first if the negative assertion is justified. I will not dispute the
truth of the principle that, if a thing has a quality, it must have it;
but I will ask whether on this basis some defence may not be made. And
we may attempt it in this way. All the arguments, we may protest, do but
show defect in, or interference with, the organ of perception. The fact
that I cannot receive the secondary qualities except under certain
conditions, fails to prove that they are not there and existing in the
thing. And, supposing that they are there, still the argument proves
their absence, and is hence unsound. And sheer delusion and dreams do
not overthrow this defence. The qualities are constant in the things
themselves; and, if they fail to impart themselves, or impart themselves
wrongly, that is always due to something outside their nature. If we
could perceive them, they are there.

 But this way of defence seems hardly tenable. For, if the qualities
impart themselves never except under conditions, how in the end are we
to say what they are when unconditioned? Having once begun, and having
been compelled, to take their  appearance into the account, we cannot
afterwards strike it out. It being admitted that the qualities come to
us always in a relation, and always as appearing, then certainly we know
them only as appearance. And the mere supposition that in themselves
they may really be what they are, seems quite meaningless or
self-destructive. Further, we may enforce this conclusion by a palpable
instance. To hold that one's mistress is charming, ever and in herself,
is an article of faith, and beyond reach of question. But, if we turn to
common things, the result will be otherwise. We observed that the
disgusting and the pleasant may make part of the character of a taste or
a smell, while to take these aspects as a constant quality, either of
the thing or of the organ, seems more than unjustifiable, and even
almost ridiculous. And on the whole we must admit that the defence has
broken down. The secondary qualities must be judged to be merely
appearance.

 But are they the appearance of the primary, and are these the reality?
The positive side of the contention was that in the extended we have the
essence of the thing; and it is necessary to ask if this conclusion is
true. The doctrine is, of course, materialism, and is a very simple
creed. What is extended, together with its spatial relations, is
substantive fact, and the rest is adjectival. We have not to ask here if
this view is scientific, in the sense of being necessarily used for work
in some sciences. That has, of course, nothing to do with the question
now before us, since we are enquiring solely whether the doctrine is
true. And, regarded in this way, perhaps no student would call
materialism scientific.

 I will indicate briefly the arguments against the sole reality of
primary qualities. (a) In the first place, we may ask how, in the nature
the extended, the terms stand to the relations which have to hold 
between them. This is a problem to be handled later (Chapter iv.), and I
will only remark here that its result is fatal to materialism. And, (b)
in the second place, the relation of the primary qualities to the
secondary--in which class feeling and thought have presumably to be
placed--seems wholly unintelligible. For nothing is actually removed
from existence by being labelled "appearance." What appears is there,
and must be dealt with; but materialism has no rational way of dealing
with appearance. Appearance must belong, and yet cannot belong, to the
extended. It neither is able to fall somewhere apart, since there is no
other real place; nor ought it, since, if so, the relation would vanish
and appearance would cease to be derivative. But, on the other side, if
it belongs in any sense to the reality, how can it be shown not to
infect that with its own unreal character? Or we may urge that matter
must cease to be itself, if qualified essentially by all that is
secondary. But, taken otherwise, it has become itself but one out of two
elements, and is not the reality.

 And, (c) thirdly, the line of reasoning which showed that secondary
qualities are not real, has equal force as applied to primary. The
extended comes to us only by relation to an organ; and, whether the
organ is touch or is sight or muscle-feeling--or whatever else it may
be-- makes no difference to the argument. For, in any case, the thing is
perceived by us through an affection of our body, and never without
that. And our body itself is no exception, for we perceive that, as
extended, solely by the action of one part upon another percipient part.
That we have no miraculous intuition of our body as spatial reality is
perfectly certain. But, if so, the extended thing will have its quality
only when perceived by something else; and the percipient something else
is again in the same case. Nothing, in short, proves extended except in
relation  to another thing, which itself does not possess the quality,
if you try to take it by itself. And, further, the objection from dream
and delusion holds again. That objection urges that error points to a
necessary relation of the object to our knowledge, even where error is
not admitted. But such a relation would reduce every quality to
appearance. We might, indeed, attempt once more here to hold the former
line of defence. We might reply that the extended thing is a fact real
by itself, and that only its relation to our percipience is variable.
But the inevitable conclusion is not so to be averted. If a thing is
known to have a quality only under a certain condition, there is no
process of reasoning from this which will justify the conclusion that
the thing, if unconditioned, is yet the same. This seems quite certain;
and, to go further, if we have no other source of information, if the
quality in question is non- existent for us except in one relation, then
for us to assert its reality away from that relation is more than
unwarranted. It is, to speak plainly, an attempt in the end without
meaning. And it would seem that, if materialism is to stand, it must
somehow get to the existence of primary qualities in a way which avoids
their relation to an organ. But since, as we shall hereafter see
(Chapter iv.), their very essence is relative, even this refuge is
closed.

 (d) But there is a more obvious argument against the sole reality of
spatial qualities; and, if I were writing for the people an attack upon
materialism, I should rest great weight on this point. Without secondary
quality extension is not conceivable, and no one can bring it, as
existing, before his mind if he keeps it quite pure. In short, it is the
violent abstraction of one aspect from the rest, and the mere
confinement of our attention to a single side of things, a fiction
which, forgetting itself, takes a ghost for solid reality. And I will
say a few words on this obvious answer to materialism.

  That doctrine, of course, holds that the extended can be actual,
entirely apart from every other quality. But extension is never so
given. If it is visual, it must be coloured; and if it is tactual, or
acquired in the various other ways which may fall under the head of the
"muscular sense,"--then it is never free from sensations, coming from
the skin, or the joints, or the muscles, or, as some would like to add,
from a central source. And a man may say what he likes, but he cannot
think of extension without thinking at the same time of a "what" that is
extended. And not only is this so, but particular differences, such as
"up and down," "right and left," are necessary to the terms of the
spatial relation. But these differences clearly are not merely spatial.
Like the general "what," they will consist in all cases of secondary
quality from a sensation of the kinds I have mentioned above. Some
psychologists, indeed, could go further, and could urge that the
secondary qualities are original, and the primary derivative; since
extension (in their view) is a construction or growth from the wholly
non-extended. I could not endorse that, but I can appeal to what is
indisputable. Extension cannot be presented, or thought of, except as
one with quality that is secondary. It is by itself a mere abstraction,
for some purposes necessary, but ridiculous when taken as an existing
thing. Yet the materialist, from defect of nature or of education, or
probably both, worships without justification this thin product of his
untutored fancy.

 "Not without justification," he may reply, "since in the procedure of
science the secondary qualities are explained as results from the
primary. Obviously, therefore, these latter are independent and prior."
But this is a very simple error. For suppose that you have shown that,
given one element, A, another, b, does in fact follow on it; suppose
that you can prove that b comes just the same, whether A is  attended by
c, or d, or e, or any one of a number of other qualities, you cannot go
from this to the result that A exists and works naked. The secondary b
can be explained, you urge, as issuing from the primary A, without
consideration of aught else. Let it be so; but all that could follow is,
that the special natures of A's accompaniments are not concerned in the
process. There is not only no proof, but there is not even the very
smallest presumption, that A could act by itself, or could be a real
fact if alone. It is doubtless scientific to disregard certain aspects
when we work; but to urge that therefore such aspects are not fact, and
that what we use without regard to them is an independent real
thing,--this is barbarous metaphysics.

 We have found then that, if the secondary qualities are appearance, the
primary are certainly not able to stand by themselves. This distinction,
from which materialism is blindly developed, has been seen to bring us
no nearer to the true nature of reality.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER II

 SUBSTANTIVE AND ADJECTIVE  

WE have seen that the distinction of primary from secondary qualities
has not taken us far. Let us, without regard to it, and once more
directly turning to what meets us, examine another way of making that
intelligible. We find the world's contents grouped into things and their
qualities. The substantive and adjective is a time-honoured distinction
and arrangement of facts, with a view to understand them and to arrive
at reality. I must briefly point out the failure of this method, if
regarded as a serious attempt at theory.

 We may take the familiar instance of a lump of sugar. This is a thing,
and it has properties, adjectives which qualify it. It is, for example,
white, and hard, and sweet. The sugar, we say, is all that; but what the
is can really mean seems doubtful. A thing is not any one of its
qualities, if you take that quality by itself; if "sweet" were the same
as "simply sweet," the thing would clearly be not sweet. And, again, in
so far as sugar is sweet it is not white or hard; for these properties
are all distinct. Nor, again, can the thing be all its properties, if
you take them each severally. Sugar is obviously not mere whiteness,
mere hardness, and mere sweetness; for its reality lies somehow in its
unity. But if, on the other hand, we inquire what there can be in the
thing beside its several qualities, we are baffled once more. We can
discover no real unity existing outside these qualities, or, again,
existing within them.

  But it is our emphasis, perhaps, on the aspect of unity which has
caused this confusion. Sugar is, of course, not the mere plurality of
its different adjectives; but why should it be more than its properties
in relation? When "white," "hard," "sweet," and the rest co-exist in a
certain way, that is surely the secret of the thing. The qualities are,
and are in relation. But here, as before, when we leave phrases we
wander among puzzles. "Sweet," "white," and "hard" seem now the subjects
about which we are saying something. We certainly do not predicate one
of the other; for, if we attempt to identify them, they at once resist.
They are in this wholly incompatible, and, so far, quite contrary.
Apparently, then, a relation is to be asserted of each. One quality, A,
is in relation with another quality, B. But what are we to understand
here by is? We do not mean that "in relation with B" is A, and yet we
assert that A is "in relation with B." In the same way C is called
"before D," and E is spoken of being "to the right of F." We say all
this, but from the interpretation, then "before D" is C, and "to the
right of F" is E, we recoil in horror. No, we should reply, the relation
is not identical with the thing. It is only a sort of attribute which
inheres or belongs. The word to use, when we are pressed, should not be
is, but only has. But this reply comes to very little. The whole
question is evidently as to the meaning of has; and, apart from
metaphors not taken seriously, there appears really to be no answer. And
we seem unable to clear ourselves from the old dilemma, If you predicate
what is different, you ascribe to the subject what it is not; and if you
predicate what is not different, you say nothing at all.

 Driven forward, we must attempt to modify our statement. We must assert
the relation now, not of one term, but of both. A and B are identical in
such a point, and in such another point they differ; or, again, they are
so situated in space or in time. And  thus we avoid is, and keep to are.
But, seriously, that does not look like the explanation of a difficulty;
it looks more like trifling with phrases. For, if you mean that A and B,
taken each severally, even "have" this relation, you are asserting what
is false. But if you mean that A and B in such a relation are so
related, you appear to mean nothing. For here, as before, if the
predicate makes no difference, it is idle; but, if it makes the subject
other than it is, it is false.

 But let us attempt another exit from this bewildering circle. Let us
abstain from making the relation an attribute of the related, and let us
make it more or less independent. "There is a relation C, in which A and
B stand; and it appears with both of them." But here again we have made
no progress. The relation C has been admitted different from A and B,
and no longer is predicated of them. Something, however, seems to be
said of this relation C, and said, again, of A and B. And this something
is not to be the ascription of one to the other. If so, it would appear
to be another relation, D, in which C, on one side, and, on the other
side, A and B, stand. But such a makeshift leads at once to the infinite
process. The new relation D can be predicated in no way of C, or of A
and B; and hence we must have recourse to a fresh relation, E, which
comes between D and whatever we had before. But this must lead to
another, F; and so on, indefinitely. Thus the problem is not solved by
taking relations as independently real. For, if so, the qualities and
their relation fall entirely apart, and then we have said nothing. Or we
have to make a new relation between the old relation and the terms;
which, when it is made, does not help us. It either itself demands a new
relation, and so on without end, or it leaves us where we were,
entangled in difficulties.

 The attempt to resolve the thing into properties, each a real thing,
taken somehow together with  independent relations, has proved an
obvious failure. And we are forced to see, when we reflect, that a
relation standing alongside of its terms is a delusion. If it is to be
real, it must be so somehow at the expense of the terms, or, at least,
must be something which appears in them or to which they belong. A
relation between A and B implies really a substantial foundation within
them. This foundation, if we say that A is like to B, is the identity X
which holds these differences together. And so with space and time--
everywhere there must be a whole embracing what is related, or there
would be no differences and no relation. It seems as if a reality
possessed differences, A and B, incompatible with one another and also
with itself. And so in order, without contradiction, to retain its
various properties, this whole consents to wear the form of relations
between them. And this is why qualities are found to be some
incompatible and some compatible. They are all different, and, on the
other hand, because belonging to one whole, are all forced to come
together. And it is only where they come together distantly by the help
of a relation, that they cease to conflict. On the other hand, where a
thing fails to set up a relation between its properties, they are
contrary at once. Thus colours and smells live together at peace in the
reality; for the thing divides itself, and so leaves them merely side by
side within itself. But colour collides with colour, because their
special identity drives them together. And here again, if the identity
becomes relational by help of space, they are outside one another, and
are peaceful once more. The "contrary," in short, consists of
differences possessed by that which cannot find the relation which
serves to couple them apart. It is marriage attempted without a modus
vivendi. But where the whole, relaxing its unity, takes the form of an
arrangement, there is co-existence with concord.

 I have set out the above mainly because of the  light which it throws
upon the nature of the "contrary." It affords no solution of our problem
of inherence. It tells us how we are forced to arrange things in a
certain manner, but it does not justify that arrangement. The thing
avoids contradiction by its disappearance into relations, and by its
admission of the adjectives to a standing of their own. But it avoids
contradiction by a kind of suicide. It can give no rational account of
the relations and the terms which it adopts, and it cannot recover the
real unity, without which it is nothing. The whole device is a clear
makeshift. It consists in saying to the outside world, "I am the owner
of these my adjectives," and to the properties, "I am but a relation,
which leaves you your liberty." And to itself and for itself it is the
futile pretence to have both characters at once. Such an arrangement may
work, but the theoretical problem is not solved.

 The immediate unity, in which facts come to us, has been broken up by
experience, and later by reflection. The thing with its adjectives is a
device for enjoying at once both variety and concord. But the
distinctions, once made, fall apart from the thing, and away from one
another. And our attempt to understand their relations brought us round
merely to a unity, which confesses itself a pretence, or else falls back
upon the old undivided substance, which admits of no relations. We shall
see the hopelessness of its dilemma more clearly when we have examined
how relation stands to quality. But this demands another chapter.

 I will, in conclusion, dispose very briefly of a possible suggestion.
The distinctions taken in the thing are to be held only, it may be
urged, as the ways in which we regard it. The thing itself maintains its
unity, and the aspects of adjective and substantive are only our points
of view. Hence they do no injury to the real. But this defence is
futile, since the question is how without  error we may think of
reality. If then your collection of points of view is a defensible way
of so thinking, by all means apply it to the thing, and make an end of
our puzzle. Otherwise the thing, without the points of view, appears to
have no character at all, and they, without the thing, to possess no
reality--even if they could be made compatible among themselves, the one
with the other. In short, this distinction, drawn between the fact and
our manner of regarding it, only serves to double the original
confusion. There will now be an inconsistency in my mind as well as in
the thing; and, far from helping, the one will but aggravate the other.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER III

 RELATION AND QUALITY  

IT must have become evident that the problem, discussed in the last
chapter, really turns on the respective natures of quality and relation.
And the reader may have anticipated the conclusion we are now to reach.
The arrangement of given facts into relations and qualities may be
necessary in practice, but it is theoretically unintelligible. The
reality, so characterized, is not true reality, but is appearance.

 And it can hardly be maintained that this character calls for no
understanding--that it is an unique way of being which the reality
possesses, and which we have got merely to receive. For it most
evidently has ceased to be something quite immediate. It contains
aspects now distinguished and taken as differences, and which tend, so
far as we see, to a further separation. And, if the reality really has a
way of uniting these in harmony, that way assuredly is not manifest at
first sight. On our own side those distinctions which even consciously
we make may possibly in some way give the truth about reality. But, so
long as we fail to justify them and to make them intelligible to
ourselves, we are bound, so far, to set them down as mere appearance.

 The object of this chapter is to show that the very essence of these
ideas is infected and contradicts itself. Our conclusion briefly will be
this. Relation presupposes quality, and quality relation. Each can be
something neither together  with, nor apart from, the other; and the
vicious circle in which they turn is not the truth about reality.

 1. Qualities are nothing without relations. In trying to exhibit the
truth of this statement, I will lay no weight on a considerable mass of
evidence. This, furnished by psychology, would attempt to show how
qualities are variable by changes of relation. The differences we
perceive in many cases seem to have been so created. But I will not
appeal to such an argument, since I do not see that it could prove
wholly the non- existence of original and independent qualities. And the
line of proof through the necessity of contrast for perception has, in
my opinion, been carried beyond logical limits. Hence, though these
considerations have without doubt an important bearing on our problem, I
prefer here to disregard them. And I do not think that they are
necessary.

 We may proceed better to our conclusion in the following way. You can
never, we may argue, find qualities without relations. Whenever you take
them so, they are made so, and continue so, by an operation which itself
implies relation. Their plurality gets for us all its meaning through
relations; and to suppose it otherwise in reality is wholly
indefensible. I will draw this out in greater detail.

 To find qualities without relations is surely impossible. In the field
of consciousness, even when we abstract from the relations of identity
and difference, they are never independent. One is together with, and
related to, one other, at the least,--in fact, always to more than one.
Nor will an appeal to a lower and undistinguished state of mind, where
in one feeling are many aspects, assist us in any way. I admit the
existence of such states without any relation, but I wholly deny there
the presence of qualities. For if these felt aspects,  while merely
felt, are to be called qualities proper, they are so only for the
observation of an outside observer. And then for him they are given as
aspects--that is, together with relations. In short, if you go back to
mere unbroken feeling, you have no relations and no qualities. But if
you come to what is distinct, you get relations at once.

 I presume we shall be answered in this way. Even though, we shall be
told, qualities proper can not be discovered apart from relations, that
is no real disproof of their separate existence. For we are well able to
distinguish them and to consider them by themselves. And for this
perception certainly an operation of our minds is required. So far,
therefore, as you say, what is different must be distinct, and, in
consequence, related. But this relation does not really belong to the
reality. The relation has existence only for us, and as a way of our
getting to know. But the distinction, for all that, is based upon
differences in the actual; and these remain when our relations have
fallen away or have been removed.

 But such an answer depends on the separation of product from process,
and this separation seems indefensible. The qualities, as distinct, are
always made so by an action which is admitted to imply relation. They
are made so, and, what is more, they are emphatically kept so. And you
cannot ever get your product standing apart from its process. Will you
say, the process is not essential? But that is a conclusion to be
proved, and it is monstrous to assume it. Will you try to prove it by
analogy? It is possible for many purposes to accept and employ the
existence of processes and relations which do not affect specially the
inner nature of objects. But the very possibility of so distinguishing
in the end between inner and outer, and of setting up the inner as
absolutely independent of all relation, is here in question. Mental 
operations such as comparison, which presuppose in the compared
qualities already existing, could in no case prove that these qualities
depend on no relations at all. But I cannot believe that this is a
matter to be decided by analogy, for the whole case is briefly this.
There is an operation which, removing one part of what is given,
presents the other part in abstraction. This result is never to be found
anywhere apart from a persisting abstraction. And, if we have no further
information, I can find no excuse for setting up the result as being
fact without the process. The burden lies wholly on the assertor, and he
fails entirely to support it. The argument that in perception one
quality must be given first and before others, and therefore cannot be
relative, is hardly worth mentioning. What is more natural than for
qualities always to have come to us in some conjunction, and never
alone?

 We may go further. Not only is the ignoring of the process a thing
quite indefensible--even if it blundered into truth--but there is
evidence that it gives falsehood. For the result bears internally the
character of the process. The manyness of the qualities cannot, in
short, be reconciled with their simplicity. Their plurality depends on
relation, and, without that relation, they are not distinct. But, if not
distinct, then not different, and therefore not qualities.

 I am not urging that quality without difference is in every sense
impossible. For all I know, creatures may exist whose life consists, for
themselves, in one unbroken simple feeling; and the arguments urged
against such a possibility in my judgment come short. And, if you want
to call this feeling a quality, by all means gratify your desire. But
then remember that the whole point is quite irrelevant. For no one is
contending whether the universe is or is not a quality in this sense;
but the question is entirely as to qualities. And a universe  confined
to one feeling would not only not be qualities, but it would fail even
to be one quality, as different from others and as distinct from
relations. Our question is really whether relation is essential to
differences.

 We have seen that in fact the two are never found apart. We have seen
that the separation by abstraction is no proof of real separateness. And
now we have to urge, in short, that any separateness implies separation,
and so relation, and is therefore, when made absolute, a
self-discrepancy. For consider, the qualities A and B are to be
different from each other; and, if so, that difference must fall
somewhere. If it falls, in any degree or to any extent, outside A or B,
we have relation at once. But, on the other hand, how can difference and
otherness fall inside? If we have in A any such otherness, then inside A
we must distinguish its own quality and its otherness. And, if so, then
the unsolved problem breaks out inside each quality, and separates each
into two qualities in relation. In brief, diversity without relation
seems a word without meaning. And it is no answer to urge that plurality
proper is not in question here. I am convinced of the opposite, but by
all means, if you will, let us confine ourselves to distinctness and
difference. I rest my argument upon this, that if there are no
differences, there are no qualities, since all must fall into one. But,
if there is any difference, then that implies a relation. Without a
relation it has no meaning; it is a mere word, and not a thought; and no
one would take it for a thought if he did not, in spite of his protests,
import relation into it. And this is the point on which all seems to
turn, Is it possible to think of qualities without thinking of distinct
characters? Is it possible to think of these without some relation
between them, either explicit, or else unconsciously supplied by the
mind that tries only to apprehend? Have qualities without  relation any
meaning for thought? For myself, I am sure that they have none.

 And I find a confirmation in the issue of the most thorough attempt to
build a system on this ground. There it is not too much to say that all
the content of the universe becomes something very like an impossible
illusion. The Reals are secluded and simple, simple beyond belief if
they never suspect that they are not so. But our fruitful life, on the
other hand, seems due to their persistence in imaginary recovery from
unimaginable perversion. And they remain guiltless of all real share in
these ambiguous connections, which seem to make the world. They are
above it, and fixed like stars in the firmament--if there only were a
firmament.

 2. We have found that qualities, taken without relations, have no
intelligible meaning. Unfortunately, taken together with them, they are
equally unintelligible. They cannot, in the first place, be wholly
resolved into the relations. You may urge, indeed, that without
distinction no difference is left; but, for all that, the differences
will not disappear into the distinction. They must come to it, more or
less, and they cannot wholly be made by it. I still insist that for
thought what is not relative is nothing. But I urge, on the other hand,
that nothings cannot be related, and that to turn qualities in relation
into mere relations is impossible. Since the fact seems constituted by
both, you may urge, if you please, that either one of them constitutes
it. But if you mean that the other is not wanted, and that relations can
somehow make the terms upon which they seem to stand, then, for my mind,
your meaning is quite unintelligible. So far as I can see, relations
must depend upon terms, just as much as terms upon relations. And the
partial failure, now manifest, of the Dialectic Method seems connected
with some misapprehension on this point.

  Hence the qualities must be, and must also be related. But there is
hence a diversity which falls inside each quality. It has a double
character, as both supporting and as being made by the relation. It may
be taken as at once condition and result, and the question is as to how
it can combine this variety. For it must combine the diversity, and yet
it fails to do so. A is both made, and is not made, what it is by
relation; and these different aspects are not each the other, nor again
is either A. If we call its diverse aspects a and *, then A is partly
each of these. As a it is the difference on which distinction is based,
while as * it is the distinctness that results from connection. A is
really both somehow together as A (a--*). But (as we saw in Chapter ii.)
without the use of a relation it is impossible to predicate this variety
of A. And, on the other hand, with an internal relation A's unity
disappears, and its contents are dissipated in an endless process of
distinction. A at first becomes a in relation with *, but these terms
themselves fall hopelessly asunder. We have got, against our will, not a
mere aspect, but a new quality a, which itself stands in a relation; and
hence (as we saw before with A) its content must be manifold. As going
into the relation it itself is a*, and as resulting from the relation it
itself is **. And it combines, and yet cannot combine, these adjectives.
We, in brief, are led by a principle of fission which conducts us to no
end. Every quality in relation has, in consequence, a diversity within
its own nature, and this diversity cannot immediately be asserted of the
quality. Hence the quality must exchange its unity for an internal
relation. But, thus set free, the diverse aspects, because each
something in relation, must each be something also beyond. This
diversity is fatal to the internal unity of each; and it demands a new
relation, and so on without limit. In short, qualities in a relation
have turned out as unintelligible as were qualities  without one. The
problem from both sides has baffled us.

 3. We may briefly reach the same dilemma from the side of relations.
They are nothing intelligible, either with or without their qualities.
In the first place, a relation without terms seems mere verbiage; and
terms appear, therefore, to be something beyond their relation. At
least, for myself, a relation which somehow precipitates terms which
were not there before, or a relation which can get on somehow without
terms, and with no differences beyond the mere ends of a line of
connection, is really a phrase without meaning. It is, to my mind, a
false abstraction, and a thing which loudly contradicts itself; and I
fear that I am obliged to leave the matter so. As I am left without
information, and can discover with my own ears no trace of harmony, I am
forced to conclude to a partial deafness in others. And hence a
relation, we must say, without qualities is nothing.

 But how the relation can stand to the qualities is, on the other side,
unintelligible. If it is nothing to the qualities, then they are not
related at all; and, if so, as we saw, they have ceased to be qualities,
and their relation is a nonentity. But if it is to be something to them,
then clearly we now shall require a new connecting relation. For the
relation hardly can be the mere adjective of one or both of its terms;
or, at least, as such it seems indefensible. And, being something
itself, if it does not itself bear a relation to the terms, in what
intelligible way will it succeed in being anything to them? But here 
again we are hurried off into the eddy of a hopeless process, since we
are forced to go on finding new relations without end. The links are
united by a link, and this bond of union is a link which also has two
ends; and these require each a fresh link to connect them with the old.
The problem is to find how the relation can stand to its qualities; and
this problem is insoluble. If you take the connection as a solid thing,
you have got to show, and you cannot show, how the other solids are
joined to it. And, if you take it as a kind of medium or unsubstantial
atmosphere, it is a connection no longer. You find, in this case, that
the whole question of the relation of the qualities (for they certainly
in some way are related) arises now outside it, in precisely the same
form as before. The original relation, in short, has become a nonentity,
but, in becoming this, it has removed no element of the problem.

 I will bring this chapter to an end. It would be easy, and yet
profitless, to spin out its argument with ramifications and refinements.
And for me to attempt to anticipate the reader's objections would
probably be useless. I have stated the case, and I must leave it. The
conclusion to which I am brought is that a relational way of
thought--any one that moves by the machinery of terms and
relations--must give appearance, and not truth. It is a makeshift, a
device, a mere practical compromise, most necessary, but in the end most
indefensible. We have to take reality as many, and to take it as one,
and to avoid contradiction. We want to divide it, or to take it, when we
please, as indivisible; to go as far as we desire in either of these
directions, and to stop when that suits us. And we succeed, but succeed
merely by shutting the eye, which if left open would condemn us; or by a
perpetual oscillation and a shifting of the ground, so as to turn our
back upon the aspect we desire to ignore. But  when these
inconsistencies are forced together, as in metaphysics they must be, the
result is an open and staring discrepancy. And we cannot attribute this
to reality; while, if we try to take it on ourselves, we have changed
one evil for two. Our intellect, then, has been condemned to confusion
and bankruptcy, and the reality has been left outside uncomprehended. Or
rather, what is worse, it has been stripped bare of all distinction and
quality. It is left naked and without a character, and we are covered
with confusion.

 The reader who has followed and has grasped the principle of this
chapter, will have little need to spend his time upon those which
succeed it. He will have seen that our experience, where relational, is
not true; and he will have condemned, almost without a hearing, the
great mass of phenomena. I feel, however, called on next to deal very
briefly with Space and Time.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER IV

 SPACE AND TIME  

THE object of this chapter is far from being an attempt to discuss fully
the nature of space or of time. It will content itself with stating our
main justification for regarding them as appearance. It will explain why
we deny that, in the character which they exhibit, they either have or
belong to reality. I will first show this of space.

 We have nothing to do here with the psychological origin of the
perception. Space may be a product developed from non-spatial elements;
and, if so, its production may have great bearing on the question of its
true reality. But it is impossible for us to consider this here. For, in
the first place, every attempt so to explain its origin has turned out a
clear failure. And, in the second place, its reality would not be
necessarily affected by the proof of its development. Nothing can be
taken as real because, for psychology, it is original; or, again, as
unreal, because it is secondary. If it were a  legitimate construction
from elements that were true, then it might be derived only for our
knowledge, and be original in fact. But so long as its attempted
derivation is in part obscure and in part illusory, it is better to
regard this whole question as irrelevant.

 Let us then, taking space or extension simply as it is, enquire whether
it contradicts itself. The reader will be acquainted with the
difficulties that have arisen from the continuity and the discreteness
of space. These necessitate the conclusion that space is endless, while
an end is essential to its being. Space cannot come to a final limit,
either within itself or on the outside. And yet, so long as it remains
something always passing away, internally or beyond itself, it is not
space at all. This dilemma has been met often by the ignoring of one
aspect, but it has never been, and it will never be, confronted and
resolved. And naturally, while it stands, it is the condemnation of
space.

 I am going to state it here in the form which exhibits, I think, most
plainly the root of the contradiction, and also its insolubility. Space
is a relation--which it cannot be; and it is a quality or
substance--which again it cannot be. It is a peculiar form of the
problem which we discussed in the last chapter, and is a special attempt
to combine the irreconcilable. I will set out this puzzle
antithetically.

 1. Space is not a mere relation. For any space must consist of extended
parts, and these parts clearly are spaces. So that, even if we could
take our space as a collection, it would be a collection of solids. The
relation would join spaces which would not be mere relations. And hence
the collection, if taken as a mere inter-relation, would not be space.
We should be brought to the proposition that space is nothing but a
relation of spaces. And this proposition contradicts itself.

 Again, from the other side, if any space is taken  as a whole, it is
evidently more than a relation. It is a thing, or substance, or quality
(call it what you please), which is clearly as solid as the parts which
it unites. From without, or from within, it is quite as repulsive and as
simple as any of its contents. The mere fact that we are driven always
to speak of its parts should be evidence enough. What could be the parts
of a relation?

 2. But space is nothing but a relation. For, in the first place, any
space must consist of parts; and, if the parts are not spaces, the whole
is not space. Take then in a space any parts. These, it is assumed, must
be solid, but they are obviously extended. If extended, however, they
will themselves consist of parts, and these again of further parts, and
so on without end. A space, or a part of space, that really means to be
solid, is a self-contradiction. Anything extended is a collection, a
relation of extendeds, which again are relations of extendeds, and so on
indefinitely. The terms are essential to the relation, and the terms do
not exist. Searching without end, we never find anything more than
relations; and we see that we cannot. Space is essentially a relation of
what vanishes into relations, which seek in vain for their terms. It is
lengths of lengths of--nothing that we can find.

 And, from the outside again, a like conclusion is forced on us. We have
seen that space vanishes internally into relations between units which
never can exist. But, on the other side, when taken itself as a unit, it
passes away into the search for an illusory whole. It is essentially the
reference of itself to something else, a process of endless passing
beyond actuality. As a whole it is, briefly, the relation of itself to a
non-existent other. For take space as large and as complete as you
possibly can. Still, if it has not definite boundaries, it is not space;
and to make it end in a cloud, or in nothing,  is mere blindness and our
mere failure to perceive. A space limited, and yet without space that is
outside, is a self- contradiction. But the outside, unfortunately, is
compelled likewise to pass beyond itself; and the end cannot be reached.
And it is not merely that we fail to perceive, or fail to understand,
how this can be otherwise. We perceive and we understand that it cannot
be otherwise, at least if space is to be space. We either do not know
what space means; and, if so, certainly we cannot say that it is more
than appearance. Or else, knowing what we mean by it, we see inherent in
that meaning the puzzle we are describing. Space, to be space, must have
space outside itself. It for ever disappears into a whole, which proves
never to be more than one side of a relation to something beyond. And
thus space has neither any solid parts, nor, when taken as one, is it
more than the relation of itself to a new self. As it stands, it is not
space; and, in trying to find space beyond it, we can find only that
which passes away into a relation. Space is a relation between terms,
which can never be found.

 It would not repay us to dwell further on the contradiction which we
have exhibited. The reader who has once grasped the principle can deal
himself with the details. I will refer merely in passing to a
supplementary difficulty. Empty space--space without some quality
(visual or muscular) which in itself is more than spatial--is an unreal
abstraction. It cannot be said to exist, for the reason that it cannot
by itself have any meaning. When a man realizes what he has got in it,
he finds that always he has a quality which is more than extension (cp.
Chapter i.). But, if so, how this quality is to stand to the extension
is an insoluble problem. It is a case of "inherence," which we saw
(Chapter ii.) was in principle unintelligible. And, without further
delay, I will proceed to consider time. I shall in this  chapter confine
myself almost entirely to the difficulties caused by the discretion and
the continuity of time. With regard to change, I will say something
further in the chapter which follows.

 Efforts have been made to explain time psychologically--to exhibit,
that is to say, its origin from what comes to the mind as timeless. But,
for the same reason which seemed conclusive in the case of space, and
which here has even greater weight, I shall not consider these attempts.
I shall inquire simply as to time's character, and whether, that being
as it is, it can belong to reality.

 It is usual to consider time under a spatial form. It is taken as a
stream, and past and future are regarded as parts of it, which
presumably do not co-exist, but are often talked of as if they did.
Time, apprehended in this way, is open to the objection we have just
urged against space. It is a relation--and, on the other side, it is not
a relation; and it is, again, incapable of being anything beyond a
relation. And the reader who has followed the dilemma which was fatal to
space, will not require much explanation. If you take time as a relation
between units without duration, then the whole time has no duration, and
is not time at all. But, if you give duration to the whole time, then at
once the units themselves are found to possess it; and they thus cease
to be units. Time in fact is "before" and "after" in one; and without
this diversity it is not time. But these differences cannot be asserted
of the unity; and, on the other hand and failing that, time is
helplessly dissolved. Hence they are asserted under a relation. "Before
in relation to after" is the character of time; and here the old
difficulties about relation and quality recommence. The relation is not
a unity, and yet the terms are nonentities, if left apart. Again, to
import an independent character into the terms is to make  each somehow
in itself both before and after. But this brings on a process which
dissipates the terms into relations, which, in the end, end in nothing.
And to make the relation of time an unit is, first of all, to make it
stationary, by destroying within it the diversity of before and after.
And, in the second place, this solid unit, existing only by virtue of
external relations, is forced to expand. It perishes in ceaseless
oscillation, between an empty solidity and a transition beyond itself
towards illusory completeness.

 And, as with space, the qualitative content--which is not merely
temporal, and apart from which the terms related in time would have no
character--presents an insoluble problem. How to combine this in unity
with the time which it fills, and again how to establish each aspect
apart, are both beyond our resources. And time so far, like space, has
turned out to be appearance.

 But we shall be rightly told that a spatial form is not essential to
time, and that, to examine it fairly, we should not force our errors
upon it. Let us then attempt to regard time as it stands, and without
extraneous additions. We shall only convince ourselves that the root of
the old dilemma is not torn up.

 If we are to keep to time as it comes, and are to abstain at first from
inference and construction, we must confine ourselves, I presume, to
time as presented. But presented time must be time present, and we must
agree, at least provisionally, not to go beyond the "now." And the
question at once before us will be as to the "now's" temporal contents.
First, let us ask if they exist. Is the "now" simple and indivisible? We
can at once reply in the negative. For time implies before and after,
and by consequence diversity; and hence the simple is not time. We are
compelled then, so far, to take the present as comprehending diverse
aspects.

 How many aspects it contains is an interesting  question. According to
one opinion, in the "now" we can observe both past and future; and,
whether these are divided by the present, and, if so, precisely in what
sense, admits of further doubt. In another opinion, which I prefer, the
future is not presented, but is a product of construction; and the "now"
contains merely the process of present turning into past. But here these
differences, if indeed they are such, are fortunately irrelevant. All
that we require is the admission of some process within the "now."

 For any process admitted destroys the "now" from within. Before and
after are diverse, and their incompatibility compels us to use a
relation between them. Then at once the old wearisome game is played
again. The aspects become parts, the "now" consists of "nows," and in
the end these "nows" prove undiscoverable. For, as a solid part of time,
the "now" does not exist. Pieces of duration may to us appear not to be
composite; but a very little reflection lays bare their inherent
fraudulence. If they are not duration, they do not contain an after and
before, and they have, by themselves, no beginning or end, and are by
themselves outside of time. But, if so, time becomes merely the relation
between them; and duration is a number of relations of the timeless,
themselves also, I suppose, related somehow so as to make one duration.
But how a relation is to be a unity, of which these differences are
predicable, we have seen is incomprehensible. And, if it fails to be a
unity, time is forthwith dissolved. But why should I weary the reader by
developing in detail the impossible consequences of either alternative?
If he has understood the principle, he is with us; and, otherwise, the
uncertain argumentum ad hominem would too certainly pass into argumentum
ad nauseam.

  I will, however, instance one result which follows from a denial of
time's continuity. Time will in this case fall somehow between the
timeless, as A--C--E. But the rate of change is not uniform for all
events; and, I presume, no one will assert that, when we have arrived at
our apparent units, that sets a limit to actual and possible velocity.
Let us suppose then another series of events, which, taken as a whole,
coincides in time with A--C--E, but contains the six units
a--b--c--d--e--f. Either then these other relations (those, for example,
between a and b, c and d) will fall between A and C, C and E, and what
that can mean I do not know; or else the transition a--b will coincide
with A, which is timeless and contains no possible lapse. And that, so
far as I can perceive, contradicts itself outright. But I feel inclined
to add that this whole question is less a matter for detailed argument
than for understanding in its principle. I doubt if there is any one who
has ever grasped this, and then has failed to reach one main result. But
there are too many respectable writers whom here one can hardly
criticise. They have simply never got to understand.

 Thus, if in the time, which we call presented, there exists any lapse,
that time is torn by a dilemma, and is condemned to be appearance. But,
if the presented is timeless, another destruction awaits us. Time will
be the relation of the present to a future and past; and the relation,
as we have seen, is not compatible with diversity or unity. Further, the
existence, not presented, of future and of past seems ambiguous. But,
apart from that, time perishes in the endless process beyond itself. The
unit will be for ever its own relation to something beyond, something in
the end not discoverable. And this process is forced on it, both by its
temporal form, and again by the continuity of its content, which
transcends what is given.

  Time, like space, has most evidently proved not to be real, but to be
a contradictory appearance. I will, in the next chapter, reinforce and
repeat this conclusion by some remarks upon change.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER V

  MOTION AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION  

I AM sensible that this chapter will repeat much of the former
discussion. It is not for my own pleasure that I write it, but as an
attempt to strengthen the reader. Whoever is convinced that change is a
self-contradictory appearance, will do well perhaps to pass on towards
something which interests him.

 Motion has from an early time been criticised severely, and it has
never been defended with much success. I will briefly point to the
principle on which these criticisms are founded. Motion implies that
what is moved is in two places in one time and this seems not possible.
That motion implies two places is obvious; that these places are
successive is no less obvious. But, on the other hand, it is clear that
the process must have unity. The thing moved must be one; and, again,
the time must be one. If the time were only many times, out of relation,
and not parts of a single temporal whole, then no motion would be found.
But if the time is one, then, as we have seen, it cannot also be many.

 A common "explanation" is to divide both the space and the time into
discrete corresponding units, taken literally ad libitum. The lapse in
this case is supposed to fall somehow between them. But, as a
theoretical solution, the device is childish. Greater velocity would in
this case be quite impossible; and a lapse, falling between timeless
units, has really, as we have seen, no meaning. And where the unity of
these lapses, which makes the  one duration, is to be situated, we, of
course, are not, and could not be, informed. And how this inconsistent
mass is related to the identity of the body moved is again
unintelligible. What becomes clear is merely this, that motion in space
gives no solution of the problem of change. It adds, in space, a further
detail which throws no light on the principle. But, on the other side,
it makes the discrepancies of change more palpable; and it forces on all
but the thoughtless the problem of the identity of a thing which has
changed. But change in time, with all its inconsistencies, lies below
motion in space; and, if this cannot be defended, motion at once is
condemned.

 The problem of change underlies that of motion, but the former itself
is not fundamental. It points back to the dilemma of the one and the
many, the differences and the identity, the adjectives and the thing,
the qualities and the relations. How anything can possibly be anything
else was a question which defied our efforts. Change is little beyond an
instance of this dilemma in principle. It either adds an irrelevant
complication, or confuses itself in a blind attempt at compromise. Let
us, at the cost of repetition, try to get clear on this head.

 Change, it is evident, must be change of something, and it is obvious,
further, that it contains diversity. Hence it asserts two of one, and so
falls at once under the condemnation of our previous chapters. But it
tries to defend itself by this distinction: "Yes, both are asserted, but
not both in one; there is a relation, and so the unity and plurality are
combined." But our criticism of relations has destroyed this subterfuge
beforehand. We have seen that, when a whole has been thus broken up into
relations and terms, it has become utterly self-discrepant. You can
truly predicate neither one part of the other part, nor any, nor all, of
the whole. And, in its attempt to contain these  elements, the whole
commits suicide, and destroys them in its death. It would serve no
purpose to repeat these inexorable laws. Let us see merely how change
condemns itself by entering their sphere.

 Something, A, changes, and therefore it cannot be permanent. On the
other hand, if A is not permanent, what is it that changes? It will no
longer be A, but something else. In other words, let A be free from
change in time, and it does not change. But let it contain change, and
at once it becomes A*, A*, A*. Then what becomes of A, and of its
change, for we are left with something else? Again, we may put the
problem thus. The diverse states of A must exist within one time; and
yet they cannot, because they are successive.

 Let us first take A as timeless, in the sense of out of time. Here the
succession of the change must belong to it, or not. In the former case,
what is the relation between the succession and A? If there is none, A
does not change. If there is any, it forces unintelligibly a diversity
unto A, which is foreign to its nature and incomprehensible. And then
this diversity, by itself, will be merely the unsolved problem. If we
are not to remove change altogether, then we have, standing in
unintelligible relation with the timeless A, a temporal change which
offers us all our old difficulties unreduced.

 A must be taken as falling within the time-series; and, if so, the
question will be whether it has or has not got duration. Either
alternative is fatal. If the one time, necessary for change, means a
single duration, that is self-contradictory, for no duration is single.
The would-be unit falls asunder into endless plurality, in which it
disappears. The pieces of duration, each containing a before and an
after, are divided against themselves, and become mere relations of the
illusory. And the attempt to locate the lapse within relations of the
discrete leads to hopeless absurdities. Nor, in any case, could we 
unite intelligibly the plurality of these relations so as to make one
duration. In short, therefore, if the one time required for change means
one duration, that is not one, and there is no change.

 On the other hand, if the change actually took place merely in one
time, then it could be no change at all. A is to have a plurality in
succession, and yet simultaneously. This is surely a flat contradiction.
If there is no duration, and the time is simple, it is not time at all.
And to speak of diversity, and of a succession of before and after, in
this abstract point, is not possible when we think. Indeed, the best
excuse for such a statement would be the plea that it is meaningless.
But, if so, change, upon any hypothesis, is impossible. It can be no
more than appearance.

 And we may perceive its main character. It contains both the necessity
and the impossibility of uniting diverse aspects. These differences have
broken out in the whole which at first was immediate. But, if they
entirely break out of it, they are dissipated and destroyed; and yet, by
their presence within the whole, that already is broken, and they
scattered into nothings. The relational form in general, and here in
particular this form of time, is a natural way of compromise. It is no
solution of the discrepancies, and we might call it rather a method of
holding them in suspension. It is an artifice by which we become blind
on either side, to suit the occasion; and the whole secret consists in
ignoring that aspect which we are unable to use. Thus it is required
that A should change; and, for this, two characters, not compatible,
must be present at once. There must be a successive diversity, and yet
the time must be one. The succession, in other words, is not really
successive unless it is present. And our compromise consists in
regarding the process mainly from whichever of its aspects answers to
our need, and in ignoring--that is, in failing or in  refusing to
perceive--the hostility of the other side. If you want to take a piece
of duration as present and as one, you shut your eyes, or in some way
are blind to the discretion, and, attending merely to the content, take
that as a unity. And, on the other hand, it is as easy to forget every
aspect but that of discreteness. But change, as a whole, consists in the
union of these two aspects. It is the holding both at once, while laying
stress upon the one which for the time is prominent, and while the
difficulties are kept out of sight by rapid shuffling. Thus, in
asserting that A alters, we mean that the one thing is different at
different times. We bring this diversity into relation with A's
qualitative identity, and all seems harmonious. Of course, as we know,
even so far, there is a mass of inconsistency, but that is not the main
point here. The main point is that, so far, we have not reached a change
of A. The identity of a content A, in some sort of relation with diverse
moments and with varying states-- if it means anything at all--is still
not what we understand by change. That the mere oneness of a quality can
be the unity of a duration will hardly be contended. For change to exist
at all, this oneness must be in temporal relation with the diversity. In
other words, if the process itself is not one state, the moments are not
parts of it; and, if so, they cannot be related in time to one another.
On the one hand, A remains A through a period of any length, and is not
changed so far as A. Considered thus, we may say that its duration is
mere presence and contains no lapse. But the same duration, if regarded
as the succession of A's altered states, consists of many pieces. On the
other hand, thirdly, this whole succession, regarded as one sequence or
period, becomes a unity, and is again present. "Through the present
period," we should boldly say, "A's processes have been regular. His
rate of growth is normal, and his condition is for the  present
identical. But, during the lapse of this one period, there have been
present countless successive differences in the state of B; and the
coincidence in time, of B's unchanging excitement with the healthy
succession of A's changes, shows that in the same interval we may have
present either motion or rest." There is hardly exaggeration here; but
the statement exhibits a palpable oscillation. We have the dwelling,
with emphasis and without principle, upon separate aspects, and the
whole idea consists essentially in this oscillation. There is total
failure to unite the differences by any consistent principle, and the
one discoverable system is the systematic avoidance of consistency. The
single fact is viewed alternately from either side, but the sides are
not combined into an intelligible whole. And I trust the reader may
agree that their consistent union is impossible. The problem of change
defies solution, so long as change is not degraded to the rank of mere
appearance.

 I will end this chapter by some remarks on the perception of
succession, or, rather, one of its main features. And I will touch upon
this merely in the interest of metaphysics, reserving what psychological
opinions I may have formed for another occasion. The best psychologists,
so far as I know, are becoming agreed that for this perception some kind
of unity is wanted. They see that without an identity, to which all its
members are related, a series is not one, and is therefore not a series.
In fact, the person who denies this unity is able to do so merely
because he covertly supplies it from his own unreflecting mind. And I
shall venture to regard this general doctrine as established, and shall
pass to the point where I think metaphysics is further interested.

 It being assumed that succession, or rather, here, perceived
succession, is relative to a unity, a  question arises as to the nature
of this unity, generally and in each case. The question is both
difficult and interesting psychologically; but I must confine myself to
the brief remarks which seem called for in this place. It is not
uncommon to meet the view that the unity is timeless, or that it has at
any rate no duration. On the other hand, presumably, it has a date, if
not a place, in the general series of phenomena, and is, in this sense,
an event. The succession I understand to be apprehended somehow in an
indivisible moment,--that is, without any lapse of time, --and to be so
far literally simultaneous. Any such doctrine seems to me open to fatal
objections, some of which I will state.

 1. The first objection holds good only against certain persons. If the
timeless act contains a relation, and if the latter must be relative to
a real unity, the problem of succession appears again to break out
without limit inside this timeless unit.

 2. But those who would deny the premises of this first objection, may
be invited to explain themselves on other points. The act has no
duration, and yet it is a psychical event. It has, that is, an
assignable place in history. If it does not possess the latter, how is
it related to my perception? But, if it is an event with a before and an
after in time, how can it have no duration? It occurs in time, and yet
it occupies no time; or it does not occur in time, though it happens at
a given date. This does not look like the account of anything real, but
it is a manufactured abstraction, like length without breadth. And if it
is a mere way of stating the problem in hand--viz., that from one point
of view succession has no duration--it seems a bad way of stating it.
But if it means more, its meaning seems quite unintelligible.

 3. And it is the more plainly so since its content is certainly
successive, as possessing the distinction of after and before. This
distinction is a fact; and,  if so, the psychical lapse is a fact; and,
if so, this fact is left in flat contradiction with the timeless unity.
And to urge that the succession, as used, is ideal--is merely content,
and is not psychical fact--would be a futile attempt to misapply a great
principle. It is not wholly true that "ideas are not what they mean,"
for if their meaning is not psychical fact, I should like to know how
and where it exists. And the question is whether succession can, in any
sense, come before the mind without some actual succession entering into
the very apprehension. If you do not mean a lapse, then you have given
up your contention. But, if you do mean it, then how, except in the form
of some actual mental transition, is it to come ideally before your
mind? I know of no intelligible answer; and I conclude that, in this
perception, what is perceived is an actual succession; and hence the
perception itself must have some duration.

 4. And, if it has no duration, then I do not see how it is related to
the before and after of the time perceived; and the succession of this,
with all its unsolved problems, seems to me to fall outside it (cp. No.
1).

 5. And, lastly, if we may have one of these occurrences without
duration, apparently we may also have many in succession, all again
without duration. And I do not know how the absurd consequences which
follow can be avoided or met.

 In short, this creation is a monster. It is not a working fiction,
entertained for the sake of its work. For, like most other monsters, it
really is impotent. It is both idle and injurious, since it has diverted
attention from the answer to its problem.

 And that, to the reader who has followed our metaphysical discussion,
will, I think, be apparent. We found that succession required both
diversity and unity. These could not intelligibly be  combined, and
their union was a mere junction, with oscillation of emphasis from one
aspect to the other. And so, psychically also, the timeless unity is a
piece of duration, not experienced as successive. Assuredly everything
psychical is an event, and it really contains a lapse; but so far as you
do not use, or notice, that lapse, it is not there for you and for the
purpose in hand. In other words, there is a permanent in the perception
of change, which goes right through the succession and holds it
together. The permanent can do this, on the one hand, because it
occupies duration and is, in its essence, divisible indefinitely. On the
other hand, it is one and unchanging, so far as it is regarded or felt,
and is used, from that aspect. And the special concrete identities,
which thus change, and again do not change, are the key to the
particular successions that are perceived. Presence is not absolute
timelessness; it is any piece of duration, so far as that is considered
from or felt in an identical aspect. And this mere relative absence of
lapse has been perverted into the absolute timeless monstrosity which we
have ventured to condemn.

 But it is one thing to see how a certain feature of our time-perception
is possible. It is quite another thing to admit that this feature, as it
stands, gives the truth about reality. And that, as we have learnt, is
impossible. We are forced to assert that A is both continuous and
discrete, both successive and present. And our practice of taking it,
now as one in a certain respect, and now again as many in another
respect, shows only how we practise. The problem calls upon us to answer
how these aspects and respects are consistently united in the one thing,
either outside of our minds or inside--that makes no difference. And if
we fail, as we shall, to bring these features together, we have left the
problem unsolved. And, if it is unsolved, then change and motion are
incompatible internally, and are set down  to be appearance. And if, as
a last resource, we use the phrases "potential" and "actual," and
attempt by their aid to reach harmony, we shall have left the case as it
stands. We shall mean by these phrases that the thing is, and yet that
it is not, and that we choose for our own purpose to treat these
irreconcilables as united. But that is only another, though perhaps a
more polite, way of saying that the problem is insoluble.

 In the chapter which comes next, we must follow the same difficulties a
little further into other applications.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER VI

CAUSATION  

THE object of this chapter is merely to point out, first, the main
discrepancy in causation, and, in the second place, to exhibit an
obstacle coming from time's continuity. Some other aspects of the
general question will be considered in later chapters.

 We may regard cause as an attempt to account rationally for change. A
becomes B, and this alteration is felt to be not compatible with A. Mere
A would still be mere A, and, if it turns to something different, then
something else is concerned. There must, in other words, be a reason for
the change. But the endeavour to find a satisfactory reason is
fruitless.

 We have seen that A is not B, nor, again, a relation to B. "Followed by
B," "changing into AB," are not the same as A; and we were able to
discover no way of combining these with A which could be more than mere
appearance. In causation we must now consider a fresh effort at
combination, and its essence is very simple. If "A becomes B" is a
self-contradiction, then add something to A which will divide the
burden. In "A + C becomes B" we may perhaps find relief. But this
relief, considered theoretically, is a mass of contradictions.

 It would be a thankless task to work these out into detail, for the
root of the matter may be stated at once. If the sequence of the effect
is different  from the cause, how is the ascription of this difference
to be rationally defended? If, on the other hand, it is not different,
then causation does not exist, and its assertion is a farce. There is no
escape from this fundamental dilemma.

 We have in the cause merely a fresh instance of compromise without
principle, another case of pure makeshift. And it soon exhibits its
nature. The cause was not mere A; that would be found too intolerable.
The cause was A + C; but this combination seems meaningless. It is
offered in the face of our result as to the nature of relations (Chapter
iii.); and by that result it has already been undermined and ruined. But
let us see how it proposes to go about its business. In "A + C followed
by B" the addition of C makes a difference to A, or it makes no
difference. Let us suppose, first, that it does make a difference to A.
But, if so, then A has already been altered; and hence the problem of
causation breaks out within the very cause. A and C become A + C, and
the old puzzle begins about the way in which A and C become other than
they are. We are concerned here with A, but, of course, with C there is
the same difficulty. We are, therefore, driven to correct ourselves, and
to say that, not A and C merely, but A and C + D become A + C, and so B.
But here we perceive at once that we have fallen into endless regress
within the cause. If the cause is to be the cause, there is some reason
for its being thus, and so on indefinitely.

 Or let us accept the other alternative. Let us assert boldly that in A
+ C, which is the cause of B, their relation makes no difference either
to A or to C, and yet accounts for the effect. Although the conjunction
makes no difference, it justifies apparently our attribution to the
cause of the difference expressed by the effect. But (to deal first with
the cause) such a conjunction of elements has been shown (Chapter iii.)
to be quite unintelligible. And  to the defence that it is only our own
way of going on, the answer is twofold. If it is only our way, then,
either it does not concern the thing at all, or else is admitted to be a
mere practical makeshift. If, on the other hand, it is a way of ours
with the thing which we are prepared to justify, let the justification
be produced. But it cannot be produced in any form but in the proof that
our thinking is consistent. On the other hand, the only reason for our
hesitation above to attribute our view to reality seemed to lie in the
fact that our view was not consistent. But, if so, it surely should not
be our view. And, to pass now to the effect, the same reasoning there
holds good. The sequence of a difference still remains entirely
irrational. And, if we attempt here to take this difference upon
ourselves, and to urge that it does not attach to the thing, but only to
our view, the same result follows. For what is this but a manner of
admitting politely that in reality there is no difference and is no
causation, and that, in short, we are all agreed in finding causation to
be makeshift and merely appearance? We are so far agreed, but we differ
in our further conclusions. For I can discover no merit in an attitude
which combines every vice of theory. It is forced to admit that the real
world is left naked and empty; while it cannot pretend itself to support
and to own the wealth of existence. Each party is robbed, and both
parties are beggared.

 The only positive result which has appeared from our effort to justify
causation, seems to be the impossibility of isolating the cause or the
effect. In endeavouring to make a defensible assertion, we have had to
go beyond the connection as first we stated it. The cause A not only
recedes backwards in time, but it attempts laterally to take in more and
more of existence. And we are tending to the doctrine that, to find a
real cause, we must take the complete state of the world at one moment
as this  passes into another state also complete. The several threads of
causation seem, that is, always to imply the action of a background. And
this background may, if we are judicious, be irrelevant practically. It
may be practically irrelevant, not because it is ever idle, but because
often it is identical, and so makes no special difference. The separate
causes are, therefore, legitimate abstractions, and they contain enough
truth to be practically admissible. But it will be added that, if we
require truth in any strict sense, we must confine ourselves to one
entire state of the world. This will be the cause, and the next entire
state will be the effect.

 There is much truth in this conclusion, but it remains indefensible.
This tendency of the separate cause to pass beyond itself cannot be
satisfied, while we retain the relational form essential to causation.
And we may easily, I think, convince ourselves of this. For, in the
first place, a complete state of existence, as a whole, is at any one
moment utterly impossible. Any state is forced by its content to
transcend itself backwards in a regress without limit. And the relations
and qualities of which it is composed will refer themselves, even if you
keep to the moment, for ever away from themselves into endless
dissipation. Thus the complete state, which is necessary, cannot be
reached. And, in the second place, there is an objection which is
equally fatal. Even if we could have one self-comprised condition of the
world preceding another, the relation between them would still be
irrational. We assert something of something else; we have to predicate
B of A, or else its sequence of A, or else the one relation of both. But
in these cases, or in any other case, can we defend our assertion? It is
the old puzzle, how to justify the attributing to a subject something
other than itself, and which the subject is not. If "followed by B" is
not the nature of A, then justify your predication. If it is  essential
to A, then justify, first, your taking A without it; and in the next
place show how, with such an incongruous nature, A can succeed in being
more than unreal appearance.

 And we may perhaps fancy at this point that a door of exit is opened.
How will it be, since the difference is the source of our trouble, if we
fall back upon the identity of cause and effect? The same essence of the
world, persisting in unchanged self-conservation from moment to moment,
and superior to diversity--this is perhaps the solution. Perhaps; but,
if so, what has been done with causation? So far as I am able to
understand, that consists in the differences and in their sequence in
time. Mere identity, however excellent, is emphatically not the relation
of cause and effect. Either then once more you must take up the problem
of reconciling intelligibly the diversity with the unity, and this
problem so far has shown itself intractable. Or you yourself have
arrived at the same conclusion with ourselves. You have admitted that
cause and effect is irrational appearance, and cannot be reality.

 I will add here a difficulty, in itself superfluous, which comes from
the continuity of causal change. Its succession, on the one hand, must
be absolutely without pause; while, on the other hand, it cannot be so.
This dilemma is based upon no new principle, but is a mere application
of the insoluble problem of duration. The reader who is not attracted
may pass on.

 For our perception change is not properly continuous. It cannot be so,
since there are durations which do not come to us as such; and however
our faculties were improved, there must always be a point at which they
would be transcended. On the other hand, to speak of our succession as
being properly discrete seems quite as indefensible. It is in fact
neither the one nor the other. I presume that  what we notice is events
with time between them, whatever that may mean. But, on the other hand,
when we deal with pieces of duration, as wholes containing parts and
even a variable diversity of parts, the other aspect comes up. And, in
the end, reflection compels us to perceive that, however else it may
appear, all change must really be continuous. This conclusion cannot
imply that no state is ever able to endure for a moment. For, without
some duration of the identical, we should have meaningless chaos, or,
rather, should not have even that. States may endure, we have seen, so
long as we abstract. We take some partial state, or aspect of a state,
which in itself does not alter. We fix one eye upon this, while we cast,
in fear of no principle, our other eye upon the succession that goes
with it, and so is called simultaneous. And we solve practically in this
way the problem of duration. We have enduring aspects, A, B, C, one
after the other. Alongside of these there runs on a current of changes
minutely subdivided. This goes on altering, and in a sense it alters A,
B, C, while in another sense they are unchanged pieces of duration. They
do not alter in themselves, but in relation to other changes they are in
constant internal lapse. And, when these other changes have reached a
certain point of alteration, then A passes into B, and so later B into
C. This is, I presume, the proper way of taking causation as continuous.
We may perhaps use the following figure:--

X  /  *  \

/

 *

 \

 /

*

\

  A

  B

  C

/ * \

 / * \

 / * \

  A--A--A--B--B--B--C--C--C

  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  *--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*

Here A, B, C, is the causal succession of enduring states. The Greek
letters represent a flow of other events which are really a determining
element in the succession of A, B, C. And we understand at once how A,
B, and C both alter and do not alter. But the Greek letters represent
much more, which cannot be depicted. In the first place, at any given
moment, there are an indefinite number of them; and, in the second
place, they themselves are pieces of duration, placed in the same
difficulty as were A, B, C. Coincident with each must be a succession of
events, which the reader may try to represent in any character that he
prefers. Only let him remember that these events must be divided
indefinitely by the help of smaller ones. He must go on until he reaches
parts that have no divisibility. And if we may suppose that he could
reach them, he would find that causation had vanished with his success.

 The dilemma, I think, can now be made plain. (a) Causation must be
continuous. For suppose that it is not so. You would then be able to
take a solid section from the flow of events, solid in the sense of
containing no change. I do not merely mean that you could draw a line
without breadth across the flow, and could find that this abstraction
cut no alteration. I mean that you could take a slice off, and that this
slice would have no change in it. But any such slice, being divisible,
must have duration. If so, however, you would have your cause, enduring
unchanged through a certain number of moments, and then suddenly
changing. And this is clearly impossible, for what could have altered
it? Not any other thing, for you have taken the whole course of events.
And, again, not itself, for you have got itself already without any
change. In short, if the cause can endure unchanged for any the very
smallest piece of duration, then it must endure for ever. It cannot pass
into the effect,  and it therefore is not a cause at all. On the other
hand, (b) Causation cannot be continuous. For this would mean that the
cause was entirely without duration. It would never be itself except in
the time occupied by a line drawn across the succession. And since this
time is not a time, but a mere abstraction, the cause itself will be no
better. It is unreal, a nonentity, and the whole succession of the world
will consist of these nonentities. But this is much the same as to
suppose that solid things are made of points and lines and surfaces.
These may be fictions useful for some purposes, but still fictions they
remain. The cause must be a real event, and yet there is no fragment of
time in which it can be real. Causation is therefore not continuous; and
so, unfortunately, it is not causation, but mere appearance.

 The reader will understand at once that we have repeated here the old
puzzle about time. Time, as we saw, must be made, and yet cannot be
made, of pieces. And he perhaps will not be sorry to have reached an end
of these pages through which I have been forced to weary him with
continuity and discreteness. In the next chapter we shall arrive at
somewhat different matter.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VII ACTIVITY  

IN raising the question if activity is real or is only appearance, I may
be met by the assertion that it is original, ultimate, and simple. I am
satisfied myself that this assertion is incorrect, and is even quite
groundless; but I prefer to treat it here as merely irrelevant. If the
meaning of activity will not bear examination, and if it fails to
exhibit itself intelligibly, then that meaning cannot, as such, be true
of reality. There can be no origin, or want of origin, which warrants
our predicating nonsense. And if I am told that, being simple, activity
can have no meaning, then it seems a quality like one of our sensations
or pleasures, and we have dealt with it already. Or I may possibly be
answered, No, it is not simple in that sense, nor yet exactly composite.
It somehow holds a variety, and is given in that character. Hence its
idea may be indefensible, while itself is real. But the business of
metaphysics is surely to understand; and if anything is such that, when
thought of and not simply felt, it goes to pieces in our hands, we can
find but one verdict. Either its nature is nonsensical, or we have got
wrong ideas about it. The assertor of the latter alternative should then
present us with the right ideas--a thing which, I need not add, he is
not forward to perform. But let us leave these poor excuses to take care
of themselves, and let us turn to the facts. There, if we examine the
way in which the term activity is employed, the result is  not doubtful.
Force, energy, power, activity, these phrases certainly are used too
often without clear understanding. But no rational man employs them
except to convey some kind of meaning, which is capable of being
discovered and subjected to analysis. And if it will not bear scrutiny,
then it clearly does not represent reality.

 There is a sense in which words like power, force, or energy, are
distinguished from activity. They may be used to stand for something
that does not happen at all, but somehow remains in a state of suspended
animation, or in a region between non-existence and existence. I do not
think it worth while to discuss this at present, and shall pass at once
to the signification in which force means force in exercise--in other
words, activity.

 The element in its meaning, which comes to light at once, is succession
and change. In all activity something clearly becomes something else.
Activity implies a happening and a sequence in time. And, when I spoke
of this meaning as coming to the light, I might have added that it
positively stares us in the face, and it is not to be hidden. To deal
frankly, I do not know how to argue this question. I have never seen a
use of the term which to my mind retained its sense if time- sequence is
removed. We can, of course, talk of a power sustaining or producing
effects, which are subordinate and yet not subsequent; but to talk thus
is not to think. And unless the sequence of our thought, from the power
to its manifestation, is transferred to the fact as a succession there,
the meaning is gone. We are left with mere co-existence, and the
dependence, either of adjective on substantive, or of two adjectives on
one another and on the substance which owns them. And I do not believe
that anyone, unless influenced by, and in the service of, some theory,
would attempt to view the matter otherwise. And I fear that I must so
leave it.

  Activity implies the change of something into something different. So
much, I think, is clear; but activity is not a mere uncaused alteration.
And in fact, as we have seen, that is really not conceivable. For Ab to
become Ac, something else beside Ab is felt to be necessary; or else we
are left with a flat self- contradiction. Thus the transition of
activity implies always a cause.

 Activity is caused change, but it also must be more. For one thing,
altered by another, is not usually thought active, but, on the contrary,
passive. Activity seems rather to be self-caused change. A transition
that begins with, and comes out of, the thing itself is the process
where we feel that it is active. The issue must, of course, be
attributed to the thing as its adjective; it must be regarded, not only
as belonging to the thing, but as beginning in it and coming out of it.
If a thing carries out its own nature we call the thing active.

 But we are aware, or may become aware, that we are here resting on
metaphors. These cannot quite mean what they say, and what they intimate
is still doubtful. It appears to be something of this kind: the end of
the process, the result or the effect, seems part of the nature of the
thing which we had at the beginning. Not only has it not been added by
something outside, but it is hardly to be taken as an addition at all.
So far, at least, as the end is considered as the thing's activity, it
is regarded as the thing's character from the first to the last. Thus it
somehow was before it happened. It did not exist, and yet, for all that,
in a manner it was there, and so it became. We should like to say that
the nature of the thing, which was ideal, realized itself, and that this
process is what we mean by activity. And the idea need not be an idea in
the mind of the thing; for the thing, perhaps, has no mind, and so
cannot have that which would amount to volition. On the other hand, the
idea in the thing is not a  mere idea in our minds which we have merely
about the thing. We are sure of this, and our meaning falls between
these extremes. But where precisely it falls, and in what exactly it
consists, seems at present far from clear. Let us, however, try to go
forwards.

 Passivity seems to imply activity. It is the alteration of the thing,
in which, of course, the thing survives, and acquires a fresh adjective.
This adjective was not possessed by the thing before the change. It
therefore does not belong to its nature, but is a foreign importation.
It proceeds from, and is the adjective of, another thing which is
active--at the expense of the first. Thus passivity is not possible
without activity; and its meaning is obviously still left unexplained.

 It is natural to ask next if activity can exist by itself and apart
from passivity. And here we begin to involve ourselves in further
obscurity. We have spoken so far as if a thing almost began to be active
without any reason; as if it exploded, so to speak, and produced its
contents entirely on its own motion, and quite spontaneously. But this
we never really meant to say, for this would mean a happening and a
change without any cause at all; and this, we agreed long ago, is a
self- contradiction and impossible. The thing, therefore, is not active
without an occasion. This, call it what you please, is something outside
the standing nature of the thing, and is accidental in the sense of
happening to that essential disposition. But if the thing cannot act
unless the act is occasioned, then the transition, so far, is imported
into it by the act of something outside. But this, as we saw, was
passivity. Whatever acts then must be passive, so far as its change is
occasioned. If we look at the process as the coming out of its nature,
the process is its activity. If we regard the same process, on the other
hand, as due to the occasion, and, as we say, coming from that, we 
still have activity. But the activity now belongs to the occasion, and
the thing is passive. We seem to have diverse aspects, of which the
special existence in each case will depend on our own minds.

 We find this ambiguity in the common distinction between cause and
condition, and it is worth our while to examine this more closely. Both
of these elements are taken to be wanted for the production of the
effect; but in any given case we seem able to apply the names almost, or
quite, at discretion. It is not unusual to call the last thing which
happens the cause of the process which ensues. But this is really just
as we please. The body fell because the support was taken away; but
probably most men would prefer to call this "cause" a condition of a
certain kind. But apparently we may gratify whatever preference we feel.
And the well- meant attempt to get clear by defining the cause as the
"sum of the conditions" does not much enlighten us. As to the word
"sum," it is, I presume, intended to carry a meaning, but this meaning
is not stated, and I doubt if it is known. And, further, if the cause is
taken as including every single condition, we are met by a former
difficulty. Either this cause, not existing through any part of
duration, is really non-existent; or else a condition will be wanted to
account for its change and its passing into activity. But if the cause
already includes all, then, of course, none is available (Chapter vi.).
But, to pass this point by, what do you mean by these conditions, that
all fall within the cause, so as to leave none outside? Do you mean that
what we commonly call the "conditions" of an event are really complete?
In practice certainly we leave out of the account the whole background
of existence; we isolate a group of elements, and we say that, whenever
these occur, then something else always happens; and in this group we
consider ourselves to possess the "sum of the conditions." And this 
assumption may be practically defensible, since the rest of existence
may, on sufficient ground, be taken as irrelevant. We can therefore
treat this whole mass as if it were inactive. Yes, but that is one
thing, and it is quite another thing to assert that really this mass
does nothing. Certainly there is no logic which can warrant such a
misuse of abstraction. The background of the whole world can be
eliminated by no sound process, and the furthest conclusion which can be
logical is that we need not consider it practically. As in a number of
diverse cases it seems to add nothing special, we may for each purpose
consider that it adds nothing at all. But to give out this working
doctrine as theoretically true is quite illegitimate.

 The immediate result of this is that the true "sum of conditions" must
completely include all the contents of the world at a given time. And
here we run against a theoretical obstacle. The nature of these contents
seems such as to be essentially incomplete, and so the "sum" to be
nothing attainable. This appears fatal so far, and, having stated it, I
pass on. Suppose that you have got a complete sum of the facts at one
moment, are you any nearer a result? This entire mass will be the "sum
of conditions," and the cause of each following event. For there is no
process which will warrant your taking the cause as less. Here there is
at once another theoretical trouble, for the same cause produces a
number of different effects; and how will you deal with that
consequence? But, leaving this, we are practically in an equal dilemma.
For the cause, taken so widely, is the cause of everything alike, and
hence it can tell us nothing about anything special; and, taken less
widely, it is not the sum, and therefore not the cause. And by this time
it is obvious that our doctrine must be given up. If we want to discover
a particular cause (and nothing else is a discovery), we must make a 
distinction in the "sum." Then, as before, in every case we have
conditions beside the cause; and, as before, we are asked for a
principle by which to effect the distinction between them. And, for
myself, I return to the statement that I know of none which is sound. We
seem to effect this distinction always to suit a certain purpose; and it
appears to consist in our mere adoption of a special point of view.

 But let us return to the consideration of passivity and activity. It is
certain that nothing can be active without an occasion, and that what is
active, being made thus by the occasion, is so far passive. The
occasion, again, since it enters into the causal process--a thing it
never would have done if left to itself--suffers a change from the
cause; and it therefore itself is passive in its activity. If the cause
is A, and the occasion B, then each is active or passive, according as
you view the result as the expression of its nature, or as an adjective
imported from outside.

 And we are naturally brought here to a case where both these aspects
seem to vanish. For suppose, as before, that we have A and B, which
enter into one process, and let us call the result ACB. Here A will
suffer a change, and so also will B; and each again may be said to
produce change in the other. But if the nature of A was, before, Acb,
and the nature of B was, before, Bca, we are brought to a pause. The
ideas which we are applying are now plainly inadequate and likely to
confuse us. To A and B themselves they might even appear to be
ridiculous. How do I suffer a change, each would answer, if it is
nothing else but what I will? We cannot adopt your points of view, since
they seem at best quite irrelevant.

 To pass to another head, the conclusion, which so far we have reached,
seems to exclude the possibility of one thing by itself being active.
Here we must  make a distinction. If this supposed thing had no variety
in its nature, or, again, if its variety did not change in time within
it, then it is impossible that it should be active. The idea, indeed, is
self-contradictory. Nor could one thing again be said to be active as a
whole; for that part of its nature which, changing, served as the
occasion could not be included. I do not propose to argue these points,
for I do not perceive anything on the other side beyond confusion or
prejudice. And hence it is certain that activity implies finitude, and
otherwise possesses no meaning. But, on the other hand, naturally where
there are a variety of elements, changing in time, we may have activity.
For part of these elements may suffer change from, and may produce it
in, others. Indeed, the question whether this is to go on inside one
thing by itself, appears totally irrelevant, until at least we have some
idea of what we mean by one thing. And our enquiries, so far, have not
tended to establish any meaning. It is as if we enquired about
hermaphroditism, where we do not know what we understand by a single
animal. Indeed, if we returned at this point to our A and B connected in
one single process, and enquired of them if they both were parts of one
thing, or were each one thing containing a whole process of change, we
should probably get no answer. They would once more recommend us to
improve our own ideas before we went about applying them.

 Our result up to this point appears to be much as follows. Activity,
under any of the phrases used to carry that idea, is a mass of
inconsistency. It is, in the first place, riddled by the contradictions
of the preceding chapters, and if it cannot be freed from these, it must
be condemned as appearance. And its own special nature, so far as we
have discovered that, seems certainly no better. The activity of
anything seems to consist in the way in which we choose to look at that
which it is and becomes. For,  apart from the inner nature which comes
out in the result, activity has no meaning. If this nature was not
there, and was not real in the thing, is the thing really active? But
when we press this question home, and insist on having something more
than insincere metaphors, we find either nothing, or else the idea which
we are pleased to entertain. And this, as an idea, we dare not attribute
to the thing, and we do not know how to attribute it as anything else.
But a confusion of this kind cannot belong to reality.

 Throughout this chapter I have ignored a certain view about activity.
This view would admit that activity, as we have discussed it, is
untenable; but it would add that we have not even touched the real fact.
And this fact, it would urge, is the activity of a self, while outside
self the application of the term is metaphorical. And, with this
question in prospect, we may turn to another series of considerations
about reality. --------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VIII  

THINGS  BEFORE proceeding further we may conveniently pause at this
point. The reader may be asked to reflect whether anything of what is
understood by a thing is left to us. It is hard to say what, as a matter
of fact, is generally understood when we use the word "thing." But,
whatever that may be, it seems now undermined and ruined. I suppose we
generally take a thing as possessing some kind of independence, and a
sort of title to exist in its own right, and not as a mere adjective.
But our ideas are usually not clear. A rainbow probably is not a thing,
while a waterfall might get the name, and a flash of lightning be left
in a doubtful position. Further, while many of us would assert stoutly
that a thing must exist, if at all, in space, others would question this
and fail to perceive its conclusiveness.

 We have seen how the attempt to reconstitute our ideas by the help of
primary qualities broke down. And, since then, the results, which we
have reached, really seem to have destroyed things from without and from
within. If the connections of substantive and adjective, and of quality
and relation, have been shown not to be defensible; if the forms of
space and of time have turned out to be full of contradictions; if,
lastly, causation and activity have succeeded merely in adding
inconsistency to inconsistency,--if, in a word, nothing of all this can,
as such, be predicated of reality, --what is it that is left? If things
are to exist, then where and how?  But if these two questions are
unanswerable, then we seem driven to the conclusion that things are but
appearances. And I will add a few remarks, not so much in support of
this conclusion as in order to make it possibly more plain.

 I will come to the point at once. For a thing to exist it must possess
identity; and identity seems a possession with a character at best
doubtful. If it is merely ideal, the thing itself can hardly be real.
First, then, let us inquire if a thing can exist without identity. To
ask this question is at once to answer it; unless, indeed, a thing is to
exist, and is to hold its diversity combined in an unity, somehow quite
outside of time. And this seems untenable. A thing, if it is to be
called such, must occupy some duration beyond the present moment, and
hence succession is essential. The thing, to be at all, must be the same
after a change, and the change must, to some extent, be predicated of
the thing. If you suppose a case so simple as the movement of an atom,
that is enough for our purpose. For, if this "thing" does not move,
there is no motion. But, if it moves, then succession is predicated of
it, and the thing is a bond of identity in differences. And, further,
this identity is ideal, since it consists in the content, or in the
"what we are able to say of the thing." For raise the doubt at the end
of our atom's process, if the atom is the same. The question raised
cannot be answered without an appeal to its character. It is different
in one respect--namely, the change of place; but in another
respect--that of its own character --it remains the same. And this
respect is obviously identical content. Or, if any one objects that an
atom has no content, let him throughout substitute the word "body," and
settle with himself how, without any qualitative difference (such as
right and left), he distinguishes atoms. And this identical content is
called ideal because it transcends given existence. Existence  is given
only in presentation; and, on the other hand, the thing is a thing only
if its existence goes beyond the now, and extends into the past. I will
not here discuss the question as to the identity of a thing during a
presented lapse, for I doubt if any one would wish to except to our
conclusion on that ground.

 Now I am not here raising the whole question of the Identity of
Indiscernibles. I am urging rather that the continuity, which is
necessary to a thing, seems to depend on its keeping an identity of
character. A thing is a thing, in short, by being what it was. And it
does not appear how this relation of sameness can be real. It is a
relation connecting the past with the present, and this connection is
evidently vital to the thing. But, if so, the thing has become, in more
senses than one, the relation of passages in its own history. And if we
assert that the thing is this inclusive relation, which transcends any
given time, surely we have allowed that the thing, though not wholly an
idea, is an idea essentially. And it is an idea which at no actual time
is ever real.

 And this problem is no mere abstract invented subtlety, but shows
itself in practice. It is often impossible to reply when we are asked if
an object is really the same. If a manufactured article has been worked
upon and partly remade, such a question may have no sense until it has
been specified. You must go on to mention the point or the particular
respect of which you are thinking. For questions of identity turn always
upon sameness in character, and the reason why here you cannot reply
generally, is that you do not know this general character which is taken
to make the thing's essence. It is not always material substance, for we
might call an organism identical, though its particles were all
different. It is not always shape, or size, or colour, or, again, always
the purpose which the thing fulfils. The general nature, in fact, of a 
thing's identity seems to lie, first, in the avoidance of any absolute
break in its existence, and, beyond that, to consist in some qualitative
sameness which differs with different things. And with some things--
because literally we do not know in what character their sameness
lies--we are helpless when asked if identity has been preserved. If any
one wants an instance of the value of our ordinary notions, he may find
it, perhaps, in Sir John Cutler's silk stockings. These were darned with
worsted until no particle of the silk was left in them, and no one could
agree whether they were the same old stockings or were new ones. In
brief, the identity of a thing lies in the view which you take of it.
That view seems often a mere chance idea, and, where it seems necessary,
it still remains an idea. Or, if you prefer it, it is a character, which
exists outside of and beyond any fact which you can take. But it is not
easy to see how, if so, any thing can be real. And things have, so far,
turned out to be merely appearances.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER IX

 THE MEANINGS OF SELF  

OUR facts, up to the present, have proved to be illusory. We have seen
our things go to pieces, crumbled away into relations that can find no
terms. And we have begun, perhaps, to feel some doubt whether, since the
plague is so deep-rooted, it can be stayed at any point. At the close of
our seventh chapter we were naturally led beyond the inanimate, and up
to the self. And here, in the opinion of many, is the end of our
troubles. The self, they will assure us, is not apparent, but quite
real. And it is not only real in itself, but its reality, if I may say
so, spreads beyond its own limits and rehabilitates the selfless. It
provides a fixed nucleus round which the facts can group themselves
securely. Or it, in some way, at least provides us with a type, by the
aid of which we may go on to comprehend the world. And we must now
proceed to a serious examination of this claim. Is the self real, is it
anything which we can predicate of reality? Or is it, on the other hand,
like all the preceding, a mere appearance--something which is given,
and, in a sense, most certainly exists, but which is too full of
contradictions to be the genuine fact? I have been forced to embrace the
latter conclusion.

 There is a great obstacle in the path of the proposed inquiry. A man
commonly thinks that he knows what he means by his self. He may be in
doubt about other things, but here he seems to be at home. He fancies
that with the self he at once  comprehends both that it is and what it
is. And of course the fact of one's own existence, in some sense, is
quite beyond doubt. But as to the sense in which this existence is so
certain, there the case is far otherwise. And I should have thought that
no one who gives his attention to this question could fail to come to
one preliminary result. We are all sure that we exist, but in what sense
and what character--as to that we are most of us in helpless uncertainty
and in blind confusion. And so far is the self from being clearer than
things outside us that, to speak generally, we never know what we mean
when we talk of it. But the meaning and the sense is surely for
metaphysics the vital point. For, if none defensible can be found, such
a failure, I must insist, ought to end the question. Anything the
meaning of which is inconsistent and unintelligible is appearance, and
not reality.

 I must use nearly the whole of this chapter in trying to fix some of
the meanings in which self is used. And I am forced to trespass inside
the limits of psychology; as, indeed, I think is quite necessary in
several parts of metaphysics. I do not mean that metaphysics is based
upon psychology. I am quite convinced that such a foundation is
impossible, and that, if attempted, it produces a disastrous hybrid
which possesses the merits of neither science. The metaphysics will come
in to check a resolute analysis, and the psychology will furnish excuses
for half-hearted metaphysics. And there can be really no such science as
the theory of cognition. But, on the other hand, the metaphysician who
is no psychologist runs great dangers. For he must take up, and must
work upon, the facts about the soul; and, if he has not tried to learn
what they are, the risk is very serious. The psychological monster he
may adopt is certain also, no doubt, to be monstrous metaphysically; and
the supposed fact of its existence does not prove it less monstrous. But
experience shows  that human beings, even when metaphysical, lack
courage at some point. And we cannot afford to deal with monsters, who
in the end may seduce us, and who are certain sometimes, at any rate, to
be much in our way. But I am only too sensible that, with all our care,
the danger nearest each is least seen.

 I will merely mention that use of self which identifies it with the
body. As to our perception of our own bodies, there, of course, exists
some psychological error. And this may take a metaphysical form if it
tries to warrant, through some immediate revelation, the existence of
the organism as somehow the real expression of the self. But I intend to
pass all this by. For, at the point which we have reached, there seems
no exit by such a road from familiar difficulties.

 1. Let us then, excluding the body as an outward thing, go on to
inquire into the meanings of self. And the first of these is pretty
clear. By asking what is the self of this or that individual man, I may
be enquiring as to the present contents of his experience. Take a
section through the man at any given moment. You will then find a mass
of feelings, and thoughts, and sensations, which come to him as the
world of things and other persons, and again as himself; and this
contains, of course, his views and his wishes about everything.
Everything, self and not-self, and what is not distinguished as either,
in short the total filling of the man's soul at this or that moment--we
may understand this when we ask what is the individual at a given time.
There is no difficulty here in principle, though the detail would
naturally (as detail) be unmanageable. But, for our present purpose,
such a sense is obviously not promising.

 2. The congeries inside a man at one given moment does not satisfy as
an answer to the question what is self. The self, to go no further, must
be something beyond present time, and it  cannot contain a sequence of
contradictory variations. Let us then modify our answer, and say, Not
the mass of any one moment, but the constant average mass, is the
meaning of self. Take, as before, a section completely through the man,
and expose his total psychical contents; only now take this section at
different times, and remove what seems exceptional. The residue will be
the normal and ordinary matter, which fills his experience, and this is
the self of the individual. This self will contain, as before, the
perceived environment--in short, the not-self so far as that is for the
self--but it will contain now only the usual or average not-self. And it
must embrace the habits of the individual and the laws of his
character-- whatever we mean by these. His self will be the usual manner
in which he behaves, and the usual matter to which he behaves, that is,
so far as he behaves to it.

 We are tending here towards the distinction of the essential self from
its accidents, but we have not yet reached that point. We have, however,
left the self as the whole individual of one moment, or of succeeding
moments, and are trying to find it as the individual's normal
constituents. What is that which makes the man his usual self? We have
answered, It is his habitual disposition and contents, and it is not his
changes from day to day and from hour to hour. These contents are not
merely the man's internal feelings, or merely that which he reflects on
as his self. They consist quite as essentially in the outward
environment, so far as relation to that makes the man what he is. For,
if we try to take the man apart from certain places and persons, we have
altered his life so much that he is not his usual self. Again, some of
this habitual non-self, to use that expression, enters into the man's
life in its individual form. His wife possibly, or his child, or, again,
some part or feature of his  inanimate environment, could not, if
destroyed, be so made good by anything else that the man's self would
fail to be seriously modified. Hence we may call these the constituents
which are individually necessary; requisite for the man, that is, not in
their vague, broad character, but in their specialty as this or that
particular thing. But other tracts of his normal self are filled by
constituents necessary, we may say, no more than generically. His usual
life gets its character, that is, from a large number of details which
are variable within limits. His habits and his environment have main
outlines which may still remain the same, though within these the
special features have been greatly modified. This portion of the man's
life is necessary to make him his average self, but, if the generic type
is preserved, the special details are accidental.

 This is, perhaps, a fair account of the man's usual self, but it is
obviously no solution of theoretical difficulties. A man's true self, we
should be told, cannot depend on his relations to that which fluctuates.
And fluctuation is not the word; for in the lifetime of a man there are
irreparable changes. Is he literally not the same man if loss, or death,
or love, or banishment has turned the current of his life? And yet, when
we look at the facts, and survey the man's self from the cradle to the
coffin, we may be able to find no one average. The usual self of one
period is not the usual self of another, and it is impossible to unite
in one mass these conflicting psychical contents. Either then we accept
the man's mere history as his self, and, if so, why call it one? Or we
confine ourselves to periods, and there is no longer any single self.
Or, finally, we must distinguish the self from the usual constituents of
the man's psychical being. We must try to reach the self which is
individual by finding the self which is essential.

  3. Let us then take, as before, a man's mind, and inspect its
furniture and contents. We must try to find that part of them in which
the self really consists, and which makes it one and not another. And
here, so far as I am aware, we can get no assistance from popular ideas.
There seems, however, no doubt that the inner core of feeling, resting
mainly on what is called C*nesthesia, is the foundation of the self.

 But this inner nucleus, in the first place, is not separated from the
average self of the man by any line that can be drawn; and, in the
second place, its elements come from a variety of sources. In some cases
it will contain, indivisibly from the rest, relation to a not-self of a
certain character. Where an individual is such that alteration in what
comes from the environment completely unsettles him, where this change
may produce a feeling of self-estrangement so severe as to cause
sickness and even death, we must admit that the self is not enclosed by
a wall. And where the essential self is to end, and the accidental self
to begin, seems a riddle without an answer.

 For an attempt to answer it is baffled by a fatal dilemma. If you take
an essence which can change, it is not an essence at all; while, if you
stand on anything more narrow, the self has disappeared. What is this
essence of the self which never is altered? Infancy and old age, disease
and madness, bring new features, while others are borne away. It is hard
indeed to fix any limit to the self's mutability. One self, doubtless,
can suffer change in which another would perish. But, on the other hand,
there comes a point in each where we should agree that the man is no
longer himself. This  creature lost in illusions, bereft of memory,
transformed in mood, with diseased feelings enthroned in the very heart
of his being--is this still one self with what we knew? Well, be it so;
assert, what you are unable to show, that there is still a point
untouched, a spot which never has been invaded. I will not ask you to
point this out, for I am sure that is impossible. But I urge upon you
the opposite side of the dilemma. This narrow persisting element of
feeling or idea, this fixed essence not "servile to all the skyey
influences," this wretched fraction and poor atom, too mean to be in
danger--do you mean to tell me that this bare remnant is really the
self? The supposition is preposterous, and the question wants no answer.
If the self has been narrowed to a point which does not change, that
point is less than the real self. But anything wider has a "complexion"
which "shifts to strange effects," and therefore cannot be one self. The
riddle has proved too hard for us.

 We have been led up to the problem of personal identity, and any one
who thinks that he knows what he means by his self, may be invited to
solve this. To my mind it seems insoluble, but not because all the
questions asked are essentially such questions as cannot be answered.
The true cause of failure lies in this-- that we will persist in asking
questions when we do not know what they mean, and when their meaning
perhaps presupposes what is false. In inquiries about identity, as we
saw before in Chapter viii., it is all-important to be sure of the
aspect about which you ask. A thing may be identical or different,
according as you look at it. Hence in personal identity the main point
is to fix the meaning of person; and it is chiefly because our ideas as
to this are confused, that we are unable to come to a further result.

 In the popular view a man's identity resides  mainly in his body.
There, before we reflect much, lies the crucial point. Is the body the
same? Has it existed continuously? If there is no doubt about this, then
the man is the same, and presumably he has preserved his personal
identity, whatever else we like to say has invaded or infected it. But,
of course, as we have seen, this identity of the body is itself a
doubtful problem (p. 73). And even apart from that, the mere oneness of
the organism must be allowed to be a very crude way of settling personal
sameness. Few of us would venture to maintain that the self is the body.

 Now, if we add the requirement of psychical continuity, have we
advanced much further? For obviously it is not known, and there seems
hardly any way of deciding, whether the psychical current is without any
break. Apparently, during sleep or otherwise, such intervals are at
least possible; and, if so, continuity, being doubtful, cannot be used
to prove identity. And further, if our psychical contents can be more or
less transformed, the mere absence of an interval will hardly be thought
enough to guarantee sameness. So far as I can judge, it is usual, for
personal identity, to require both continuity and qualitative sameness.
But how much of each is wanted, and how the two stand to one another,
--as to this I can find little else but sheer confusion. Let us examine
it more closely.

 We should perhaps say that by one self we understand one experience.
And this may either mean one for a supposed outside observer, or one for
the consciousness of the self in question, the latter kind of unity
being added to or apart from the first kind. And the self is not one
unless within limits its quality is the same. But we have already seen
that if the individual is simply viewed from outside, it is quite
impossible to find a limit within which change  may not come, and which
yet is wide enough to embrace a real self. Hence, if the test is only
sameness for an outside observer, it seems clear that sometimes a man's
life must have a series of selves. But at what point of difference, and
on what precise principle, that succession takes place seems not
definable. The question is important, but the decision, if there is one,
appears quite arbitrary. But perhaps, if we quit the view of the outside
observer, we may discover some principle. Let us make the attempt.

 We may take memory as the criterion. The self, we may hold, which
remembers itself is so far one; and in this lies personal identity. We
perhaps may wish also to strengthen our case by regarding memory as
something entirely by itself, and as, so to speak, capable of anything
whatever. But this is, of course, quite erroneous. Memory, as a special
application of reproduction, displays no exceptional wonders to a sane
psychology, nor does it really offer greater difficulties than we find
in several other functions. And the point I would emphasize here is its
limits and defects. Whether you take it across its breadth, or down its
length, you discover a great want of singleness. This one memory of
which we talk is very weak for many aspects of our varied life, and is
again disproportionately strong for other aspects. Hence it seems more
like a bundle of memories running side by side and in part unconnected.
It is certain that at any one time what we can recall is most
fragmentary. There are whole sides of our life which may be wanting
altogether, and others which will come up only in various degrees of
feebleness. This is when memory is at its best; and at other times there
hardly seems any limit to its failure. Not only may some threads of our
bundle be wanting or weak, but, out of those that remain, certain
lengths may be missing. Pieces of our life, when we were asleep, or
drugged, or otherwise distempered,  are not represented. Doubtless the
current, for all that, comes to us as continuous. But so it does when
things go further, and when in present disease our recollection becomes
partial and distorted. Nay, when in one single man there are periodic
returns of two disconnected memories, the faculty still keeps its nature
and proclaims its identity. And psychology explains how this is so.
Memory depends on reproduction from a basis that is present--a basis
that may be said to consist in self-feeling. Hence, so far as this basis
remains the same through life, it may, to speak in general, recall
anything once associated with it. And, as this basis changes, we can
understand how its connections with past events will vary indefinitely,
both in fulness and in strength. Hence, for the same reason, when
self-feeling has been altered beyond a limit not in general to be
defined, the base required for reproduction of our past is removed. And,
as these different bases alternate, our past life will come to us
differently, not as one self, but as diverse selves alternately. And of
course these "reproduced" selves may, to a very considerable extent,
have never existed in the past.

 Now I would invite the person who takes his sameness to consist in bare
memory, to confront his view with these facts, and to show us how he
understands them. For apparently, though he may not admit that personal
identity has degrees, he at least cannot deny that in one life we are
able to have more than one self. And, further, he may be compelled to
embrace self-sameness with a past which exists, for him only sometimes,
and for others not at all. And under these conditions it is not easy to
see what becomes of the self. I will, however, go further. It is well
known that after an injury followed by unconsciousness which is removed
by an operation, our mental life may begin again from the  moment of the
injury. Now if the self remembers because and according as it is now,
might not another self be made of a quality the same, and hence
possessing the same past in present recollection? And if one could be
made thus, why not also two or three? These might be made distinct at
the present time, through their differing quality, and again through
outward relations, and yet be like enough for each to remember the same
past, and so, of course, to be the same. Nor do I see how this
supposition is to be rejected as theoretically impossible. And it may
help us to perceive, what was evident before, that a self is not thought
to be the same because of bare memory, but only so when that memory is
considered not to be deceptive. But this admits that identity must
depend in the end upon past existence, and not solely upon mere present
thinking. And continuity in some degree, and in some unintelligible
sense, is by the popular view required for personal identity. He who is
risen from the dead may really be the same, though we can say nothing
intelligible of his ambiguous eclipse or his phase of half-existence.
But a man wholly like the first, but created fresh after the same lapse
of time, we might feel was too much to be one, if not quite enough to
make two. Thus it is evident that, for personal identity, some
continuity is requisite, but how much no one seems to know. In fact, if
we are not satisfied with vague phrases and meaningless generalities, we
soon discover that the best way is not to ask questions. But if we
persist, we are likely to be left with this result. Personal identity is
mainly a matter of degree. The question has a meaning, if confined to
certain aspects of the self, though even here it can be made definite in
each case only by the arbitrary selection of points of view. And in each
case there will be a limit fixed in the end by no clear principle. But
in what the general sameness of one self consists is a problem insoluble
 because it is meaningless. This question, I repeat it, is sheer
nonsense until we have got some clear idea as to what the self is to
stand for. If you ask me whether a man is identical in this or that
respect, and for one purpose or another purpose, then, if we do not
understand one another, we are on the road to an understanding. In my
opinion, even then we shall reach our end only by more or less of
convention and arrangement. But to seek an answer in general to the
question asked at large is to pursue a chim‘ra.

 We have seen, so far, that the self has no definite meaning. It was
hardly one section of the individual's contents; nor was it even such a
section, if reduced to what is usual and taken somehow at an average.
The self appeared to be the essential portion or function, but in what
that essence lies no one really seemed to know. We could find nothing
but opinions inconsistent with each other, not one of which would
presumably be held by any one man, if he were forced to realize its
meaning.

 (4) By selecting from the individual's contents, or by accepting them
in the gross, we have failed to find the self. We may hence be induced
to locate it in some kind of monad, or supposed simple being. By this
device awkward questions, as to diversity and sameness, seem fairly to
be shelved. The unity exists as a unit, and in some sphere presumably
secure from chance and from change. I will here first call our result
which turned out adverse to the possibility of any such being (Chapters
iii. and v.). And secondly I will point out in a few words that its
nature is most ambiguous. Is it the self at all, and, if so, to what
extent and in what sense?

 If we make this unit something moving parallel with the life of a man,
or, rather, something not moving, but literally standing in relation to
his successive  variety, this will not give us much help. It will be the
man's self about as much as is his star (if he has one), which looks
down from above and cares not when he perishes. And if the unit is
brought down into the life of the person, and so in any sense suffers
his fortunes, then in what sense does it remain any longer a unit? And
if we will but look at the question, we are forced to this conclusion.
If we knew already what we meant by the self, and could point out its
existence, then our monad might be offered as a theory to account for
that self. It would be an indefensible theory, but at least respectable
as being an attempt to explain something. But, so long as we have no
clear view as to the limits in actual fact of the self's existence, our
monad leaves us with all our old confusion and obscurity. But it further
loads us with the problem of its connection with these facts about which
we are so ignorant. What I mean is simply this. Suppose you have
accepted the view that self consists in recollection, and then offer me
one monad, or two or three, or as many as you think the facts call for,
in order to account for recollection. I think your theory worthless,
but, to some extent, I respect it, because at least it has taken up some
fact, and is trying to account for it. But if you offer me a vague mass,
and then a unit alongside, and tell me that the second is the self of
the first, I do not think that you are saying anything. All I see is
that you are drifting towards this dilemma. If the monad owns the whole
diversity, or any selected part of the diversity, which we find in the
individual, then, even if you had found in this the identity of the
self, you would have to reconcile it all with the simplicity of the
monad. But if the monad stands aloof, either with no character at all or
a private character apart, then it may be a fine thing in itself, but it
is mere mockery to call it the self of a man. And, with so much for the
present, I will pass away from this point.

 (5) It may be suggested that the self is the matter in which I take
personal interest. The elements felt as mine may be regarded as the
self, or, at all events, as all the self which exists. And interest
consists mainly, though not wholly, in pain and pleasure. The self will
be therefore that group of feelings which, to a greater or less extent,
is constantly present, and which is always attended by pleasure or pain.
And whatever from time to time is united with this group, is a personal
affair and becomes part of self. This general view may serve to lead us
to a fresh way of taking self; but it obviously promises very little
result for metaphysics. For the contents of self are most variable from
one time to another, and are largely conflicting; and they are drawn
from many heterogeneous sources. In fact, if the self means merely what
interests us personally, then at any one time it is likely to be too
wide, and perhaps also to be too narrow; and at different times it seems
quite at variance with itself.

 (6) We are now brought naturally to a most important way of
understanding the self. We have, up to the present, ignored the
distinction of subject and object. We have made a start from the whole
psychical individual, and have tried to find the self there or in
connection with that. But this individual, we saw, contained both object
and subject, both not-self and self. At least, the not-self must clearly
be allowed to be in it, so far as that enters into relation with the
self and appears as an object. The reader may prefer another form of
expression, but he must, I think, agree as to the fact. If you take what
in the widest sense is inside a man's mind, you will find there both
subject and object and their relation. This will, at all events, be the
case both in perception and thought, and again in desire and volition.
And this self, which is opposed to the not-self, will most emphatically
not coincide with the self, if that  is taken as the individual or the
essential individual, The deplorable confusion, which is too prevalent
on this head, compels me to invite the reader's special attention.

 The psychical division of the soul into subject and object has, as is
well known, two main forms. The relation of the self to the not-self is
theoretical and practical. In the first we have, generally, perception
or intelligence; in the second we have desire and will. It is impossible
for me here to point out the distinct nature of each; and still less can
I say anything on their development from one root. What seems to me
certain is that both these forms of relation are secondary products.
Every soul either exists or has existed at a stage where there was no
self and no not- self, neither Ego nor object in any sense whatever. But
in what way thought and will have emerged from this basis--this whole of
feeling given without relation--I cannot here discuss. Nor is the
discussion necessary to an understanding of the crucial point here. That
point turns upon the contents of the self and the not-self; and we may
consider these apart from the question of origin.

 Now that subject and object have contents and are actual psychical
groups appears to me evident. I am aware that too often writers speak of
the Ego as of something not essentially qualified by this or that
psychical matter. And I do not deny that in a certain use that language
might be defended. But if we consider, as we are considering here, what
we are to understand by that object and subject in relation, which at a
given time we find existing in a soul, the case is quite altered. The
Ego that pretends to be anything either before or beyond its concrete
psychical filling, is a gross fiction and mere monster, and for no
purpose admissible. And the question surely  may be settled by
observation. Take any case of perception, or whatever you please, where
this relation of object to subject is found as a fact. There, I presume,
no one will deny that the object, at all events, is a concrete
phenomenon. It has a character which exists as, or in, a mental fact.
And, if we turn from this to the subject, is there any more cause for
doubt? Surely in every case that contains a mass of feeling, if not also
of other psychical existence. When I see, or perceive, or understand, I
(my term of the relation) am palpably, and perhaps even painfully,
concrete. And when I will or desire, it surely is ridiculous to take the
self as not qualified by particular psychical fact. Evidently any self
which we can find is some concrete form of unity of psychical existence.
And whoever wishes to introduce it as something (now or at any time)
apart or beyond, clearly does not rest his case upon observation. He is
importing into the facts a metaphysical chim‘ra, which, in no sense
existing, can do no work; and which, even if it existed, would be worse
than useless.

 The self and not-self, as discoverable, are concrete groups, and the
question is as to the content of these. What is that content, if any,
which is essentially not-self or self? Perhaps the best way of beginning
this inquiry is to ask whether there is anything which may not become an
object and, in that sense, a not-self. We certainly seem able to set
everything over against ourselves. We begin from the outside, but the
distinguishing process becomes more inward, until it ends with
deliberate and conscious introspection. Here we attempt to set before,
and so opposite to, self our most intimate features. We cannot do this
with all at any one time, but with practice and labour one detail after
another is detached from the felt background and brought before  our
view. It is far from certain that at some one time every feature of the
self has, sooner or later, taken its place in the not-self; but it is
quite certain that this holds of by far the larger part. And we are
hence compelled to admit that very little of the self can belong to it
essentially. Let us now turn from the theoretical to the practical
relation. Is there here anything, let us ask, which is incapable of
becoming an object to my will or desire? But what becomes such an object
is clearly a not-self and opposed to the self. Let us go at once to the
region that seems most internal and inalienable. As introspection
discloses this or that feature in ourselves, can we not wish that it
were otherwise? May not everything that we find within us be felt as a
limit and as a not-self, against which we either do, or conceivably
might, react. Take, for instance, some slight pain. We may have been
feeling, in our dimmest and most inward recesses, uneasy and
discomposed; and, so soon as this disturbing feature is able to be
noticed, we at once react against it. The disquieting sensation becomes
clearly a not-self, which we desire to remove. And, I think, we must
accept the result that, if not everything may become at times a
practical not-self, it is at least hard to find exceptions.

 Let us now, passing to the other side of both these relations, ask if
the not-self contains anything which belongs to it exclusively. It will
not be easy to discover many such elements.In the theoretical relation
it is quite clear that not everything can be an object, all together and
at once. At any one moment that which is in any sense before me must be
limited. What are we to say then becomes of that remainder of the
not-self which clearly has not, even for the time, passed wholly from my
mind? I do not mean those features of the environment to which I fail to
attend specially, but which I still go on perceiving as something before
me. I refer to the features  which have now sunk below this level. These
are not even a setting or a fringe to the object of my mind. They have
passed lower into the general background of feeling, from which that
distinct object with its indistinct setting is detached. But this means
that for the time they have passed into the self. A constant sound will
afford us a very good instance. That may be made into the principal
object of my mind, or it may be an accompaniment of that object more or
less definite. But there is a further stage, where you cannot say that
the sensation has ceased, and where yet it is no feature in what comes
as the not-self. It has become now one among the many elements of my
feeling, and it has passed into that self for which the not-self exists.
I will not ask if with any, or with what, portions of the not-self this
relapse may be impossible, for it is enough that it should be possible
with a very great deal. Let us go on to look at the same thing from the
practical side. There it will surely be very difficult to fix on
elements which essentially must confront and limit me. There are some to
which in fact I seem never to be practically related; and there are
others which are the object of my will or desire only from occasion to
occasion. And if we cannot find anything which is essential to the
not-self, then everything, it would appear, so far as it enters my mind,
may form part of the felt mass. But if so, it would seem for the time to
be connected with that group against which the object of will comes. And
thus once again the not-self has become self.

 The reader may have observed one point on which my language has been
guarded. That point is the extreme limit of this interchange of content
between the not- self and the self. I do not for one moment deny the
existence of that limit. In my opinion it  is not only possible, but
most probable, that in every man there are elements in the internal felt
core which are never made objects, and which practically cannot be.
There may well be features in our C*nesthesia which lie so deep that we
never succeed in detaching them; and these cannot properly be said to be
ever our not-self. Even in the past we cannot distinguish their
speciality. But I presume that even here the obstacle may be said to be
practical, and to consist in the obscurity, and not otherwise in the
essence, of these sensations. And I will barely notice the assertion
that pleasure and pain are essentially not capable of being objects.
This assertion seems produced by the straits of theory, is devoid of all
basis in fact, and may be ignored. But our reason for believing in
elements which never are a not- self is the fact of a felt surplus in
our undistinguished core. What I mean is this: we are able in our
internal mass of feeling to distinguish and to recognise a number of
elements; and we are able, on the other side, to decide that our feeling
contains beyond these an unexhausted margin. It contains a margin which,
in its general idea of margin, can be made an object, but which, in its
particularity, cannot be. But from time to time this margin has been
encroached upon; and we have not the smallest reason to suppose that at
some point in its nature lies a hard and fast limit to the invasion of
the not-self.

  On the side of the not-self, once more, I would not assert that every
feature of content may lapse into mere feeling, and so fuse itself with
the background. There may be features which practically manage never to
do this. And, again, it may be urged that there are thought-products not
capable of existence, save when noticed in such a way as must imply
opposition to self. I will not controvert this; but will suggest only
that it might open a question, as to the existence in general of
thought-products within the feeling self, which might further bewilder
us. I will come to the conclusion, and content myself with urging the
general result. Both on the side of the self and on the side of the
not-self, there are, if you please, admitted to be features not capable
of translocation. But the amount of these will be so small as to be
incapable of characterizing and constituting the self or the not-self.
The main bulk of the elements on each side is interchangeable.

 If at this point we inquire whether the present meaning of self will
coincide with those we had before, the answer is not doubtful. For
clearly well-nigh everything contained in the psychical individual may
be at one time part of self and at another time part of not-self. Nor
would it be possible to find an essence of the man which was incapable
of being opposed to the self, as an object for thought and for will. At
least, if found, that essence would consist in a residue so narrow as
assuredly to be insufficient for making an individual. And it could gain
concreteness only by receiving into its character a mortal
inconsistency. The mere instance of internal volition should by itself
be enough to compel reflection. There you may take your self as
deep-lying and as inward as you please, and may narrow it to the centre;
yet these contents may be placed in opposition to your self, and you may
desire their alteration. And here surely there is an end of any absolute
confinement or exclusive location of the self.  For the self is at one
moment the whole individual, inside which the opposites and their
tension is contained; and, again, it is one opposite, limited by and
struggling against an opponent.

 And the fact of the matter seems this. The whole psychical mass, which
fills the soul at any moment, is the self so far as this mass is only
felt. So far, that is, as the mass is given together in one whole, and
not divisible from the group which is especially connected with pleasure
and pain, this entire whole is felt as self. But, on the other side,
elements of content are distinguished from the mass, which therefore is,
so far, the background against which perception takes place. But this
relation of not-self to self does not destroy the old entire self. This
is still the whole mass inside which the distinction and the relation
falls. And self in these two meanings co-exists with itself, though it
certainly does not coincide. Further, in the practical relation a new
feature becomes visible. There we have, first of all, self as the whole
felt condition. We have, next, the not-self which is felt as opposing
the self. We have, further, the group, which is limited and struggles to
expand, so causing the tension. This is, of course, felt specially as
the self, and within this there falls a new feature worth noticing. In
desire and volition we have an idea held against the existing not- self,
the idea being that of a change in that not-self. This idea not only is
felt to be a part of that self which is opposed to the not-self,--it is
felt also to be the main feature and the prominent element there. Thus
we say of a man that his whole self was centred in a certain particular
end. This means, to speak psychologically, that the idea is one whole
with the inner group which is repressed by the not-self, and that the
tension is felt emphatically in the region of the idea. The idea becomes
thus the prominent feature in the content of self. And hence its
expansion against, or  contraction by, the actual group of the not-self
is felt as the enlargement or the restraint of myself. Here, if the
reader will call to mind that the existing not-self may be an internal
state, whose alteration is desired,--and, again, if he will reflect that
the idea, viewed theoretically, itself is a not-self,--he may realize
the entire absence of a qualification attached to, and indivisible from,
one special content.

 We have yet to notice even another meaning which is given to "self."
But I must first attempt at this point to throw further light on the
subject of our seventh chapter. The perception by the self of its own
activity is a corner of psychology which is dangerous if left in
darkness. We shall realize this danger in our next chapter; and I will
attempt here to cut the ground from beneath some blind prejudices. My
failure, if I fail, will not logically justify their existence. It may
doubtless be used in their excuse, but I am forced to run that risk for
the sake of the result.

 The perception of activity comes from the expansion of the self against
the not-self, this expansion arising from the self. And by the self is
not meant the whole contents of the individual, but one term of the
practical relation described above. We saw there how an idea, over
against the not-self, was the feature with which the self-group was most
identified. And by the realization of this idea the self therefore is
expanded; and the expansion, as such, is always a cause of pleasure. The
mere expansion, of course, would not be felt as activity, and its 
origination from within the self is of the essence of the matter.

 But there are several points necessary for the comprehension of this
view. 1. The reader must understand, first of all, that the expansion is
not necessarily the enlargement of the self in the sense of the whole
individual. Nor is it even the enlargement of the self as against the
not-self, in every meaning of those terms. It is the expansion of the
self so far as that is identified with the idea of the change. If, for
example, I wished to produce self-contraction, then that also would be
enlargement, because in it the idea, before limited by the fact of a
greater area, would transcend that limit. Thus even self-destruction is
relative expansion, so long as the activity lasts. And we may say,
generally, the self here is that in which it feels its chief interest.
For this is both indivisible from and prominent in its inmost being. No
one who misses this point can understand what activity means.

 2. This leads us to a difficulty. For sometimes clearly I am active,
where there is no idea proper, and, it might be added, even no limiting
not-self. I will take the last point first. (a) Let us, for argument's
sake, imagine a case where, with no outside Other, and no consciousness
of an empty environment, the self feels expansion. In what sense can we
discover any not-self here? The answer is simple. The self, as existing,
is that limit to itself which it transcends by activity. Let us call the
self, as it is before the activity, A, and, while active, AB. But we
have a third feature, the inner nature of A, which emerges in AB. This,
as we saw, is the idea of the change, and we may hence write it b. We
have, therefore, at the beginning not merely A, but in addition A
qualified by b; and these are opposite to one another. The unqualified A
is the not-self of A as identified with b; and the tension between Ab
and A is the inner source of the change,  which, of course, expands b to
B, and by consequence, so far, A. We may, if we like these phrases, call
activity the ideality of a thing carrying the thing beyond its actual
limit. But what is really important is the recognition that activity has
no meaning, unless in some sense we suppose an idea of the change; and
that, as against this idea in which the self feels its interest, the
actual condition of the self is a not-self (b) And this, of course,
opens a problem. For in some cases where the self apprehends itself as
active, there seems at first sight to be no idea. But the problem is
solved by the distinction between an idea which is explicit and an idea
not explicit. The latter is ideal solely in the sense that its content
is used beyond its existence. It might indeed be argued that, when we
predicate activity, the end is always transferred in idea to the
beginning. That is doubtless true; but, when activity is merely felt,
there will never be there an explicit idea. And, in the absence of this,
I will try to explain what takes place. We have first a self which, as
it exists, may be called Ac. This self becomes Acd, and is therefore
expanded. But bare expandedness is, of course, by itself not activity,
and could not be so felt. And the mere alteration consequently, of Ac to
Acd, would be felt only as a change, and as an addition made to the
identical A. When these differences, c and d, are connected before the
mind by the identical A--and for the perception of change they must be
connected--there is, so far, no action or passivity, but a mere change
which happens. This is not enough for activity, since we require also *,
the idea of d, in Ac; and this idea we do not have in an explicit form.
But what, I think, suffices is this. Ac, which as a fact passes into
Acd, and is felt so to pass by the perception of a relation of sequence,
is also previously felt as Ac*. That is, in the A,  apart from and
before its actual change to d, we have the qualification Ac* wavering
and struggling against Ac. Ac suggests Ac*, which is felt as one with
it, and not as given to it by anything else. But this suggestion Ac*, as
soon as it arises, is checked by the negative, mere Ac, which maintains
its position. A is therefore the site of a struggle of Ac* against Ac.
Each is felt in A as belonging to it and therefore as one; and there is
no relation yet which serves as the solution of this discrepancy. Hence
comes the feeling that A is, and yet is not, Acd. But when the relation
of sequence seems to solve this contradiction, then the ensuing result
is not felt as mere addition to Ac. It is felt as the success of Acd,
which before was kept back by the stronger Ac. And thus, without any
explicit idea, an idea is actually applied; for there is a content which
is used beyond and against existence. And this, I think, is the
explanation of the earliest felt activity.

 This brief account is naturally open to objections, but all that are
not mere misunderstanding can, I believe, be fully met. The subject,
however, belongs to psychology, and I must not here pursue it. The
reader will have seen that I assume, for the perception of change, the
necessity of connecting the end with the beginning. This is effected by
redintegration from the identical A, and it is probably assisted at
first by the after-sensation of the starting-place, persisting together
with the result. And this I am obliged here to assume. Further, the
realization of Acd must not be attached as an adjective to anything
outside A, such as E. This would be fatal to the appearance of a feeling
of activity. A must, for our feeling, be Acd; and, again, that must be
checked by the more dominant Ac. It must be unable to establish itself,
and yet must struggle,--that is, oscillate and waver. Hence a wavering
Ac*, causing pleasure at each partial success, and resisted by Ac, which
you may take, as you prefer,  for its negative or its privation--this is
what afterwards turns into that strange scandalous hybrid, potential
existence. And *, as a content that is rejected by existence, is on the
highway to become an explicit idea. And with these too scanty
explanations I must return from the excursion we have made into
psychology.

 (7) There is still another meaning of self which we can hardly pass by,
though we need say very little about it at present. I refer to that use
in which self is the same as the "mere self" or the "simply subjective."
This meaning is not difficult to fix in general. Everything which is
part of the individual's psychical contents, and which is not relevant
to a certain function, is mere self to that function. Thus, in thinking,
everything in my mind--all sensations, feelings, ideas which do not
subserve the thought in question--is unessential; and, because it is
self, it is therefore mere self. So, again, in morality or in ‘sthetic
perception, what stands outside these processes (if they are what they
should be) is simply "subjective," because it is not concerned in the
"object" of the process. Mere self is whatever part of the psychical
individual is, for the purpose in hand, negative. It, at least, is
irrelevant, and it may be even worse.

 This in general is clearly the meaning, and it surely will give us no
help in our present difficulties. The point which should be noticed is
that it has no fixed application. For that which is "objective" and
essential to one kind of purpose, may be irrelevant and "subjective" to
every other kind of purpose. And this distinction holds even among cases
of the same kind. That feature, for example, which is essential to one
moral act may be without significance for another, and may therefore be
merely  myself. In brief, there is nothing in a man which is not thus
"objective" or "subjective," as the end which we are considering is from
time to time changed. The self here stands for that which, for a present
purpose, is the chance self. And it is obvious, if we compare this
meaning with those which have preceded, that it does not coincide with
them. It is at once too wide and too narrow. It is too wide, because
nothing falls essentially outside it; and yet it is too narrow, because
anything, so soon as you have taken that in reference to any kind of
system, is at once excluded from the mere self. It is not the simply
felt; for it is essentially qualified by negation. It is that which, as
against anything transcending mere feeling, remains outside as a
residue. We might, if we pleased, call it what, by contrast, is only the
felt. But then we must include under feeling every psychical fact, if
considered merely as such and as existing immediately. There is,
however, here no need to dwell any further on this point.

 I will briefly resume the results of this chapter. We had found that
our ideas as to the nature of things--as to substance and adjective,
relation and quality, space and time, motion and activity--were in their
essence indefensible. But we had heard somewhere a rumour that the self
was to bring order into chaos. And we were curious first to know what
this term might stand for. The present chapter has supplied us with an
answer too plentiful. Self has turned out to mean so many things, to
mean them so ambiguously, and to be so wavering in its applications,
that we do not feel encouraged. We found, first, that a man's self might
be his total present contents, discoverable on making an imaginary cross
section. Or it might be the average contents we should presume ourselves
likely to find, together with something else which we call 
dispositions. From this we drifted into a search for the self as the
essential point or area within the self; and we discovered that we
really did not know what this was. Then we went on to perceive that,
under personal identity, we entertained a confused bundle of conflicting
ideas. Again the self, as merely that which for the time being
interests, proved not satisfactory; and from this we passed to the
distinction and the division of self as against the not-self. Here, in
both the theoretical and again in the practical relation, we found that
the self had no contents that were fixed; or it had, at least, none
sufficient to make it a self. And in that connection we perceived the
origin of our perception of activity. Finally, we dragged to the light
another meaning of self, not coinciding with the others; and we saw that
this designates any psychical fact which remains outside any purpose to
which at any time psychical fact is being applied. In this sense self is
the unused residue, defined negatively by want of use, and positively by
feeling in the sense of mere psychical existence. And there was no
matter which essentially fell, or did not fall, under this heading.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER X

 THE REALITY OF SELF  

IN the present chapter we must briefly inquire into the self's reality.
Naturally the self is a fact, to some extent and in some sense; and
this, of course, is not the issue. The question is whether the self in
any of its meanings can, as such, be real. We have found above that
things seem essentially made of inconsistencies. And there is understood
now to be a claim on the part of the self, not only to maintain and to
justify its own proper being, but, in addition, to rescue things from
the condemnation we have passed on them. But the latter part of the
claim may be left undiscussed. We shall find that the self has no power
to defend its own reality from mortal objections.

 It is the old puzzle as to the connection of diversity with unity. As
the diversity becomes more complex and the unity grows more concrete, we
have, so far, found that our difficulties steadily increase. And the
expectation of a sudden change and a happy solution, when we arrive at
the self, seems hence little warranted. And if we glance at the
individual self, as we find it at one time, there seems at first sight
no clear harmony which orders and unites its entangled confusion. At
least, popular ideas are on this point visibly unavailing. The
complexity of the phenomena, exhibited by a cross section, must be
admitted to exist. But how in any sense they can be one, even apart from
 alteration, is a problem not attempted. And when the self changes in
time, are we able to justify the inconsistency which most palpably
appears, or, rather, stares us in the face? You may say that we are each
assured of our personal identity in a way in which we are not assured of
the sameness of things. But this is, unfortunately, quite irrelevant to
the question. That selves exist, and are identical in some sense, is
indubitable. But the doubt is whether their sameness, as we apprehend
it, is really intelligible, and whether it can be true in the character
in which it comes to us. Because otherwise, while it will be certain
that the self and its identity somehow belong to reality, it will be
equally certain that this fact has somehow been essentially
misapprehended. And our conclusion must be that, since, as such, it
contradicts itself, this fact must, as such, be unreal. The self also
will in the end be no more than appearance.

 This question turns, I presume, on the possibility of finding some
special experience which will furnish a new point of view. It is, of
course, admitted that the self presents us with fresh matter, and with
an increased complication. The point in debate is whether at the same
time it supplies us with any key to the whole puzzle about reality. Does
it give an experience by the help of which we can understand the way in
which diversity is harmonized? Or, failing that, does it remove all
necessity for such an understanding? I am convinced that both these
questions must be answered in the negative.

 (a) For mere feeling, to begin the inquiry with this, gives no answer
to our riddle. It may be said truly that in feeling, if you take it low
enough down, there is plurality with unity and without contradiction.
There being no relations and no terms, and yet, on the other side, more
than bare simplicity, we experience a concrete whole as  actual fact.
And this fact, it may be alleged, is the understanding of our self, or
is, at least, that which is superior to and over-rides any mere
intellectual criticism. It must be accepted for what it is, and its
reality must be admitted by the intelligence as an unique revelation.

 But no such claim can be maintained. I will begin by pointing out that
feeling, if a revelation, is not exclusively or even specially a
revelation of the self. For you must choose one of two things. Either
you do not descend low enough to get rid of relations with all their
inconsistency, or else you have reached a level where subject and object
are in no sense distinguished, and where, therefore, neither self nor
its opposite exists. Feeling, if taken as immediate presentation, most
obviously gives features of what later becomes the environment. And
these are indivisibly one thing with what later becomes the self.
Feeling. therefore, can be no unique or special revelation of the self,
in distinction from any other element of the universe. Nor, even if
feeling be used wrongly as equivalent to the aspect of pleasure or pain,
need we much modify our conclusion. This is a point on which naturally I
have seen a good many dogmatic assertions, but no argument that would
bear a serious examination. Why in the case of a pleasant feeling--for
example, that of warmth--the side of pleasure should belong to the self,
and the side of sensation to the not-self (psychologically or
logically), I really do not know. If we keep to facts, it seems clear
that at the beginning no such distinction exists at all; and it is clear
too that at the latest stage there are some elements within the not-self
which retain their original aspect of pleasure or pain. And hence we
must come to this result. We could  make little metaphysical use of the
doctrine that pleasure and pain belong solely to the self as distinct
from the not-self. And the doctrine itself is quite without foundation.
It is not even true that at first self and not-self exist. And though it
is true that pleasure and pain are the main feature on which later this
distinction is based, yet it is even then false that they may not belong
to the object.

 But, if we leave this error and return once more to feeling, in the
sense of that which comes undifferentiated, we are forced to see that it
cannot give the knowledge which we seek. It is an apprehension too
defective to lay hold on reality. In the first place, its content and
its form are not in agreement; and this is manifest when feeling changes
from moment to moment. Then the matter, which ought to come to us
harmoniously and as one whole, becomes plainly discrepant within itself.
The content exhibits its essential relativity. It depends, that is to
say--in order to be what it is--upon something not itself. Feeling ought
to be something all in one and self- contained, if not simple. Its
essence ought not to include matter the adjective of, and with a
reference to, a foreign existence. It should be real, and should not be,
in this sense, partly ideal. And the form of immediacy, in which it
offers itself, implies this self- subsistent character. But in change
the content slips away, and becomes something else; while, again, change
appears necessary and implied in its being. Mutability is a fact in the
actual feeling which we experience, for that never continues at rest.
And, if we examine the content at any one given moment, we perceive
that, though it presents itself as self-subsistent, it is infected by a
deep-seated relativity. And this will force itself into view, first in
the experience of change, and later, for reflection. Again, in the
second place, apart from this objection, and even if feeling were 
self-consistent, it would not suffice for a knowledge of reality.
Reality, as it commonly appears, contains terms and relations, and
indeed may be said to consist in these mainly. But the form of feeling
(on the other side) is not above, but is below, the level of relations;
and it therefore cannot possibly express them or explain them. Hence it
is idle to suppose, given relational matter as the object to be
understood, that feeling will supply any way of understanding it. And
this objection seems quite fatal. Thus we are forced beyond feeling,
first by change, and then further by the relational form which remains
obstinately outstanding. But, when once more we betake ourselves to
reflection, we seem to have made no advance. For the incompleteness and
relativity in the matter given by feeling become, when we reflect on
them, open contradiction. The limitation is seen to be a reference to
something beyond, and the self-subsistent fact shows ideality, and turns
round into mere adjectives whose support we cannot find. Feeling can be,
therefore, no solution of the puzzles which, so far, have proved to be
insoluble. Its content is vitiated throughout by the old
inconsistencies. It may be said even to thrust upon us, in a still more
apparent form, the discrepancy that lies between identity and diversity,
immediate oneness and relation.

 (b) Thus mere feeling has no power to justify the self's reality, and
naturally none to solve the problems of the universe at large. But we
may perhaps be more fortunate with some form of self-consciousness. That
possibly may furnish us with a key to the self, and so also to the
world; and let us briefly make an attempt. The prospect is certainly at
first sight not very encouraging. For (i.) if we take the actual matter
revealed by self-consciousness, that (in any sense in which it pleases
us to understand self) seems quite inconsistent internally. If the
reader will recall the discussions of the preceding chapter,  he may, I
think, convince himself on this point. Take the self, either at one time
or throughout any duration, and its contents do not seem to arrange
themselves as a harmony. Nor have we, so far, found a principle by the
application of which we are enabled to arrange them without
contradiction. (ii.) But self-consciousness, we may be told, is a
special way of intuition, or perception, or what you will. And this
experience of both subject and object in one self, or of the identity of
the Ego through and in the opposition of itself to itself, or generally
the self-apprehension of the self as one and many, is at last the full
answer to our whole series of riddles. But to my mind such an answer
brings no satisfaction. For it seems liable to the objections which
proved fatal to mere feeling. Suppose, for argument's sake, that the
intuition (as you describe it) actually exists; suppose that in this
intuition, while you keep to it, you possess a diversity without
discrepancy. This is one thing, but it is quite another thing to possess
a principle which can serve for the understanding of reality. For how
does this way of apprehension suffice to take in a long series of
events? How again does it embrace, and transcend, and go beyond, the
relational form of discursive intelligence? The world is surely not
understood if understanding is left out. And in what manner can your
intuition satisfy the claims of understanding? This, to my mind, forms a
wholly insuperable obstacle. For the contents of the intuition (this
many in one), if you try to reconstruct them relationally, fall asunder
forthwith. And the attempt to find in self-consciousness an apprehension
at a level, not below, but above relations--a way of apprehension
superior to discursive thought, and including its mere process in a
higher harmony--appears to me not successful. I am, in short, compelled
to this conclusion: even if your intuition is a fact, it is not an
understanding of the self or of the world. It is a  mere experience, and
it furnishes no consistent view about itself or about reality in
general. An experience, I suppose, can override understanding only in
one way, by including it, that is, as a subordinate element somehow
within itself. And such an experience is a thing which seems not
discoverable in self- consciousness.

 And (iii.) I am forced to urge this last objection against the whole
form of self-consciousness, as it was described above. There does not
really exist any perception, either in which the object and the subject
are quite the same, or in which their sameness amid difference is an
object for perception. Any such consciousness would seem to be
impossible psychologically. And, as it is almost useless for me to try
to anticipate the reader's views on this point, I must content myself
with a very brief statement. Self- consciousness, as distinct from
self-feeling, implies a relation. It is the state where the self has
become an object that stands before the mind. This means that an element
is in opposition to the felt mass, and is distinguished from it as a
not-self. And there is no doubt that the self, in its various meanings,
can become such a not-self. But, in whichever of its meanings we intend
to consider it, the result is the same. The object is never wholly
identical with the subject, and the background of feeling must contain a
great deal more than what we at any time can perceive as the self. And I
confess that I scarcely know how to argue this point. To me the idea
that the whole self can be observed in one perception would be merely
chim‘rical. I find, first, that in the felt background there remains an
obscure residue of internal sensation, which I perhaps at no time can
distinguish as an object. And this felt background at any moment will
almost certainly contain also elements from outer sensation. On the
other hand, the self, as an object, will at any one time embrace but a
poor extent of detail. It is  palpably and flagrantly much more narrow
than the background felt as self. And in order to exhaust this felt mass
(if indeed exhaustion is possible) we require a series of patient
observations, in none of which will the object be as full as the
subject. To have the felt self in its totality as an object for
consciousness seems out of the question. And I would further ask the
reader to bear in mind that, where the self is observed as in opposition
to the not-self, this whole relation is included within that felt
background, against which, on the other hand, the distinction takes
place.

 And this suggests an objection. How, I may be asked, if
self-consciousness is no more than you say, do we take one object as
self and another as not-self? Why is the observed object perceived at
all in the character of self? This is a question, I think, not difficult
to answer, so far at least as is required for our purpose here. The
all-important point is this, that the unity of feeling never disappears.
The mass, at first undifferentiated, groups itself into objects in
relation to me; and then again further the "me" becomes explicit, and
itself is an object in relation to the background of feeling. But, none
the less, the object not-self is still a part of the individual soul,
and the object self likewise keeps its place in this felt unity. The
distinctions have supervened upon, but they have not divided, the
original whole; and, if they had done so, the result would have been
mere destruction. Hence, in self-consciousness, those contents perceived
as the self belong still to the whole individual mass. They, in the
first place, are features in the felt totality; then again they are
elements in that inner group from which the not-self is distinguished;
and finally they become an object opposed to the internal  background.
And these contents exist thus in several forms all at once. And so, just
as the not-self is felt as still psychically my state, the self, when
made an object, is still felt as individually one with me. Nay, we may
reflect upon this unity of feeling, and may say that the self, as self
and as not-self all in one, is our object. And this is true if we mean
that it is an object for reflection. But in that reflection once more
there is an actual subject; and that actual subject is a mass of feeling
much fuller than the object; and it is a subject which in no sense is an
object for the reflection. The feature, of being not-self and self in
one self, can indeed be brought before the present subject, and can be
felt to be its own. The unity of feeling can become an object for
perception and thought, and can also be felt to belong to the self which
is present, and which is the subject that perceives. But, without
entering into psychological refinements and difficulties, we may be sure
of this main result. The actual subject is never, in any state of mind,
brought before itself as an object. It has that before it which it feels
to be itself, so far at least as to fall within its own area, and to be
one thing with its felt unity. But the actual subject never feels that
it is all out there in its object, that there is nothing more left
within, and that the difference has disappeared. And of this we can
surely convince ourselves by observation. The subject in the end must be
felt, and it can never (as it is) be perceived.

 But, if so, then self-consciousness will not solve our former
difficulties. For these distinctions, of self and of not-self in one
whole, are not presented as the reality even of my self. They are given
as found within it, but not as exhausting it. But even if the self did,
what it cannot do, and guaranteed this arrangement as its proper
reality, that would still leave us at a loss. For unless we could think
the arrangement so as to be consistent with itself  we could not admit
it as being the truth about reality. It would merely be an experience,
unintelligible or deceptive. And it is an experience which, we have now
seen, has no existence in fact.

 (c) We found the self, as mere feeling, gave us no key to our puzzles,
and we have not had more success in our attempt with self-consciousness.
So far as that transcends mere feeling, it is caught in, and is
dissipated by, the old illusory play. of relations and qualities. It
repeats this illusion, without doubt, at a higher level than before; the
endeavour is more ambitious, but the result is still the same. For we
have not been taught how to understand diversity in unity. And though,
in my judgment, the further task should now be superfluous, I will
briefly touch upon some other claims made for the self. The first rests
on the consciousness of personal identity. This may be supposed to have
some bearing on the reality of the self, but to my mind it appears to be
almost irrelevant. Of course the self, within limits and up to a certain
point, is the same; and I will leave to others the attempt to fix those
limits by a principle. For, in my opinion, there is none which at bottom
is not arbitrary. But what I fail to perceive is the metaphysical
conclusion which comes from a consciousness of self-sameness. I quite
understand that this fact disproves any doctrine of the self's mere
discreteness. Or, more correctly, it is an obvious instance against a
doctrine which evidently contradicts itself in principle. The self is
not merely discrete; and therefore (doubtless by some wonderful
alternative) we are carried to a positive result about its reality. But
the facts of the case seem merely to be thus. As long as there remains
in the self a certain basis of content, ideally the same, so long may
the self recall anything once associated with that basis. And this
identity of content, working by redintegration and so bringing  up the
past as the history of one self--really this is all which we have to
build upon. Now this, of course, shows that self-sameness exists as a
fact, and that hence somehow an identical self must be real. But then
the question is how? The question is whether we can state the existence
and the continuity of a real self in a way which is intelligible, and
which is not ruined by the difficulties of previous discussions.
Because, otherwise, we may have found an interesting fact, but most
assuredly we have not found a tenable view about reality. That tenable
view, if we got sight of it, might show us that our fact had been
vitally misapprehended. At all events, so long as we can offer only a
bundle of inconsistencies, it is absurd to try to believe that these are
the true reality. And, if any one likes to fall back upon a miraculous
faculty which he discovers in memory, the case is not altered. For the
issue is as to the truth either of the message conveyed, or of our
conclusion from that message. And, for myself, I stand on this. Present
your doctrine (whatever it is) in a form which will bear criticism, and
which will enable me to understand this confused mass of facts which I
encounter on all sides. Do this, and I will follow you, and I will
worship the source of such a true revelation. But I will not accept
nonsense for reality, though it be vouched for by miracle, or proceed
from the mouth of a psychological monster.

 And I am compelled to adopt the same attitude towards another supposed
fact. I refer to the unity in such a function as, for instance,
Comparison. This has been assumed to be timeless, and to serve as a
foundation for metaphysical views about the self. But I am forced to
reject alike both basis and result, if that result be offered as a
positive view. It is in the first place (as we have seen in Chapter v.)
psychologically untenable to take any mental fact as free from duration.
And, apart from that, what  works in any function must be something
concrete and specially relevant to that function. In comparison it must
be, for instance, a special basis of identity in the terms to be
compared. A timeless self, acting in a particular way from its general
timeless nature, is to me, in the first place, a psychological monster.
And, in the second place, if this extraordinary fact did exist, it would
indeed serve to show that certain views were not true; but, beyond that,
it would remain a mere extraordinary fact. At least for myself I do not
perceive how it supplies us with a conclusion about the self or the
world, which is consistent and defensible. And here once again we have
the same issue. We have found puzzles in reality, besetting every way in
which we have taken it. Now give me a view not obnoxious to these mortal
attacks, and combining differences in one so as to turn the edge of
criticism--and then I will thank you. But I cannot be grateful for an
assertion which seems to serve merely as an objection to another
doctrine, otherwise known to be false; an assertion, which, if we
accepted it as we cannot, would leave us simply with a very strange fact
on our hands. Such a fact is certainly no principle by which we could
solve the riddle of the universe.

 (d) I must next venture a few words on an embarrassing topic, the
supposed revelation of reality within the self as force or will. And the
difficulty comes, not so much from the nature of the subject, as from
the manner of its treatment. If we could get a clear statement as to the
matter revealed, we could at this stage of our discussion dispose of it
in a few words, or rather point out that it has been already disposed
of. But a clear statement is precisely that which (so far as my
experience goes) is not to be had.

  The reader who recalls our discussions on activity, will remember how
it literally was riddled by contradictions. All the puzzles as to
adjectives and relations and terms, every dilemma as to time and
causation, seemed to meet in it and there even to find an addition. Far
from reducing these to harmony, activity, when we tried to think it,
fell helplessly asunder or jarred with itself. And to suppose that the
self is to bring order into this chaos, after our experience hitherto of
the self's total impotence, seems more sanguine than rational.

 If now we take force or cause, as it is revealed in the self, to be the
same as volition proper, that clearly will not help us. For in volition
we have an idea, determining change in the self, and so producing its
own realization. Volition perhaps at first sight may seem to promise a
solution of our metaphysical puzzles. For we seem to find at last
something like a self-contained cause with an effect within itself. But
this surely is illusory. The old difficulties about the beginning of
change and its process in time, the old troubles as to diversity in
union with sameness--how is any one of these got rid of, or made more
tractable? It is bootless to enquire whether we have found a principle
which is to explain the universe. For we have not even found anything
which can bear its own weight, or can endure for one moment the most
superficial scrutiny. Volition gives us, of course, an intense feeling
of reality; and we may conclude, if we please, that in this lies the
heart of the mystery of things. Yes, perhaps; here lies the answer--for
those who may have understood; and the whole question turns on whether
we have reached an understanding. But what you offer me appears much
more like an experience, not understood but interpreted into hopeless
confusion. It is with you as with the man who, transported by his 
passion, feels and knows that only love gives the secret of the
universe. In each case the result is perfectly in order, but one hardly
sees why it should be called metaphysics.

 And we shall make no advance, if we pass from will proper where an idea
is realized, and fall back on an obscurer revelation of energy. In the
experience of activity, or resistance, or will, or force (or whatever
other phrase seems most oracular), we are said to come at last down to
the rock of reality. And I am not so ill-advised as to offer a disproof
of the message revealed. It is doubtless a mystery, and hence those who
could inform the outer world of its meaning, are for that very reason
compelled to be silent and to seem even ignorant. What I can do is to
set down briefly the external remarks of one not initiated.

 In the first place, taken psychologically, the revelation is
fraudulent. There is no original experience of anything like activity,
to say nothing of resistance. This is quite a secondary product, the
origin of which is far from mysterious, and on which I have said
something in the preceding chapter. You may, doubtless, point to an
outstanding margin of undetermined sensations, but these will not
contain the essence of the matter. And I do not hesitate to say this:
Where you meet a psychologist who takes this experience as elementary,
you will find a man who has not ever made a serious attempt to decompose
it, or ever resolutely faced the question as to what it contains. And in
the second place, taken metaphysically, these tidings, given from
whatever source, are either meaningless or false. And here once again we
have the all-important point. I do not care what your oracle is, and
your  preposterous psychology may here be gospel if you please; the real
question is whether your response (so far as it means anything) is not
appearance and illusion. If it means nothing, that is to say, if it is
merely a datum, which has no complex content that can be taken as a
principle--then it will be much what we have in, say, pleasure or pain.
But if you offered me one of these as a theoretical account of the
universe, you would not be even mistaken, but simply nonsensical. And it
is the same with activity or force, if these also merely are, and say
nothing. But if, on the other hand, the revelation does contain a
meaning, I will commit myself to this: either the oracle is so confused
that its signification is not discoverable, or, upon the other hand, if
it can be pinned down to any definite statement, then that statement
will be false. When we drag it out into the light, and expose it to the
criticism of our foregoing discussions, it will exhibit its
helplessness. It will be proved to contain mere unsolved discrepancies,
and will give us therefore, not truth, but in the end appearance. And I
intend to leave this matter so without further remark.

 (e) I will in conclusion touch briefly on the theory of Monads. A
tenable view of reality has been sought in the doctrine that each self
is an independent reality, substantial if not simple. But this attempt
does not call for a lengthy discussion. In the first place, if there is
more than one self in the universe, we are met by the problem of their
relation to each other. And the reply, "Why there is none," we have
already seen in Chapter iii., is no sufficient defence. For plurality
and separateness without a relation of separation seem really to have no
meaning. And, from the other side, without relations these poor monads
would have no process and would serve no purpose. But relations
admitted, again, are fatal to the monads' independence. The substances
clearly become adjectival, and mere  elements within an
all-comprehending whole. And hence there is left remaining for their
internal contents no solid principle of stability. And in the second
place, even if this remained, it would be no solution of our
difficulties. For consider: we have found, so far, that diversity and
unity can not be reconciled. Both in the existence of the whole self in
relation with its contents, and in the various special forms which that
existence takes, we have encountered everywhere the same trouble. We
have had features which must come together, and yet were willing to do
so in no way that we could find. In the self there is a variety, and in
the self there is a unity; but, in attempting to understand how, we fall
into inconsistencies which, therefore, cannot be truth. And now in what
way is the monadic character of the self --with whatever precise meaning
(if with any) we take this up--about to assist us? Will it in the least
show us how the diversity can exist in harmony with the oneness? If it
can do this, then I would respectfully suggest that it should do it.
Because, otherwise, the unity seems merely stated and emphasized; and
the problem of its diverse content is either wholly neglected or hidden
under a confusion of fictions and metaphors. But if more than an
emphasis on the unity is meant, that more is even positively
objectionable. For while the diversity is slurred over, instead of being
explained, there will be a negative assertion as to the limits within
which the self's true unity falls. And this assertion cannot stand
criticism. And lastly the relation of the self to its contents in time
will tend to become a new insoluble enigma. Monadism, on the whole, 
will increase and will add to the difficulties which already exist, and
it will not supply us with a solution of any single one of them. It
would be strange indeed if an explanation of all sides of our puzzle
were found in mere obstinate emphasis upon one of those sides.

 And with this result I will bring the present chapter to a close. The
reader who has followed our discussions up to this point, can, if he
pleases, pursue the detail of the subject, and can further criticise the
claims made for the self's reality. But if he will drive home the
objections which we have come to know in principle, the conclusion he
will reach is assured already. In whatever way the self is taken, it
will prove to be appearance. It cannot, if finite, maintain itself
against external relations. For these will enter its essence, and so
ruin its independency. And, apart from this objection in the case of its
finitude, the self is in any case unintelligible. For, in considering
it, we are forced to transcend mere feeling, itself not satisfactory;
and yet we cannot reach any defensible thought, any intellectual
principle, by which it is possible to understand how diversity can be
comprehended in unity. But, if we cannot understand this, and if
whatever way I we have of thinking about the self proves full of
inconsistency, we should then accept what must follow. The self is no
doubt the highest form of experience which we have, but, for all that,
is not a true form. It does not give us the facts as they are in
reality; and, as it gives them, they are appearance, appearance and
error.

 And one of the reasons why this result is not admitted on all sides,
seems to lie in that great ambiguity of the self which our previous
chapter detailed. Apparently distinct, this phrase wavers from one
meaning to another, is applied to various objects, and in argument is
used too seldom in a  well- defined sense. But there is a still more
fundamental aid to obscurity. The end of metaphysics is to understand
the universe, to find a way of thinking about facts in general which is
free from contradiction. But how few writers seem to trouble themselves
much about this vital issue. Of those who take their principle of
understanding from the self, how few subject that principle to an
impartial scrutiny. But it is easy to argue from a foregone alternative,
to disprove any theory which loses sight of the self, and then to offer
what remains as the secret of the universe--whether what remains is
thinkable or is a complex which refuses to be understood. And it is easy
to survey the world which is selfless, to find there vanity and
illusion, and then to return to one's self into congenial darkness and
the equivocal consolation of some psychological monster. But, if the
object is to understand, there can be only one thing which we have to
consider. It does not matter from what source our principle is derived.
It may be the refutation of something else--it is no worse for that. Or
it may be a response emitted by some kind of internal oracle, and it is
no worse for that. But for metaphysics a principle, if it is to stand at
all, must stand absolutely by itself. While wide enough to cover the
facts, it must be able to be thought without jarring internally. It is
this, to repeat it once more, on which everything turns. The diversity
and the unity must be brought to the light, and the principle must be
seen to comprehend these. It must not carry us away into a maze of
relations, relations that lead to illusory terms, and terms disappearing
into endless relations. But the self is so far from supplying such a
principle, that it seems, where not hiding itself in obscurity, a mere
bundle of discrepancies. Our search has conducted us again not to
reality but mere appearance.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER XI

 PHENOMENALISM  OUR attempts, so far, to reduce the world's diverse
contents to unity have ended in failure. Any sort of group which we
could find, whether a thing or a self, proved unable to stand criticism.
And, since it seems that what appears must somewhere certainly be one,
and since this unity is not to be discovered in phenomena, the reality
threatens to migrate to another world than ours. We have been driven
near to the separation of appearance and reality; we already perhaps
contemplate their localization in two different hemispheres--the one
unknown to us and real, and the other known and mere appearance. But,
before we take this step, I will say a few words on a proposed
alternative, stating this entirely in my own way and so as to suit my
own convenience.

 "Why," it may be said, "should we trouble ourselves to seek for a
unity? Why do things not go on very well as they are? We really want no
substance or activity, or anything else of the kind. For phenomena and
their laws are all that science requires." Such a view maybe called
Phenomenalism. It is superficial at its best, and it is held of course
with varying degrees of intelligence. In its most consistent form, I
suppose, it takes its phenomena as feelings or sensations. These with
their relations are the elements; and the laws somewhere and somehow
come into this view. And against its opponents Phenomenalism would urge,
What else exists? "Show me anything real," it would argue, "and I will
show you mere presentation; more is not to be discovered, and really
more is meaningless. Things and selves are not unities in any sense
whatever, except as given collections or arrangements of such presented
elements. What appears is, as a matter of fact, grouped in such and such
manners. And then, of course, there are the laws. When we have certain
things given, then certain other things are given too; or we know that
certain other occurrences will or may take place. There is hence nothing
but events, appearances which happen, and the ways which these
appearances have of happening. And how, in the name of science, can any
one want any more?"

 The last question suggests a very obvious criticism. The view either
makes a claim to take account of all the facts, or it makes no such
claim. In the latter case there is at once an end of its pretensions.
But in the former case it has to meet this fatal objection. All the ways
of thinking which introduce an unity into things, into the world or the
self--and there clearly is a good deal of such thinking on hand--are of
course illusory. But, none the less, they are facts entirely undeniable.
And Phenomenalism is invited to take some account of these facts, and to
explain how on its principles their existence is possible. How, for
example, with only such elements and their laws, is the theory of
Phenomenalism itself a possible fact? The theory seems a unity which, if
it were true, would be impossible. And an objection of this sort has a
very wide range, and applies to a considerable area of appearance. But I
am not going to ask how Phenomenalism is prepared to reply. I will
simply say that this one objection, to those who understand, makes an
end of the business. And if there ever has been so much as an attempt to
meet this fairly, it has escaped my notice. We may be sure beforehand
that such an effort must be wholly futile.

  Thus, without our entering into any criticism on the positive
doctrine, a mere reference to what it must admit, and yet blindly
ignores, is a sufficient refutation. But I will add a few remarks on the
inconsistencies of that which it offers us.

 What it states, in the first place, as to its elements and their
relations, is unintelligible. In actual fact, wherever you get it, these
distinctions appear and seem even to be necessary. At least I have no
notion of the way in which they could be dispensed with. But if so,
there is here at once a diversity in unity; we have somehow together,
perhaps, several elements and some relations; and what is the meaning of
"together," when once distinctions have been separated? And then what
sort of things are relations? Can you have elements which are free from
them even internally? And are relations themselves not given elements,
another kind of phenomena? But, if so, what is the relation between the
first kind and the second (Cf. Chapter iii.)? Or, if that question ends
in sheer nonsense, who is responsible for the nonsense? Consider, for
instance, any fact of sense, it does not matter what; and let
Phenomenalism attempt to state clearly what it means by its elements and
relations; let it tell us whether these two sides are in relation with
one another, or, if not that, what else is the case. But I will pass to
another point.

 An obvious question arises as to events past and future. If these, and
their relations to the present, are not to be real and in some sense to
exist--then difficulties arise into which I will not enter. But, if past
and future (or either of them) are in any sense real, then, in the first
place, the unity of this series will be something inexplicable. And, in
the second place, a reality, not presented and not given (and even the
past is surely not given), was precisely that against which
Phenomenalism set its face. This is another inconsistency.

  Let us go on to consider the question as to identity. This
Phenomenalism should deny, because identity is a real union of the
diverse. But change is not to be denied, for obviously it must be there
when something happens. Now, if there is change, there is by consequence
something which changes. But if it changes, it is the same throughout a
diversity. It is, in other words, a real unity, a concrete universal.
Take, for example, the fact of motion; evidently here something alters
its place. Hence a variety of places, whatever that means--in any case a
variety--must be predicated of one something. If so, we have at once on
our hands the One and the Many, and otherwise our theory declines to
deal with ordinary fact.

 In brief, identity--being that which the doctrine excluded--is
essential to its being. And now how far is this to go? Is the series of
phenomena, with its differences, one series? If it is not one, why treat
it as if it were so? If it is one, then here indeed is a unity which
gives us pause. Again, are the elements ever permanent and remaining
identical from one time to another? But, whether they are or are not
identical, how are facts to be explained? Suppose, in the first place,
that we do have identical elements, surviving amid change and the play
of variety. Here are metaphysical reals, raising the old questions we
have been discussing through this Book. But perhaps nothing is really
permanent except the laws. The problem of change is given up, and we
fall back upon our laws, persisting and appearing in successions of
fleeting elements. If so, phenomena seem now to have become temporal
illustrations of laws.

 And it is perhaps time to ask a question concerning the nature of these
last-mentioned creatures. Are they permanent real essences, visible from
time to time in their fleeting illustrations? If so, once more
Phenomenalism has adored blindly what it  rejected. And, of course, the
relations of these essences--the one to the other, and each to the
phenomena which in some way seem its adjectives--take us back to those
difficulties which proved too hard for us. But I presume that the
reality of the laws must be denied, or denied, that is, not quite, but
with a reservation. The laws are hypothetical; they are in themselves
but possibilities, and actual only when found in real presentation.
Apart from this, and as mere laws, they are connections between terms
which do not exist; and, if so, as connections, they are not strictly
anything actual. In short, just as the elements were nothing outside of
presentation, so again, outside of presentation, the laws really are
nothing. And in presentation then--what is either side, the elements or
the laws, but an unreal and quite indefensible thought? It seems that we
can say of them only that we do not know what they are; and all that we
can be certain of is this, that they are not what we know, namely, given
phenomena.

 And here we may end. The view has started with mere presentation. It,
of course, is forced to transcend this, and it has done so ignorantly
and blindly. A little criticism has driven it back, and has left it with
a universe, which must either be distinctions within one presentation,
or else mere nonsense. And then these distinctions themselves are quite
indefensible. If you admit them, you have to deal with the metaphysical
problem of the Many in One; and you cannot admit them, because clearly
they are not given and presented, but at least more or less made. And
what it must come to is that Phenomenalism ends in this dilemma. It must
either keep to the moment's presentation, and must leave there the
presented entirely as it is given--and, if so, then surely there could
be no more science; or it must "become transcendent" (as the phrase
goes), and launch out into a sea of  more preposterous inconsistencies
than are perhaps to be found in any other attempt at metaphysics. As a
working point of view, directed and confined to the ascertainment of
some special branch of truth, Phenomenalism is of course useful and is
indeed quite necessary. And the metaphysician who attacks it when
following its own business, is likely to fare badly. But when
Phenomenalism loses its head and, becoming blatant, steps forward as a
theory of first principles, then it is really not respectable. The best
that can be said of its pretensions is that they are ridiculous.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XII

 THINGS IN THEMSELVES  WE have found, so far, that we have not been able
to arrive at reality. The various ways, in which things have been taken
up, have all failed to give more than mere appearance. Whatever we have
tried has turned out something which, on investigation, has been proved
to contradict itself. But that which does not attain to internal unity,
has clearly stopped short of genuine reality. And, on the other hand, to
sit down contented is impossible, unless, that is we are resolved to put
up with mere confusion. For to transcend what is given is clearly
obligatory, if we are to think at all and to have any views whatever.
But, the deliverance of the moment once left behind, we have succeeded
in meeting with nothing that holds together. Every view has been seen
only to furnish appearance, and the reality has escaped. It has baffled
us so constantly, so persistently retreated, that in the end we are
forced to set it down as unattainable. It seems to have been discovered
to reside in another world than ours.

 We have here reached a familiar way of regarding the universe, a
doctrine held with very different degrees of comprehension. The
universe, upon this view (whether it understands itself or not), falls
apart into two regions, we may call them two hemispheres. One of these
is the world of experience and knowledge--in every sense without
reality. The other is the kingdom of reality-- without either  knowledge
or experience. Or we have on one side phenomena, in other words, things
as they are to us, and ourselves so far as we are anything to ourselves;
while on the other side are Things as they are in themselves and as they
do not appear; or, if we please, we may call this side the Unknowable.
And our attitude towards such a divided universe varies a good deal. We
may be thankful to be rid of that which is not relative to our affairs,
and which cannot in any way concern us; and we may be glad that the
worthless is thrown over the wall. Or we may regret that Reality is too
good to be known, and from the midst of our own confusion may revere the
other side in its inaccessible grandeur. We may even naively felicitate
ourselves on total estrangement, and rejoice that at last utter
ignorance has removed every scruple which impeded religion. Where we
know nothing we can have no possible objection to worship.

 This view is popular, and to some extent is even plausible. It is
natural to feel that the best and the highest is unknowable, in the
sense of being something which our knowledge cannot master. And this is
probably all that for most minds the doctrine signifies. But of course
this is not what it says, nor what it means, when it has any definite
meaning. For it does not teach that our knowledge of reality is
imperfect; it asserts that it does not exist, and that we have no
knowledge at all, however imperfect. There is a hard and fast line, with
our apprehension on the one side and the Thing on the other side, and
the two hopelessly apart. This is the doctrine, and its plausibility
vanishes before criticism.

  Its absurdity may be shown in several ways. The Unknowable must, of
course, be prepared either to deserve its name or not. But, if it
actually were not knowable, we could not know that such a thing even
existed. It would be much as if we said, "Since all my faculties are
totally confined to my garden, I cannot tell if the roses next door are
in flower." And this seems inconsistent. And we may push the line of
attack which we mentioned in the last chapter. If the theory really were
true, then it must be impossible. There is no reconciling our knowledge
of its truth with that general condition which exists if it is true. But
I propose to adopt another way of criticism, which perhaps may be
plainer.

 I will first make a remark as to the plurality involved in Things in
themselves. If this is meant, then within their secluded world we have a
long series of problems. Their diversity and their relations bring us
back to those very difficulties which we were endeavouring to avoid. And
it seems clear that, if we wish to be consistent, the plural must be
dropped. Hence in future we shall confine ourselves to the Thing in
itself.

 We have got this reality on one side and our appearances on the other,
and we are naturally led to enquire about their connection. Are they
related, the one to the other, or not? If they are related, and if in
any way the appearances are made the adjectives of reality, then the
Thing has become qualified by them. It is qualified, but on what
principle? That is what we do not know. We have in effect every unsolved
problem which vexed us before; and we have, besides, this whole
confusion now predicated of the Thing, no longer, therefore, something
by itself. But this perplexed attribution was precisely that which the
doctrine intended to avoid. We must therefore deny any relation of our
appearances to the Thing. But, if  so, other troubles vex us. Either our
Thing has qualities, or it has not. If it has them, then within itself
the same puzzles break out which we intended to leave behind,--to make a
prey of phenomena and to rest contented with their ruin. So we must
correct ourselves and assert that the Thing is unqualified. But, if so,
we are destroyed with no less certainty. For a Thing without qualities
is clearly not real. It is mere Being, or mere No-thing, according as
you take it simply for what it is, or consider also that which it means
to be. Such an abstraction is palpably of no use to us.

 And, if we regard the situation from the side of phenomena, it is not
more encouraging. We must take appearances in connection with reality,
or not. In the former case, they are not rendered one whit less
confused. They offer precisely the old jungle in which no way could be
found, and which is not cleared by mere attribution to a Thing in
itself. But, if we deny the connection of phenomena with the Real, our
condition is not improved. Either we possess now two realms of confusion
and disorder, existing side by side, or the one above the other. And, in
this case, the "other world" of the Thing in itself only serves to
reduplicate all that troubles us here. Or, on the other hand, if we
suppose the Thing to be unqualified, it still gives us no assistance.
Everything in our concrete world remains the same, and the separate
existence somewhere of this wretched abstraction serves us only as a
poor and irrelevant excuse for neglecting our own concerns.

 And I will allow myself to dwell on this last feature of the case. The
appearances after all, being what we experience, must be what matters
for us. They are surely the one thing which, from the nature of the
case, can possess human value. Surely, the moment we understand what we
mean by our words, the Thing in itself becomes utterly  worthless and
devoid of all interest. And we discover a state of mind which would be
ridiculous to a degree, if it had not unfortunately a serious side. It
is contended that contradictions in phenomena are something quite in
order, so long as the Thing in itself is not touched. That is to say
that everything, which we know and can experience, does not matter,
however distracted its case, and that this purely irrelevant ghost is
the ark of salvation to be preserved at all costs. But how it can be
anything to us whether something outside our knowledge contradicts
itself or not--is simply unintelligible. What is too visible is our own
readiness to sacrifice everything which possesses any possible claim on
us. And what is to be inferred is our confusion, and our domination by a
theory which lives only in the world of misunderstanding.

 We have seen that the doctrine of a Thing in itself is absurd. A
reality of this sort is assuredly not something unverifiable. It has on
the contrary a nature which is fully transparent, as a false and empty
abstraction, whose generation is plain. We found that reality was not
the appearances, and that result must hold good; but, on the other hand,
reality is certainly not something else which is unable to appear. For
that is sheer self-contradiction, which is plausible only so long as we
do not realize its meaning. The assertion of a reality falling outside
knowledge, is quite nonsensical.

 And so this attempt to shelve our problems, this proposal to take no
pains about what are only phenomena, has broken down. It was a vain
notion to set up an idol apart, to dream that facts for that reason had
ceased to be facts, and had somehow become only something else. And this
false idea is an illusion which we should attempt to clear out of our
minds once for all. We shall have hereafter to enquire into the nature
of appearance; but for the present we may keep a fast hold upon  this,
that appearances exist. That is absolutely certain, and to deny it is
nonsense. And whatever exists must belong to reality. That is also quite
certain, and its denial once more is self- contradictory. Our
appearances no doubt may be a beggarly show, and their nature to an
unknown extent may be something which, as it is, is not true of reality.
That is one thing, and it is quite another thing to speak as if these
facts had no actual existence, or as if there could be anything but
reality to which they might belong. And I must venture to repeat that
such an idea would be sheer nonsense. What appears, for that sole
reason, most indubitably is; and there is no possibility of conjuring
its being away from it. And, though we ask no question at present as to
the exact nature of reality, we may be certain that it cannot be less
than appearances; we may be sure that the least of these in some way
contributes to make it what it is. And the whole result of this Book may
be summed up in a few words. Everything so far, which we have seen, has
turned out to be appearance. It is that which, taken as it stands,
proves inconsistent with itself, and for this reason cannot be true of
the real. But to deny its existence or to divorce it from reality is out
of the question. For it has a positive character which is indubitable
fact, and, however much this fact may be pronounced appearance, it can
have no place in which to live except reality. And reality, set on one
side and apart from all appearance, would assuredly be nothing. Hence
what is certain is that, in some way, these inseparables are joined.
This is the positive result which has emerged from our discussion. Our
failure so far lies in this, that we have not found the way in which
appearances can belong to reality. And to this further task we must now
address ourselves, with however little hope of more than partial
satisfaction. -------------------------------------------------------- 
BOOK II REALITY

CHAPTER XIII  THE GENERAL NATURE OF REALITY  THE result of our First
Book has been mainly negative. We have taken up a number of ways of
regarding reality. and we have found that they all are vitiated by self-
discrepancy. The reality can accept not one of these predicates, at
least in the character in which so far they have come. We certainly
ended with a reflection which promised something positive. Whatever is
rejected as appearance is, for that very reason, no mere nonentity. It
cannot bodily be shelved and merely got rid of, and, therefore, since it
must fall somewhere, it must belong to reality. To take it as existing
somehow and somewhere in the unreal, would surely be quite meaningless.
For reality must own and cannot be less than appearance, and that is the
one positive result which, so far, we have reached. But as to the
character which, otherwise, the real possesses, we at present know
nothing; and a further knowledge is what we must aim at through the
remainder of our search. The present Book, to some extent, falls into
two divisions. The first of these deals mainly with the general
character of reality, and with the defence of this against a number of
objections. Then from this basis, in the second place, I shall go on to
consider mainly some special features. But I must admit that I have kept
to no strict principle of division. I have really observed no rule of
progress, except to get forward in the best way that I can.

  At the beginning of our inquiry into the nature of the real we
encounter, of course, a general doubt or denial. To know the truth, we
shall be told, is impossible, or is, at all events, wholly
impracticable. We cannot have positive knowledge about first principles;
and, if we could possess it, we should not know when actually we had got
it. What is denied is, in short, the existence of a criterion. I shall,
later on, in Chapter xxvii., have to deal more fully with the objections
of a thorough-going scepticism, and I will here confine myself to what
seems requisite for the present.

 Is there an absolute criterion? This question, to my mind, is answered
by a second question: How otherwise should we be able to say anything at
all about appearance? For through the last Book, the reader will
remember, we were for the most part criticising. We were judging
phenomena and were condemning them, and throughout we proceeded as if
the self-contradictory could not be real. But this was surely to have
and to apply an absolute criterion. For consider: you can scarcely
propose to be quite passive when presented with statements about
reality. You can hardly take the position of admitting any and every
nonsense to be truth, truth absolute and entire, at least so far as you
know. For, if you think at all so as to discriminate between truth and
falsehood, you will find that you cannot accept open self-contradiction.
Hence to think is to judge, and to judge is to criticise, and to
criticise is to use a criterion of reality. And surely to doubt this
would be mere blindness or confused self-deception. But, if so, it is
clear that, in rejecting the inconsistent as appearance, we are applying
a positive knowledge of the ultimate nature of things. Ultimate reality
is such that it does not contradict itself; here is an absolute
criterion. And it is proved absolute by the  fact that, either in
endeavouring to deny it, or even in attempting to doubt it, we tacitly
assume its validity.

 One of these essays in delusion may be noticed briefly in passing. We
may be told that our criterion has been developed by experience, and
that therefore at least it may not be absolute. But why anything should
be weaker for having been developed is, in the first place, not obvious.
And, in the second place, the whole doubt, when understood, destroys
itself. For the alleged origin of our criterion is delivered to us by
knowledge which rests throughout on its application as an absolute test.
And what can be more irrational than to try to prove that a principle is
doubtful, when the proof through every step rests on its unconditional
truth? It would, of course, not be irrational to take one's stand on
this criterion, to use it to produce a conclusion hostile to itself, and
to urge that therefore our whole knowledge is self-destructive, since it
essentially drives us to what we cannot accept. But this is not the
result which our supposed objector has in view, or would welcome. He
makes no attempt to show in general that a psychological growth is in
any way hostile to metaphysical validity. And he is not prepared to give
up his own psychological knowledge, which knowledge plainly is ruined if
the criterion is not absolute. The doubt is seen, when we reflect, to be
founded on that which it endeavours to question. And it has but blindly
borne witness to the absolute certainty of our knowledge about reality.

 Thus we possess a criterion, and our criterion is supreme. I do not
mean to deny that we might have several standards, giving us sundry
pieces of information about the nature of things. But, be that as it
may, we still have an over-ruling test of truth, and the various
standards (if they exist) are certainly subordinate. This at once
becomes  evident, for we cannot refuse to bring such standards together,
and to ask if they agree. Or, at least, if a doubt is suggested as to
their consistency, each with itself and with the rest, we are compelled,
so to speak, to assume jurisdiction. And if they were guilty of self-
contradiction, when examined or compared, we should condemn them as
appearance. But we could not do that if they were not subject all to one
tribunal. And hence, as we find nothing not subordinate to the test of
self- consistency, we are forced to set that down as supreme and
absolute.

 But it may be said that this supplies us with no real information. If
we think, then certainly we are not allowed to be inconsistent, and it
is admitted that this test is unconditional and absolute. But it will be
urged that, for knowledge about any matter, we require something more
than a bare negation. The ultimate reality (we are agreed) does not
permit self- contradiction, but a prohibition or an absence (we shall be
told) by itself does not amount to positive knowledge. The denial of
inconsistency, therefore, does not predicate any positive quality. But
such an objection is untenable. It may go so far as to assert that a
bare denial is possible, that we may reject a predicate though we stand
on no positive basis, and though there is nothing special which serves
to reject. This error has been refuted in my Principles of Logic (Book
I., Chapter iii.), and I do not propose to discuss it here. I will pass
to another sense in which the objection may seem more plausible. The
criterion, it may be urged, in itself is doubtless positive; but, for
our knowledge and in effect, is merely negative. And it gives us
therefore no information at all about reality, for, although knowledge
is there, it cannot be brought out. The criterion is a basis, which
serves as the  foundation of denial; but, since this basis cannot be
exposed, we are but able to stand on it and unable to see it. And it
hence, in effect, tells us nothing, though there are assertions which it
does not allow us to venture on. This objection, when stated in such a
form, may seem plausible, and there is a sense in which I am prepared to
admit that it is valid. If by the nature of reality we understand its
full nature, I am not contending that this in a complete form is
knowable. But that is very far from being the point here at issue. For
the objection denies that we have a standard which gives any positive
knowledge, any information, complete or incomplete, about the genuine
reality. And this denial assuredly is mistaken.

 The objection admits that we know what reality does, but it refuses to
allow us any understanding of what reality is. The standard (it is
agreed) both exists and possesses a positive character, and it is agreed
that this character rejects inconsistency. It is admitted that we know
this, and the point at issue is whether such knowledge supplies any
positive information. And to my mind this question seems not hard to
answer. For I cannot see how, when I observe a thing at work, I am to
stand there and to insist that I know nothing of its nature. I fail to
perceive how a function is nothing at all, or how it does not positively
qualify that to which I attribute it. To know only so much, I admit, may
very possibly be useless; it may leave us without the information which
we desire most to obtain; but, for all that, it is not total ignorance.

 Our standard denies inconsistency, and therefore asserts consistency.
If we can be sure that the inconsistent is unreal, we must, logically,
be just as sure that the reality is consistent. The question is solely
as to the meaning to be given to consistency. We have now seen that it
is not the bare exclusion of discord, for that is merely our 
abstraction, and is otherwise nothing. And our result, so far, is this.
Reality is known to possess a positive character, but this character is
at present determined only as that which excludes contradiction.

 But we may make a further advance. We saw (in the preceding chapter)
that all appearance must belong to reality. For what appears is, and
whatever is cannot fall outside the real. And we may now combine this
result with the conclusion just reached. We may say that everything,
which appears, is somehow real in such a way as to be self-consistent.
The character of the real is to possess everything phenomenal in a
harmonious form.

 I will repeat the same truth in other words. Reality is one in this
sense that it has a positive nature exclusive of discord, a nature which
must hold throughout everything that is to be real. Its diversity can be
diverse only so far as not to clash, and what seems otherwise anywhere
cannot be real. And, from the other side, everything which appears must
be real. Appearance must belong to reality, and it must therefore be
concordant and other than it seems. The bewildering mass of phenomenal
diversity must hence somehow be at unity and self-consistent; for it
cannot be elsewhere than in reality, and reality excludes discord. Or
again we may put it so: the real is individual. It is one in the sense
that its positive character embraces all differences in an inclusive
harmony. And this knowledge, poor as it may be, is certainly more than
bare negation or simple ignorance. So far as it goes, it gives us
positive news about absolute reality.

 Let us try to carry this conclusion a step farther on. We know that the
real is one; but its oneness, so far, is ambiguous. Is it one system,
possessing diversity as an adjective; or is its consistency, on the
other hand, an attribute of independent realities?  We have to ask, in
short, if a plurality of reals is possible, and if these can merely
co-exist so as not to be discrepant? Such a plurality would mean a
number of beings not dependent on each other. On the one hand they would
possess somehow the phenomenal diversity, for that possession, we have
seen, is essential. And, on the other hand, they would be free from
external disturbance and from inner discrepancy. After the enquiries of
our First Book the possibility of such reals hardly calls for
discussion. For the internal states of each give rise to hopeless
difficulties. And, in the second place, the plurality of the reals
cannot be reconciled with their independence. I will briefly resume the
arguments which force us to this latter result.

 If the Many are supposed to be without internal quality, each would
forthwith become nothing, and we must therefore take each as being
internally somewhat. And, if they are to be plural, they must be a
diversity somehow co-existing together. Any attempt again to take their
togetherness as unessential seems to end in the unmeaning. We have no
knowledge of a plural diversity, nor can we attach any sense to it, if
we do not have it somehow as one. And, if we abstract from this unity,
we have also therewith abstracted from the plurality, and are left with
mere being.

 Can we then have a plurality of independent reals which merely
co-exist? No, for absolute independence and co-existence are
incompatible. Absolute independence is an idea which consists merely in
one-sided abstraction. It is made by an attempted division of the aspect
of several existence from the aspect of relatedness; and these aspects,
whether in fact or thought, are really indivisible.

 If we take the diversity of our reals to be such as we discover in
feeling and at a stage where relations do not exist, that diversity is
never found except as one integral character of an undivided  whole. And
if we forcibly abstract from that unity, then together with feeling we
have destroyed the diversity of feeling. We are left not with plurality,
but with mere being, or, if you prefer it, with nothing. Co-existence in
feeling is hence an instance and a proof not of self- sufficiency, but
of dependence, and beside this it would add a further difficulty. If the
nature of our reals is the diversity found at a stage below relations,
how are we to dispose of the mass of relational appearance? For that
exists, and existing it must somehow qualify the world, a world the
reality of which is discovered only at a level other than its own. Such
a position would seem not easy to justify.

 Thus a mode of togetherness such as we can verify in feeling destroys
the independence of our reals. And they will fare no better if we seek
to find their co- existence elsewhere. For any other verifiable way of
togetherness must involve relations, and they are fatal to
self-sufficiency. Relations, we saw, are a development of and from the
felt totality. They inadequately express, and they still imply in the
background that unity apart from which the diversity is nothing.
Relations are unmeaning except within and on the basis of a substantial
whole, and related terms, if made absolute, are forthwith destroyed.
Plurality and relatedness are but features and aspects of a unity.

 If the relations in which the reals somehow stand are viewed as
essential, that, as soon as we understand it, involves at once the
internal relativity of the reals. And any attempt to maintain the
relations as merely external must fail. For if, wrongly and for
argument's sake, we admit processes and arrangements which do not
qualify their terms, yet such arrangements, if admitted, are at any rate
not ultimate. The terms would be prior and independent only with regard
to these arrangements, and they would remain relative otherwise, and
vitally  dependent on some whole. And severed from this unity, the terms
perish by the very stroke which aims to set them up as absolute.

 The reals therefore cannot be self-existent, and, if self-existent, yet
taken as the world they would end in inconsistency. For the relations,
because they exist, must somehow qualify the world. The relations then
must externally qualify the sole and self-contained reality, and that
seems self-contradictory or meaningless. And if it is urged that a
plurality of independent beings may be unintelligible, but that after
all some unintelligible facts must be affirmed--the answer is obvious.
An unintelligible fact may be admitted so far as, first, it is a fact,
and so far as, secondly, it has a meaning which does not contradict
itself internally or make self-discrepant our view of the world. But the
alleged independence of the reals is no fact, but a theoretical
construction; and, so far as it has a meaning, that meaning contradicts
itself, and issues in chaos. A reality of this kind may safely be taken
as unreal.

 We cannot therefore maintain a plurality save as dependent on the
relations in which it stands. Or if desiring to avoid relations we fall
back on the diversity given in feeling, the result is the same. The
plurality then sinks to become merely an integral aspect in a single
substantial unity, and the reals have vanished.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XIV

  THE GENERAL NATURE OF REALITY (continued)  OUR result so far is this.
Everything phenomenal is somehow real; and the absolute must at least be
as rich as the relative. And, further, the Absolute is not many; there
are no independent reals. The universe is one in this sense that its
differences exist harmoniously within one whole, beyond which there is
nothing. Hence the Absolute is, so far, an individual and a system, but,
if we stop here, it remains but formal and abstract. Can we then, the
question is, say anything about the concrete nature of the system?

 Certainly, I think, this is possible. When we ask as to the matter
which fills up the empty outline, we can reply in one word, that this
matter is experience. And experience means something much the same as
given and present fact. We perceive, on reflection, that to be real, or
even barely to exist, must be to fall within sentience. Sentient
experience, in short, is reality, and what is not this is not real. We
may say, in other words, that there is no being or fact outside of that
which is commonly called psychical existence. Feeling, thought, and
volition (any groups under which we class psychical phenomena) are all
the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or
even possible. This result in its general form seems evident at once;
and, however serious a step we now seem to have taken, there would be no
advantage at this point in discussing it at length. For the test in the
main lies ready to our hand, and the decision rests  on the manner in
which it is applied. I will state the case briefly thus. Find any piece
of existence, take up anything that any one could possibly call a fact,
or could in any sense assert to have being, and then judge if it does
not consist in sentient experience. Try to discover any sense in which
you can still continue to speak of it, when all perception and feeling
have been removed; or point out any fragment of its matter, any aspect
of its being, which is not derived from and is not still relative to
this source. When the experiment is made strictly, I can myself conceive
of nothing else than the experienced. Anything, in no sense felt or
perceived, becomes to me quite unmeaning. And as I cannot try to think
of it without realizing either that I am not thinking at all, or that I
am thinking of it against my will as being experienced, I am driven to
the conclusion that for me experience is the same as reality. The fact
that falls elsewhere seems, in my mind, to be a mere word and a failure,
or else an attempt at self- contradiction. It is a vicious abstraction
whose existence is meaningless nonsense, and is therefore not possible.

 This conclusion is open, of course, to grave objection, and must in its
consequences give rise to serious difficulties. I will not attempt to
anticipate the discussion of these, but before passing on, will try to
obviate a dangerous mistake. For, in asserting that the real is nothing
but experience, I may be understood to endorse a common error. I may be
taken first to divide the percipient subject from the universe; and
then, resting on that subject, as on a thing actual by itself, I may be
supposed to urge that it cannot transcend its own states. Such an
argument would lead to impossible results, and would stand on a
foundation of faulty abstraction. To set up the subject as real
independently of the whole, and to make the whole into experience in 
the sense of an adjective of that subject, seems to me indefensible. And
when I contend that reality must be sentient, my conclusion almost
consists in the denial of this fundamental error. For if, seeking for
reality, we go to experience, what we certainly do not find is a subject
or an object, or indeed any other thing whatever, standing separate and
on its own bottom. What we discover rather is a whole in which
distinctions can be made, but in which divisions do not exist. And this
is the point on which I insist, and it is the very ground on which I
stand, when I urge that reality is sentient experience. I mean that to
be real is to be indissolubly one thing with sentience. It is to be
something which comes as a feature and aspect within one whole of
feeling, something which, except as an integral element of such
sentience, has no meaning at all. And what I repudiate is the separation
of feeling from the felt, or of the desired from desire, or of what is
thought from thinking, or the division--I might add-- of anything from
anything else. Nothing is ever so presented as real by itself, or can be
argued so to exist without demonstrable fallacy. And in asserting that
the reality is experience, I rest throughout on this foundation. You
cannot find fact unless in unity with sentience, and one cannot in the
end be divided from the other, either actually or in idea. But to be
utterly indivisible from feeling or perception, to be an integral
element in a whole which is experienced, this surely is itself to be
experience. Being and reality are, in brief, one thing with sentience;
they can neither be opposed to, nor even in the end distinguished from
it.

 I am well aware that this statement stands in need of explanation and
defence. This will, I hope, be supplied by succeeding chapters, and I
think it better for the present to attempt to go forward. Our
conclusion, so far, will be this, that the Absolute is one system, and
that its contents are nothing but  sentient experience. It will hence be
a single and all-inclusive experience, which embraces every partial
diversity in concord. For it cannot be less than appearance, and hence
no feeling or thought, of any kind, can fall outside its limits. And if
it is more than any feeling or thought which we know, it must still
remain more of the same nature. It cannot pass into another region
beyond what falls under the general head of sentience. For to assert
that possibility would be in the end to use words without a meaning. We
can entertain no such suggestion except as self-contradictory, and as
therefore impossible.

 This conclusion will, I trust, at the end of my work bring more
conviction to the reader; for we shall find that it is the one view
which will harmonize all facts. And the objections brought against it,
when it and they are once properly defined, will prove untenable. But
our general result is at present seriously defective; and we must now
attempt to indicate and remedy its failure in principle.

 What we have secured, up to this point, may be called mere theoretical
consistency. The Absolute holds all possible content in an individual
experience where no contradiction can remain. And it seems, at first
sight, as if this theoretical perfection could exist together with
practical defect and misery. For apparently, so far as we have gone, an
experience might be harmonious, in such a way at least as not to
contradict itself, and yet might result on the whole in a balance of
suffering. Now no one can genuinely believe that sheer misery, however
self-consistent, is good and desirable. And the question is whether in
this way our conclusion is wrecked.

 There may be those possibly who here would join issue at once. They
might perhaps wish to contend that the objection is irrelevant, since
pain is no evil.  I shall discuss the general question of good and evil
in a subsequent chapter, and will merely say here that for myself I
cannot stand upon the ground that pain is no evil. I admit, or rather I
would assert, that a result, if it fails to satisfy our whole nature,
comes short of perfection. And I could not rest tranquilly in a truth if
I were compelled to regard it as hateful. While unable, that is, to deny
it, I should, rightly, or wrongly, insist that the enquiry was not yet
closed, and that the result was but partial. And if metaphysics is to
stand, it must, I think, take account of all sides of our being. I do
not mean that every one of our desires must be met by a promise of
particular satisfaction; for that would be absurd and utterly
impossible. But if the main tendencies of our nature do not reach
consummation in the Absolute, we cannot believe that we have attained to
perfection and truth. And we shall have to consider later on what
desires must be taken as radical and fundamental. But here we have seen
that our conclusion, so far, has a serious defect, and the question is
whether this defect can be directly remedied. We have been resting on
the theoretical standard which guarantees that Reality is a
self-consistent system. Have we a practical standard which now can
assure us that this system will satisfy our desire for perfect good? An
affirmative answer seems plausible, but I do not think it would be true.
Without any doubt we possess a practical standard; but that does not
seem to me to yield a conclusion about reality, or it will not give us
at least directly the result we are seeking. I will attempt briefly to
explain in what way it comes short.

 That a practical end and criterion exists I shall assume, and I will
deal with its nature more fully hereafter (Chapter xxv.). I may say for
the present that, taken in the abstract, the practical standard seems to
be the same as what is used for  theory. It is individuality, the
harmonious or consistent existence of our contents; an existence,
further, which cannot be limited, because, if so, it would contradict
itself internally (Chapters xx. and xxiv.). Nor need I separate myself
at this stage from the intelligent Hedonist, since, in my judgment,
practical perfection will carry a balance of pleasure. These points I
shall have to discuss, and for the present am content to assume them
provisionally and vaguely. Now taking the practical end as
individuality, or as clear pleasure, or rather as both in one, the
question is whether this end is known to be realized in the Absolute,
and, if so, upon what foundation such knowledge can rest. It apparently
cannot be drawn directly from the theoretical criterion, and the
question is whether the practical standard can supply it. I will explain
why I believe that this cannot be the case.

 I will first deal briefly with the "ontological" argument. The
essential nature of this will, I hope, be more clear to us hereafter
(Chapter xxiv.), and I will here merely point out why it fails to give
us help. This argument might be stated in several forms, but the main
point is very simple. We have the idea of perfection-- there is no doubt
as to that--and the question is whether perfection also actually exists.
Now the ontological view urges that the fact of the idea proves the fact
of the reality; or, to put it otherwise, it argues that, unless
perfection existed, you could not have it in idea, which is agreed to be
the case. I shall not discuss at present the validity of this argument,
but will confine myself to denying its applicability. For, if an idea
has been manufactured and is composed of elements taken up from more
than one source, then the result of manufacture need not as a whole
exist out of my thought, however much that is the case with its separate
elements. Thus we might admit that, in one sense, perfection or
completeness would not be present in  idea unless also it were real. We
might admit this, and yet we might deny the same conclusion with respect
to practical perfection. For the perfection that is real might simply be
theoretical. It might mean system so far as system is mere theoretical
harmony and does not imply pleasure. And the element of pleasure, taken
up from elsewhere, may then have been added in our minds to this valid
idea. But, if so, the addition may be incongruous, incompatible, and
really, if we knew it, contradictory. Pleasure and system perhaps are in
truth a false compound, an appearance which exists, as such, only in our
heads; just as would be the case if we thought, for example, of a
perfect finite being. Hence the ontological argument cannot prove the
existence of practical perfection; and let us go on to enquire if any
other proof exists.

 It is in some ways natural to suppose that the practical end somehow
postulates its existence as a fact. But a more careful examination tends
to dissipate this idea. The moral end, it is clear, is not pronounced by
morality to have actual existence. This is quite plain, and it would be
easier to contend that morality even postulates the opposite (Chapter
xxv.). Certainly, as we shall perceive hereafter, the religious
consciousness does imply the reality of that object, which also is its
goal. But a religion whose object is perfect will be founded on
inconsistency, even more than is the case with mere morality. For such a
religion, if it implies the existence of its ideal, implies at the same
time a feature which is quite incompatible. This we shall discuss in a
later chapter, and all that I will urge here is that the religious
consciousness cannot prove that perfection really exists. For it is not
true that in all religions the object is perfection; nor, where it is
so, does  religion possess any right to dictate to or to dominate over
thought. It does not follow that a belief must be admitted to be true,
because, given a certain influence, it is practically irresistible.
There is a tendency in religion to take the ideal as existing; and this
tendency sways our minds and, under certain conditions, may amount to
compulsion. But it does not, therefore, and merely for this reason, give
us truth, and we may recall other experience which forces us to doubt. A
man, for instance, may love a woman whom, when he soberly considers, he
cannot think true, and yet, in the intoxication of her presence, may
give up his whole mind to the suggestions of blind passion. But in all
cases, that alone is really valid for the intellect, which in a calm
moment the mere intellect is incapable of doubting. It is only that
which for thought is compulsory and irresistible--only that which
thought must assert in attempting to deny it --which is a valid
foundation for metaphysical truth.

 "But how," I may be asked, "can you justify this superiority of the
intellect, this predominance of thought? On what foundation, if on any,
does such a despotism rest? For there seems no special force in the
intellectual axiom if you regard it impartially. Nay, if you consider
the question without bias, and if you reflect on the nature of axioms in
general, you may be brought to a wholly different conclusion. For all
axioms, as a matter of fact, are practical. They all depend upon the
will. They none of them in the end can amount to more than the impulse
to behave in a certain way. And they cannot express more than this
impulse, together with the impossibility of satisfaction unless it is
complied with. And hence, the intellect, far from possessing a right to
predominate, is simply one instance and one symptom of practical
compulsion. Or (to put the case more psychologically) the intellect is
merely one result of the general working of pleasure and pain.  It is
even subordinate, and therefore its attempt at despotism is founded on
baseless pretensions."

 Now, apart from its dubious psychological setting, I can admit the
general truth contained in this objection. The theoretical axiom is the
statement of an impulse to act in a certain manner. When that impulse is
not satisfied there ensues disquiet and movement in a certain direction,
until such a character is given to the result as contents the impulse
and produces rest. And the expression of this fundamental principle of
action is what we call an axiom. Take, for example, the law of avoiding
contradiction. When two elements will not remain quietly together but
collide and struggle, we cannot rest satisfied with that state. Our
impulse is to alter it, and, on the theoretical side, to bring the
content to a shape where without collision the variety is thought as
one. And this inability to rest otherwise, and this tendency to alter in
a certain way and direction, is, when reflected on and made explicit,
our axiom and our intellectual standard.

 "But is not this," I may be asked further, "a surrender of your
position? Does not this admit that the criterion used for theory is
merely a practical impulse, a tendency to movement from one side of our
being? And, if so, how can the intellectual standard be predominant?"
But it is necessary here to distinguish. The whole question turns on the
difference between the several impulses of our being. You may call the
intellect, if you like, a mere tendency to movement, but you must
remember that it is a movement of a very special kind. I shall enter
more fully into the nature of thinking hereafter, but the crucial point
may be stated at once. In thought the standard, you may say, amounts
merely to "act so"; but then "act so" means "think so," and "think so"
means "it is." And the psychological origin and base of this movement,
and of this inability  to act otherwise, may be anything you please; for
that is all utterly irrelevant to the metaphysical issue. Thinking is
the attempt to satisfy a special impulse, and the attempt implies an
assumption about reality. You may avoid the assumption so far as you
decline to think, but, if you sit down to the game, there is only one
way of playing. In order to think at all you must subject yourself to a
standard, a standard which implies an absolute knowledge of reality; and
while you doubt this, you accept it, and obey while you rebel. You may
urge that thought, after all, is inconsistent, because appearance is not
got rid of but merely shelved. That is another question which will
engage us in a future chapter, and here may be dismissed. For in any
case thinking means the acceptance of a certain standard, and that
standard, in any case, is an assumption as to the character of reality.

 "But why," it may be objected, "is this assumption better than what
holds for practice? Why is the theoretical to be superior to the
practical end?" I have never said that this is so. Only here, that is,
in metaphysics, I must be allowed to reply, we are acting theoretically.
We are occupied specially, and are therefore subject to special
conditions; and the theoretical standard within theory must surely be
absolute. We have no right to listen to morality when it rushes in
blindly. "Act so," urges morality, that is "be so or be dissatisfied."
But if I am dissatisfied, still apparently I may be none the less real.
"Act so," replies speculation, that is, "think so or be dissatisfied;
and if you do not think so, what you think is certainly not real." And
these two commands do not seem to be directly connected. If I am
theoretically not satisfied, then what appears must in reality be
otherwise; but, if I am dissatisfied practically, the same conclusion
does not hold. Thus the two satisfactions are not the same, nor does
there appear to be a straight way from the one to the  other. Or
consider again the same question from a different side. Morality seemed
anxious to dictate to metaphysics, but is it prepared to accept a
corresponding dictation? If it were to hear that the real world is quite
other than its ideal, and if it were unable theoretically to shake this
result, would morality acquiesce? Would it not, on the other hand,
regardless of this, still maintain its own ground? Facts may be as you
say, but none the less they should not be so, and something else ought
to be. Morality, I think, would take this line, and, if so, it should
accept a like attitude in theory. It must not dictate as to what facts
are, while it refuses to admit dictation as to what they should be.

 Certainly, to any one who believes in the unity of our nature, a
one-sided satisfaction will remain incredible. And such a consideration
to my mind carries very great weight. But to stand on one side of our
nature, and to argue from that directly to the other side, seems
illegitimate. I will not here ask how far morality is consistent with
itself in demanding complete harmony (Chapter xxv.). What seems clear is
that, in wishing to dictate to mere theory, it is abandoning its own
position and is courting foreign occupation. And it is misled mainly by
a failure to observe essential distinctions. "Be so" does not mean
always "think so," and "think so," in its main signification, certainly
does not mean "be so." Their difference is the difference between "you
ought" and "it is"--and I can see no direct road from the one to the
other. If a theory could be made by the will, that would have to satisfy
the will, and, if it did not, it would be false. But since metaphysics
is mere theory, and since theory from its nature must be made by the
intellect, it is here the intellect alone which has to be satisfied.
Doubtless a conclusion which fails to content all the sides of my nature
leaves me dissatisfied. But I see no direct way of passing from "this
does not satisfy my  nature" to "therefore it is false." For false is
the same as theoretically untenable, and we are supposing a case where
mere theory has been satisfied, and where the result has in consequence
been taken as true. And, so far as I see, we must admit that, if the
intellect is contented, the question is settled. For we may feel as we
please about the intellectual conclusion, but we cannot, on such
external ground, protest that it is false.

 Hence if we understand by perfection a state of harmony with pleasure,
there is no direct way of showing that reality is perfect. For, so far
as the intellectual standard at present seems to go, we might have
harmony with pain and with partial dissatisfaction. But I think the case
is much altered when we consider it otherwise, and when we ask if on
another ground such harmony is possible. The intellect is not to be
dictated to; that conclusion is irrefragable. But is it certain, on the
other hand, that the mere intellect can be self- satisfied, if other
elements of our nature remain not contented? Or must we not think rather
that indirectly any partial discontent will bring unrest and
imperfection into the intellect itself? If this is so, then to suppose
any imperfection in the Absolute is inadmissible. To fail in any way
would introduce a discord into perception itself. And hence, since we
have found that, taken perceptively, reality is harmonious, it must be
harmonious altogether, and must satisfy our whole nature. Let us see if
on this line we can make an advance.

 If the Absolute is to be theoretically harmonious, its elements must
not collide. Idea must not disagree with sensation, nor must sensations
clash. In every case, that is, the struggle must not be a mere struggle.
There must be a unity which it subserves, and a whole, taken in which it
is a struggle no longer. How this resolution is possible we may be  able
to see partly in our subsequent chapters, but for the present I would
insist merely that somehow it must exist. Since reality is harmonious,
the struggle of diverse elements, sensations or ideas, barely to qualify
the self-same point must be precluded. But, if idea must not clash with
sensation, then there cannot in the Absolute be unsatisfied desire or
any practical unrest. For in these there is clearly an ideal element not
concordant with presentation but struggling against it, and, if you
remove this discordance, then with it all unsatisfied desire is gone. In
order for such a desire, in even its lowest form, to persist, there must
(so far as I can see) be an idea qualifying diversely a sensation and
fixed for the moment in discord. And any such state is not compatible
with theoretical harmony.

 But this result perhaps has ignored an outstanding possibility.
Unsatisfied desires might, as such, not exist in the Absolute, and yet
seemingly there might remain a clear balance of pain. For, in the first
place, it is not proved that all pain must arise from an unresolved
struggle; and it may be contended, in the second place, that possibly
the discord might be resolved, and yet, so far as we know, the pain
might remain. In a painful struggle it may be urged that the pain can be
real, though the struggle is apparent. For we shall see, when we discuss
error (Chapter xvi.), how discordant elements may be neutralized in a
wider complex. We shall find how, in that system, they can take on a
different arrangement, and so result in harmony. And the question here
as to unsatisfied desires will be this. Can they not be merged in a
whole, so as to lose their character of discordance, and thus cease to
be desires, while their pain none the less survives in reality? If so,
that whole, after all, would be imperfect. For, while possessor of
harmony, it still might be sunk in misery, or might suffer at least with
a balance of pain. This objection is serious, and it calls for  some
discussion here. I shall have to deal with it once more in our
concluding chapter.

 I feel at this point our want of knowledge with regard to the
conditions of pleasure and pain. It is a tenable view, one at least
which can hardly be refuted, that pain is caused, or conditioned, by an
unresolved collision. Now, if this really is the case, then, given
harmony, a balance of pain is impossible. Pain, of course, is a fact,
and no fact can be conjured away from the universe; but the question
here is entirely as to a balance of pain. Now it is common experience
that in mixed states pain may be neutralized by pleasure in such a way
that the balance is decidedly pleasant. And hence it is possible that in
the universe as a whole we may have a balance of pleasure, and in the
total result no residue of pain. This is possible, and if an unresolved
conflict and discord is essential to pain, it is much more than
possible. Since the reality is harmonious, and since harmony excludes
the conditions which are requisite for a balance of pain, that balance
is impossible. I will urge this so far as to raise a very grave doubt. I
question our right even to suppose a state of pain in the Absolute.

 And this doubt becomes more grave when we consider another point. When
we pass from the conditions to the effects of painful feeling, we are on
surer ground. For in our experience the result of pain is disquietude
and unrest. Its main action is to set up change, and to prevent
stability. There is authority, I am aware, for a different view, but, so
far as I see, that view cannot be reconciled with facts. This effect of
pain has here a most important bearing. Assume that in the Absolute
there is a balance of pleasure, and all is consistent. For the pains can
condition those processes which, as processes, disappear in the life of
the whole; and these pains can be neutralized by an overplus of 
pleasure. But if you suppose, on the other hand, a balance of pain, the
difficulty becomes at once insuperable. We have postulated a state of
harmony, and, together with that, the very condition of instability and
discord. We have in the Absolute, on one side, a state of things where
the elements cannot jar, and where in particular idea does not conflict
with presentation. But with pain on the other side, we have introduced a
main-spring of change and unrest, and we thus produce necessarily an
idea not in harmony with existence. And this idea of a better and of a
non-existing condition of things must directly destroy theoretical rest.
But, if so, such an idea must be called impossible. There is no pain on
the whole, and in the Absolute our whole nature must find satisfaction.
For otherwise there is no theoretical harmony, and that harmony we saw
must certainly exist. I shall ask in our last chapter if there is a way
of avoiding this conclusion, but for the present we seem bound to accept
it as true. We must not admit the possibility of an Absolute perfect in
apprehension yet resting tranquilly in pain. The question as to actual
evidence of defect in the universe will be discussed in Chapter xvii.;
and our position so far is this. We cannot argue directly that all sides
of our nature must be satisfied, but indirectly we are led to the same
result. For we are forced to assume theoretical satisfaction; and to
suppose that existing one-sidedly, and together with practical
discomfort, appears inadmissible. Such a state is a possibility which
seems to contradict itself. It is a supposition to which, if we cannot
find any ground in its favour, we have no right. For the present at
least it is better to set it down as inconceivable.

 And hence, for the present at least, we must  believe that reality
satisfies our whole being. Our main wants--for truth and life, and for
beauty and goodness-- must all find satisfaction. And we have seen that
this consummation must somehow be experience, and be individual. Every
element of the universe, sensation, feeling, thought and will, must be
included within one comprehensive sentience. And the question which now
occurs is whether really we have a positive idea of such sentience. Do
we at all know what we mean when we say that it is actual?

 Fully to realize the existence of the Absolute is for finite beings
impossible. In order thus to know we should have to be, and then we
should not exist. This result is certain, and all attempts to avoid it
are illusory. But then the whole question turns on the sense in which we
are to understand "knowing." What is impossible is to construct absolute
life in its detail, to have the specific experience in which it
consists. But to gain an idea of its main features--an idea true so far
as it goes, though abstract and incomplete--is a different endeavour.
And it is a task, so far as I see, in which we may succeed. For these
main features, to some extent, are within our own experience; and again
the idea of their combination is, in the abstract, quite intelligible.
And surely no more than this is wanted for a knowledge of the Absolute.
It is a knowledge which of course differs enormously from the fact. But
it is true, for all that, while it respects its own limits; and it seems
fully attainable by the finite intellect.

 I will end this chapter by briefly mentioning the sources of such
knowledge. First, in mere feeling, or immediate presentation, we have
the experience of a whole (Chapters ix., xix., xxvi., xxvii.). This
whole contains diversity, and, on the other hand, is not parted by
relations. Such an experience, we must admit, is most imperfect and 
unstable, and its inconsistencies lead us at once to transcend it.
Indeed, we hardly possess it as more than that which we are in the act
of losing. But it serves to suggest to us the general idea of a total
experience, where will and thought and feeling may all once more be one.
Further, this same unity, felt below distinctions, shows itself later in
a kind of hostility against them. We find it in the efforts made both by
theory and practice, each to complete itself and so to pass into the
other. And, again, the relational form, as we saw, pointed everywhere to
a unity. It implies a substantial totality beyond relations and above
them, a whole endeavouring without success to realize itself in their
detail. Further, the ideas of goodness, and of the beautiful, suggest in
different ways the same result. They more or less involve the experience
of a whole beyond relations though full of diversity. Now, if we gather
(as we can) such considerations into one, they will assuredly supply us
with a positive idea. We gain from them the knowledge of a unity which
transcends and yet contains every manifold appearance. They supply not
an experience but an abstract idea, an idea which we make by uniting
given elements. And the mode of union, once more in the abstract, is
actually given. Thus we know what is meant by an experience, which
embraces all divisions, and yet somehow possesses the direct nature of
feeling. We can form the general idea of an absolute experience in which
phenomenal distinctions are merged, a whole become immediate at a higher
stage without losing any richness. Our complete inability to understand
this concrete unity in detail is no good ground for our declining to
entertain it. Such a ground would be irrational, and its principle could
hardly everywhere be adhered to. But if we can realize at all the
general features of the Absolute, if we can see that somehow they come
together in a way known vaguely  and in the abstract, our result is
certain. Our conclusion, so far as it goes, is real knowledge of the
Absolute, positive knowledge built on experience, and inevitable when we
try to think consistently. We shall realize its nature more clearly when
we have confronted it with a series of objections and difficulties. If
our result will hold against them all, we shall be able to urge that in
reason we are bound to think it true.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER XV

 THOUGHT AND REALITY  THERE is a natural objection which the reader will
raise against our account of the Absolute. The difficulty lies, he may
urge, not in making a statement, which by itself seems defensible, but
rather in reconciling any view with obvious inconsistencies. The real
problem is to show how appearance and evil, and in general finite
existence, are compatible with the Absolute. These questions, however,
he will object, have been so far neglected. And it is these which in the
next chapter must begin to engage our serious attention. Still it is
better not to proceed at once; and before we deal with error we must
gain some notion of what we mean by truth. In the present chapter I will
try to state briefly the main essence of thought, and to justify its
distinction from actual existence. It is only by misunderstanding that
we find difficulty in taking thought to be something less than reality.

 If we take up anything considered real, no matter what it is, we find
in it two aspects. There are always two things we can say about it; and,
if we cannot say both, we have not got reality. There is a "what" and a
"that," an existence and a content, and the two are inseparable. That
anything should be, and should yet be nothing in particular, or that a
quality should not qualify and give a character to anything, is
obviously impossible. If we try to get the "that" by itself, we do not
get it, for either we have it qualified, or else we fail  utterly. If we
try to get the "what" by itself, we find at once that it is not all. It
points to something beyond, and cannot exist by itself and as a bare
adjective. Neither of these aspects, if you isolate it, can be taken as
real, or indeed in that case is itself any longer. They are
distinguishable only and are not divisible.

 And yet thought seems essentially to consist in their division. For
thought is clearly, to some extent at least, ideal. Without an idea
there is no thinking, and an idea implies the separation of content from
existence. It is a "what" which, so far as it is a mere idea, clearly is
not, and if it also were, could, so far, not be called ideal. For
ideality lies in the disjoining of quality from being. Hence the common
view, which identifies image and idea, is fundamentally in error. For an
image is a fact, just as real as any sensation; it is merely a fact of
another kind and it is not one whit more ideal. But an idea is any part
of the content of a fact so far as that works out of immediate unity
with its existence. And an idea's factual existence may consist in a
sensation or perception, just as well as in an image. The main point and
the essence is that some feature in the "what" of a given fact should be
alienated from its "that" so far as to work beyond it, or at all events
loose from it. Such a movement is ideality, and, where it is absent,
there is nothing ideal.

 We can understand this most clearly if we consider the nature of
judgment, for there we find thought in its completed form. In judgment
an idea is predicated of a reality. Now, in the first place, what is
predicated is not a mental image. It is not a fact inside my head which
the judgment wishes to attach to another fact outside. The predicate is
a mere "what," a mere feature of content, which is used to qualify
further the "that" of the subject. And this predicate is divorced from
its psychical existence in my head, and is used without any  regard to
its being there. When I say "this horse is a mammal," it is surely
absurd to suppose that I am harnessing my mental state to the beast
between the shafts. Judgment adds an adjective to reality, and this
adjective is an idea, because it is a quality made loose from its own
existence, and is working free from its implication with that. And, even
when a fact is merely analysed,--when the predicate appears not to go
beyond its own subject, or to have been imported divorced from another
fact outside--our account still holds good. For here obviously our
synthesis is a re-union of the distinguished, and it implies a
separation, which, though it is over-ridden, is never unmade. The
predicate is a content which has been made loose from its own immediate
existence and is used in divorce from that first unity. And, again, as
predicated, it is applied without regard to its own being as abstracted
and in my head. If this were not so, there would be no judgment; for
neither distinction nor predication would have taken place. But again,
if it is so, then once more here we discover an idea.

 And in the second place, when we turn to the subject of the judgment,
we clearly find the other aspect, in other words, the "that." Just as in
"this horse is a mammal" the predicate was not a fact, so most assuredly
the subject is an actual existence. And the same thing holds good with
every judgment. No one ever means to assert about anything anything but
reality, or to do anything but qualify a "that" by a "what." And,
without dwelling on a point which I have worked out elsewhere, I will
notice a source of possible mistake. "The subject, at all events," I may
be told, "is in no case a mere `that.' It is never bare reality, or
existence without character." And to this I fully assent. I agree that
the subject which we mean--even before the judgment is  complete, and
while still we are holding its elements apart--is more than a mere
"that." But then this is not the point. The point is whether with every
judgment we do not find an aspect of existence, absent from the
predicate but present in the subject, and whether in the synthesis of
these aspects we have not got the essence of judgment. And for myself I
see no way of avoiding this conclusion. Judgment is essentially the
re-union of two sides, "what" and "that," provisionally estranged. But
it is the alienation of these aspects in which thought's ideality
consists.

 Truth is the object of thinking, and the aim of truth is to qualify
existence ideally. Its end, that is, is to give a character to reality
in which it can rest. Truth is the predication of such content as, when
predicated, is harmonious, and removes inconsistency and with it unrest.
And because the given reality is never consistent, thought is compelled
to take the road of indefinite expansion. If thought were successful, it
would have a predicate consistent in itself and agreeing entirely with
the subject. But, on the other hand, the predicate must be always ideal.
It must, that is, be a "what" not in unity with its own "that," and
therefore, in and by itself, devoid of existence. Hence, so far as in
thought this alienation is not made good, thought can never be more than
merely ideal.

 I shall very soon proceed to dwell on this last consideration, but will
first of all call attention to a most important point. There exists a
notion that ideality is something outside of facts, something imported
into them, or imposed as a sort of layer above them; and we talk as if
facts, when let alone, were in no sense ideal. But any such notion is
illusory. For facts which are not ideal, and which show no looseness of
content from existence, seem hardly actual. They would be found, if
anywhere, in feelings without internal lapse, and with a content wholly
single.  But if we keep to fact which is given, this changes in our
hands, and it compels us to perceive inconsistency of content. And then
this content cannot be referred merely to its given "that," but is
forced beyond it, and is made to qualify something outside. But, if so,
in the simplest change we have at once ideality--the use of content in
separation from its actual existence. Indeed, in Chapters ix. and x. we
have already seen how this is necessary. For the content of the given is
for ever relative to something not given, and the nature of its "what"
is hence essentially to transcend its "that." This we may call the
ideality of the given finite. It is not manufactured by thought, but
thought itself is its development and product. The essential nature of
the finite is that everywhere, as it presents itself, its character
should slide beyond the limits of its existence.

 And truth, as we have seen, is the effort to heal this disease, as it
were, hom*opathically. Thought has to accept, without reserve, the
ideality of the "given," its want of consistency and its
self-transcendence. And by pushing this self-transcendence to the
uttermost point, thought attempts to find there consummation and rest.
The subject, on the one hand, is expanded until it is no longer what is
given. It becomes the whole universe, which presents itself and which
appears in each given moment with but part of its reality. It grows into
an all-inclusive whole, existing somewhere and somehow, if we only could
perceive it. But on the other hand, in qualifying this reality, thought
consents to a partial abnegation. It has to recognise the division of
the "what" from the "that," and it cannot so join these aspects as to
get rid of mere ideas and arrive at actual reality. For it is in and by
ideas only that thought moves and has life. The content it applies to
the reality has, as applied, no genuine existence. It is an adjective
divorced from its "that," and never in judgment, even when the judgment
is complete,  restored to solid unity. Thus the truth belongs to
existence, but it does not as such exist. It is a character which indeed
reality possesses, but a character which, as truth and as ideal, has
been set loose from existence; and it is never rejoined to it in such a
way as to come together singly and make fact. Hence, truth shows a
dissection and never an actual life. Its predicate can never be
equivalent to its subject. And if it became so, and if its adjectives
could be at once self-consistent and re-welded to existence, it would
not be truth any longer. It would have then passed into another and a
higher reality.

 And I will now deal with the misapprehension to which I referred, and
the consideration of which may, I trust, help us forward.

 There is an erroneous idea that, if reality is more than thought,
thought itself is, at least, quite unable to say so. To assert the
existence of anything in any sense beyond thought suggests, to some
minds, the doctrine of the Thing-in-itself. And of the Thing-in- itself
we know (Chapter xii.) that if it existed we could not know of it; and,
again, so far as we know of it, we know that it does not exist. The
attempt to apprehend this Other in succeeding would be suicide, and in
suicide could not reach anything beyond total failure. Now, though I
have urged this result, I wish to keep it within rational limits, and I
dissent wholly from the corollary that nothing more than thought exists.
But to think of anything which can exist quite outside of thought I
agree is impossible. If thought is one element in a whole, you cannot
argue from this ground that the remainder of such a whole must stand
apart and independent. From this ground, in short, you can make no
inference to a Thing-in-itself. And there is no impossibility in
thought's existing as an element, and no  self-contradiction in its own
judgment that it is less than the universe.

 We have seen that anything real has two aspects, existence and
character, and that thought always must work within this distinction.
Thought, in its actual processes and results, cannot transcend the
dualism of the "that" and the "what." I do not mean that in no sense is
thought beyond this dualism, or that thought is satisfied with it and
has no desire for something better. But taking judgment to be completed
thought, I mean that in no judgment are the subject and predicate the
same. In every judgment the genuine subject is reality, which goes
beyond the predicate and of which the predicate is an adjective. And I
would urge first that, in desiring to transcend this distinction,
thought is aiming at suicide. We have seen that in judgment we find
always the distinction of fact and truth, of idea and reality. Truth and
thought are not the thing itself, but are of it and about it. Thought
predicates an ideal content of a subject, which idea is not the same as
fact, for in it existence and meaning are necessarily divorced. And the
subject, again, is neither the mere "what" of the predicate, nor is it
any other mere "what." Nor, even if it is proposed to take up a whole
with both its aspects, and to predicate the ideal character of its own
proper subject, will that proposal assist us. For if the subject is the
same as the predicate, why trouble oneself to judge? But if it is not
the same, then what is it, and how is it different? Either then there is
no judgment at all, and but a pretence of thinking without thought, or
there is a judgment, but its subject is more than the predicate, and is
a "that" beyond a mere "what." The subject, I would repeat, is never
mere reality, or bare existence without character. The subject,
doubtless, has unspecified content which is not stated in the predicate.
For judgment is the differentiation of a complex whole, and hence always
is analysis and  synthesis in one. It separates an element from, and
restores it to, the concrete basis; and this basis of necessity is
richer than the mere element by itself. But then this is not the
question which concerns us here. That question is whether, in any
judgment which really says anything, there is not in the subject an
aspect of existence which is absent from the bare predicate. And it
seems clear that this question must be answered in the affirmative. And
if it is urged that the subject itself, being in thought, can therefore
not fall beyond, I must ask for more accuracy; for "partly beyond"
appears compatible with "partly within." And, leaving prepositions to
themselves, I must recall the real issue. For I do not deny that reality
is an object of thought; I deny that it is barely and merely so. If you
rest here on a distinction between thought and its object, that opens a
further question to which I shall return (p. 174). But if you admit that
in asserting reality to fall within thought, you meant that in reality
there is nothing beyond what is made thought's object, your position is
untenable. Reflect upon any judgment as long as you please, operate upon
the subject of it to any extent which you desire, but then (when you
have finished) make an actual judgment. And when that is made, see if
you do not discover, beyond the content of your thought, a subject of
which it is true, and which it does not comprehend. You will find that
the object of thought in the end must be ideal, and that there is no
idea which, as such, contains its own existence. The "that" of the
actual subject will for ever give a something which is not a mere idea,
something which is different from any truth, something which makes such
a difference to your thinking, that without it you have not even thought
completely.

 "But," it may be answered, "the thought you speak of is thought that is
not perfect. Where thought is perfect there is no discrepancy between 
subject and predicate. A harmonious system of content predicating
itself, a subject self-conscious in that system of content, this is what
thought should mean. And here the division of existence and character is
quite healed up. If such completion is not actual, it is possible, and
the possibility is enough." But it is not even possible, I must persist,
if it really is unmeaning. And once more I must urge the former dilemma.
If there is no judgment, there is no thought; and if there is no
difference, there is no judgment, nor any self-consciousness. But if, on
the other hand, there is a difference, then the subject is beyond the
predicated content.

 Still a mere denial, I admit, is not quite satisfactory. Let us then
suppose that the dualism inherent in thought has been transcended. Let
us assume that existence is no longer different from truth, and let us
see where this takes us. It takes us straight to thought's suicide. A
system of content is going to swallow up our reality; but in our reality
we have the fact of sensible experience, immediate presentation with its
colouring of pleasure and pain. Now I presume there is no question of
conjuring this fact away; but how it is to be exhibited as an element in
a system of thought- content, is a problem not soluble. Thought is
relational and discursive, and, if it ceases to be this, it commits
suicide; and yet, if it remains thus, how does it contain immediate
presentation? Let us suppose the impossible accomplished; let us imagine
a harmonious system of ideal contents united by relations, and
reflecting itself in self-conscious harmony. This is to be reality, all
reality; and there is nothing outside it. The delights and pains of the
flesh, the agonies and raptures of the soul, these are fragmentary
meteors fallen from thought's harmonious system. But these burning
experiences--how in any sense can they be mere pieces of thought's
heaven? For, if the fall  is real, there is a world outside thought's
region, and, if the fall is apparent, then human error itself is not
included there. Heaven, in brief, must either not be heaven, or else not
all reality. Without a metaphor, feeling belongs to perfect thought, or
it does not. If it does not, there is at once a side of existence beyond
thought. But if it does belong, then thought is different from thought
discursive and relational. To make it include immediate experience, its
character must be transformed. It must cease to predicate, it must get
beyond mere relations, it must reach something other than truth.
Thought, in a word, must have been absorbed into a fuller experience.
Now such an experience may be called thought, if you choose to use that
word. But if any one else prefers another term, such as feeling or will,
he would be equally justified. For the result is a whole state which
both includes and goes beyond each element; and to speak of it simply
one of them seems playing with phrases. For (I must repeat it) when
thought begins to be more than relational, it ceases to be mere
thinking. A basis, from which the relation is thrown out and into which
it returns, is something not exhausted by that relation. It will, in
short, be an existence which is not mere truth. Thus, in reaching a
whole which can contain every aspect within it, thought must absorb what
divides it from feeling and will. But when these all have come together,
then, since none of them can perish, they must be merged in a whole in
which they are harmonious. But that whole assuredly is not simply one of
its aspects. And the question is not whether the universe is in any
sense intelligible. The question is whether, if you thought it and
understood it, there would be no difference left between your thought
and the thing. And, supposing that to have happened, the question is
then whether thought has not changed its nature.

 Let us try to realize more distinctly what this  supposed consummation
would involve. Since both truth and fact are to be there, nothing must
be lost, and in the Absolute we must keep every item of our experience.
We cannot have less, but, on the other hand, we may have much more; and
this more may so supplement the elements of our actual experience that
in the whole they may become transformed. But to reach a mode of
apprehension, which is quite identical with reality, surely predicate
and subject, and subject and object, and in short the whole relational
form, must be merged. The Absolute does not want, I presume, to make
eyes at itself in a mirror, or, like a squirrel in a cage, to revolve
the circle of its perfections. Such processes must be dissolved in
something not poorer but richer than themselves. And feeling and will
must also be transmuted in this whole, into which thought has entered.
Such a whole state would possess in a superior form that immediacy which
we find (more or less) in feeling; and in this whole all divisions would
be healed up. It would be experience entire, containing all elements in
harmony. Thought would be present as a higher intuition; will would be
there where the ideal had become reality; and beauty and pleasure and
feeling would live on in this total fulfilment. Every flame of passion,
chaste or carnal, would still burn in the Absolute unquenched and
unabridged, a note absorbed in the harmony of its higher bliss. We
cannot imagine, I admit, how in detail this can be. But if truth and
fact are to be one, then in some such way thought must reach its
consummation. But in that consummation thought has certainly been so
transformed, that to go on calling it thought seems indefensible.

 I have tried to show first that, in the proper sense of thought,
thought and fact are not the same. I have urged, in the second place,
that, if their identity is worked out, thought ends in a reality which 
swallows up its character. I will ask next whether though's advocates
can find a barrier to their client's happy suicide.

 They might urge, first, that our consummation is the Thing-in-itself,
and that it makes thought know what essentially is not knowable. But
this objection forgets that our whole is not anything but sentient
experience. And it forgets that, even when we understand by "thought"
its strict discursive form, our reality does not exist apart from this.
Emphatically the Absolute is nothing if taken apart from any single one
of its elements. But the Thing-in-itself, on the other hand, must exist
apart.

 Let us pass to another objection against our view. We may be told that
the End, because it is that which thought aims at, is therefore itself
(mere) thought. This assumes that thought cannot desire a consummation
in which it is lost. But does not the river run into the sea, and the
self lose itself in love? And further, as good a claim for predominance
might be made on behalf of will, and again on behalf of beauty and
sensation and pleasure. Where all elements reach their end in the
Absolute, that end can belong to no one severally. We may illustrate
this principle by the case of morality. That essentially desires an end
which is not merely moral because it is super-moral. Nay, even
personality itself, our whole individual life and striving, tends to
something beyond mere personality. Of course, the Absolute has
personality, but it fortunately possesses so much more, that to call it
personal would be as absurd as to ask if it is moral.

 But in self-consciousness, I may be told, we actually experience a
state where truth and being are identical; and here, at all events,
thinking is not different from reality. But in our tenth chapter we have
seen that no such state exists. There is no  self- consciousness in
which the object is the same as the subject, none in which what is
perceived exhausts the whole self. In self-consciousness a part or
element, or again a general aspect or character, becomes distinct from
the whole mass and stands over against the felt background. But the
background is never exhausted by this object, and it never could be so.
An experiment should convince any man that in self-consciousness what he
feels cannot wholly come before him. It can be exhausted, if at all,
only by a long series of observations, and the summed result of these
observations cannot be experienced as a fact. Such a result cannot ever
be verified as quite true at any particular given moment. In short
consciousness implies discrimination of an element from the felt mass,
and a consciousness that should discriminate every element at once is
psychologically impossible. And this impossibility, if it became actual,
would still leave us held in a dilemma. For there is either no
difference, and therefore no distinction, and no consciousness; or there
is a distinction, and therefore a difference between object and reality.
But surely, if self- consciousness is appealed to, it is evident that at
any moment I am more than the self which I can think of. How far
everything in feeling may be called intelligible, is not the question
here. But what is felt cannot be understood so that its truth and its
existence become the same. And, if that were possible, yet such a
process would certainly not be thinking.

 In thinking the subject which thinks is more than thought. And that is
why we can imagine that in thinking we find all reality. But in the same
way the whole reality can as well be found in feeling or in volition.
Each is one element in the whole, or the whole in one of its aspects;
and hence, when you get an aspect or element, you have the whole with
it. But because, given one aspect (whichever it may be), we find the
whole universe, to conclude  that in the universe there is nothing
beyond this single aspect, seems quite irrational.

 But the reader may agree that no one really can believe that mere
thought includes everything. The difficulty lies, he may urge, in
maintaining the opposite. Since in philosophy we must think, how is it
possible to transcend thought without a self- contradiction? For theory
can reflect on, and pronounce about, all things, and in reflecting on
them it therefore includes them. So that to maintain in thought an Other
is by the same act to destroy its otherness, and to persist is to
contradict oneself. While admitting that thought cannot satisfy us as to
reality's falling wholly within its limits, we may be told that, so long
as we think, we must ignore this admission. And the question is,
therefore, whether philosophy does not end in sheer scepticism--in the
necessity, that is, of asserting what it is no less induced to deny. The
problem is serious, and I will now attempt to exhibit its solution.

 We maintain an Other than mere thought. Now in what sense do we hold
this? Thought being a judgment, we say that the predicate is never the
same as the subject; for the subject is reality presented as "this" (we
must not say as mere "this"). You can certainly abstract from
presentation its character of "thisness," or its confused relatedness;
and you can also abstract the feature of presentation. Of these you can
make ideas, for there is nothing which you cannot think of. But you find
that these ideas are not the same as the subject of which you must
predicate them. You can think of the subject, but you cannot get rid of
it, or substitute mere thought- content for it. In other words, in
practice thought always is found with, and appears to demand, an Other.

  Now the question is whether this leads to self-contradiction. If
thought asserted the existence of any content which was not an actual or
possible object of thought--certainly that assertion in my judgment
would contradict itself. But the Other which I maintain, is not any such
content, nor is it another separated "what," nor in any case do I
suggest that it lies outside intelligence. Everything, all will and
feeling, is an object for thought, and must be called intelligible. This
is certain; but, if so, what becomes of the Other? If we fall back on
the mere "that," thatness itself seems a distinction made by thought.
And we have to face this difficulty: If the Other exists, it must be
something; and if it is nothing, it certainly does not exist.

 Let us take an actual judgment and examine the subject there with a
view to find our Other. In this we at once meet with a complication. We
always have more content in the presented subject than in the predicate,
and it is hence harder to realize what, beside this overplus of content,
the subject possesses. However, passing this by, we can find in the
subject two special characters. There is first (a) sensuous infinitude,
and (b) in the second place there is immediacy.

 (a) The presented subject has a detail which is unlimited. By this I do
not mean that the actual plurality of its features exceeds a finite
number. I mean that its detail always goes beyond itself, and is
indefinitely relative to something outside. In its given content it has
relations which do not terminate within that content; and its existence
therefore is not exhausted by itself, as we ever can have it. If I may
use the metaphor, it has always edges which are ragged in such a way as
to imply another existence from which it has been torn, and without
which  it really does not exist. Thus the content of the subject
strives, we may say, unsuccessfully towards an all-inclusive whole. Now
the predicate, on its side, is itself not free from endlessness. For its
content, abstracted and finite, necessarily depends on relation to what
is beyond. But it lacks the sensible and compulsory detail of the
subject. It is not given as one thing with an actual but indefinite
context. And thus, at least ostensibly, the predicate is hostile to
endlessness.

 (b) This is one difference, and the second consists in immediacy. The
subject claims the character of a single self-subsistent being. In it
the aspects of "what" and "that" are not taken as divorced, but it is
given with its content as forming one integral whole. The "what" is not
sundered from the "that," and turned from fact into truth. It is not
predicated as the adjective of another "that," or even of its own. And
this character of immediacy is plainly not consistent with endlessness.
They are, in truth, each an imperfect appearance of individuality. But
the subject clearly possesses both these discrepant features, while the
predicate no less clearly should be without them. For the predicate
seeks also for individuality but by a different road.

 Now, if we take the subject to have these two characters which are
absent from the predicate, and if the desire of thought implies removal
of that which makes predicate and subject differ--we begin to perceive
the nature of our Other. And we may see at once what is required in
order to extinguish its otherness. Subject and predicate alike must
accept reformation. The ideal content of the predicate must be made
consistent with immediate individuality; and, on its side, the subject
must be changed so as to become consistent with itself. It must become a
self-subsistent, and that means an  all-inclusive, individual. But these
reforms are impossible. The subject must pass into the judgment, and it
becomes infected with the relational form. The self-dependence and
immediacy, which it claims, are not possessed by its content. Hence in
the attempted self- assertion this content drives the subject beyond
actual limits, and so begets a process which is infinite and cannot be
exhausted. Thus thought's attempt wholly to absorb the subject must
fail. It fails because it cannot reform the subject so as to include and
exhaust its content. And, in the second place, thought fails because it
cannot reform itself. For, if per impossibile the exhausted content were
comprised within a predicate, that predicate still could not bear the
character of immediacy. I will dwell for a little on both points.

 Let us consider first the subject that is presented. It is a confused
whole that, so far as we make it an object, passes into a congeries of
qualities and relations. And thought desires to transform this congeries
into a system. But, to understand the subject, we have at once to pass
outside it in time, and again also in space. On the other hand these
external relations do not end, and from their own nature they cannot
end. Exhaustion is not merely impracticable, it is essentially
impossible. And this obstacle would be enough; but this is not all.
Inside the qualities, which we took first as solid end-points of the
relations, an infinite process breaks out. In order to understand, we
are forced to distinguish to the end, and we never get to that which is
itself apart from distinction. Or we may put the difficulty otherwise
thus. We can neither take the terms with their relations as a whole that
is self-evident, that stands by itself, and that calls for no further
account; nor, on the other side, when we distinguish, can we avoid the
endless search for the relation between the relation and its terms.

  Thus thought cannot get the content into a harmonious system. And in
the next place, even if it did so, that system would not be the subject.
It would either be a maze of relations, a maze with a plan, of which for
ever we made the circuit; or otherwise it would wholly lose the
relational form. Our impossible process, in the first place, would
assuredly have truth distinguished from its reality. For it could avoid
this only by coming to us bodily and all at once, and, further, by
suppressing entirely any distinction between subject and predicate. But,
if in this way thought became immediate, it would lose its own
character. It would be a system of relations no longer, but would have
become an individual experience. And the Other would certainly have been
absorbed, but thought itself no less would have been swallowed up and
resolved into an Other.

 Thought's relational content can never be the same as the subject,
either as that subject appears or as it really is. The reality that is
presented is taken up by thought in a form not adequate to its nature,
and beyond which its nature must appear as an Other. But, to come at
last in full view of the solution of our problem, this nature also is
the nature which thought wants for itself. It is the character which
even mere thinking desires to possess, and which in all its aspects
exists within thought already, though in an incomplete form. And our
main result is briefly this. The end, which would satisfy mere
truth-seeking, would do so just because it had the features possessed by
reality. It would have to be an immediate, self-dependent, all-
inclusive individual. But, in reaching this perfection, and in the act
of reaching it, thought would lose its own character. Thought does
desire such individuality, that is precisely what it aims at. But
individuality, on the other hand, cannot be gained while we are confined
to relations.

  Still we may be told that we are far from the solution of our problem.
The fact of thought's desiring a foreign perfection, we may hear, is
precisely the old difficulty. If thought desires this, then it is no
Other, for we desire only what we know. The object of thought's desire
cannot, hence, be a foreign object; for what is an object is, therefore,
not foreign. But we reply that we have penetrated below the surface of
any such dilemma. Thought desires for its content the character which
makes reality. These features, if realized, would destroy mere thought;
and hence they are an Other beyond thought. But thought, nevertheless,
can desire them, because its content has them already in an incomplete
form. And in desire for the completion of what one has there is no
contradiction. Here is the solution of our difficulty.

 The relational form is a compromise on which thought stands, and which
it developes. It is an attempt to unite differences which have broken
out of the felt totality. Differences forced together by an underlying
identity, and a compromise between the plurality and the unity-- this is
the essence of relation. But the differences remain independent, for
they cannot be made to resolve themselves into their own relation. For,
if so, they would perish, and their relation would perish with them. Or,
otherwise, their outstanding plurality would still remain unreconciled
with their unity, and so within the relation would beget the infinite
process. The relation, on the other side, does not exist beyond the
terms; for, in that case, it itself would be a new term which would
aggravate the distraction. But again, it cannot lose itself within the
terms; for, if so, where is their common unity and their relation? They
would in this case not be related, but would fall apart. Thus the whole
relational perception  joins various characters. It has the feature of
immediacy and self-dependence; for the terms are given to it and not
constituted by it. It possesses again the character of plurality. And as
representing the primitive felt whole, it has once more the character of
a comprehending unity--a unity, however, not constituted by the
differences, but added from without. And, even against its wish, it has
further a restless infinitude; for such infinitude is the very result of
its practical compromise. And thought desires, retaining these features,
to reduce them to harmony. It aims at an all-inclusive whole, not in
conflict with its elements, and at elements subordinate to a self-
dependent whole. Hence neither the aspect of unity, nor of plurality,
nor of both these features in one, is really foreign to thought. There
is nothing foreign that thought wants in desiring to be a whole, to
comprehend everything, and yet to include and be superior to discord.
But, on the other hand, such a completion, as we have seen, would prove
destructive; such an end would emphatically make an end of mere thought.
It would bring the ideal content into a form which would be reality
itself, and where mere truth and mere thought would certainly perish.
Thought seeks to possess in its object that whole character of which it
already owns the separate features. These features it cannot combine
satisfactorily, though it has the idea, and even the partial experience,
of their complete combination. And, if the object were made perfect, it
would forthwith become reality, but would cease forthwith to be an
object. It is this completion of thought beyond thought which remains
for ever an Other. Thought can form the idea of an apprehension,
something like feeling in directness, which contains all the character
sought by its relational efforts. Thought can understand that, to reach
its goal, it must get beyond relations. Yet in its nature it can  find
no other working means of progress. Hence it perceives that somehow this
relational side of its nature must be merged and must include somehow
the other side. Such a fusion would compel thought to lose and to
transcend its proper self. And the nature of this fusion thought can
apprehend in vague generality, but not in detail; and it can see the
reason why a detailed apprehension is impossible. Such anticipated
self-transcendence is an Other; but to assert that Other is not a
self-contradiction.

 Hence in our Absolute thought can find its Other without inconsistency.
The entire reality will be merely the object thought out, but thought
out in such a way that mere thinking is absorbed. This same reality will
be feeling that is satisfied completely. In its direct experience we get
restored with interest every feature lost by the disruption of our
primitive felt whole. We possess the immediacy and the strength of
simple apprehension, no longer forced by its own inconsistencies to pass
into the infinite process. And again volition, if willed out, becomes
our Absolute. For we reach there the identity of idea and reality, not
too poor but too rich for division of its elements. Feeling, thought,
and volition have all defects which suggest something higher. But in
that higher unity no fraction of anything is lost. For each one-sided
aspect, to gain itself, blends with that which seemed opposite, and the
product of this fusion keeps the riches of all. The one reality, we may
say from our human point of view, was present in each aspect in a form
which does not satisfy. To work out its full nature it has sunk itself
into these differences. But in each it longs for that absolute
self-fruition which comes only when the self bursts its limits and
blends with another finite self. This desire of each element for a
perfection which implies fusion with others, is not self-contradictory.
It is rather an effort to remove  a present state of inconsistency, to
remain in which would indeed be fixed self-contradiction.

 Now, if it is objected that such an Absolute is the Thing-in-itself, I
must doubt if the objector can understand. How a whole which comprehends
everything can deserve that title is past my conjecture. And, if I am
told that the differences are lost in this whole, and yet the
differences are, and must therefore be left outside--I must reply to
this charge by a counter-charge of thoughtless confusion. For the
differences are not lost, but are all contained in the whole. The fact
that more is included there than these several, isolated, differences
hardly proves that these differences are not there at all. When an
element is joined to another in a whole of experience, then, on the
whole, and for the whole, their mere specialities need not exist; but,
none the less, each element in its own partial experience may retain its
own speciality. "Yes; but these partial experiences," I may be told,
"will at all events fall outside the whole." Surely no such consequence
follows. The self-consciousness of the part, its consciousness of itself
even in opposition to the whole--all will be contained within the one
absorbing experience. For this will embrace all self-consciousness
harmonized, though, as such, transmuted and suppressed. We cannot
possibly construe, I admit, such an experience to ourselves. We cannot
imagine how in detail its outline is filled up. But to say that it is
real, and that it unites certain general characters within the living
system of one undivided apprehension, is within our power. The assertion
of this Absolute's reality I hope in the sequel to justify. Here (if I
have not failed) I have shown that, at least from the point of view of
thinking, it is free from self-contradiction. The justification for
thought of an Other may help both to explain and to bury the
Thing-in-itself.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XVI  ERROR  WE have so far sketched in outline the Absolute
which we have been forced to accept, and we have pointed out the general
way in which thought may fall within it. We must address ourselves now
to a series of formidable objections. If our Absolute is possible in
itself, it seems hardly possible as things are. For there are undeniable
facts with which it does not seem compatible. Error and evil, space,
time, chance and mutability, and the unique particularity of the "this"
and the "mine"-- all these appear to fall outside an individual
experience. To explain them away or to explain them, one of these
courses seems necessary, and yet both seem impossible. And this is a
point on which I am anxious to be clearly understood. I reject the
offered dilemma, and deny the necessity of a choice between these two
courses. I fully recognise the facts, I do not make the smallest attempt
to explain their origin, and I emphatically deny the need for such an
explanation. In the first place to show how and why the universe is so
that finite existence belongs to it, is utterly impossible. That would
imply an understanding of the whole not practicable for a mere part. It
would mean a view by the finite from the Absolute's point of view, and
in that consummation the finite would have been transmuted and
destroyed. But, in the second place, such an understanding is wholly
unnecessary. We have not to choose between accounting for everything  on
one side and on the other side admitting it as a disproof of our
doctrine of the Absolute. Such an alternative is not logical. If you
wish to refute a wide theory based on general grounds, it is idle merely
to produce facts which upon it are not explained. For the inability to
explain these may be simply our failure in particular information, and
it need imply nothing worse than confirmation lacking to the theory. The
facts become an objection to the doctrine when they are incompatible
with some part of it; while, if they merely remain outside, that points
to incompleteness in detail and not falsity in principle. A general
doctrine is not destroyed by what we fail to understand. It is destroyed
only by that which we actually do understand, and can show to be
inconsistent and discrepant with the theory adopted.

 And this is the real issue here. Error and evil are no disproof of our
absolute experience so long as we merely fail to see how in detail it
comprehends them. They are a disproof when their nature is understood in
such a way as to collide with the Absolute. And the question is whether
this understanding of them is correct. It is here that I confidently
join issue. If on this subject there exists a false persuasion of
knowledge, I urge that it lies on the side of the objector. I maintain
that we know nothing of these various forms of the finite which shows
them incompatible with that Absolute, for the accepting of which we have
general ground. And I meet the denial of this position by pointing out
assumed knowledge where really there is ignorance. It is the objector
who, if any one, asserts omniscience. It is he who claims to understand
both the infinite and the finite, so as to be aware and to be assured of
their incompatibility. And I think that he much overestimates the extent
of human power. We cannot know that the finite is in collision with the
Absolute. And if  we cannot, and if, for all we understand, the two are
at one and harmonious --then our conclusion is proved fully. For we have
a general assurance that reality has a certain nature, and, on the other
side, against that assurance we have to set nothing, nothing other than
our ignorance. But an assurance, against which there is nothing to be
set, must surely be accepted. And I will begin first with Error.

 Error is without any question a dangerous subject, and the chief
difficulty is as follows. We cannot, on the one hand, accept anything
between non-existence and reality, while, on the other hand, error
obstinately refuses to be either. It persistently attempts to maintain a
third position, which appears nowhere to exist, and yet somehow is
occupied. In false appearance there is something attributed to the real
which does not belong to it. But if the appearance is not real, then it
is not false appearance, because it is nothing. On the other hand, if it
is false, it must therefore be true reality, for it is something which
is. And this dilemma at first sight seems insoluble. Or, to put it
otherwise, an appearance, which is, must fall somewhere. But error,
because it is false, cannot belong to the Absolute; and, again, it
cannot appertain to the finite subject, because that, with all its
contents, cannot fall outside the Absolute; at least, if it did, it
would be nothing. And so error has no home, it has no place in
existence; and yet, for all that, it exists. And for this reason it has
occasioned much doubt and difficulty.

 For Psychology and for Logic the problem is much easier. Error can be
identified with wrong inference, and can be compared on one side with a
typical model; while, on the other side, we can show by what steps it
originates. But these enquiries, however interesting, would not much
assist us, and we must endeavour here to face the problem  more
directly. We must take our stand on the distinction between idea and
reality.

 Error is the same as false appearance, or (if the reader objects to
this) it is at any rate one kind of false appearance. Now appearance is
content not at one with its existence, a "what" loosened from its
"that." And in this sense we have seen that every truth is appearance,
since in it we have divorce of quality from being (p. 163). The idea
which is true is the adjective of reality so far as its content goes.
It, so far, is restored, and belongs, to existence. But an idea has also
another side, its own private being as something which is and happens.
And an idea, as content, is alienated from this its own existence as an
event. Even where you take a presented whole, and predicate one or more
features, our account still holds good. For the content predicated has
now become alien to its existence. On the one side it has not been left
in simple unity with the whole, nor again is it predicated so far as
changed from a mere feature into another and separate fact. In "sugar is
sweet" the sweetness asserted of the sugar is not the sweetness so far
as divided from it and turned into a second thing in our minds. This
thing has its own being there, and to predicate it, as such, of the
sugar would clearly be absurd. In respect of its own existence the idea
is therefore always a mere appearance. But this character of divorce
from its private reality becomes usually still more patent, where the
idea is not taken from presentation but supplied by reproduction.
Wherever the predicate is seen to be supplied from an image, the
existence of that image can be seen at once not to be the predicate. It
is something clearly left outside of the judgment and quite disregarded.

 Appearance then will be the looseness of  character from being, the
distinction of immediate oneness into two sides, a "that" and a "what."
And this looseness tends further to harden into fracture and into the
separation of two sundered existences. Appearance will be truth when a
content, made alien to its own being, is related to some fact which
accepts its qualification. The true idea is appearance in respect of its
own being as fact and event, but is reality in connection with other
being which it qualifies. Error, on the other hand, is content made
loose from its own reality, and related to a reality with which it is
discrepant. It is the rejection of an idea by existence which is not the
existence of the idea as made loose. It is the repulse by a substantive
of a liberated adjective. Thus it is an appearance which not only
appears, but is false. It is in other words the collision of a mere idea
with reality.

 There are serious problems with regard both to error and truth, and the
distinction between them, which challenge our scrutiny. I think it
better however to defer these to later chapters. I will therefore limit
here the enquiry, so far as is possible, and will consider two main
questions. Error is content neither at one with its own being, nor
otherwise allowed to be an adjective of the real. If so, we must ask (1)
why it cannot be accepted by reality, and (2) how it still actually can
belong to reality; for we have seen that this last conclusion is
necessary.

 1. Error is rejected by reality because that is harmonious, and is
taken necessarily to be so, while error, on the other hand, is
self-contradictory. I do not mean that it is a content merely not at one
(if that were possible) with its own mere being. I  mean that its inner
character, as ideal, is itself discordant and self-discrepant. But I
should prefer not to call error a predicate which contradicts itself.
For that might be taken as a statement that the contradiction already is
present in the mere predicate, before judgment is attempted; and this,
if defensible, would be misleading. Error is the qualification of a
reality in such a way that in the result it has an inconsistent content,
which for that reason is rejected. Where existence has a "what"
colliding within itself, there the predication of this "what" is an
erroneous judgment. If a reality is self- consistent, and its further
determination has introduced discord, there the addition is the mistake,
and the reality is unaffected. It is unaffected, however, solely on the
assumption that its own nature in no way suggested and called in the
discordant. For otherwise the whole result is infected with falseness,
and the reality could never have been pure from discrepancy.

 It will perhaps tend to make clearer this general view of error if I
defend it against some possible objections. Error is supposed by some
persons to be a departure from experience, or from what is given merely.
It is again taken sometimes as the confusion of internal image with
outward sensation. But any such views are of course most superficial.
Quite apart from the difficulty of finding anything merely given, and
the impossibility of always using actual present sensation as a test of
truth--without noticing the strange prejudice that outward sensations
are never false, and the dull blindness which fails to realize that the
"inward" is a fact just as solid as the "outward"--we may dismiss the
whole objection. For, if the given has a content which is not
harmonious, then, no matter in what sense we  like to take "given," that
content is not real. And any attempt, either to deny this, or to
maintain that in the given there is never discrepancy, may be left to
itself. But I will go on to consider the same view as it wears a more
plausible form. "We do not," I may be told, "add or take away predicates
simply at our pleasure. We do not, so long as this arbitrary result does
not visibly contradict itself, consider it true." And I have not said
that we should do this.

 Outside known truth and error we may, of course, have simple ignorance.
An assertion, that is, must in every case be right or be wrong; but, for
us and for the present, it may not yet be either. Still, on the other
hand, we do know that, if the statement is an error, it will be so
because its content collides internally. "But, no," I may hear the
reply, "this is really not the case. Take the statement that at a
certain time an event did or did not happen. This would be erroneous
because of disagreement with fact, and not always because it is
inconsistent with itself." Still I must insist that we have some further
reason for condemning this want of correspondence with fact. For why,
apart from such a reason, should either we or the fact make an objection
to this defect? Suppose that when William has been hung, I assert that
it was John. My assertion will then be false, because the reality does
not admit of both events, and because William is certain. And if so,
then after all my error surely will consist in giving to the real a
self-discrepant content. For otherwise, when John is suggested, I could
not reject the idea. I could only say that certainly it was William, and
might also, for all that I knew, be John too. But in our actual practice
we proceed thus: since "both John and William" forms a discordant
content, that statement is in  error --here to the extent of John. In
the same way, if where no man is you insist on John's presence, then,
without discussing here the nature of the privative judgment, We can
understand the mistake. You are trying to force on the reality something
which would make it inconsistent, and which therefore is erroneous. But
it would be alike easy and idle to pursue the subject further; and I
must trust that, to the reader who reflects, our main conclusion is
already made good. Error is qualification by the self- discrepant. We
must not, if we take the predicate in its usual sense, in all cases
place the contradiction within that. But where discrepancy is found in
the result of qualification, it is there that we have error. And I will
now pass to the second main problem of this chapter.

 2. The question is about the relation of error to the Absolute. How is
it possible for false appearance to take its place within reality? We
have to some extent perceived in what error consists, but we still are
confronted by our original problem. Qualification by the self-discrepant
exists as a fact, and yet how can it be real? The self-contradiction in
the content both belongs, and is unable to belong, to reality. The
elements related, and their synthesis, and their reference to
existence--these are things not to be got rid of. You may condemn them,
but your condemnation cannot act as a spell to abolish them wholly. If
they were not there, you could not judge them, and then you judge them
not to be; or you pronounce them apparently somehow to exist without
really existing. What is the exit from this puzzle?

 There is no way but in accepting the whole mass of fact, and in then
attempting to correct it and  make it good. Error is truth, it is
partial truth, that is false only because partial and left incomplete.
The Absolute has without subtraction all those dualities, and it has
every arrangement which we seem to confer upon it by our mere mistake.
The only mistake lies in our failure to give also the complement. The
reality owns the discordance and the discrepancy of false appearance;
but it possesses also much else in which this jarring character is
swallowed up and is dissolved in fuller harmony. I do not mean that by a
mere re- arrangement of the matter which is given to us, we could remove
its contradictions. For, being limited, we cannot apprehend all the
details of the whole. And we must remember that every old arrangement,
condemned as erroneous, itself forms part of that detail. To know all
the elements of the universe, with all the conjunctions of those
elements, good and bad, is impossible for finite minds. And hence
obviously we are unable throughout to reconstruct our discrepancies. But
we can comprehend in general what we cannot see exhibited in detail. We
cannot understand how in the Absolute a rich harmony embraces every
special discord. But, on the other hand, we may be sure that this result
is reached; and we can even gain an imperfect view of the effective
principle. I will try to explain this latter statement.

 There is only one way to get rid of contradiction, and that way is by
dissolution. Instead of one subject distracted, we get a larger subject
with distinctions, and so the tension is removed. We have at first A,
which possesses the qualities c and b, inconsistent adjectives which
collide; and we go on to produce harmony by making a distinction within
this subject. That was really not mere A, but either a complex within A,
or (rather here) a wider whole in which A is included. The real subject
is A + D; and this subject contains the  contradiction made harmless by
division, since A is c and D is b. This is the general principle, and I
will attempt here to apply it in particular. Let us suppose the reality
to be X (abcdefg . . .), and that we are able only to get partial views
of this reality. Let us first take such a view as "X (ab) is b." This
(rightly or wrongly) we should probably call a true view. For the
content b does plainly belong to the subject; and, further, the
appearance also--in other words, the separation of b in the
predicate--can partly be explained. For, answering to this separation,
we postulate now another adjective in the subject: let us call it *. The
"thatness," the psychical existence of the predicate, which at first was
neglected, has now also itself been included in the subject. We may
hence write the subject as X (ab*); and in this way we seem to avoid
contradiction. Let us go further on the same line, and, having dealt
with a truth, pass next to an error. Take the subject once more as X
(abcde . . .), and let us now say "X (ab) is d." This is false, because
d is not present in the subject, and so we have a collision. But the
collision is resolved if we take the subject, not as mere X (ab), but
more widely as X (abcd). In this case the predicate d becomes
applicable. Thus the error consisted in the reference of d to ab; as it
might have consisted in like manner in the reference of ab to c, or
again of c to d. All of these exist in the subject, and the reality
possesses with each both its "what" and its "that." But not content with
a provisional separation of these indissoluble aspects, not satisfied
(as in true appearance) to have a*, b*, and d*--forms which may typify
distinctions that bring no discord into the qualities--we have gone on
further into error. We have not only loosened "what" from "that," and so
have made appearance; but we have in each case then bestowed the "what"
on a wrong quality within the real subject.  We have crossed the threads
of the connection between our "whats" and our "thats," and have thus
caused collision, a collision which disappears when things are taken as
a whole.

 I confess that I shrink from using metaphors, since they never can suit
wholly. The writer tenders them unsuspiciously as a possible help in a
common difficulty. And so he subjects himself, perhaps, to the captious
ill-will or sheer negligence of his reader. Still to those who will take
it for what it is, I will offer a fiction. Suppose a collection of
beings whose souls in the night walk about without their bodies, and so
make new relations. On their return in the morning we may imagine that
the possessors feel the benefit of this divorce; and we may therefore
call it truth. But, if the wrong soul with its experience came back to
the wrong body, that might typify error. On the other hand, perhaps the
ruler of this collection of beings may perceive very well the nature of
the collision. And it may even be that he provokes it. For how
instructive and how amusing to observe in each case the conflict of
sensation with imported and foreign experience. Perhaps no truth after
all could be half so rich and half so true as the result of this wild
discord--to one who sees from the centre. And, if so, error will come
merely from isolation and defect, from the limitation of each being to
the "this" and the "mine."

 But our account, it will fairly be objected, is untenable because
incomplete. For error is not merely negative. The content, isolated and
so discordant, is after all held together in a positive discord. And so
the elements may exist, and their relations to their subjects may all be
there in the Absolute, together with the complements which make them all
true, and yet the problem is not solved. For the point of error, when
all is said, lies  in this very insistence on the partial and
discrepant, and this discordant emphasis will fall outside of every
possible rearrangement. I admit this objection, and I endorse it. The
problem of error cannot be solved by an enlarged scheme of relations.
Each misarrangement cannot be taken up wholly as an element in the
compensations of a harmonious mechanism. For there is a positive sense
and a specific character which marks each appearance, and this will
still fall outside. Hence, while all that appears somehow is, all has
not been accounted for by any rearrangement.

 But on the other side the Absolute is not, and can not be thought as,
any scheme of relations. If we keep to these, there is no harmonious
unity in the whole. The Absolute is beyond a mere arrangement, however
well compensated, though an arrangement is assuredly one aspect of its
being. Reality, consists, as we saw, in a higher experience, superior to
the distinctions which it includes and overrides. And, with this, the
last objection to the transformation of error has lost its basis. The
one-sided emphasis of error, its isolation as positive and as not
dissoluble in a wider connection-- this again will contribute, we know
not how, to the harmony of the Absolute. It will be another detail,
which, together with every "what" and "that" and their relations, will
be absorbed into the whole and will subserve its perfection.

 On this view there still are problems as to error and truth which we
must deal with hereafter. But the main dilemma as to false appearance
has, I think, been solved. That both exists and is, as such, not real.
Its arrangement becomes true in a wider rearrangement of "what" and of
"that." Error is truth when it is supplemented. And its positive
isolation also is reducible, and exists as a mere element within the
whole. Error is, but is not barely what it takes itself to be. And its
mere  onesidedness again is but a partial emphasis, a note of insistence
which contributes, we know not how, to greater energy of life. And, if
so, the whole problem has, so far, been disposed of.

 Now that this solution cannot be verified, in the sense of being made
out in detail, is not an admission on my part. It is rather a doctrine
which I assert and desire to insist on. It is impossible for us to show,
in the case of every error, how in the whole it is made good. It is
impossible, even apart from detail, to realize how the relational form
is in general absorbed. But, upon the other hand, I deny that our
solution is either unintelligible or impossible. And possibility here is
all that we want. For we have seen that the Absolute must be a
harmonious system. We have first perceived this in general, and here
specially, in the case of error, we have been engaged in a reply to an
alleged negative instance. Our opponent's case has been this, that the
nature of error makes our harmony impossible. And we have shown, on the
other side, that he possesses no such knowledge. We have pointed out
that it is at least possible for errors to correct themselves, and, as
such, to disappear in a higher experience. But, if so, we must affirm
that they are thus absorbed and made good. For what is possible, and
what a general principle compels us to say must be, that certainly is.
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CHAPTER XVII

EVIL  WE have seen that error is compatible with absolute perfection,
and we now must try to reach the same result in the case of evil. Evil
is a problem which of course presents serious difficulties, but the
worst have been imported into it and rest on pure mistake. It is here,
as it is also with what is called "Free Will." The trouble has come from
the idea that the Absolute is a moral person. If you start from that
basis, then the relation of evil to the Absolute presents at once an
irreducible dilemma. The problem then becomes insoluble, but not because
it is obscure or in any way mysterious. To any one who has sense and
courage to see things as they are, and is resolved not to mystify others
or himself, there is really no question to discuss. The dilemma is
plainly insoluble because it is based on a clear self-contradiction, and
the discussion of it here would be quite uninstructive. It would concern
us only if we had reason to suppose that the Absolute is (properly)
moral. But we have no such reason, and hereafter we may hope to convince
ourselves (Chapter xxv.), that morality cannot (as such) be ascribed to
the Absolute. And, with this, the problem becomes certainly no worse
than many others. Hence I would invite the reader to dismiss all
hesitation and misgiving. If the questions we ask prove unanswerable,
that will certainly not be because they are quite obscure or
unintelligible. It will be simply because the data we possess are 
insufficient. But let us at all events try to understand what it is that
we seek.

 Evil has, we all know, several meanings. It may be taken (I.) as pain,
(II.) as failure to realize end, and (III.), specially, as immorality.
The fuller consideration of the last point must be postponed to a later
chapter, where we can deal better with the relation of the finite person
to the Absolute.

 I. No one of course can deny that pain actually exists, and I at least
should not dream of denying that it is evil. But we failed to see, on
the other hand, how pain, as such, can possibly exist in the Absolute.
Hence, it being admitted that pain has actual existence, the question is
whether its nature can be transmuted. Can its painfulness disappear in a
higher unity? If so, it will exist, but will have ceased to be pain when
considered on the whole.

 We can to some extent verify in our actual experience, the
neutralization of pain. It is quite certain that small pains are often
wholly swallowed up in a larger composite pleasure. And the assertion
that, in all these cases, they have been destroyed and not merged, would
most certainly be baseless. To suppose that my condition is never
pleasant on the whole while I still have an actual local pain, is
directly opposed to fact. In a composite state the pain doubtless will
detract from the pleasure, but still we may have a resultant which is
pleasurable wholly. Such a balance is all that we want in the case of
absolute perfection.

 We shall certainly so far have done nothing to confute the pessimist.
"I accept," he will reply, "your conclusion in general as to the
existence of a balance. I quite agree that in the resultant one  feature
is submerged. But, unfortunately for your view, that feature really is
not pain but pleasure. The universe, taken as a whole, suffers therefore
sheer pain and is hence utterly evil." But I do not propose to undertake
here an examination of pessimism. That would consist largely in the
weighing of psychological arguments on either side, and the result of
these is in my opinion fatal to pessimism. In the world, which we
observe, an impartial scrutiny will discover more pleasure than pain,
though it is difficult to estimate, and easy to exaggerate, the amount
of the balance. Still I must confess that, apart from this, I should
hold to my conclusion. I should still believe that in the universe there
is preponderance of pleasure. The presumption in its favour is based on
a principle from which I see no escape (Chapter xiv.), while the world
we see is probably a very small part of the reality. Our general
principle must therefore be allowed to weigh down a great deal of
particular appearance; and, if it were necessary, I would without
scruple rest my case on this argument. But, on the contrary, no such
necessity exists. The observed facts are clearly, on the whole, in
favour of some balance of pleasure. They, in the main, serve to support
our conclusion from principle, and pessimism may, without hesitation, be
dismissed.

 We have found, so far, that there is a possibility of pain ceasing, as
such, to exist in the Absolute. We have shown that this possibility can
to some extent be verified in experience. And we have a general
presumption in favour of an actual balance of pleasure. Hence once more
here, as before with error, possibility is enough. For what may be, if
it also must be, assuredly is.

 There are readers, perhaps, who will desire to go farther. It might be
urged that in the Absolute pain not merely is lost, but actually serves
as a kind of stimulus to heighten the pleasure. And  doubtless this
possibly may be the case; but I can see no good reason for taking it as
fact. In the Absolute there probably is no pleasure outside of finite
souls (Chapter xxvii.); and we have no reason to suppose that those we
do not see are happier than those which we know. Hence, though this is
possible, we are not justified in asserting it as more. For we have no
right to go farther than our principle requires. But, if there is a
balance of clear pleasure, that principle is satisfied, for nothing then
stands in the way of the Absolute's perfection. It is a mistake to think
that perfection is made more perfect by increase of quantity (Chapter
xx.).

 II. Let us go on to consider evil as waste, failure, and confusion. The
whole world seems to a large extent the sport of mere accident. Nature
and our life show a struggle in which one end perhaps is realized, and a
hundred are frustrated. This is an old complaint, but it meets an answer
in an opposing doubt. Is there really any such thing as an end in Nature
at all? For, if not, clearly there is no evil, in the sense in which at
present we are taking the word. But we must postpone the discussion of
this doubt until we have gained some understanding of what Nature is to
mean. I will for the present admit the point of view which first
supposes ends in Nature, and then objects that they are failures. And I
think that this objection is not hard to dispose of. The ends which
fail, we may reply, are ends selected by ourselves and selected more or
less erroneously. They are too partial, as we have taken them, and, if
included in a larger end to which they are relative, they cease to be
failures. They, in short, subserve a wider scheme, and in that they are
realized. It is here with evil as it was before with error. That was
lost in higher  truth to which it was subordinate, and in which, as
such, it vanished. And with partial ends, in Nature or in human lives,
the same principle will hold. Idea and existence we find not to agree,
and this discord we call evil. But, when these two sides are enlarged
and each taken more widely, both may well come together. I do not mean,
of course, that every finite end, as such, is realized. I mean that it
is lost, and becomes an element, in a wider idea which is one with
existence. And, as with error, even our onesidedness, our insistence and
our disappointment, may somehow all subserve a harmony and go to perfect
it. The aspects of idea and of existence may be united in one great
whole, in which evil, and even ends, as such, disappear. To verify this
consummation, or even to see how in detail it can be, are both
impossible. But, for all that, such perfection in its general idea is
intelligible and possible. And, because the Absolute is perfect, this
harmony must also exist. For that which is both possible and necessary
we are bound to think real.

 III. Moral evil presents us with further difficulties. Here it is not a
question simply of defect, and of the failure in outward existence of
that inner idea which we take as the end. We are concerned further with
a positive strife and opposition. We have an idea in a subject, an end
which strives to gain reality; and on the other side, we have the
existence of the same subject. This existence not merely fails to
correspond, but struggles adversely, and the collision is felt as such.
In our moral experience we find this whole fact given beyond question.
We suffer within ourselves a contest of the good and bad wills and a
certainty of evil. Nay, if we please, we may add that this discord is
necessary, since without it morality must wholly perish.

 And this necessity of discord shows the road into the centre of our
problem. Moral evil exists  only in moral experience, and that
experience in its essence is full of inconsistency. For morality desires
unconsciously, with the suppression of evil, to become wholly non-moral.
It certainly would shrink from this end, but it thus unknowingly desires
the existence and perpetuity of evil. shall have to return later to this
subject (Chapter xxv.), and for the present we need keep hold merely of
this one point. Morality itself, which makes evil, desires in evil to
remove a condition of its own being. It labours essentially to pass into
a super- moral and therefore a non-moral sphere.

 But, if we will follow it and will frankly adopt this tendency, we may
dispose of our difficulty. For the content, willed as evil and in
opposition to the good, can enter as an element into a wider
arrangement. Evil, as we say (usually without meaning it), is overruled
and subserves. It is enlisted and it plays a part in a higher good end,
and in this sense, unknowingly is good. Whether and how far it is as
good as the will which is moral, is a question later to be discussed.
All that we need understand here is that "Heaven's design," if we may
speak so, can realize itself as effectively in "Catiline or Borgia" as
in the scrupulous or innocent. For the higher end is super-moral, and
our moral end here has been confined, and is therefore incomplete. As
before with physical evil, the discord as such disappears, if the
harmony is made wide enough.

 But it will be said truly that in moral evil we have something
additional. We have not the mere fact of incomplete ends and their
isolation, but we have in addition a positive felt collision in the
self. And this cannot be explained away, for it has to fall within the
Absolute, and it makes there a discord which remains unresolved. But our
old principle may still serve to remove this objection. The collision
and the strife may be an element in some fuller realization. Just as in
a machine the  resistance and pressure of the parts subserve an end
beyond any of them, if regarded by itself--so at a much higher level it
may be with the Absolute. Not only the collision but that specific
feeling, by which it is accompanied and aggravated, can be taken up into
an all-inclusive perfection. We do not know how this is done, and
ingenious metaphors (if we could find them) would not serve to explain
it. For the explanation would tend to wear the form of qualities in
relation, a form necessarily (as we have seen) transcended in the
Absolute. Such a perfect way of existence would, however, reconcile our
jarring discords; and I do not see how we can deny that such a harmony
is possible. But, if possible, then, as before, it is indubitably real.
For, on the one side, we have an overpowering reason for maintaining it;
while upon the other side, so far as I can see, we have nothing.

 I will mention in passing another point, the unique sense of
personality which is felt strongly in evil. But I must defer its
consideration until we attack the problem of the "mine" and the "this"
(Chapter xix.). And I will end here with some words on another source of
danger. There is a warning which I may be allowed to impress on the
reader. We have used several times already with diverse subject-matters
the same form of argument. All differences, we have urged repeatedly,
come together in the Absolute. In this, how we do not know, all
distinctions are fused, and all relations disappear. And there is an
objection which may probably at some point have seemed plausible. "Yes,"
I may be told, "it is too true that all difference is gone. First with
one real existence, and then afterwards with another, the old argument
is brought out and the old formula applied. There is no variety in the
solution, and hence in each case the variety is lost to the Absolute.
Along with  these distinctions all character has wholly disappeared, and
the Absolute stands outside, an empty residue and bare Thing-in-
itself." This would be a serious misunderstanding. It is true that we do
not know how the Absolute overrides the relational form. But it does not
follow from this that, when the relational form is gone, the result is
really poorer. It is true that with each problem we cannot say how its
special discords are harmonized. But is this to deny the reality of
diverse contents in the Absolute? Because in detail we cannot tell in
what each solution consists, are we therefore driven to assert that all
the detail is abolished, and that our Absolute is a flat monotony of
emptiness? This would indeed be illogical. For though we do not know in
each case what the solution can be, we know that in every case it
contains the whole of the variety. We do not know how all these partial
unities come together in the Absolute, but we may be sure that the
content of not one is obliterated. The Absolute is the richer for ever
discord, and for all diversity which it embraces; and it is our
ignorance only in which consists the poverty of our object. Our
knowledge must be poor because it is abstract. We cannot specify the
concrete nature of the Absolute's riches, but with every region of
phenomenal existence we can say that it possesses so much more treasure.
Objections and problems, one after the other, are not shelved merely,
but each is laid up as a positive increase of character in the reality.
Thus a man might be ignorant of the exact shape in which his goods have
been realized, and yet he might be rationally assured that, with each
fresh alienation of visible property, he has somehow corresponding
wealth in a superior form.
--------------------------------------------------------

  CHAPTER XVIII TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL APPEARANCE  BOTH time and space
have been shown to be unreal as such. We found in both such
contradictions that to predicate either of the reality was out of the
question. Time and space are mere appearance, and that result is quite
certain. Both, on the other hand, exist; and both must somehow in some
way belong to our Absolute. Still a doubt may be raised as to this being
possible.

 To explain time and space, in the sense of showing how such appearances
come to be, and again how without contradiction they can be real in the
Absolute, is certainly not my object. Anything of the kind, I am sure,
is impossible. And what I wish to insist on is this, that such knowledge
is not necessary. What we require to know is only that these appearances
are not incompatible with our Absolute. They have been urged as
instances fatal to any view such as ours; and this objection, we must
reply, is founded on mistake. Space and time give no ground for the
assertion that our Absolute is not possible. And, in their case once
more, we must urge the old argument. Since it is possible that these
appearances can be resolved into a harmony which both contains and
transcends them; since again it is necessary, on our main principle,
that this should be so --it therefore truly is real. But let us examine
these appearances more closely, and consider time first.

 It is unnecessary to take up the question of time's  origin. To show it
as produced psychologically from timeless elements is, I should say, not
possible. Its perception generally may supervene at some stage of our
development; and, at all events in its complete form, that perception is
clearly a result. But, if we take the sense of time in its most simple
and undeveloped shape, it would be difficult to show that it was not
there from the first. Still this whole question, however answered, has
little importance for Metaphysics. We might perhaps draw, if we could
assume that time has been developed, some presumption in favour of its
losing itself once more in a product which is higher. But it is hardly
worth while to consider this presumption more closely.

 Passing from this point I will reply to an objection from fact. If time
is not unreal, I admit that our Absolute is a delusion; but, on the
other side, it will be urged that time cannot be mere appearance. The
change in the finite subject, we are told, is a matter of direct
experience; it is a fact, and hence it cannot be explained away. And so
much of course is indubitable. Change is a fact, and, further, this
fact, as such, is not reconcilable with the Absolute. And, if we could
not in any way perceive how the fact can be unreal, we should be placed,
I admit, in a hopeless dilemma. For we should have a view as to reality
which we could not give up, and should, on the other hand, have an
existence in contradiction with that view. But our real position is very
different from this. For time has been shown to contradict itself, and
so to be appearance. With this, its discord, we see at once, may pass as
an element into a wider harmony. And, with this, the appeal to fact at
once becomes worthless.

 It is mere superstition to suppose that an appeal to experience can
prove reality. That I find something in existence in the world or in my
self, shows that this something exists, and it cannot show more.  Any
deliverance of consciousness--whether original or acquired--is but a
deliverance of consciousness. It is in no case an oracle and a
revelation which we have to accept. It is a fact, like other facts, to
be dealt with; and there is no presumption anywhere that any fact is
better than appearance. The "given" of course is given; it must be
recognised, and it cannot be ignored. But between recognising a datum
and receiving blindly its content as reality is a very wide interval. We
may put it thus once for all--there is nothing given which is sacred.
Metaphysics can respect no element of experience except on compulsion.
It can reverence nothing but what by criticism and denial the more
unmistakably asserts itself.

 Time is so far from enduring the test of criticism, that at a touch it
falls apart and proclaims itself illusory. I do not propose to repeat
the detail of its self-contradiction; for that I take as exhibited once
for all in our First Book. What I must attempt here first is to show how
by its inconsistency time directs us beyond itself. It points to
something higher in which it is included and transcended.

 1. In the first place change, as we saw (Chapter v.), must be relative
to a permanent. Doubtless here was a contradiction which we found was
not soluble. But, for all that, the fact remains that change demands
some permanence within which succession happens. I do not say that this
demand is consistent, and, on the contrary, I wish to emphasize the
point that it is not so. It is inconsistent, and yet it is none the less
essential. And I urge that therefore change desires to pass beyond
simple change. It seeks to become a change which is somehow consistent
with permanence. Thus, in asserting itself, time tries to commit suicide
as itself, to transcend its own character and to be taken up in what is
higher.

  2. And we may draw this same conclusion from another inconsistency.
The relation of the present to the future and to the past shows once
more time's attempt to transcend its own nature. Any lapse, that for any
purpose you take as one period, becomes forthwith a present. And then
this lapse is treated as if it existed all at once. For how otherwise
could it be spoken of as one thing at all? Unless it is, I do not see
how we have a right to regard it as possessing a character. And unless
it is present, I am quite unable to understand with what meaning we can
assert that it is. And, I think, the common behaviour of science might
have been enough by itself to provoke reflection on this head. We may
say that science, recognising on the one side, on the other side quite
ignores the existence of time. For it habitually treats past and future
as one thing with the present (Chapter viii.). The character of an
existence is determined by what it has been and by what it is
(potentially) about to be. But if these attributes, on the other hand,
are not present, how can they be real? Again in establishing a Law,
itself without special relation to time, science treats facts from
various dates as all possessing the same value. Yet how, if we seriously
mean to take time as real, can the past be reality? It would, I trust,
be idle to expand here these obvious considerations. They should suffice
to point out that for science reality at least tries to be timeless, and
that succession, as such, can be treated as something without rights and
as mere appearance.

 3. This same tendency becomes visible in another application. The whole
movement of our mind implies disregard of time. Not only does intellect
accept what is true once for true always, and thus fearlessly take its
stand on the Identity of Indiscernibles--not only is this so, but the
whole mass of what is called "Association" implies the same principle.
For such a connection does not hold except  between universals. The
associated elements are divorced from their temporal context; they are
set free in union, and ready to form fresh unions without regard for
time's reality. This is in effect to degrade time to the level of
appearance. But our entire mental life, on the other hand, has its
movement through this law. Our whole being practically implies it, and
to suppose that we can rebel would be mere self-deception. Here again we
have found the irresistible tendency to transcend time. We are forced
once more to see in it the false appearance of a timeless reality.

 It will be objected perhaps that in this manner we do not get rid of
time. In those eternal connections which rule in darkness our lowest
psychical nature, or are used consciously by science, succession may
remain. A law is not always a law of what merely co-exists, but it often
gives the relation of antecedent and sequent. The remark is true, but
certainly it could not show that time is self-consistent. And it is the
inconsistency, and hence the self-transcendence of time which here we
are urging. This temporal succession, which persists still in the causal
relation, does but secure to the end the old discrepancy. It resists,
but it cannot remove, time's inherent tendency to pass beyond itself.
Time is an appearance which contradicts itself, and endeavours vainly to
appear as an attribute of the timeless.

 It might be instructive here to mention other spheres, where we more
visibly treat mere existence in time as appearance. But we perhaps have
already said enough to establish our conclusion; and our result, so far,
will be this. Time is not real as such, and it proclaims its unreality
by its inconsistent attempt to be an adjective of the timeless. It is an
appearance which belongs to a higher character in  which its special
quality is merged. Its own temporal nature does not there cease wholly
to exist but is thoroughly transmuted. It is counterbalanced and, as
such, lost within an all-inclusive harmony. The Absolute is timeless,
but it possesses time as an isolated aspect, an aspect which, in ceasing
to be isolated, loses its special character. It is there, but blended
into a whole which we cannot realize. But that we cannot realize it, and
do not know how in particular it can exist, does not show it to be
impossible. It is possible, and, as before, its possibility is enough.
For that which can be, and upon a general ground must be--that surely is
real.

 And it would be better perhaps if I left the matter so. For, if I
proceed and do my best to bring home to our minds time's unreality, I
may expect misunderstanding. I shall be charged with attempting to
explain, or to explain away, the nature of our fact; and no notice will
be taken of my protests that I regard such an attempt as illusory. For
(to repeat it) we can know neither how time comes to appear, nor in what
particular way its appearance is transcended. However, for myself and
for the reader who will accept them as what they are, I will add some
remarks. There are considerations which help to weaken our belief in
time's solidity. It is no mass which stands out and declines to be
engulfed. It is a loose image confusedly thrown together, and that, as
we gaze, falls asunder.

 1. The first point which will engage us is the unity of time. We have
no reason, in my opinion, to regard time as one succession, and to take
all phenomena as standing in one temporal connection. We have a
tendency, of course, to consider all times as forming parts of a single
series. Phenomena, it seems clear, are all alike events which happen; 
and, since they happen, we go on to a further conclusion. We regard them
as members in one temporal whole, and standing therefore throughout to
one another in relations of "before" and "after" or "together." But this
conclusion has no warrant. For there is no valid objection to the
existence of any number of independent time-series. In these the
internal events would be interrelated temporarily, but each series, as a
series and as a whole, would have no temporal connection with anything
outside. I mean that in the universe we might have a set of diverse
phenomenal successions. The events in each of these would, of course, be
related in time, but the series themselves need not have temporal
relation to one another. The events, that is, in one need not be after,
or before, or together with, the events in any other. In the Absolute
they would not have a temporal unity or connection; and, for themselves,
they would not possess any relations to other series.

 I will illustrate my meaning from our own human experience. When we
dream, or when our minds go wandering uncontrolled, when we pursue
imaginary histories, or exercise our thoughts on some mere supposed
sequence--we give rise to a problem. There is a grave question, if we
can see it. For within these successions the events have temporal
connection, and yet, if you consider one series with another, they have
no unity in time. And they are not connected in time with what we call
the course of our "real" events. Suppose that I am asked how the
occurrences in the tale of Imogen are related in time to each adventure
of Sindbad the Sailor, and how these latter stand to my dream-events
both of last night and last year--such questions surely have no meaning.
Apart from the chance of local colour we see at once that between these
temporal occurrences there is no relation of time. You cannot say that
one comes before, or comes after, the  other. And again to date these
events by their appearance in my mental world would be surely
preposterous. It would be to arrange all events, told of by books in a
library, according to the various dates of publication--the same story
repeating itself in fact with every edition, and to-day's newspaper and
history simultaneous throughout. And this absurdity perhaps may help us
to realize that the successive need have no temporal connection.

 "Yes, but," I may be told, "all these series, imaginary as well as
real, are surely dated as events in my mental history. They have each
their place there, and so beyond it also in the one real time-series.
And, however often a story may be repeated in my mind, each occasion has
its own date and its temporal relations." Indubitably so, but such an
answer is quite insufficient. For observe first that it admits a great
part of what we urge. It has to allow plainly that the times within our
"unreal" series have no temporal interrelation. Otherwise, for instance,
the time- succession, when a story is repeated, would infect the
contents, and would so make repetition impossible. I wish first to
direct notice to this serious and fatal admission.

 But, when we consider it, the objection breaks down altogether. It is
true that, in a sense and more or less, we arrange all phenomena as
events in one series. But it does not follow that in the universe, as a
whole, the same tendency holds good. It does not follow that all
phenomena are related in time. What is true of my events need not hold
good of all other events; nor again is my imperfect way of unity the
pattern to which the Absolute is confined.

 What, to use common language, I call "real" events are the phenomena
which I arrange in a continuous time- series. This has its oneness in
the identity of my personal existence. What is presented is "real," and
from this basis I construct a  time-series, both backwards and forwards;
and I use as binding links the identical points in any content
suggested. This construction I call the "real" series, and whatever
content declines to take its place in my arrangement, I condemn as
unreal. And the process is justifiable within limits. If we mean only
that there is a certain group of phenomena, and that, for reality within
this group, a certain time-relation is essential, that doubtless is
true. But it is another thing to assert that every possible phenomenon
has a place in this series. And it is once more another thing to insist
that every time-series has a temporal unity in the Absolute.

 Let us consider the first point. If no phenomenon is "real," except
that which has a place in my temporal arrangement, we have, first, left
on our hands the whole world of "Imagination." The fact of succession
there becomes "unreal," but it is not got rid of by the application of
any mere label. And I will mention in passing another difficulty, the
disruption of my "real" series in mental disease. But--to come to the
principle --it is denied that phenomena can exist unless they are in
temporal relation with my world. And I am able to find no ground for
this assumption. When I ask why, and for what reason, there cannot be
changes of event, imperceptible to me and apart from my time-series, I
can discover no answer. So far as I can see, there may be many
time-series in the Absolute, not related at all for one another, and for
the Absolute without any unity of time.

 And this brings us to the second point. For phenomena to exist without
interconnection and unity, I agree is impossible. But I cannot perceive
that this unity must either be temporal or else nothing. That would be
to take a way of  regarding things which even we find imperfect, and to
set it down as the one way which is possible for the Absolute. But
surely the Absolute is not shut up within our human limits. Already we
have seen that its harmony is something beyond relations. And, if so,
surely a number of temporal series may, without any relation in time to
one another, find a way of union within its all-inclusive perfection.
But, if so, time will not be one, in the sense of forming a single
series. There will be many times, all of which are at one in the
Eternal--the possessor of temporal events and yet timeless. We have, at
all events, found no shred of evidence for any other unity of time.

 2. I will pass now to another point, the direction of time. Just as we
tend to assume that all phenomena form one series, so we ascribe to
every series one single direction. But this assumption too is baseless.
It is natural to set up a point in the future towards which all events
run, or from which they arrive, or which may seem to serve in some other
way to give direction to the stream. But examination soon shows the
imperfection of this natural view. For the direction, and the
distinction between past and future, entirely depends upon our
experience. That side, on which fresh sensations come in, is what we
mean by the future. In our perception of change elements go out, and
something new comes to us constantly; and we construct the time-series
entirely with reference to this experience. Thus, whether we regard
events as running forwards from the past, or as emerging from the
future, in any case we use one method of taking our bearings. Our fixed
direction is given solely by the advent of new arrivals.

  But, if this is so, then direction is relative to our world. You may
object that it is fixed in the very nature of things, and so imparts its
own order to our special sphere. Yet how this assumption can be
justified I do not understand. Of course there is something not
ourselves which makes this difference exist in our beings, something too
which compels us to arrange other lives and all our facts in one order.
But must this something, therefore, in reality and in itself, be
direction? I can find no reason for thinking so. No doubt we naturally
regard the whole world of phenomena as a single time-series; we assume
that the successive contents of every other finite being are arranged in
this construction, and we take for granted that their streams all flow
in one direction. But our assumption clearly is not defensible. For let
us suppose, first, that there are beings who can come in contact in no
way with that world which we experience. Is this supposition
self-contradictory, or anything but possible? And let us suppose, next,
that in the Absolute the direction of these lives runs opposite to our
own. I ask again, is such an idea either meaningless or untenable? Of
course, if in any way I could experience their world, I should fail to
understand it. Death would come before birth, the blow would follow the
wound, and all must seem to be irrational. It would seem to me so, but
its inconsistency would not exist except for my partial experience. If I
did not experience their order, to me it would be nothing. Or, if I
could see it from a point of view beyond the limits of my life, I might
find a reality which itself had, as such, no direction. And I might
there perceive characters, which for the several finite beings give
direction to their lives, which, as such, do not fall within finite
experience, and which, if apprehended, show both directions harmoniously
combined in a consistent whole.

 To transcend experience and to reach a world of  Things-in-themselves,
I agree, is impossible. But does it follow that the whole universe in
every sense is a possible object of my experience? Is the collection of
things and persons, which makes my world, the sum total of existence? I
know no ground for an affirmative answer to this question. That many
material systems should exist, without a material central-point, and
with no relation in space--where is the self- contradiction? That
various worlds of experience should be distinct, and, for themselves,
fail to enter one into the other--where is the impossibility? That
arises only when we endorse, and take our stand upon, a prejudice. That
the unity in the Absolute is merely our kind of unity, that spaces there
must have a spatial centre, and times a temporal point of meeting--these
assumptions are based on nothing. The opposite is possible, and we have
seen that it is also necessary.

 It is not hard to conceive a variety of time-series existing in the
Absolute. And the direction of each series, one can understand, may be
relative to itself, and may have, as such, no meaning outside. And we
might also imagine, if we pleased, that these directions run counter,
the one to the other. Let us take, for example, a scheme like this:  a b
c d b a d c c d a b d c b a  Here, if you consider the contents, you may
suppose the whole to be stationary. It contains partial views, but, as a
whole, it may be regarded as free from change and succession. The change
will fall in the perceptions of the different series. And the diverse
directions of these series will, as such, not exist for  the whole. The
greater or less number of the various series, which we may imagine as
present, the distinct experience which makes each, together with the
direction in which it runs--this is all matter, we may say, of
individual feeling. You may take, as one series and set of lives, a line
going any way you please, up or down or transversely. And in each case
the direction will be given to it by sensation peculiar to itself. Now
without any question these perceptions must exist in the whole. They
must all exist, and in some way they all must qualify the Absolute. But,
for the Absolute, they can one counterbalance another, and so their
characters be transmuted. They can, with their successions, come
together in one whole in which their special natures are absorbed.

 And, if we chose to be fanciful, we might imagine something more. We
might suppose that, corresponding to each of our lives, there is another
individual. There is a man who traverses the same history with
ourselves, but in the opposite direction. We may thus imagine that the
successive contents, which make my being, are the lives also of one or
more other finite souls. The distinctions between us would remain, and
would consist in an additional element, different in each case. And it
would be these differences which would add to each its own way of
succession, and make it a special personality. The differences, of
course, would have existence; but in the Absolute, once more, in some
way they might lose exclusiveness. And, with this, diversity of
direction, and all succession itself, would, as such, disappear. The
believer in second sight and witchcraft might find in such a view a wide
field for his vagaries. But I note this merely in passing, since to
myself fancies of this sort are not inviting. My purpose here has been
simple. I have tried to show  that neither for the temporal unity of all
time-series, nor for the community of their direction, is there one
shred of evidence. However great their variety, it may come together and
be transformed in the Absolute. And here, as before, possibility is all
we require in order to prove reality.

 The Absolute is above relations, and therefore we cannot construct a
relational scheme which could exhibit its unity. But that eternal unity
is made sure by our general principle. And time itself, we have now
seen, can afford no presumption that the universe is not timeless.

 There is a remaining difficulty on which perhaps I may add a few
remarks. I may be told that in causation a succession is involved with a
direction not reversible. It will be urged that many of the relations,
by which the world is understood, involve in their essence time sequent
or co-existent. And it may be added that for this reason time conflicts
with the Absolute. But, at the point which we have reached, this
objection has no weight.

 Let us suppose, first, that the relation of cause and effect is in
itself defensible. Yet we have no knowledge of a causal unity in all
phenomena. Different worlds might very well run on together in the
universe, side by side and not in one series of effects and causes. They
would have a unity in the Absolute, but a unity not consisting in cause
and effect. This must be considered possible until we find some good
argument in favour of causal unity. And then, even in our own world, how
unsatisfactory the succession laid down in causation. It is really never
true that mere a produces mere b. It is true only when we bring in the
unspecified background, and, apart from that, such a statement is made
merely upon sufferance (Chapters vi.,  xxiii., xxiv.). And the whole
succession itself, if defensible, may admit of transformation. We assert
that (X)b is the effect which follows on (X)a, but perhaps the two are
identical. The succession and the difference are perhaps appearances,
which exist only for a view which is isolated and defective. The
successive relation may be a truth which, when filled out, is
transmuted, and which, when supplemented, must lose its character in the
Absolute. It may thus be the fragment of a higher truth not prejudicial
to identity.

 Such considerations will turn the edge of any objection directed
against our Absolute from the ground of causation. But we have seen, in
addition, in our sixth chapter that this ground is indefensible. By its
own discrepancy causation points beyond itself to higher truth; and I
will briefly, here once more, attempt to make this plain. Causation
implies change, and it is difficult to know of what we may predicate
change without contradiction. To say "a becomes b, and there is nothing
which changes," is really unmeaning. For, if there is change, something
changes; and it is able to change because something is permanent. But
then how predicate the change? "Xa becomes Xb"; but, if X is a and
afterwards b, then, since a has ceased to qualify it, a change has
happened within X. But, if so, then apparently we require a further
permanent. But if, on the other side, to avoid this danger, we take Xa
not to change, we are otherwise ruined. For we have somehow to predicate
of X both elements at once, and where is the succession? The successive
elements co-exist unintelligibly within X, and succession somehow is
degraded to mere appearance.

 To put it otherwise, we have the statement "X is first Xa, and later
also Xb." But how can "later also b" be the truth, if before mere a was
true? Shall we answer "No, not mere a; it is not mere  Xa, but Xa(given
c), which is later also b"? But this reply leaves us still face to face
with a like obstacle; for, if Xa(c) is X later b, then how separate
these terms? If there is a difference between them, or if there is none,
our assertion in either case is untenable. For we cannot justify the
difference if it exists, or our making it, if it does not exist. Hence
we are led to the conclusion that subject and predicate are identical,
and that the separation and the change are only appearance. They are a
character assuredly to be added to the whole, but added in a way beyond
our comprehension. They somehow are lost except as elements in a higher
identity.

 Or, again, say that the present state of the world is the cause of that
total state which follows next on it. Here, again, is the same
self-contradiction. For how can one state a become a different state b?
It must either do this without a reason, and that seems absurd; or else
the reason, being additional, forthwith constitutes a new a, and so on
for ever. We have the differences of cause and effect, with their
relation of time, and we have no way in which it is possible to hold
these together. Thus we are drawn to the view that causation is but
partial, and that we have but changes of mere elements within a complex
whole. But this view gives no help until we carry it still further, and
deny that the whole state of the world can change at all. So we glide
into the doctrine that partial changes are no change, but counterbalance
one another within a whole which persists unaltered. And here certainly
the succession remains as an appearance, the special value of which we
are unable to explain. But the causal sequence has drifted beyond itself
and into a reality which essentially is timeless. And hence, in
attempting an objection to the eternity of the Absolute, causation would
deny a principle implied in its own nature.

  At the end of this chapter, I trust, we may have reached a conviction.
We may be convinced, not merely as before, that time is unreal, but that
its appearance also is compatible with a timeless universe. It is only
when misunderstood that change precludes a belief in eternity. Rightly
apprehended it affords no presumption against our doctrine. Our Absolute
must be; and now, in another respect, again, it has turned out possible.
Surely therefore it is real.

 I shall conclude this chapter with a few remarks on the nature of
space. In passing to this from time, we meet with no difficulties that
are new, and a very few words seem all that is wanted. I am not
attempting here to explain the origin of space; and indeed to show how
it comes to exist seems to me not possible. And we need not yet ask how,
on our main view, we are to understand the physical world. That
necessary question is one which it is better to defer. The point here at
issue is this, Does the form of space make our reality impossible? Is
its existence a thing incompatible with the Absolute? Such a question,
in my judgment, requires little discussion.

 If we could prove that the spatial form were a development, and so
secondary, that would give us little help. The proof could in no degree
lessen the reality of a thing which, in any case, does exist. It would
at most serve as an indication that a further growth in development
might merge the space-form in a higher mode of perception. But it is
better not to found arguments upon that which, at most, is hardly
certain.

 What I would stand upon is the essential nature of space. For that, as
we saw in our First Book, is entirely inconsistent. It attempts
throughout to  reach something which transcends its powers. It made an
effort to find and to maintain a solid self- existence, but that effort
led it away into the infinite process both on the inside and externally.
And its evident inability to rest within itself points to the solution
of its discords. Space seeks to lose itself in a higher perception,
where individuality is gained without forfeit of variety.

 And against the possibility of space being in this way absorbed in a
non-spatial consummation, I know of nothing to set. Of course how in
particular this can be, we are unable to lay down. But our ignorance in
detail is no objection against the general possibility. And this
possible absorption, we have seen, is also necessary.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XIX

THE THIS AND THE MINE  WE have seen that the forms of space and time
supply no good objection to the individuality of the Absolute. But we
have not yet faced a difficulty which perhaps may prove more serious.
There is the fact which is denoted by the title of the present chapter.
The particularity of feeling, it may be contended, is an obstacle which
declines to be engulfed. The "this" and the "mine" are undeniable; and
upon our theory, it may be said, they are both inexplicable.

 The "this" and the "mine" are names which stand for the immediacy of
feeling, and each serves to call attention to one side of that fact.
There is no "mine" which is not "this," nor any "this" which fails, in a
sense, to be "mine." The immediate fact must always come as something
felt in an experience, and an experience always must be particular, and,
in a sense, must be "unique." But I shall not enter on all the problems
implied in the last word. I am not going to inquire here how we are able
to transcend the "this-mine," for that question will engage us hereafter
(Chapter xxi.), and the problem now before us is confined to a single
point. We are to assume that there does exist an indefinite number of
"this-mines," of immediate experiences of the felt. And, assuming this
fact, we are to ask if it is compatible with our general view.

 The difficulty of this inquiry arises in great part from vagueness. The
"this" and "mine" are  taken as both positive and negative. They are to
possess a singular reality, and they are to own in some sense an
exclusive character. And from this shifting basis a rash conclusion is
hastily drawn. But the singular reality, after all, may not be single
and self-existent. And the exclusive character, perhaps, may be included
and taken up in the Whole. And it is these questions which we must
endeavour to clear up and discuss. I will begin with what we have called
the positive aspect.

 The "this" and the "mine" express the immediate character of feeling,
and the appearance of this character in a finite centre. Feeling may
stand for a psychical stage before relations have been developed, or it
may be used generally for an experience which is not indirect (Chapters
ix., xxvi., and xxvii.). At any time all that we suffer, do, and are,
forms one psychical totality. It is experienced all together as a co-
existing mass, not perceived as parted and joined by relations even of
co-existence. It contains all relations, and distinctions, and every
ideal object that at the moment exists in the soul. It contains them,
not specially as such and with exclusive stress on their content as
predicated, but directly as they are and as they qualify the psychical
"that." And again any part of this co-existence, to which we attend, can
be viewed integrally as one feeling.

 Now whatever is thus directly experienced--so far as it is not taken
otherwise--is "this" and "mine." And all such presentation without doubt
has peculiar reality. One might even contend that logically to transcend
it is impossible, and that there is no rational way to a plurality of
"this-mines." But such a plurality we have agreed for the present to
assume. The "this," it is however clear, brings a sense of superior
reality, a sense which is far from being wholly deceptive and untrue.
For all our knowledge, in the first place, arises from the "this."  It
is the one source of our experience, and every element of the world must
submit to pass through it. And the "this," secondly, has a genuine
feature of ultimate reality. With however great imperfection and
inconsistency it owns an individual character. The "this" is real for us
in a sense in which nothing else is real.

 Reality is being in which there is no division of content from
existence, no loosening of "what" from "that." Reality, in short, means
what it stands for, and stands for what it means. And the "this"
possesses to some extent the same wholeness of character. Both the
"this" and reality, we may say, are immediate. But reality is immediate
because it includes and is superior to mediation. It developes, and it
brings to unity, the distinctions it contains. The "this" is immediate,
on the other side, because it is at a level below distinctions. Its
elements are but conjoined, and are not connected. And its content,
hence, is unstable, and essentially tends to disruption, and by its own
nature must pass beyond the being of the "this." But every "this" still
shows a passing aspect of undivided singleness. In the mental background
specially such a fused unity remains a constant factor, and can never be
dissipated (Chapters ix., x., xxvii.). And it is such an unbroken
wholeness which gives the sense of individual reality. When we turn from
mere ideas to sensation, we experience in the "this" a revelation of
freshness and life. And that revelation, if misleading, is never quite
untrue.

 We may, for the present, take "this" as the positive feeling of direct
experience. In that sense it will be either general or special. It will
be the  character which we feel always, or again in union with some
particular content. And we have to ask if, so understood, the "this" is
incompatible with our Absolute.

 The question, thus asked, seems to call for but little discussion.
Since for us the Absolute is a whole, the sense of immediate reality, we
must suppose, may certainly qualify it. And, again, I find no difficulty
when we pass to the special meaning of "this." With every presentation,
with each chance mixture of psychical elements, we have the feeling of
one particular datum. We have the felt existence of a peculiar sensible
whole. And here we find beyond question a positive content, and a fresh
element which has to be included within our Absolute. But in such a
content there is, so far, nothing which could repel or exclude. There is
no feature there which could resist embracement and absorption by the
whole.

 The fact of actual fragmentariness, I admit, we cannot explain. That
experience should take place in finite centres, and should wear the form
of finite "thisness," is in the end inexplicable (Chapter xxvi.). But to
be inexplicable, and to be incompatible, are not the same thing. And in
such fragmentariness, viewed as positive, I see no objection to our
view. The plurality of presentations is a fact, and it, therefore, makes
a difference to our Absolute. It exists in, and it, therefore. must
qualify the whole. And the universe is richer, we may sure, for all
dividedness and variety. Certainly in detail we do not know how the
separation is overcome, and we cannot point to the product which is
gained, in each case, by that resolution. But our ignorance here is no
ground for rational opposition. Our principle assures us that the
Absolute is superior to partition, and in some way is perfected by it.
And we have found, as yet, no reason even to  doubt if this result is
possible. We have discovered, as yet, nothing which seems able from any
side to stand out. There is no element such as could hesitate to blend
with the rest and to be dissolved in a higher unity.

 If the whole could be an arrangement of mere ideas, if it were a system
barely intellectual, the case would be altered. We might combine such
ideas, it would not matter how ingeniously; but we could not frame, and
we should not possess, a product containing what we feel to be imparted
directly by the "this." I admit that inability, and I urge it, as yet
another confirmation and support of our doctrine. For our Absolute was
not a mere intellectual system. It was an experience overriding every
species of one-sidedness, and throughout it was at once intuition and
feeling and will. But, if so, the opposition of the "this" becomes at
once unmeaning. For feelings, each possessing a nature of its own, may
surely come together, and be fused in the Absolute. And, so far is such
a resolution from appearing impossible, that I confess to me it seems
most natural and easy. That partial experiences should run together, and
should unite their deliverances to produce one richer whole--is there
anything here incredible? It would indeed be strange if bare positive
feelings proved recalcitrant and solid, and stood out against
absorption. For their nature clearly is otherwise, and they must be
blended in the one experience of the Absolute. This consummation
evidently is real, because on our principle it is necessary, and because
again we have no reason to doubt that it is possible. And with so much,
we may pass from the positive aspect of the "this."

 For the "this" and "mine," it is clear, are taken also as negative.
They are set up as in some way opposed to the Absolute, and they are
considered, in some sense, to own an exclusive character. And  that
their character, in part, is exclusive cannot be denied; but the
question is in what sense, and how far, they possess it. For, if the
repulsion is relative and holds merely within the one whole, it is
compatible at once with our view of the universe.

 An immediate experience, viewed as positive, is so far not exclusive.
It is, so far, what it is, and it does not repel anything. But the
"this" certainly is used also with a negative bearing. It may mean "this
one," in distinction from that one and the other one. And here it shows
obviously an exclusive aspect, and it implies an external and negative
relation. But every such relation, we have found, is inconsistent with
itself (Chapter iii.). For it exists within, and by virtue of an
embracing unity, and apart from that totality both itself and its terms
would be nothing. And the relation also must penetrate the inner being
of its terms. "This," in other words, would not exclude "that," unless
in the exclusion "this," so far, passed out of itself. Its repulsion of
others is thus incompatible with self-contained singleness, and involves
subordination to an including whole. But to the ultimate whole nothing
can be opposed, or even related.

 And the self-transcendent character of the "this" is, on all sides,
open and plain. Appearing as immediate, it, on the other side, has
contents which are not consistent with themselves, and which refer
themselves beyond. Hence the inner nature of the higher totality. And
its negative aspect is but one appearance of this general tendency. Its
very exclusiveness involves the reference of itself beyond itself, and
is but a proof of its necessary absorption in the Absolute.

  And if the "this" is asserted to be all- exclusive because it is
"unique," the discussion of that point need not long detain us. The term
may imply that nothing else but the "this-mine" is real, and, in that
case, the question has been deferred to Chapter xxi. And, if "unique"
means that what is felt once can never be felt again, such an assertion,
taken broadly, seems even untrue. For if feelings, the same in
character, do in fact not recur, we at least hardly can deny that their
recurrence is possible. The "this" is unique really so far as it is a
member in a series, and so far as that series is taken as distinct from
all others. And only in this sense can we call its recurrence
impossible. But here with uniqueness once more we have negative
relations, and these relations involve an inclusive unity. Uniqueness,
in this sense, does not resist assimilation by the Absolute. It is, on
the other hand, itself incompatible with exclusive singleness.

 Into the nature of self-will I shall at present not enter. This is
opposition attempted by a finite subject against its proper whole. And
we may see at once that such discord and negation can subserve unity,
and can contribute towards the perfection of the universe. It is
connection with the central fire which produces in the element this
burning sense of selfness. And the collision is resolved within that
harmony where centre and circumference are one. But I shall return in
another place to the discussion of this matter (Chapter xxv.).

 We have found that the "this," taken as exclusive, proclaims itself
relative, and in that relation forfeits its independence. And we have
seen that,  as positive, the "this" is not exclusive at all. The "this"
is inconsistent always, but, so far as it excludes, so far already has
it begun internally to suffer dissipation. We may now, with advantage
perhaps, view the matter in a somewhat different way. There is, I think,
a vague notion that some content sticks irremovably within the "this,"
or that in the "this," again, there is something which is not content at
all. In either case an element is offered, which, it is alleged, cannot
be absorbed by the Whole. And an examination of these prejudices may
throw some light on our general view.

 In the "this," it may appear first, there is something more than
content. For by combining qualities indefinitely we seem unable to
arrive at the "this." The same difficulty may be stated perhaps in a way
which points to its solution. The "this" on one hand, we may say, is
nothing at all beside content, and, on the other hand, the "this" is not
content at all. For in the term "content" there lies an ambiguity. It
may mean a "what" that is, or again, is not, distinct from its "that."
And the "this," we have already seen, has inconsistent aspects. It
offers, from one aspect, an immediate undivided experience, a whole in
which "that" and "what" are felt as one. And here content, as implying
distinction, will be absent from the "this." But such an undivided
feeling, we have also seen, is a positive experience. It does not even
attempt to resist assimilation by our Absolute.

 If, on the other hand, we use content generally, and if we employ it in
the sense of "what" without distinction from "that"--if we take it to
mean something which is experienced, and which is nothing but
experience--then, most emphatically, the "this" is not anything but
content. For there is nothing in it or about it which can be more than
experience. And in it there is further no feature which cannot be made a
quality. Its various aspects can all be  separated by distinction and
analysis, and, one after another, can thus be brought forward as ideal
predicates. This assertion holds of that immediate sense of a special
reality, which we found above in the character of each felt complex.
There is, in brief, no fragment of the "this" such that it cannot form
the object of a distinction. And hence the "this," in the first place,
is mere experience throughout; and, in the second place, throughout it
may be called intelligible. It owns no aspect which refuses to become a
quality, and in its turn to play the part of an ideal predicate.

 But it is easy here to deceive ourselves and to fall into error. For
taking a given whole, or more probably selecting one portion, we begin
to distinguish and to break up its confused co-existence. And, having
thus possessed ourselves of definite contents and of qualities in
relation, we call on our "this" to identify itself with our discrete
product. And, on the refusal of the "this," we charge it with stubborn
exclusiveness. It is held to possess either in its nature a repellent
content, or something else, at all events, which is intractable. But the
whole conclusion is fallacious. For, if we have not mutilated our
subject, we have at least added a feature which originally was not
there--a feature, which, if introduced, must of necessity burst the
"this," and destroy it from within. The "this," we have seen, is a unity
below relations and ideas; and a unity, able to develope and to
harmonize all distinctions, is not found till we arrive at ultimate
Reality. Hence the "this" repels our offered predicates, not because its
nature goes beyond, but rather because that nature comes short. It is
not more, we may say, but less than our distinctions.

 And to our mistake in principle we add probably an error in practice.
For we have failed probably  to exhaust the full deliverance of our
"this," and the residue, left there by our mere failure, is then assumed
blindly to stand out as an irreducible aspect. For, if we have confined
our "this" to but one portion of the felt totality, we have omitted from
our analysis, perhaps, the positive aspect of its special unity. But our
analysis, if so, is evidently incomplete and misleading. And then,
perhaps again, qualifying our limited "this" by exclusive relations, we
do not see that in these we have added a factor to its original content.
And what we have added, and have also overlooked, is then charged to the
native repellence of the "this." But if again, on the other hand, our
"this" is not taken as limited, if it is to be the entire complex of one
present, viewed without relation even to its own future and past--other
errors await us. For the detail here is so great that complete
exhaustion is hardly possible. And so, setting down as performed that
which is in fact impracticable, we once more stumble against a residue
which is due wholly to our weakness. And we are helped, perhaps, further
into mistake by another source of fallacy. We may confuse the feeling
which we study with the feeling which we are. Attempting, so far as we
can, to make an object of some (past) psychical whole, we may unawares
seek there every feature which we now are and feel. And we may attribute
our ill success to the positive obstinacy of the resisting object.

 The total subject of all predicates, which we feel in the background,
can be exhausted, we may say in general, by no predicate or predicates.
For the  subject holds all in one, while predication involves severance,
and so inflicts on its subject a partial loss of unity. And hence
neither ultimate Reality, nor any "this," can consist of qualities. That
is one side of the truth, but the truth also has another side. Reality
owns no feature or aspect which cannot in its turn be distinguished,
none which cannot in this way become a mere adjective and predicate. The
same conclusion holds of the "this," in whatever sense you take it.
There is nothing there which could form an intractable crudity, nothing
which can refuse to qualify and to be merged in the ultimate Reality.

 We have found that, in a sense, the "this" is not, and does not own,
content. But, in another sense, we have seen that it contains, and is,
nothing else. We may now pass to the examination of a second prejudice.
Is there any content which is owned by and sticks in the "this," and
which thus remains outstanding, and declines union with a higher system?
We have perceived, on the contrary, that by its essence the "this" is
self- transcendent. But it may repay us once more to dwell and to
enlarge on this topic. And I shall not hesitate in part to repeat
results which we have gained already.

 If we are asked what content is appropriated by the "this," we may
reply that there is none. There is no inalienable content which belongs
to the "this" or the "mine." My immediate feeling, when I say "this,"
has a complex character, and it presents a confused detail which, we
have seen, is content. But it has no "what" which belongs to it as a
separate possession. It has no feature identified with its own private
exclusivity. That is first a negative relation which, in principle, must
qualify the internal from outside. And in practice we find that each
element contained can refer itself elsewhere. Each tends naturally
towards a wider whole outside of the "this." Its content, we may say,
has no rest till it has wandered to a home elsewhere. The mere "this"
can appropriate nothing.

 The "this" appears to retain content solely through our failure. I may
express this otherwise by calling it the region of chance; for chance is
something given and for us not yet comprehended. So far as any element
falls outside of some ideal whole, then, in relation with that whole,
this element is chance. Contingent matter is matter regarded as that
which, as yet, we cannot connect and include. It has not been taken up,
as we know that it must be, within some ideal whole or system. Thus one
and the same matter both is, and is not, contingent. It is chance for
one system or end, while in relation with another it is necessary. All
chance is relative; and the content which falls in the mere "this" is
relative chance. So far as it remains there, that is through our failure
to refer it elsewhere. It is merely "this" so far as it is not yet
comprehended; and, so far as it is taken as a feature in any whole
beyond itself, it has to change its character. It is, in that respect at
least, forthwith not of the "this," but only in it, and appearing there.
And such appearance, of course, is not always presentation to outer
sense. All that in any way we experience, we must experience within one
moment of presentation. However ideal anything may be, it still must
appear in a "now." And everything present there, so far as in any
respect it is not subordinated to an ideal whole--no matter what that
whole is--in relation to that defect is but part of the given. It may be
as ideal otherwise as you please, but to that extent it fails to pass
beyond immediate fact. Such an element so far is still immersed in the
"now," "mine," and "this." It remains there, but, as we have seen,  it
is not owned and appropriated. It lingers, we may say, precariously and
provisionally.

 But at this point we may seem to have encountered an obstacle. For in
the given fact there is always a co- existence of elements; and with
this co-existence we may seem to ascribe positive content to the "this."
Property, we asserted, was lacking to it, and that assertion now seems
questionable. For co-existence supplies us with actual knowledge, and
none the less it seems given in the content of the "this." The
objection, however, would rest on misunderstanding. It is positive
knowledge when I judge that in a certain space or time certain features
co-exist. But such knowledge, on the other hand, is never the content of
the mere "this." It is already a synthesis, imperfect no doubt, but
still plainly ideal. And, at the cost of repetition, I will point this
out briefly.

 (a) The place or time, first, may be characterised by inclusion within
a series. We may mean that, in some sense, the place or time is "this
one," and not another. But, if so, we have forthwith transcended the
given. We are using a character which implies inclusion of an element
within a whole, with a reference beyond itself to other like elements.
And this of course goes far beyond immediate experience. To suppose that
position in a series can belong to the mere "this," is a
misunderstanding.

 (b) And more probably the objection had something else in view. It was
not conjunction in one moment, as distinct from another moment, which it
urged was positive and yet belonged to the "this." It meant mere
coincidence within some "here" or some "now," a co- presentation
immediately given without regard to any "there" or "then." Such a bare
conjunction seems to be something possessed by the "this," and yet
offering on the other side a  positive character. But again, and in this
form, the objection would rest on a mistake.

 The bare coincidence of the content, if you take it as merely given
within a presentation, and if you consider it entirely without any
further reference beyond, is not a co-existence of elements. I do not
mean, of course, that a whole of feeling is not positive at all. I mean
that, as soon as you have made assertions about what it contains, as
soon as you have begun to treat its content as content, you have
transcended its felt unity. For consider a "here" or "now," and observe
anything of what is in it, and you have instantly acquired an ideal
synthesis (Chapter xv.). You have a relation which, however impure, is
at once set free from time. You have gained an universal which, so far
as it goes, is true always, and not merely at the present moment; and
this universal is forthwith used to qualify reality beyond that moment.
And thus the co-existence of a and b, we may say, does not belong to the
mere "this," but it is ideal, and appears there. Within mere feeling it
has doubtless a positive character, but, excluding distinctions, it is
not, in one sense, coincidence at all. In observing, we are compelled to
observe in the form of relations. But these internal relations properly
do not belong to the "this" itself. For its character does not admit of
separation and distinction. Hence to distinguish elements within this
whole, and to predicate a relation of co-existence, is
self-contradictory. Our operation, in its result, has destroyed what it
acted on; and the product which has come out, was, as such, never there.
Thus, in claiming to own a relation of co- existence and a distinction
of content, the mere "this" commits suicide.

 From another point of view, doubtless, the observed is a mere
coincidence, when compared, that is, with a purer way of understanding.
The relation is true, subject to the condition of a confused  context,
which is not comprehended. And hence the connection observed is, to this
extent, bare conjunction and mere co-existence. Or it is chance, when
you measure it by a higher necessity. It is a truth conditioned by our
ignorance, and so contingent and belonging to the "this." But, upon the
other side, we have seen that the "this" can hold nothing. As soon as a
relation is made out, that is universal knowledge, and has at once
transcended presentation. For within the merely "this" no relation,
taken as such, is possible. The content, if you distinguish it, is to
that extent set free from felt unity. And there is no "what" which
essentially adheres to the bare moment. So far as any element remains
involved in the confusion of feeling, that is but due to our defect and
ignorance. Hence, to repeat, the "this," considered as mere feeling, is
certainly positive. As the absence of universal relations, the "this"
again is negative. But, as an attempt to make and to retain distinctions
of content, the "this" is suicidal.

 It is so too with the "mere mine." We hear in discussions on morality,
or logic, or ‘sthetics, that a certain detail is "subjective," and hence
irrelevant. Such a detail, in other words, belongs to the "mere mine."
And a mistake may be made, and we may imagine that there is matter
which, in itself, is contingent. It may be supposed that an element,
such perhaps as pleasure, is a fixed part of something called the
"this-me." But there is no content which, as such, can belong to the
"mine." The "mine" is my existence taken as immediate fact, as an
integral whole of psychical elements which simply are. It is my content,
so far as not freed from the feeling moment. And it is merely my
content, because it is not subordinate to this or that ideal whole. If I
regard a mental fact, say, from the side  of its morality, then whatever
is, here and now, not relevant to this purpose, becomes bare existence.
It is something which is not the appearance of the ideal matter in hand.
And yet, because it exists somehow, it exists as a fact in the mere
"mine." The same thing happens also, of course, with ‘sthetics, or
science, or religion. The same detail which, in one respect, was
essential and necessary, may, from another point of view, become
immaterial. And then at once, so far, it falls back into the merely felt
or given. It exists, but, for the end we are regarding, it is nothing.

 This is still more evident, perhaps, from the side of psychology. No
particle of my existence, on the one hand, falls outside that science;
and yet, on the other hand, for psychology the mere "mine" remains. When
I study my events so as to trace a particular connection, no matter of
what kind, then at any moment the psychical "given" contains features
which are irrelevant. They have no bearing on the point which I am
endeavouring to make good. Hence the fact of their co-existence is
contingent, and it is by chance that they accompany what is essential.
They exist, in other words, for my present aim, in that self which is
merely given, and which is not transcended. On the other hand,
obviously, these same particulars are essential and necessary, since (at
the least) somehow they are links in the causal sequence of my history.
Every particular in the same way has some end beyond the moment. Each
can be referred to an ideal whole whose appearance it is; and nothing
whatever is left to belong merely to the "this-mine." The simplest
observation of what co-exists removes it from that region, and chance
has no positive content, except in relation to our failure and
ignorance.

 And any psychology, which is not blind or else biassed by false
doctrine, forces on our notice this  alienation of content. Our whole
mental life moves, by a transcendence of the "this," by sheer disregard
of its claim to possess any property. The looseness of some feature of
the "what" from its fusion with the "that"--its self-reference to, and
its operation on, something beyond--if you leave out this, you have lost
the mainspring of psychical movement. But this is the ideality of the
given, its non-possession of that character with which it appears, but
which only appears in it. And Association--who could use it as mere
co-existence within the "this"? But, if anything more, it is at once the
union of the ideal, the synthesis of the eternal. Thus the "mine" has no
detail which is not the property of connections beyond. The merest
coincidence, when you observe it, is a distinction which couples
universal ideas. And, in brief, the "mine" has no content except that
which is left there by our impotence. Its character in this respect is,
in other words, merely negative.

 Hence to urge such a character against our Absolute would be unmeaning.
It would be to turn our ignorance of system into a positive objection,
to make our failure a ground for the denial of possibility. We have no
basis on which to doubt that all content comes together harmoniously in
the Absolute. We have no reason to think that any feature adheres to the
"this," and is unable to transcend it. What is true is that, for us, the
incomplete diversity of various systems, the perplexing references of
each same feature to many ideal wholes, and again that positive special
feeling, which we have dealt with above--all this detail is not made one
in any way which we can verify. That it all is reconciled we know, but
how, in particular, is hid from us. But because this result must be, and
because there is nothing against it, we believe that it is.

 We have seen that in the "this," on one side, there  is no element but
content, and we have found that no content, on the other side, is the
possession of the "this." There is none that sticks within its
precincts, but all tends to refer itself beyond. What remains there is
chance, if chance is used in the sense of our sheer ignorance. It is not
opposition, but blank failure in regard to the claim of an idea. And
opposition and exclusiveness, in any sense, must transcend the bare
"this." For their essence always implies relation to a something beyond
self; and that relation makes an end of all attempt at solid singleness.
Thus, if chance is taken as involving an actual relation to an idea, the
"this" already has, so far, transcended itself. The refusal of something
given to connect itself with an idea is a positive fact. But that
refusal, as a relation, is evidently not included and contained in the
"this." On the other hand, entering into that relation, the internal
content has, so far, set itself free. It has already transcended the
"this" and become universal. And the exclusiveness of the "this"
everywhere in the same way proves self- contradictory.

 And we had agreed before that the mere "this" in a sense is positive.
It has a felt self-affirmation peculiar and especial, and into the
nature of that positive being we entered at length. But we found no
reason why such feelings, considered in any feature or aspect, should
persist self-centred and aloof. It seemed possible, to say the least,
that they all might blend with one another, and be merged in the
experience of the one Reality. And with that possibility, given on all
sides, we arrive at our conclusion. The "this" and "mine" are now
absorbed as elements within our Absolute. For their resolution must be,
and it may be, and so certainly it is.
--------------------------------------------------------

 CHAPTER XX

 RECAPITULATION  IT may be well at this point perhaps to look back on
the ground which we have traversed. In our First Book we examined some
ways of regarding reality, and we found that each of them contained
fatal inconsistency. Upon this we forthwith denied that, as such, they
could be real. But upon reflection we perceived that our denial must
rest upon positive knowledge. It can only be because we know, that we
venture to condemn. Reality therefore, we are sure, has a positive
character, which rejects mere appearance and is incompatible with
discord. On the other hand it cannot be a something apart, a position
qualified in no way save as negative of phenomena. For that leaves
phenomena still contradictory, while it contains in its essence the
contradiction of a something which actually is nothing. The Reality,
therefore, must be One, not as excluding diversity, but as somehow
including it in such a way as to transform its character. There is
plainly not anything which can fall outside of the Real. That must be
qualified by every part of every predicate which it rejects; but it has
such qualities as counterbalance one another's failings. It has a
superabundance in which all partial discrepancies are resolved and
remain as higher concord.

 And we found that this Absolute is experience, because that is really
what we mean when we predicate or speak of anything. It is not one-sided
experience, as mere volition or mere thought; but it  is a whole
superior to and embracing all incomplete forms of life. This whole must
be immediate like feeling, but not, like feeling, immediate at a level
below distinction and relation. The Absolute is immediate as holding and
transcending these differences. And because it cannot contradict itself,
and does not suffer a division of idea from existence, it has therefore
a balance of pleasure over pain. In every sense it is perfect.

 Then we went on to enquire if various forms of the finite would take a
place within this Absolute. We insisted that nothing can be lost, and
yet that everything must be made good, so as to minister to harmony. And
we laid stress on the fact that the how was inexplicable. To perceive
the solution in detail is not possible for our knowledge. But, on the
other hand, we urged that such an explanation is not necessary. We have
a general principle which seems certain. The only question is whether
any form of the finite is a negative instance which serves to overthrow
this principle. Is there anything which tends to show that our Absolute
is not possible? And, so far as we have gone, we have discovered as yet
nothing. We have at present not any right to a doubt about the Absolute.
We have got no shred of reason for denying that it is possible. But, if
it is possible, that is all we need seek for. For already we have a
principle upon which it is necessary; and therefore it is certain.

 In the following chapters I shall still pursue the same line of
argument. I shall enquire if there is anything which declines to take
its place within the system of our universe. And, if there is nothing
that is found to stand out and to conflict, or to import discord when
admitted, our conclusion will be attained. But I will first add a few
remarks on the ideas of Individuality and Perfection.

 We have seen that these characters imply a  negation of the discordant
and discrepant, and a doubt, perhaps, may have arisen about their
positive aspect. Are they positive at all? When we predicate them, do we
assert or do we only deny? Can it be maintained that these ideas are
negative simply? It might be urged against us that reality means barely
non-appearance, and that unity is the naked denial of plurality. And in
the same way individuality might be taken as the barren absence of
discord and of dissipation. Perfection, again, would but deny that we
are compelled to go further, or might signify merely the failure of
unrest and of pain. Such a doubt has received, I think, a solution
beforehand, but I will point out once more its cardinal mistake.

 In the first place a mere negation is unmeaning (p. 138). To deny,
except from a basis of positive assumption, is quite impossible. And a
bare negative idea, if we could have it, would be a relation without a
term. Hence some positive basis must underlie these negations which we
have mentioned. And, in the second place, we must remember that what is
denied is, none the less, somehow predicated of our Absolute. It is
indeed because of this that we have called it individual and perfect.

 1. It is, first, plain that at least the idea of affirmative being
supports the denial of discrepancy and unrest. Being, if we use the term
in a restricted sense, is not positively definable. It will be the same
as the most general sense of experience. It is different from reality,
if that, again, is strictly used. Reality (proper) implies a foregone
distinction of content from existence, a separation which is overcome.
Being (proper), on the other hand, is immediate, and at a level below
distinctions; though I have not thought it necessary always to  employ
these terms in a confined meaning. However, in its general sense of
experience, being underlies the ideas of individuality and perfection.
And these, at least so far, must be positive.

 2. And, in the second place, each of them is positively determined by
what it excludes. The aspect of diversity belongs to the essence of the
individual, and is affirmatively contained in it. The unity excludes
what is diverse, so far only as that attempts to be anything by itself,
and to maintain isolation. And the individual is the return of this
apparent opposite with all its wealth into a richer whole. How in detail
this is accomplished I repeat that we do not know; but we are capable,
notwithstanding, of forming the idea of such a positive union (Chapters
xiv. and xxvii.). Feeling supplies us with a low and imperfect example
of an immediate whole. And, taking this together with the idea of
qualification by the rejected, and together with the idea of unknown
qualities which come in to help--we arrive at individuality. And, though
depending on negation, such a synthesis is positive.

 And, in a different way, the same account is valid of the Perfect. That
does not mean a being which, in regard to unrest and painful struggle,
is a simple blank. It means the identity of idea and existence, attended
also by pleasure. Now, so far as pleasure goes, that certainly is not
negative. But pleasure is far from being the only positive element in
perfection. The unrest and striving, the opposition of fact to idea, and
the movement towards an end--these features are not left outside of that
Whole which is consummate. For all the content, which the struggle has
generated, is brought home and is laid to rest undiminished in the
perfect. The idea of a being qualified somehow, without any alienation
of its "what" from its "that"--a being at the same time fully possessed
of all hostile distinctions, and the richer for their strife--this is a
positive idea. And it can  be realised in its outline, though certainly
not in detail.

 I will advert in conclusion to an objection drawn from a common
mistake. Quantity is often introduced into the idea of perfection. For
the perfect seems to be that beyond which we cannot go, and this tends
naturally to take the form of an infinite number, But, since any real
number must be finite, we are at once involved here in a hopeless
contradiction. And I think it necessary to say no more on this evident
illusion; but will pass on to the objection which may be urged against
our view of the perfect. If the perfect is the concordant, then no
growth of its area or increase of its pleasantness could make it more
complete. We thus, apparently, might have the smallest being as perfect
as the largest; and this seems paradoxical. But the paradox really, I
should say, exists only through misunderstanding. For we are accustomed
to beings whose nature is always and essentially defective. And so we
suppose in our smaller perfect a condition of want, or at least of
defect; and this condition is diminished by alteration in quantity. But,
where a being is really perfect, our supposition would be absurd. Or,
again, we imagine first a creature complete in itself, and by the side
of it we place a larger completion. Then unconsciously we take the
greater to be, in some way, apprehended by the smaller; and, with this,
naturally the lesser being becomes by contrast defective. But what we
fail to observe is that such a being can no longer be perfect. For an
idea which is not fact has been placed by us within it; and that idea at
once involves a collision of elements, and by consequence also a loss of
perfection. And thus a paradox has been made by our misunderstanding. We
assumed completion, and then surreptitiously added a condition which
destroyed it. And this, so far, was a mere error.

  But the error may direct our attention to a truth. It leads us to ask
if two perfections, great and small, can possibly exist side by side.
And we must answer in the negative. If we take perfection in its full
sense, we cannot suppose two such perfect existences. And this is not
because one surpasses the other in size; for that is wholly irrelevant.
It is because finite existence and perfection are incompatible. A being,
short of the Whole, but existing within it, is essentially related to
that which is not- itself. Its inmost being is, and must be, infected by
the external. Within its content there are relations which do not
terminate inside. And it is clear at once that, in such a case, the
ideal and the real can never be at one. But their disunion is precisely
what we mean by imperfection. And thus incompleteness, and unrest, and
unsatisfied ideality, are the lot of the finite. There is nothing which,
to speak properly, is individual or perfect, except only the Absolute.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XXI

SOLIPSISM  IN our First Book we examined various ways of taking facts,
and we found that they all gave no more than appearance. In the present
Book we have been engaged with the nature of Reality. We have been
attempting, so far, to form a general idea of its character, and to
defend it against more or less plausible objections. Through the
remainder of our work we must pursue the same task. We must endeavour to
perceive how the main aspects of the world are all able to take a place
within our Absolute. And, if we find that none refuses to accept a
position there, we may consider our result secure against attack. I will
now enter on the question which gives its title to this chapter.

 Have we any reason to believe in the existence of anything beyond our
private selves? Have we the smallest right to such a belief, and is it
more than literally a self-delusion? We, I think, may fairly say that
some metaphysicians have shown unwillingness to look this problem in the
face. And yet it cannot be avoided. Since we all believe in a world
beyond us, and are not prepared to give this up, it would be a scandal
if that were something which upon our theory was illusive. Any view
which will not explain, and also justify, an attitude essential to human
nature, must surely be condemned. But we shall soon see, upon the other
hand, how the supposed difficulties of the question have been created by
false  doctrine. Upon our general theory they lose their foundation and
vanish.

 The argument in favour of Solipsism, put most simply, is as follows. "I
cannot transcend experience, and experience must be my experience. From
this it follows that nothing beyond my self exists for what is
experience is its states."

 The argument derives its strength, in part, from false theory, but to a
greater extent perhaps from thoughtless obscurity. I will begin by
pointing out the ambiguity which lends some colour to this appeal to
experience. Experience may mean experience only direct, or indirect
also. Direct experience I understand to be confined to the given simply,
to the merely felt or presented. But indirect experience includes all
fact that is constructed from the basis of the "this" and the "mine." It
is all that is taken to exist beyond the felt moment. This is a
distinction the fatal result of which Solipsism has hardly realized; for
upon neither interpretation of experience can its argument be defended.

 I. Let us first suppose that the experience, to which it appeals, is
direct. Then, we saw in our ninth chapter, the mere "given" fails doubly
to support that appeal. It supplies, on the one hand, not enough, and,
on the other hand, too much. It offers us a not-self with the self, and
so ruins Solipsism by that excess. But, upon the other side, it does not
supply us with any self at all, if we mean by self a substantive the
possessor of an object or even its own states. And Solipsism is, on this
side, destroyed by defect. But, before I develope this, I will state an
objection which by itself might suffice.

 My self, as an existence to which phenomena belong as its adjectives,
is supposed to be given by a direct experience. But this gift plainly is
an illusion. Such an experience can supply us with no reality beyond
that of the moment. There is no faculty which can deliver the immediate
revelation  of a self beyond the present (Chapter x.). And so, if
Solipsism finds its one real thing in experience, that thing is confined
to the limits of the mere "this." But with such a reflection we have
already, so far, destroyed Solipsism as positive, and as anything more
than a sufficient reason for total scepticism. Let us pass from this
objection to other points.

 Direct experience is unable to transcend the mere "this." But even in
what that gives we are, even so far, not supplied with the self upon
which Solipsism is founded. We have always instead either too much or
too little. For the distinction and separation of subject and object is
not original at all, and is, in that sense, not a datum. And hence the
self cannot, without qualification, be said to be given (ibid.). I will
but mention this point, and will go on to another. Whatever we may think
generally of our original mode of feeling, we have now verifiably some
states in which there is no reference to a subject at all (ibid.). And
if such feelings are the mere adjectives of a subject-reality, that
character must be inferred, and is certainly not given. But it is not
necessary to take our stand on this disputable ground. Let us admit that
the distinction of object and subject is directly presented--and we have
still hardly made a step in the direction of Solipsism. For the subject
and the object will now appear in correlation; they will be either two
aspects of one fact, or (if you prefer it) two things with a relation
between them. And it hardly follows straight from this that only one of
these two things is real, and that all the rest of the given total is
merely its attribute. That is the result of reflection and of inference,
a process which first sets up one half of the fact as absolute, and then
turns the other half into an adjective of this fragment. And whether the
half is object or is subject, and whether we are led to Materialism, or
to what is called sometimes "Idealism," the process essentially is the
same. It equally  consists, in each case, in a vicious inference. And
the result is emphatically not something which experience presents. I
will, in conclusion, perhaps needlessly, remark on another point. We
found (Chapter ix.) that there prevailed great confusion as to the
boundaries of self and not-self. There seemed to be features not
exclusively assignable to either. And, if this is so, surely that is one
more reason for rejecting an experience such as Solipsism would suppose.
If the self is given as a reality, with all else as its adjectives, we
can hardly then account for the supervening uncertainty about its
limits, and explain our constant hesitation between too little and too
much.

 What we have seen so far is briefly this. We have no direct experience
of reality as my self with its states. If we are to arrive at that
conclusion, we must do so indirectly and through a process of inference.
Experience gives the "this-mine." It gives neither the "mine" as an
adjective of the "this," nor the "this" as dependent on and belonging to
the "mine." Even if it did so for the moment, that would still not be
enough as a support for Solipsism. But experience supplies the character
required, not even as existing within one presentation, and, if not
thus, then much less so as existing beyond. And the position, in which
we now stand, may be stated as follows. If Solipsism is to be proved, it
must transcend direct experience. Let us then ask, (a) first, if
transcendence of this kind is possible, and, (b) next, if it is able to
give assistance to Solipsism. The conclusion, which we shall reach, may
be stated at once. It is both possible and necessary to transcend what
is given. But this same transcendence at once carries us into the
universe at large. Our private self is not a resting-place which logic
can justify.

 II. (a) We are to enquire, first, if it is possible  to remain within
the limits of direct experience. Now it would not be easy to point out
what is given to us immediately. It would be hard to show what is not
imported into the "this," or, at least, modified there by transcendence.
To fix with regard to the past the precise limit of presentation, might
at times be very difficult. And to discount within the present the
result of ideal processes would, at least often, be impossible. But I do
not desire to base any objection on this ground. I am content here to
admit the distinction between direct and indirect experience. And the
question is whether reality can go beyond the former? Has a man a right
to say that something exists, beside that which at this moment he
actually feels? And is it possible, on the other side, to identify
reality with the immediate present?

 This identification, we have seen, is impossible; and the attempt to
remain within the boundary of the mere "this" is hopeless. The
self-discrepancy of the content, and its continuity with a "what" beyond
its own limits, at once settle the question. We need not fall back for
conviction upon the hard shock of change. The whole movement of the mind
implies disengagement from the mere "this"; and to assert the content of
the latter as reality at once involves us in contradictions. But it
would not be profitable further to dwell on this point. To remain within
the presented is neither defensible nor possible. We are compelled alike
by necessity and by logic to transcend it (Chapters xv. and xix.).

 But, before proceeding to ask whither this transcendence must take us,
I will deal with a question we noticed before (Chapter xix.). An
objection may be based on the uniqueness of the felt; and it may be
urged that the reality which appears in the "this-mine" is unique and
exclusive. Whatever, therefore, its predicates may seem to demand, it is
not possible  to extend the boundaries of the subject. That will, in
short, stick hopelessly for ever within the confines of the presented.
Let us examine this contention.

 It will be more convenient, in the first place, to dismiss the word
"unique." For that seems (as we saw) to introduce the idea of existence
in a series, together with a negative relation towards other elements.
And, if such a relation is placed within the essence of the "this," then
the "this" has become part of a larger unity.

 The objection may be stated better thus. "All reality must fall within
the limits of the given. For, however much the content may desire to go
beyond, yet, when you come to make that content a predicate of the real,
you are forced back to the `this- Mine,' or the `now-felt,' for your
subject. Reality appears to lie solely in what is presented, and seems
not discoverable elsewhere. But the presented, on the other hand, must
be the felt `this.' And other cases of `this,' if you mean to take them
as real, seem also to fall within the `now-mine.' If they are not
indirect predicates of that, and so extend it adjectivally, then they
directly will fall within its datum. But, if so, they themselves become
distinctions and features there. Hence we have the `this-mine' as
before, but with an increase of special internal particulars. And so we
still remain within the confines of one presentation, and to have two at
once seems impossible."

 Now in answer, I admit that, to find reality, we must betake ourselves
to feeling. It is the real, which there appears, which is the subject of
all predicates. And to make our way to another fact, quite outside of
and away from the "this" which is "mine," seems out of the question.
But, while admitting so much, I reject the further consequence. I deny
that the felt reality is shut up and confined  within my feeling. For
the latter may, by addition, be extended beyond its own proper limits.
It, may remain positively itself, and yet be absorbed in what is larger.
Just as in change we have a "now," which contains also a "then"; just
as, again, in what is mine there may be diverse features, so, from the
opposite side, it may be with my direct experience. There is no
opposition between that and a wider whole of presentation. The "mine"
does not exclude inclusion in a fuller totality. There may be a further
experience immediate and direct, something that is my private feeling,
and also much more. Now the Reality, to which all content in the end
must belong, is, we have seen, a direct all-embracing experience. This
Reality is present in, and is my feeling; and hence, to that extent,
what I feel is the all-inclusive universe. But, when I go on to deny
that this universe is more, I turn truth into error. There is a "more"
of feeling, the extension of that which is "now mine"; and this whole is
both the assertion and negation of my "this." That extension maintains
it together with additions, which merge and override it as exclusive. My
"mine" becomes a feature in the great "mine," which includes all
"mines."

 Now, if within the "this" there were found anything which could stand
out against absorption--anything which could refuse to be so lost by
such support and maintenance--an objection might be tenable. But we saw,
in our nineteenth chapter, that a character of this kind does not exist.
My incapacity to extend the boundary of my "this," my inability to gain
an immediate experience of that in which it is subordinated and
reduced--is my mere imperfection. Because I cannot spread out my window
until all is transparent, and all windows disappear, this does not
justify me in insisting on my window- frame's rigidity. For that frame
has, as such, no existence in reality, but only in our  impotence
(Chapter xix.). I am aware of the miserable inaccuracy of the metaphor,
and of the thoughtless objection which it may call up; but I will still
put the matter so. The one Reality is what comes directly to my feeling
through this window of a moment; and this, also and again, is the only
Reality. But we must not turn the first "is" into "is nothing at all
but," and the second "is" into "is all of." There is no objection
against the disappearance of limited transparencies in an all- embracing
clearness. We are not compelled merely, but we are justified, when we
follow the irresistible lead of our content.

 (b) We have seen, so far, that experience, if you take that as direct,
does not testify to the sole reality of my self. Direct experience would
be confined to a "this," which is not even pre-eminently a "mine," and
still less is the same as what we mean by a "self." And, in the second
place, we perceived that reality extends beyond such experience. And
here, once more, Solipsism may suppose that it finds its opportunity. It
may urge that the reality, which goes beyond the moment, stops short at
the self. The process of transcendence, it may admit, conducts us to a
"me" which embraces all immediate experiences. But, Solipsism may argue,
this process cannot take us on further. By this road, it will object,
there is no way to a plurality of selves, or to any reality beyond my
private personality. We shall, however, find that this contention is
both dogmatic and absurd. For, if you have a right to believe in a self
beyond the present, you have the same right to maintain also the
existence of other selves.

 I will not enquire how, precisely, we come by the idea of other
animates' existence. Metaphysics has no direct interest in the origin of
ideas, and its business is solely to examine their claim to be true. 
But, if I am asked to justify my belief that other selves, beside my
own, are in the world, the answer must be this. I arrive at other souls
by means of other bodies, and the argument starts from the ground of my
own body. My own body is one of the groups which are formed in my
experience. And it is connected, immediately and specially, with
pleasure and pain, and again with sensations and volitions, as no other
group can be. But, since there are other groups like my body, these must
also be qualified by similar attendants. With my feelings and my
volitions these groups cannot correspond. For they are usually
irrelevant and indifferent, and often even hostile; and they enter into
collision with one another and with my body. Therefore these foreign
bodies have, each of them, a foreign self of its own. This is briefly
the argument, and it seems to me to be practically valid. It falls
short, indeed, of demonstration in the following way. The identity in
the bodies is, in the, first place, not exact, but in various degrees
fails to reach completeness. And further, even so far as the identity is
perfect, its consequence might be modified by additional conditions. And
hence the other soul might so materially differ from my own, that I
should hesitate, perhaps, to give it the name of soul. But still the
argument, though not strict proof, seems sufficiently good.

 It is by the same kind of argument that we reach our own past and
future. And here Solipsism, in objecting to the existence of other
selves, is unawares attempting to commit suicide. For my past self,
also, is arrived at only by a process of inference, and by a process
which also itself is fallible.

  We are so accustomed each to consider his past self as his own, that
it is worth while to reflect how very largely it may be foreign. My own
past is, in the first place, incompatible with my own present, quite as
much as my present can be with another man's. Their difference in time
could not permit them both to be wholly the same, even if their two
characters are taken as otherwise identical. But this agreement in
character is at least not always found. And my past not only may differ
so as to be almost indifferent, but I may regard it even with a feeling
of hostility and hatred. It may be mine mainly in the sense of a
persisting incumbrance, a compulsory appendage, joined in continuity and
fastened by an inference. And that inference, not being abstract, falls
short of demonstration.

 My past of yesterday is constructed by a redintegration from the
present. Let us call the present X(B-C), with an ideal association
x(a-b). The reproduction of this association, and its synthesis with the
present, so as to form X(a-B-C), is what we call memory. And the
justification of the process consists in the identity of x with X. But
it is a serious step not simply to qualify my present self, but actually
to set up another self at the distance of an interval. I so insist on
the identity that I ride upon it to a difference, just as, before, the
identity of our bodies carried me to the soul of a different man. And it
is obvious, once more here, that the identity is incomplete. The
association does not contain all that now qualifies X; x is different
from X, and b is different from B. And again, the passage, through this
defective identity to another concrete fact, may to some extent be
vitiated by unknown interfering conditions. Hence I cannot prove that
the  yesterday's self, which I construct, did, as such, have an actual
existence in the past. The concrete conditions, into which my ideal
construction must be launched, may alter its character. They may, in
fact, unite with it so that, if I knew this unknown fact, I should no
longer care to call it my self. Thus my past self, assuredly, is not
demonstrated. We can but say of it that, like other selves, it is
practically certain. And in each case the result, and our way to it, is
in principle the same. Both other selves and my own self are
intellectual constructions, each as secure as we can expect special
facts to be. But, if any one stands out for demonstration, then neither
is demonstrated. And, if this demand is pressed, you must remain with a
feeling about which you can say nothing, and which is, emphatically, not
the self of any one at all. On the other hand, if you are willing to
accept a result which is not strictly proved, both results must be
accepted. For the process, which conducts you to other selves, is not
weaker sensibly, if at all, than the construction by which your own self
is gained. On either alternative the conclusion of Solipsism is ruined.

 And if memory, or some other faculty, is appealed to, and is invoked to
secure the pre-eminent reality of my self, I must decline to be
persuaded. For I am convinced that such convenient wonders do not exist,
and that no one has any sufficient excuse for accepting them. Memory is
plainly a construction from the ground of the present. It is throughout
inferential, and is certainly fallible; and its gross mistakes as to
past personal existence should be very well known (pp. 84, 213). I
prefer, in passing, to notice that confusion as to the present limits of
self, which is so familiar a feature in hypnotic experiments. The
assumption of a suggested foreign personality is, I think, strong
evidence for the secondary nature of our own. Both, in short, are 
results of manufacture; and to account otherwise for the facts seems
clearly impossible.

 We have seen, so far, that direct experience is no foundation for
Solipsism. We have seen further that, if at all we may transcend that
experience, we are no nearer Solipsism. For we can go to foreign selves
by a process no worse than the construction which establishes our own
self. And, before passing on, I will call attention to a minor point.
Even if I had secured a right to the possession of my past self, and no
right to the acceptance of other selves as real, yet, even with this,
Solipsism is not grounded. It would not follow from this that the
not-myself is nothing, and that all the world is merely a state of my
self. The only consequence, so far, would be that the not-myself must be
inanimate. But between that result and Solipsism is an impassable gulf.
You cannot, starting from the given, construct a self which will swallow
up and own every element from which it is distinguished.

 I will briefly touch on another source of misunderstanding. It is the
old mistake in a form which is slightly different. All I know, I may be
told, is what I experience, and I can experience nothing beyond my own
states. And it is argued that hence my own self is the one knowable
reality. But the truth in this objection, once more, has been pressed
into falsehood. It is true that all I experience is my state--so far as
I experience it. Even the Absolute, as my reality, is my state of mind.
But this hardly shows that my experience possesses no other aspect. It
hardly proves that what is my state of mind is no more, and must be
taken as real barely from that one point of view.  The Reality certainly
must appear within my psychical existence; but it is quite another thing
to limit its whole nature to that field.

 My thought, feeling, and will, are, of course, all phenomena; they all
are events which happen. From time to time, as they happen, they exist
in the felt "this," and they are elements within its chance congeries.
And they can be taken further, as states of that self-thing which I
construct by an inference. But, if you look at them merely so, then,
unconsciously or consciously, you mutilate their character. You use a
point of view which is necessary, but still is partial and one-sided.
And we shall see more clearly, hereafter, the nature of this view
(Chapters xxiii. and xxvii.). I will here simply state that the import
and content of these processes does not consist in their appearance in
the psychical series. In thought the important feature is not our mental
state, as such; and the same truth, if less palpable, is as certain with
volition. My will is mine, but, none the less, it is also much more. The
content of the idea willed (to put the matter only on that ground) may
be something beyond me; and, since this content is effective, the
activity of the process cannot simply be my state. But I will not try to
anticipate a point which will engage us later on. It is sufficient here
to lay down generally, that, if experience is mine, that is no argument
for what I experience being nothing but my state. And this whole
objection rests entirely on false preconceptions. My private self is
first set up, as a substantive which is real independent of the Whole;
and then its palpable community with the universe, which in experience
is forced on us, is degraded into the adjective of our miserable
abstraction. But, when these preconceptions are exposed, Solipsism
disappears.

 Considered as the apotheosis of an abstraction,  Solipsism is quite
false. But from its errors we may collect aspects of truth, to which we
sometimes are blind. And, in the first place, though my experience is
not the whole world, yet that world appears in my experience, and, so
far as it exists there, it is my state of mind. That the real Absolute,
or God himself, is also my state, is a truth often forgotten and to
which later we shall return. And there is a second truth to which
Solipsism has blindly borne witness. My way of contact with Reality is
through a limited aperture. For I cannot get at it directly except
through the felt "this," and our immediate interchange and transfluence
takes place through one small opening. Everything beyond, though not
less real, is an expansion of the common essence which we feel burningly
in this one focus. And so, in the end, to know the Universe, we must
fall back upon our personal experience and sensation.

 But beside these two truths there is yet another truth worth noticing.
My self is certainly not the Absolute, but, without it, the Absolute
would not be itself. You cannot anywhere abstract wholly from my
personal feelings; you cannot say that, apart even from the meanest of
these, anything else in the universe would be what it is. And in
asserting this relation, this essential connection, of all reality with
my self, Solipsism has emphasized what should not be forgotten. But the
consequences, which properly follow from this truth, will be discussed
hereafter. --------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XXII  NATURE  THE word Nature has of course more meanings than
one. I am going to use it here in the sense of the bare physical world,
that region which forms the object of purely physical science, and
appears to fall outside of all mind. Abstract from everything psychical,
and then the remainder of existence will be Nature. It will be mere body
or the extended, so far as that is not psychical, together with the
properties immediately connected with or following from this extension.
And we sometimes forget that this world, in the mental history of each
of us, once had no existence. Whatever view we take with regard to the
psychological origin of extension, the result will be the same. There
was a time when the separation of the outer world, as a thing real apart
from our feeling, had not even been begun. The physical world, whether
it exists independently or not, is, for each of us, an abstraction from
the entire reality. And the development of this reality, and of the
division which we make in it, requires naturally some time. But I do not
propose to discuss the subject further here.

 Then there comes a period when we all gain the idea of mere body. I do
not mean that we always, or even habitually, regard the outer world as
standing and persisting in divorce from all feeling. But, still, at
least for certain purposes, we get the notion of such a world,
consisting both of primary and also  of secondary qualities. This world
strikes us as not dependent on the inner life of any one. We view it as
standing there, the same for every soul with which it comes into
relation. Our bodies with their organs are taken as the instruments and
media, which should convey it as it is, and as it exists apart from
them. And we find no difficulty in the idea of a bodily reality
remaining still and holding firm when every self has been removed. Such
a supposition to the average man appears obviously possible, however
much, for other reasons, he might decline to entertain it. And the
assurance that his supposition is meaningless nonsense he rejects as
contrary to what he calls common sense.

 And then, to the person who reflects, comes in the old series of doubts
and objections, and the useless attempts at solution or compromise. For
Nature to the common man is not the Nature of the physicist; and the
physicist himself, outside his science, still habitually views the world
as what he must believe it cannot be. But there should be no need to
recall the discussion of our First Book with regard to secondary and
primary qualities. We endeavoured to show there that it is difficult to
take both on a level, and impossible to make reality consist of one
class in separation from the other. And the unfortunate upholder of a
mere physical nature escapes only by blindness from hopeless
bewilderment. He is forced to the conclusion that all I know is an
affection of my organism, and then my organism itself turns out to be
nothing else but such an affection. There is in short no physical thing
but that which is a mere state of a physical thing, and perhaps in the
end even (it might be contended) a mere state of itself. It will be
instructive to consider Nature from this point of view.

 We may here use the form of what has been called an Antinomy. (a)
Nature is only for my body; but, on the other hand, (b) My body is only
for Nature.

 (a) I need say no more on the thesis that the outer world is known only
as a state of my organism. Its proper consequence (according to the view
generally received) appears to be that everything else is a state of my
brain. For that (apparently) is all which can possibly be experienced.
Into the further refinements, which would arise from the question of
cerebral localization, I do not think it necessary to enter.

 (b) And yet most emphatically, as we have seen at the beginning of this
work, my organism is nothing but appearance to a body. It itself is only
the bare state of a natural object. For my organism, like all else, is
but what is experienced, and I can only experience my organism in
relation to its own organs. Hence the whole body is a mere state of
these; and they are states of one another in indefinite regress.

 How can we deny this? If we appeal to an immediate experience, which
presents me with my body as a something extended and solid, we are
taking refuge in a world of exploded illusions. No such peculiar
intuition can bear the light of a serious psychology. The internal
feelings which I experience certainly give nothing of the sort; and
again, even if they did, yet for natural science they are no direct
reality, but themselves the states of a material nervous system. And to
fall back on a supposed wholesale revelation of Resistance would be
surely to seek aid from that which cannot help. For the revelation in
the first place (as we have already perceived in Chapter x.), is a
fiction. And, in the second place, Resistance could not present us with
a body independently real. It could supply only the relation of one
thing to another, where neither thing, as what resists, is a separate
body, either apart from, or again in relation to, the other. Resistance
could not conceivably tell us what anything is in itself. It gives us
one thing as qualified  by the state of another thing, each within that
known relation being only for the other, and, apart from it, being
unknown and, so far, a nonentity.

 And that is the general conclusion with regard to Nature to which we
are driven. The physical world is the relation between physical things.
And the relation, on the one side, presupposes them as physical, while
apart from it, on the other side, they certainly are not so. Nature is
the phenomenal relation of the unknown to the unknown; and the terms
cannot, because unknown, even be said to be related, since they cannot
themselves be said to be anything at all. Let us develope this further.

 That the outer world is only for my organs appears inevitable. But what
is an organ except so far as it is known? And how can it be known but as
itself the state of an organ? If then you are asked to find an organ
which is a physical object, you can no more find it than a body which
itself is a body. Each is a state of something else, which is never more
than a state--and the something escapes us. The same consequence, again,
is palpable if we take refuge in the brain. If the world is my
brain-state, then what is my own brain? That is nothing but the state of
some brain, I need not proceed to ask whose. It is, in any case, not
real as a physical thing, unless you reduce it to the adjective of a
physical thing. And this illusive quest goes on for ever. It can never
lead you to what is more than either an adjective of, or a relation
between, --what you cannot find.

 There is no escaping from this circle. Let us take the instance of a
double perception of touch, a and b. Then a is only a state of the organ
C, and b is only a state of the organ D. And if you wish to say that
either C or D is itself real as a body, you can only do so on the
witness of another organ E or F. You  can in no case arrive at a
something material existing as a substantive; you are compelled to
wander without end from one adjective to another adjective. And in
double perception the twofold evidence does not show that each side is
body. It leads to the conclusion that neither side is more than a
dependant, on we do not know what.

 And if we consult common experience, we gain no support for one side of
our antinomy. It is clear that, for the existence of our organism, we
find there the same evidence as for the existence of outer objects. We
have a witness which, with our body, gives us the environment as equally
real. For we never, under any circumstances, are without some external
sensation. If you receive, in the ordinary sense, the testimony of our
organs, then, if the outer world is not real, our organs are not real.
You have both sides given as on a level, or you have neither side at
all. And to say that one side is the substantive, to which the other
belongs, as an appendage or appurtenance, seems quite against reason. We
are, in brief, confirmed in the conclusion we had reached. Both Nature
and my body exist necessarily with and for one another. And both, on
examination, turn out to be nothing apart from their relation. We find
in each no essence which is not infected by appearance to the other.

 And with this we are brought to an unavoidable result. The physical
world is an appearance; it is phenomenal throughout. It is the relation
of two unknowns, which, because they are unknown, we cannot have any
right to regard as really two, or as related at all. It is an imperfect
way of apprehension, which gives us qualities and relations, each the
condition of and yet presupposing the other.  And we have no means of
knowing how this confusion and perplexity is resolved in the Absolute.
The material world is an incorrect, a one-sided, and self-contradictory
appearance of the Real. It is the reaction of two unknown things,
things, which, to be related, must each be something by itself, and yet,
apart from their relation, are nothing at all. In other words it is a
diversity which, as we regard it, is not real, but which somehow, in all
its fulness, enters into and perfects the life of the Universe. But, as
to the manner in which it is included, we are unable to say anything.

 But is this circular connexion, this baseless interrelation between the
organism and Nature, a mistake to be set aside? Most emphatically not
so, for it seems a vital scheme, and a necessary way of happening among
our appearances. It is an arrangement among phenomena by which the
extended only comes to us in relation with another extended which we
call an organism. You cannot have certain qualities, of touch, or sight,
or hearing, unless there is with them a certain connection of other
qualities. Nature has phenomenal reality as a grouping and as laws of
sequence and co-existence, holding good within a certain section of that
which appears to us. But, if you attempt to make it more, you will
re-enter those mazes from which we found no exit. You are led to take
the physical world as a mere adjective of my body, and you find that my
body on the other hand, is not one whit more substantival. It is itself
for ever the state of something further and beyond. And, as we perceived
in our First Book, you can neither take the qualities, that are called
primary, as real without the secondary, nor again the latter as existing
apart from my feeling. These are all distinctions which, as we saw, are
reduced, and which come together in the one great totality of absolute
experience. They are lost there for our vision, but survive most 
assuredly in that which absorbs them. Nature is but one part of the
feeling whole, which we have separated by our abstraction, and enlarged
by theoretical necessity and contrivance. And then we set up this
fragment as self- existing; and what is sometimes called "science" goes
out of its way to make a gross mistake. It takes an intellectual
construction of the conditions of mere appearance for independent
reality. And it would thrust this fiction on us as the one thing which
has solid being. But thus it turns into sheer error a relative truth. It
discredits that which, as a working point of view, is fully justified by
success, and stands high above criticism.

 We have seen, so far, that mere Nature is not real. Nature is but an
appearance within the reality; it is a partial and imperfect
manifestation of the Absolute. The physical world is an abstraction,
which, for certain purposes is properly considered by itself, but which,
if taken as standing in its own right, becomes at once
self-contradictory. We must now develope this general view in some part
of its detail.

 But, before proceeding, I will deal with a point of some interest. We,
so far, have treated the physical world as extended, and a doubt may be
raised whether such an assumption can be justified. Extension, I may be
told, is not essential to Nature; for the extended need not always be
physical, nor again the physical always extended. And it is better at
once to attempt to get clear on this point. It is, in the first place,
quite true that not all of the extended forms part of Nature. For I may
think of, and may imagine, things extended at my pleasure, and it is
impossible to suppose that all these psychical facts take a place within
our physical system. Yet, upon the other hand, I do not see how we can
deny their extension. That which for my mind is  extended, must be so as
a fact, whether it does, or does not, belong to what we call Nature.
Take, for example, some common illusion of sense. In that we actually
may have a perception of extension, and to call this false does not show
that it is not somehow spatial. But, if so, Nature and extension will
not coincide. Hence we are forced to seek the distinctive essence of
Nature elsewhere, and in some non-spatial character.

 In its bare principle I am able to accept this conclusion. The essence
of Nature is to appear as a region standing outside the psychical, and
as (in some part) suffering and causing change independent of that. Or,
at the very least, Nature must not be always directly dependent on soul.
Nature presupposes the distinction of the not-self from the self. It is
that part of the world which is not inseparably one thing in experience
with those internal groups which feel pleasure and pain. It is the
attendant medium by which selves are made manifest to one another. But
it shows an existence and laws not belonging to these selves; and, to
some extent at least, it appears indifferent to their feelings, and
thoughts, and volitions. It is this independence which would seem to be
the distinctive mark of Nature.

 And, if so, it may be urged that Nature is perhaps not extended, and I
think we must admit that such a Nature is possible. We may imagine
groups of qualities, for example sounds or smells, arranged in such a
way as to appear independent of the psychical. These qualities might
seem to go their own ways without any, or much, regard to our ideas or
likings; and they might maintain such an order as to form a stable and
permanent not-self These groups, again, might serve as the means of
communication between souls, and, in short, might answer every known
purpose for which Nature exists. Even as things are, when these
secondary qualities are localized in outer space, we regard them as
physical;  and there is a doubt, therefore, whether any such
localization is necessary. And, for myself, I am unable to perceive that
it is so. Certainly, if I try to imagine an unextended world of this
kind, I admit that, against my will, I give it a spatial character. But,
so far as I see, this may arise from mere infirmity; and the idea of an
unextended Nature seems, for my knowledge at least, not
self-contradictory.

 But, having gone as far as this, I am unable to go farther. A Nature
without extension I admit to be possible, but I can discover no good
reason for taking it as actual. For the physical world, which we
encounter, is certainly spatial; and we have no interest in trying to
seek out any other. If Nature on our view were reality, the case would
be altered; and we should then be forced to entertain every doubt about
its essence. But for us Nature is appearance, inconsistent and untrue;
and hence the supposition of another Nature, free from extension, could
furnish no help. This supposition does not remove the contradictions
from actual extension, which in any case is still a fact. And, again,
even within itself, the supposition cannot be made consistent with
itself. We may, therefore, pass on without troubling ourselves with such
a mere possibility. We cannot conclude that all Nature essentially must
have extension. But, since at any rate our physical world is extended,
and since the hypothesis of another kind of Nature has no interest, that
idea may be dismissed. I shall henceforth take Nature as appearing
always in the form of space.

 Let us return from this digression. We are to  consider Nature as
possessed of extension, and we have seen that mere Nature has no
reality. We may now proceed to a series of subordinate questions, and
the first of these is about the world which is called inorganic. Is
there in fact such a thing as inorganic Nature? Now, if by this we meant
a region or division of existence, not subserving and entering into the
one experience of the Whole, the question already would have been
settled. There cannot exist an arrangement which fails to perfect, and
to minister directly to, the feeling of the Absolute. Nor again, since
in the Absolute all comes together, could there be anything inorganic in
the sense of standing apart from some essential relation to finite
organisms. Any such mutilations as these have long ago been condemned,
and it is in another sense that we must inquire about the inorganic.

 By an organism we are to understand a more or less permanent
arrangement of qualities and relations, such as at once falls outside
of, and yet immediately subserves, a distinct unity of feeling. We are
to mean a phenomenal group with which a felt particularity is connected
in a way to be discussed in the next chapter. At least this is the sense
in which, however incorrectly, I am about to use the word. The question,
therefore, here will be whether there are elements in Nature, which fail
to make a part of some such finite arrangement. The inquiry is
intelligible, but for metaphysics it seems to have no importance.

 The question in the first place, I think, cannot be answered. For, if
we consider it in the abstract, I find no good ground for either
affirmation or denial. I know no reason why in the Absolute there should
not be qualities, which fail to be connected, as a body, with some
finite soul. And, upon the other hand, I see no special cause for
supposing that these exist. And when, leaving the abstract point of
view, we regard this problem from the side of  concrete facts, then, so
far as I perceive, we are able to make no advance. For as to that which
can, and that which cannot, play the part of an organism, we know very
little. A sameness greater or less with our own bodies is the basis from
which we conclude to other bodies and souls. And what this inference
loses in exactitude (Chapter xxi.), it gains on the other hand in
extent, by acquiring a greater range of application. And it would seem
almost impossible, from this ground, to produce a satisfactory negative
result. A certain likeness of outward form, and again some amount of
similarity in action, are what we stand on when we argue to psychical
life. But our failure, on the other side, to discover these symptoms is
no sufficient warrant for positive denial. There may surely beyond our
knowledge be strange arrangements of qualities, which serve as the
condition of unknown personal unities. Given a certain degree of
difference in the outward form, and a certain divergence in the way of
manifestation, and we should fail at once to perceive the presence of an
organism. But would it, therefore, always not exist? Or can we assume,
because we have found out the nature of some organisms, that we have
exhausted that of all? Have we an ascertained essence, outside of which
no variation is possible? Any such contention would seem to be
indefensible. Every fragment of visible Nature might, so far as is
known, serve as part in some organism not like our bodies. And, if we
consider further how much of Nature may be hid from our view, we shall
surely be still less inclined to dogmatism. For that which we see may be
combined in an organic unity with the invisible; and, again, one and the
same element might have a position and function in any number of
organisms. But there is no advantage in trying to fill the unknown with
our fancies. It should be  clear, when we reflect, that we are in no
condition on this point to fix a limit to the possible. Arrangements,
apparently quite different from our own, and expressing themselves in
what seems a wholly unlike way, might be directly connected with finite
centres of feeling. And our result here must be this, that, except in
relation to our ignorance, we cannot call the least portion of Nature
inorganic. For some practical purposes, of course, the case is radically
altered. We of course there have a perfect right to act upon ignorance.
We not only may, but even must, often treat the unseen as non-existent.
But in metaphysics such an attitude cannot be justified. We, on one
side, have positive knowledge that some parts of Nature are organisms;
but whether, upon the other side, anything inorganic exists or not, we
have no means of judging. Hence to give an answer to our question is
impossible.

 But this inability seems a matter of no importance. For finite
organisms, as we have seen, are but phenomenal appearance, and both
their division and their unity is transcended in the Absolute. And
assuredly the inorganic, if it exists, will be still more unreal. It
will, in any case, not merely be bound in relation with organisms, but
will, together with them, be included in a single and all-absorbing
experience. It will become a feature and an element in that Whole where
no diversity is lost, but where the oneness is something much more than
organic. And with this I will pass on to a further inquiry.

 We have seen that beyond experience nothing can exist, and hence no
part of Nature can fall outside of the Absolute's perfection. But the
question as to the necessity of experience may still be raised  in a
modified sense. Is there any Nature not experienced by a finite subject?
Can we suppose in the Absolute a margin of physical qualities, which, so
to speak, do not pass through some finite percipient? Of course, if this
is so, we cannot perceive them. But the question is whether,
notwithstanding, we may, or even must, suppose that such a margin
exists. (a) Is a physical fact, which is not for some finite sentient
being, a thing which is possible? And (b), in the next place, have we
sufficient ground to take it also as real?

 (a) In defence, first, of its possibility there is something to be
said. "Admitted," we shall be told, "that relation to a finite soul is
the condition under which Nature appears to us, it does not follow that
this condition is indispensable. To assert that those very qualities,
which we meet under certain conditions, can exist apart from them, is
perhaps going too far. But, on the other side, some qualities of the
sort we call sensible might not require (so to speak) to be developed on
or filtered through a particular soul. These qualities in the end, like
all the rest, would certainly, as such, be absorbed in the Absolute; but
they (so to speak) might find their way to this end by themselves, and
might not require the mediation of a finite sentience." But this
defence, it seems to me, is insufficient. We can think, in a manner, of
sensible quality apart from a soul, but the doubt is whether such a
manner is really legitimate. The question is, when we have abstracted
from finite centres of feeling, whether we have not removed all meaning
from sensible quality. And again, if we admit that in the Absolute there
may be matter not contained in finite experience, can we go on to make
this matter a part of Nature, and call it physical? These two questions
appear to be vitally distinct.

 A margin of experience, not the experience of any finite centre, we
shall find (Chapter xxvii.)  cannot be called impossible. But it seems
another thing to place such matter in Nature. For Nature is constituted
and upheld by a division in experience. It is, in its essence, a product
of distinction and opposition. And to take this product as existing
outside finite centres seems indefensible. The Nature that falls
outside, we must insist, may perhaps not be nothing, but it is not
Nature. If it is fact, it is fact which we must not call physical.

 But this whole enquiry, on the other hand, seems unimportant and almost
idle. For, though unperceived by finite souls, all Nature would enter
into one experience with the contents of these souls. And hence the want
of apprehension by, and passage through, a particular focus would lose
in the end its significance. Thus, even if we admit fact, not included
in finite centres of sentience, our view of the Absolute, after all,
will not be altered. But such fact, we have seen, could not be properly
physical.

 (b) A part of Nature, not apprehended by finite mind, we have found in
some sense is barely possible. But we may be told now, on the other
hand, that it is necessary to assume it. There are such difficulties in
the way of any other conclusion that we may seem to have no choice.
Nature is too wide, we may hear, to be taken in by any number of
sentient beings. And again Nature is in part not perceptible at all. My
own brain, while I am alive, is an obvious instance of this. And we may
think further of the objects known only by the microscope, and of the
bodies, intangible and invisible, assured to us by science. And the
mountains, that endure always, must be more than the sensations of
short-lived mortals, and indeed were there in the time before organic
life was developed. In the face of these objections, it may be said, we
are unable to persist. The necessity of finite souls for the existence
of Nature cannot possibly be maintained. And  hence a physical world,
not apprehended by these perceiving centres, must somehow be postulated.

 The objections at first may seem weighty, but I will endeavour to show
that they cannot stand criticism. And I will begin by laying down a
necessary distinction. The physical world exists, of course, independent
of me, and does not depend on the accident of my sensations. A mountain
is, whether I happen to perceive it or not. This truth is certain; but,
on the other hand, its meaning is ambiguous, and it may be taken in two
very different senses. We may call these senses, if we please,
categorical and hypothetical. You may either assert that the mountain
always actually is, as it is when it is perceived. Or you may mean only
that it is always something apart from sensible perception; and that
whenever it is perceived, it then developes its familiar character. And
a confusion between the mountain, as it is in itself, and as it becomes
for an observer, is perhaps our most usual state of mind. But such an
obscurity would be fatal to the present enquiry.

 (i.) I will take the objections, first, as applying to what we have
called the categorical sense. Nature must be in itself, as we perceive
it to be; and, if so, Nature must fall partly beyond finite minds--this
is, so far, the argument urged against our view. But this argument
surely would be based upon our mere ignorance. For we have seen that
organisms unlike our own, arrangements pervading and absorbing the whole
extent of Nature, may very well exist. And as to the modes of perception
which are possible with these organisms, we can lay down no limit. But
if so, there is no reason why all Nature should not be always in
relation to finite sentience. Every part of it may be now actually, for
some other mind, precisely what it would be for us, if we happened to
perceive it. And objects invisible like my brain, or found only by the
microscope, need not cause us to  hesitate. For we cannot deny that
there may be some faculty of sense to which at all times they are
obvious. And the mountains that endure may, for all that we know, have
been visible always. They may have been perceived through their past as
we perceive them to-day. If we can set no bounds to the existence and
the powers of sentient beings, the objection, so far, has been based on
a false assumption of knowledge.

 (ii.) But this line of reply, perhaps, may be carried too far. It
cannot be refuted, and yet we feel that it tends to become extravagant.
It may be possible that Nature throughout is perceived always, and thus
always is, as we should perceive it; but we need not rest our whole
weight on this assumption. Our conclusion will be borne out by something
less. For beyond the things perceived by sense there extends the world
of thought. Nature will not merely be the region that is presented and
also thought of, but it will, in addition, include matter which is only
thought of. Nature will hence be limited solely by the range of our
intellects. It will be the physical universe apprehended in any way
whatever by finite souls.

 Outside of this boundary there is no Nature. We may employ the idea of
a pre-organic time, or of a physical world from which all sentience has
disappeared. But, with the knowledge that we possess, we cannot, even in
a relative sense, take this result as universal. It could hold only with
respect to those organisms which we know, and, if carried further, it
obviously becomes invalid. And again, such a truth, where it is true,
can be merely phenomenal. For, in any case, there is no history or
progress in the Absolute (Chapter xxvi). A Nature without sentience is,
in short, a mere construction for science,  and it possesses a very
partial reality. Nor are the imperceptibles of physics in any better
case. Apart from the plain contradictions which prove them to be barely
phenomenal, their nature clearly exists but in relation to thought. For,
not being perceived by any finite, they are not, as such, perceived at
all; and what reality they possess is not sensible, but merely abstract.

 Our conclusion then, so far, will be this. Nature may extend beyond the
region actually perceived by the finite, but certainly not beyond the
limits of finite thought. In the Absolute possibly there is a margin not
contained in finite experiences (Chapter xxvii.), but this possible
margin cannot properly be taken as physical. For, included in Nature, it
would be qualified by a relation to finite mind. But the existence of
Nature, as mere thought, at once leads to a difficulty. For a physical
world, to be real, must clearly be sensible. And to exist otherwise than
for sense is but to exist hypothetically. If so, Nature, at least in
part, is not actually Nature, but merely is what becomes so under
certain conditions. It seems another fact, a something else, which
indeed we think of, but which, merely in itself and merely as we think
of it, is not physical reality. Thus, on our view, Nature to this extent
seems not to be fact; and we shall have been driven, in the end, to deny
part of its physical existence.

 This conclusion urged against us, I admit, is in one sense inevitable.
The Nature that is thought of, and that we assume not to be perceived by
any mind, is, in the strict sense, not Nature. Yet such a result,
rightly interpreted, need cause us no trouble. We shall understand it
better when we have discussed the meaning of conditional existence
(Chapter xxiv.); I will however attempt to deal  here with the present
difficulty. And what that comes to is briefly this. Nature on the one
side must be actual, and if so, must be sensible; but, upon the other
hand, it seems in part to be merely intelligible. This is the problem,
and the solution is that what for us is intelligible only, is more for
the Absolute. There somehow, we do not know how, what we think is
perceived. Everything there is merged and re-absorbed in an experience
intuitive, at once and in itself, of both ideas and facts.

 What we merely think is not real, because in thinking there is a
division of the "what" from the "that." But, none the less, every
thought gives us actual content; and the presence of that content is
fact, quite as hard as any possible perception. And so the Nature, that
is thought of, to that extent does exist, and does possess a certain
amount of positive character. Hence in the Absolute, where all content
is re-blended with existence, the Nature thought of will gain once more
an intuitional form. It will come together with itself and with other
sides of the Universe, and will make its special contribution to the
riches of the Whole. It is not as we think of it, it is not as it
becomes when in our experience thought is succeeded by perception. It is
something which, only under certain conditions, turns to physical fact
revealed to our senses. But because in the Absolute it is an element of
reality, though not known, as there experienced, to any finite
mind,--because, again, we rightly judge it to be physical fact, if it
became perceived by sense--therefore already it is fact, hypothetical
but still independent. Nature in this sense is not dependent on the
fancies of the individual, and yet it has no content but what is
relative to particular minds. We may assume that without any addition
there is enough matter in these centres to furnish a harmonious
experience in the Absolute. There is no element in that unknown unity,
which cannot be supplied by the fragmentary  life of its members.
Outside of finite experience there is neither a natural world nor any
other world at all.

 But it may be objected that we have now been brought into collision
with common sense. The whole of nature, for common sense, is; and it is
what it is, whether any finite being apprehends it or not. On our view,
on the other hand, part of the physical world does not, as such, exist.
This objection is well founded, but I would reply, first, that common
sense is hardly consistent with itself. It would perhaps hesitate, for
instance, to place sweet and bitter tastes, as such, in the world
outside of sense. But only the man who will go thus far, who believes in
colours in the darkness, and sounds without an ear, can stand upon this
ground. If there is any one who holds that flowers blush when utterly
unseen, and smell delightfully when no one delights in their odour--he
may object to our doctrine and may be invited to state his own. But I
venture to think that, metaphysically, his view would turn out not worth
notice. Any serious theory must in some points collide with common
sense; and, if we are to look at the matter from this side, our view
surely is, in this way, superior to others. For us Nature, through a
great part, certainly is as it is perceived. Secondary qualities are an
actual part of the physical world, and the existing thing sugar we take
to be, itself, actually sweet and pleasant. Nay the very beauty of
Nature, we shall find hereafter (Chapter xxvi.), is, for us, fact as
good as the hardest of primary qualities. Everything physical, which is
seen or felt, or in any way experienced or enjoyed, is, on our view, an
existing part of the region of Nature; and it is in Nature as we
experience it. It is only that portion which is  but thought of, only
that, of which we assume that no creature perceives it--which, as such,
is not fact. Thus, while admitting our collision with common sense, I
would lay stress upon its narrow extent and degree.

 We have now seen that inorganic Nature perhaps does not exist. Though
it is possible, we are unable to say if it is real. But with regard to
Nature falling outside all finite subjects our conclusion is different.
We failed to discover any ground for taking that as real, and, if
strictly understood, we found no right to call it even possible. The
importance of these questions, on the other hand we urged, is overrated.
For they all depend on distinctions which, though not lost, are
transcended in the Absolute. Whether all perception and feeling must
pass through finite souls, whether any physical qualities stand out and
are not worked up into organisms--into arrangements which directly
condition such souls--these enquiries are not vital. In part we cannot
answer them, and in part our reply gives us little that possesses a
positive value. The interrelation between organisms, and their division
from the inorganic, and, again, the separation of finite experiences,
from each other and from the whole--these are not anything which, as
such, can hold good in the Absolute. That one reality, the richer for
every variety, absorbs and dissolves these phenomenal limitations.
Whether there is a margin of quality not directly making part of some
particular experience, whether, again, there is any physical extension
outside the arrangements which immediately subserve feeling centres--in
the end these questions are but our questions. The answers must be given
in a language without meaning for the Absolute, until translated into a
way of expression beyond our powers. But, if so expressed, we can
perceive,  they would lose that importance our hard distinctions confer
on them. And, from our own point of view, these problems have proved
partly to be insoluble. The value of our answers consists mainly in
their denial of partial and one-sided doctrines.

 There is an objection which, before we proceed, may be dealt with.
"Upon your view," I may be told, "there is really after all no Nature.
For Nature is one solid body, the images of which are many, and which
itself remains single. But upon your theory we have a number of similar
reflections; and, though these may agree among themselves, no real thing
comes to light in them. Such an appearance will not account for Nature."
But this objection rests on what must be called a thoughtless prejudice.
It is founded on the idea that identity in the contents of various souls
is impossible. Separation into distinct centres of feeling and thought
is assumed to preclude all sameness between what falls within such
diverse centres. But, we shall see more fully hereafter (Chapter
xxiii.), this assumption is groundless. It is merely part of that blind
prejudice against identity in general which disappears before criticism.
That which is identical in quality must always, so far, be one; and its
division, in time or space or in several souls, does not take away its
unity. The variety of course does make a difference to the identity,
and, without that difference and these modifications, the sameness is
nothing. But, on the other hand, to take sameness as destroyed by
diversity, makes impossible all thought and existence alike. It is a
doctrine, which, if carried out, quite abolishes the Universe.
Certainly, in the end, to know how the one and many are united is beyond
our powers. But in the Absolute somehow, we are convinced, the problem
is solved.

 This apparent parcelling out of Nature is but  apparent. On the one
side a collection of what falls within distinct souls, on the other side
it possesses unity in the Absolute. Where the contents of the several
centres all come together, there the appearances of Nature of course
will be one. And, if we consider the question from the side of each
separate soul, we still can find no difficulty. Nature for each
percipient mainly is what to the percipient it seems to be, and it
mainly is so without regard to that special percipient. And, if this is
so, I find it hard to see what more is wanted. Of course, so far as any
one soul has peculiar sensations, the qualities it finds will not exist
unless in its experience. But I do not know why they should do so. And
there remains, I admit, that uncertain extent, through which Nature is
perhaps not sensibly perceived by any soul. This part of Nature exists
beyond me, but it does not exist as I should perceive it. And we saw
clearly that, so far, common sense cannot be satisfied. But if this were
a valid objection, I do not know in whose mouth it would hold good. And
if any one, again, goes on to urge that Nature works and acts on us, and
that this aspect of force is ignored by our theory, we need not answer
at length. For if ultimate reality is claimed for any thing like force,
we have disposed, in our First Book, of that claim already. But, if all
that is meant is a certain behaviour of Nature, with certain
consequences in souls, there is nothing here but a  phenomenal
co-existence and sequence. It is an order and way in which events
happen, and in our view of Nature I see nothing inconsistent with this
arrangement. From the fact of such an orderly appearance you cannot
infer the existence of something not contained in finite experiences.

 We may now consider a question which several times we have touched on.
We have seen that in reality there can be no mere physical Nature. The
world of physical science is not something independent, but is a mere
element in one total experience. And, apart from finite souls, this
physical world, in the proper sense, does not exist. But, so, we are led
to ask, what becomes of natural science? Nature there is treated as a
thing without soul and standing by its own strength. And we thus have
been apparently forced into collision with something beyond criticism.
But the collision is illusive, and exists only through misunderstanding.
For the object of natural science is not at all the ascertainment of
ultimate truth, and its province does not fall outside phenomena. The
ideas, with which it works, are not intended to set out the true
character of reality. And, therefore, to subject these ideas to
metaphysical criticism, or, from the other side, to oppose them to
metaphysics, is to mistake their end and bearing. The question is not
whether the principles of physical science possess an absolute truth to
which they make no claim. The question is whether the abstraction,
employed by that science, is legitimate and useful. And with regard to
that question there surely can be no doubt. In order to understand the
co-existence and sequence of phenomena, natural science makes an
intellectual  construction of their conditions. Its matter, motion, and
force are but working ideas, used to understand the occurrence of
certain events. To find and systematize the ways in which spatial
phenomena are connected and happen--this is all the mark which these
conceptions aim at. And for the metaphysician to urge that these ideas
contradict themselves, is irrelevant and unfair. To object that in the
end they are not true, is to mistake their pretensions.

 And thus when matter is treated of as a thing standing in its own
right, continuous and identical, metaphysics is not concerned. For, in
order to study the laws of a class of phenomena, these phenomena are
simply regarded by themselves. The implication of Nature, as a
subordinate element, within souls has not been denied, but in practice,
and for practice, ignored. And, when we hear of a time before organisms
existed, that, in the first place, should mean organisms of the kind
that we know; and it should be said merely with regard to one part of
the Universe. Or, at all events, it is not a statement of the actual
history of the ultimate Reality, but is a convenient method of
considering certain facts apart from others. And thus, while metaphysics
and natural science keep each to its own business, a collision is
impossible. Neither needs defence against the other, except through
misunderstanding.

 But that misunderstandings on both sides have been too often provoked I
think no one can deny. Too often the science of mere Nature, forgetting
its own limits and false to its true aims, attempts to speak about first
principles. It becomes transcendent, and offers us a dogmatic and
uncritical metaphysics. Thus to assert that, in the history of the
Universe at large, matter came before mind, is to place development and
succession within the Absolute (Chapter xxvi.), and is to make real
outside  the Whole a mere element in its being. And such a doctrine not
only is not natural science, but, even if we suppose it otherwise to
have any value, for that science, at least, it is worthless. For assume
that force matter and motion are more than mere working ideas,
inconsistent but useful--will they, on that assumption, work better? If
you, after all, are going to use them solely for the interpretation of
spatial events, then, if they are absolute truth, that is nothing to
you. This absolute truth you must in any case apply as a mere system of
the conditions of the occurrence of phenomena; and for that purpose
anything, which you apply, is the same, if it does the same work. But I
think the failure of natural science (so far as it does fail) to
maintain its own position, is not hard to understand. It seems produced
by more than one cause. There is first a vague notion that absolute
truth must be pursued by every kind of special science. There is
inability to perceive that, in such a science, something less is all
that we can use, and therefore all that we should want. But this
unfortunately is not all. For metaphysics itself, by its interference
with physical science, has induced that to act, as it thinks, in self-
defence, and has led it, in so doing, to become metaphysical. And this
interference of metaphysics I would admit and deplore, as the result and
the parent of most injurious misunderstanding. Not only have there been
efforts at construction which have led to no positive result, but there
have been attacks on the sciences which have pushed into abuse a
legitimate function. For, as against natural science, the duty of
metaphysics is limited. So long as that science keeps merely to the
sphere of phenomena and the laws of their occurrence, metaphysics has no
right to a single word of criticism. Criticism begins when what is
relative--mere ways of appearance--is, unconsciously or consciously,
offered as more. And I do not doubt that there are doctrines,  now made
use of in science, which on this ground invite metaphysical correction,
and on which it might here be instructive to dwell. But for want of
competence and want of space, and. more than all perhaps from the fear
of being misunderstood, I think it better to pass on. There are further
questions about Nature more important by far for our general enquiry.

 Is the extended world one, and, if so, in what sense? We discussed, in
Chapter xviii., the unity of time, and it is needful to recall the
conclusion we reached. We agreed that all times have a unity in the
Absolute, but, when we asked if that unity itself must be temporal, our
answer was negative. We found that the many time-series are not related
in time. They do not make parts of one series and whole of succession;
but, on the contrary, their interrelation and unity falls outside of
time. And, in the case of extension, the like considerations produce a
like result. The physical world is not one in the sense of possessing a
physical unity. There may be any number of material worlds, not related
in space, and by consequence not exclusive of, and repellent to, each
other.

 It appears, at first, as if all the extended was part of one space. For
all spaces, and, if so, all material objects, seem spatially related.
And such an interrelation would, of course, make them members in one
extended whole. But this belief, when we reflect, begins instantly to
vanish. Nature in my dreams (for example) possesses extension, and yet
spatially it is not one with my physical world. And in imagination and
in thought we have countless existences, material and extended, which
stand in no spatial connection with each other or with the world which I
perceive. And it is idle to reply that these bodies and their
arrangements are unreal, unless we are sure of the sense which we give
to reality. For  that these all exist is quite clear; and, if they have
not got extension, they are all able, at least, to appear with it and to
show it. Their extension and their materiality is, in short, a palpable
fact, while, on the other hand, their several arrangements are not
interrelated in space. And, since in the Absolute these, of course,
possess a unity, we must conclude that the unity is not material. In
coming together their extensional character is transmuted. There are a
variety of spatial systems, independent of each other, and each changed
beyond itself, when absorbed in the one non-spatial system. Thus, with
regard to their unity, Space and Time have similar characters (pp.
210-214).

 That which for ordinary purposes I call "real" Nature, is the extended
world so far as related to my body. What forms a spatial system with
that body has "real" extension. But even "my body" is ambiguous, for the
body, which I imagine, may have no spatial relation to the body which I
perceive. And perception too can be illusive, for my own body in dreams
is not the same thing with my true "real" body, nor does it enter with
it into any one spatial arrangement. And what in the end I mean by my
"real" body, seems to be this. I make a spatial construction from my
body, as it comes to me when awake. This and the extended which will
form a single system of spatial relations together with this, I consider
as real. And whatever extension falls outside of this one system of
interrelation,  I set down as "imaginary." And, as a mere subordinate
point of view, this may do very well. But it is quite another thing on
such a ground to deny existence in the Absolute to every other spatial
system. For we have the "imaginary" extension on our hands as a fact
which remains, and which should cause us to hesitate. And, when we
reflect, we see clearly that a variety of physical arrangements may
exist without anything like spatial interrelation. They will have their
unity in the Whole, but no connections in space each outside its own
proper system of matter. And Nature therefore cannot properly be called
a single world, in the sense of possessing a spatial unity.

 Thus we might have any number of physical systems, standing independent
of spatial relations with each other. And we may go on from this to
consider another point of interest. Such diverse worlds of matter might
to any extent still act on and influence one another. But, to speak
strictly, they could not interpenetrate at any point. Their interaction,
however intimate, could not be called penetration; though, in itself and
in its effects, it might involve a closer unity. Their spaces always
would remain apart, and spatial contact would be impossible. But inside
each world the case, as to penetration, might be different. The
penetration of one thing by another might there even be usual; and I
will try to show briefly that this presents no difficulty.

 The idea of a Nature made up of solid matter, interspaced with an
absolute void, has been inherited, I presume, from Greek metaphysics.
And, I think, for the most part we hardly realize how entirely this view
lies at the mercy of criticism. I am speaking, not of physics and the
principles employed by physics, but of what may be called the
metaphysics of the literary market-place. And the notion  common there,
that one extended thing cannot penetrate another, rests mainly on
prejudice. For whether matter, conceivably and possibly, can enter into
matter or not, depends entirely on the sense in which matter is taken.
Penetration means the abolition of spatial distinction, and we may hence
define matter in such a way that, with loss of spatial distinction,
itself would be abolished. If, that is to say, pieces of matter are so
one thing with their extensions as, apart from these, to keep no
individual difference--then these pieces obviously cannot penetrate;
but, otherwise, they may. This seems to me clear, and I will go on to
explain it shortly.

 It is certain first of all that two parts of one space cannot penetrate
each other. For, though these two parts must have some qualities beside
their mere extension (Chapter iii.), such bare qualities are not enough.
Even if you suppose that a change has forced both sets of qualities to
belong to one single extension, you will after all have not got two
extended things in one. For you will not have two extended things, since
one will have vanished. And, hence, penetration, implying the existence
of both, has become a word without meaning. But the case is altered, if
we consider two pieces of some element more concrete than space. Let us
assume with these, first, that their other qualities, which serve to
divide and distinguish them, still depend on extension--then, so far,
these things still cannot penetrate each other. For, as before, in the
one space you would not have two things, since (by the assumption) one
thing has lost separate existence. But now the whole question is whether
with matter this assumption is true, whether in Nature, that is,
qualities are actually so to be identified with extension. And, for
myself, I find no reason to think that this is so. If in two parts of
one extended there are distinctions sufficient to individualize, and  to
keep these two things still two, when their separate spaces are
gone--then clearly these two things may be compenetrable. For
penetration is the survival of distinct existence notwithstanding
identification in space. And thus the whole question really turns on the
possibility of such a survival. Cannot, in other words, two things still
be two, though their extensions have become one?

 We have no right then (until this possibility is got rid of) to take
the parts of each physical world as essentially exclusive. We may
without contradiction consider bodies as not resisting other bodies. We
may take them as standing towards one another, under certain conditions,
as relative vacua, and as freely compenetrable. And, if in this way we
gain no positive advantage, we at least escape from the absurdity, and
even the scandal, of an absolute vacuum.

 We have seen that, except in the Absolute in which Nature is merged, we
have no right to assert that all Nature has unity. I will now add a few
words on some other points which may call for explanation. We may be
asked, for example, whether Nature is finite or infinite; and we may
first endeavour to clear our ideas on this subject. There is of course,
as we know, a great difficulty on either side. If Nature is infinite, we
have the absurdity of a something which exists, and still does not
exist. For actual existence is, obviously, all finite. But,  on the
other hand, if Nature is finite, then Nature must have an end; and this
again is impossible. For a limit of extension must be relative to
extension beyond. And to fall back on empty space, will not help us at
all. For this (itself a mere absurdity) repeats the dilemma in an
aggravated form. It is itself both something and nothing, is essentially
limited and yet, on the other side, without end.

 But we cannot escape the conclusion that Nature is infinite. And this
will be true not of our physical system alone, but of every other
extended world which can possibly exist. None is limited but by an end
over which it is constantly in the act of passing. Nor does this hold
only with regard to present existence, for the past and future of these
worlds has also no fixed boundary in space. Nor, once again, is this a
character peculiar to the extended. Any finite whole, with its
incomplete conjunction of qualities and relations, entails a process of
indefinite transition beyond its limits as a consequence. But with the
extended, more than anything, this self-transcendence is obvious. Every
physical world is, essentially and necessarily, infinite.

 But in saying this, we do not mean that, at any given moment, such
worlds possess more than a given amount of existence. Such an assertion
once again would have no meaning. It would be once more the endeavour to
be something and yet nothing, and to find an existence which does not
exist. And thus we are forced to maintain that every Nature must be
finite. The dilemma stares us in the face, and brings home to us the
fact that all Nature, as such, is an untrue appearance. It is the way in
which a mere part of the Reality shows itself, a way essential and true
when taken up into and transmuted by a fuller totality, but, considered
by itself, inconsistent and lapsing beyond its own being. The essence of
the relative is to have and to come to an end, but, at the same time, to
end always in a  self-contradiction. Again the infinity of Nature, its
extension beyond all limits, we might call Nature's effort to end itself
as Nature. It shows in this its ideality, its instability and
transitoriness, and its constant passage of itself into that which
transcends it. In its isolation as a phenomenon Nature is both finite
and infinite, and so proclaims itself untrue. And, when this
contradiction is solved, both its characters disappear into something
beyond both. And it is perhaps not necessary to dwell further on the
infinity of Nature.

 And, passing next to the question of what is called Uniformity, I shall
dismiss this almost at once. For there is, in part, no necessity for
metaphysics to deal with it, and, in part, we must return to it in the
following chapter. But, however uniformity is understood, in the main we
must be sceptical, and stand aloof. I do not see how it can be shown
that the amount of matter and motion, whether in any one world or in
all, remains always the same. Nor do I understand how we can know that
any world remains the same in its sensible qualities. As long as, on the
one side, the Absolute preserves its identity, and, on the other side,
the realms of phenomena remain in order, all our postulates are
satisfied. This order in the world need not mean that, in each Nature,
the same characters remain. It implies, in the first place, that all
changes are subject to the identity of the one Reality. But that by
itself seems consistent with almost indefinite variation in the several
worlds. And, in the second place, order must involve the possibility of
experience in finite subjects. Order, therefore, excludes all change
which would make each world unintelligible through want of stability.
But this stability, in the end, does not seem to require more than a
limited amount of identity, existing from time to time in the sensations
which happen. And, thirdly, in  phenomenal sequence the law of Causation
must remain unbroken. But this, again, comes to very little. For the law
of Causation does not assert that in existence we have always the same
causes and effects. It insists only that, given one, we must inevitably
have the other. And thus the Uniformity of Nature cannot warrant the
assumption that the world of sense is uniform. Its guarantee is in that
respect partly non-existent, and partly hypothetical.

 There are other questions as to Nature which will engage us later on,
and we may here bring the present chapter to a close. We have found that
Nature by itself has no reality. It exists only as a form of appearance
within the Absolute. In its isolation from that whole of feeling and
experience it is an untrue abstraction; and in life this narrow view of
Nature (as we saw) is not consistently maintained. But, for physical
science, the separation of one element from the whole is both
justifiable and necessary. In order to understand the co-existence and
sequence of phenomena in space, the conditions of these are made objects
of independent study. But to take such conditions for hard realities
standing by themselves, is to deviate into uncritical and barbarous
metaphysics.

 Nature apart from and outside of the Absolute is nothing. It has its
being in that process of intestine division, through which the whole
world of appearance consists. And in this realm, where aspects fall
asunder, where being is distinguished from thought, and the self from
the not-self, Nature marks one extreme. It is the aspect most opposed to
self-dependence and unity. It is the world of those particulars which
stand furthest from possessing individuality, and we may call it the
region of externality and chance. Compulsion from the  outside, and a
movement not their own, is the law of its elements; and its events seem
devoid of an internal meaning. To exist and to happen, and yet not to
realize an end, or as a member to subserve some ideal whole, we saw
(Chapter xix.) was to be contingent. And in the mere physical world the
nearest approach to this character can be found. But we can deal better
with such questions in a later context. We shall have hereafter to
discuss the connection of soul with body, and the existence of a system
of ends in Nature. The work of this chapter has been done, if we have
been able to show the subordination of Nature as one element within the
Whole. --------------------------------------------------------

  CHAPTER XXIII

 BODY AND SOUL  WITH the subject of this chapter we seem to have arrived
at a hopeless difficulty. The relation of body to soul presents a
problem which experience seems to show is really not soluble. And I may
say at once that I accept and endorse this result. It seems to me
impossible to explain how precisely, in the end, these two forms of
existence stand one to the other. But in this inability I find a
confirmation of our general doctrine as to the nature of Reality. For
body and soul are mere appearances, distinctions set up and held apart
in the Whole. And fully to understand the relation between them would
be, in the end, to grasp how they came together into one. And, since
this is impossible for our knowledge, any view about their connection
remains imperfect.

 But this failure to comprehend gives no ground for an objection against
our Absolute. It is no disproof of a theory (I must repeat this) that,
before some questions as to "How," it is forced to remain dumb. For you
do not throw doubt on a view till you find inconsistency. If the general
account is such that it is bound to solve this or that problem, then
such a problem, left outside, is a serious objection. And things are
still worse where there are aspects which positively collide with the
main conclusion. But neither of these grounds of objection holds good
against ourselves. Upon the view which we have found to be true of the
Absolute, we  can see how and why some questions cannot possibly be
answered. And in particular this relation of body and soul offers
nothing inconsistent with our general doctrine. My principal object here
will be to make this last point good. And we shall find that neither
body nor soul, nor the connection between them, can furnish any ground
of objection against our Absolute.

 The difficulties, which have arisen, are due mainly to one cause. Body
and soul have been set up as independent realities. They have been taken
to be things, whose kinds are different, and which have existence each
by itself, and each in its own right. And then, of course, their
connection becomes incomprehensible, and we strive in vain to see how
one can influence the other. And at last, disgusted by our failure, we
perhaps resolve to deny wholly the existence of this influence. We may
take refuge in two series of indifferent events, which seem to affect
one another while, in fact, merely running side by side. And, because
their conjunction can scarcely be bare coincidence, we are driven, after
all, to admit some kind of connection. The connection is now viewed as
indirect, and as dependent on something else to which both series
belong. But, while each side retains its reality and self-subsistence,
they, of course, cannot come together; and, on the other hand, if they
come together, it is because they have been transformed, and are not
things, but appearances. Still this last is a conclusion for which many
of us are not prepared. If soul and body are not two "things," the
mistake, we fancy, has lain wholly on the side of the soul. For the body
at all events seems a thing, while the soul is unsubstantial. And so,
dropping influence altogether, we make the soul a kind of adjective
supported by the body. Or, since, after all, adjectives must qualify
their substantives, we turn the soul into a kind of immaterial
secretion, ejected and,  because "out," making no difference to the
organ. Nor do we always desert this view when "matter" has itself been
discovered to be merely phenomenal. It is common first to admit that
body is mere sensation and idea, and still to treat it as wholly
independent of the soul, while the soul remains its non-physical and
irrelevant secretion.

 But I shall make no attempt to state the various theories as to the
nature and relations of body and soul, and I shall not criticise in
detail views, from most of which we could learn nothing. It will be
clear at once, from the results of preceding chapters, that neither body
nor soul can be more than appearance. And I will attempt forthwith to
point out the peculiar nature of each, and the manner in which they are
connected with, and influence, each other. It would be useless to touch
the second question, until we have endeavoured to get our minds clear on
the first.

 What is a body? In our last chapter we have anticipated the answer. A
body is a part of the physical world, and we have seen that Nature by
itself is wholly unreal. It was an aspect of the Whole, set apart by
abstraction, and, for some purposes, taken as independent reality. So
that, in saying that a body is one piece of Nature, we have at once
pointed out that it is no more than appearance. It is an intellectual
construction out of material which is not self- subsistent. This is its
general character as physical; but, as to the special position given to
the organic by natural science, I prefer to say nothing. It is, for us,
an (undefined) arrangement possessing temporal continuity, and a certain
amount of identity in quality, the degree and nature of which last I
cannot attempt to fix.  And I think, for metaphysics, it is better also
to make relation to a soul essential for a body (Chapter xxii.). But
what concerns us at this moment is, rather, to insist on its phenomenal
character. The materials, of which it is made, are inseparably
implicated with sensation and feeling. They are divorced from this given
whole by a process, which is necessary, but yet is full of
contradictions. The physical world, taken as separate, involves the
relation of unknown to unknown, and of these makeshift materials the
particular body is built. It is a construction riddled by
inconsistencies, a working point of view, which is of course quite
indispensable, but which cannot justify a claim to be more than
appearance.

 And the soul is clearly no more self-subsistent than the body. It is,
on its side also, a purely phenomenal existence, an appearance
incomplete and inconsistent, and with no power to maintain itself as an
independent "thing." The criticism of our First Book has destroyed every
claim of the self to be, or to correspond to, true reality. And the only
task here before us is, accepting this result, to attempt to fix clearly
the meaning of a soul. I will first make a brief statement, and then
endeavour to explain it and to defend it against objections. The soul is
a finite centre of immediate experience, possessed of a certain temporal
continuity of existence, and again of a certain identity in character.
And the word "immediate" is emphatic. The soul is a particular group of
psychical events, so far as these events are taken merely as happening
in time. It excludes consideration of their content, so far as this
content (whether in thought or volition or feeling qualifies something
beyond the serial existence of these events. Take the whole experience
of  any moment, one entire "this- now," as it comes, regard that
experience as changed and as continued in time, consider its character
solely as happening, and, again, as further influencing the course of
its own changes--this is perhaps the readiest way of defining a soul.
But I must endeavour to draw this out, and briefly to explain it.

 It is not enough to be clear that the soul is phenomenal, in the sense
of being something which, as such, fails to reach true reality. For,
unless we perceive to some extent how it stands towards other sides of
the Universe, we are likely to end in complete bewilderment. And a
frequent error is to define what is "psychical" so widely as to exclude
any chance of a rational result. For all objects and aims, which come
before me, are in one sense the states of my soul. Hence, if this sense
is not excluded, my body and the whole world become "psychical"
phenomena; and amid this confusion my soul itself seeks an
unintelligible place as one state of itself. What is most important is
to distinguish the soul's existence from what fills it, and yet there
are few points, perhaps, on which neglect is more common. And we may
bring the question home thus. If we were to assume (Chapter xxvii.) that
in the Universe there is nothing beyond souls, still within these souls
the same problem would call for solution. We should still have to find a
place for the existence of soul, as distinct both from body and from
other aspects of the world.

 It may assist us in perceiving both what the soul is, and again what it
is not, if we view the question from two sides. Let us look at it,
first, from the experience of an individual person, and then,
afterwards, let us consider the same thing from outside,  and from the
ground of an admitted plurality of souls.

 If then, beginning from within, I take my whole given experience at any
one moment, and if I regard a single "this-now," as it comes in feeling
and is "mine,"--may I suppose that in this I have found my true soul?
Clearly not so, for (to go no farther) such existence is too fleeting.
My soul (I should reply) is not merely the something of one moment, but
it must endure for a time and must preserve its self-sameness. I do not
mean that it must itself be self-conscious of identity, for that
assertion would carry us too far on the other side. And as to the amount
of continuity and of self-same character which is wanted, I am saying
nothing here. I shall touch later on both these questions, so far as is
necessary, and for the present will confine myself to the general
result. The existence of a soul must endure through more than one
presentation; and hence experience, if immediate and given and not
transcending the moment, is less than my soul.

 But if, still keeping to "experience," we take it in another sense, we
none the less are thwarted. For experience now is as much too wide as
before it was too narrow. The whole contents of my experience--it makes
no difference here whether I myself or another person considers
them--cannot possibly be my soul, unless my soul is to be as large as
the total Universe. For other bodies and souls, and God himself, are (so
far as I know them) all states of my mind, in this sense make part of my
particular being. And we are led at once to the distinction, which we
noticed before (Chapter xxi.), between the diverse aspects of content
and of psychical existence. Our experience in short is, essentially and
very largely, ideal. It shows an ideal process which, beginning from the
unity of feeling, produces the differences of self and not-self, and
separates the divisions of the world from themselves  and from me. All
this wealth, that is, subsists through a divorce between the sides of
existence and character. What is meant by any one of the portions of my
world is emphatically not a mere fact of experience. If you take it
there, as it exists there, it always is something, but this something
can never be the object in question. We may use as an example (if you
please) my horse or my own body. Both of these must, for me at least, be
nothing but "experience"; for, what I do not "experience," to me must be
nothing. And, if you push home the question as to their given existence,
you can find it nowhere except in a state of my soul. When I perceive
them, or think of them, there is, so far, no discoverable "fact" outside
of my psychical condition. But such a "fact" is for me not the "fact" of
my horse or, again, of my body. Their true existence is not that which
is present in my mind, but rather, as perhaps we should say, present to
it. Their existence is a content which works apart from, and is
irreconcilable with, its own psychical being; it is a "what" discrepant
with, and transcending its "that." We may put it shortly by saying that
the true fact is fact, only so far as it is ideal. Hence the Universe
and its objects must not be called states of my soul. Indeed it would be
better to affirm that these objects exist, so far as the psychical
states do not exist. For such experience of objects is possible, only so
far as the meaning breaks loose from the given existence, and has, so
regarded, broken this existence in pieces. And we may state the
conclusion thus. If my psychical state does not exist, then the object
is destroyed; but, again, unless my state could, as such, perish, no
object would exist. The two sides of fact, and of content working loose
from that fact, are essential to each other. But the essence of the
second is disruption of a "what" from a "that,"  while in the union of
these aspects the former has its life.

 The soul is not the contents which appear in its states, but, on the
other hand, without them it would not be itself. For it is qualified
essentially by the presence of these contents. Thus a man, we may say,
is not what he thinks of; and yet he is the man he is, because of what
he thinks of. And the ideal processes of the content have necessarily an
aspect of psychical change. Those connections, which have nothing which
is personal to myself, cause a sequence of my states when they happen
within me. Thus a principle, of logic or morality, works in my mind.
This principle is most certainly not a part of my soul, and yet it makes
a great difference to the sequence of my states. I shall hereafter
return to this point, but it would belong to psychology to develope the
subject in detail. We should have there to point out, and to classify,
the causes which affect the succession of psychical phenomena. It is
enough here to have laid stress on an essential distinction. Ideal
contents appear in, and affect, my existence, but still, for all that,
we cannot call them my soul.

 We have now been led to two results. The soul is certainly not all that
which is present in experience, nor, on the other hand, can it consist
in mere experience itself. It cannot be actual feeling, or that
immediate unity of quality and being which comes in the "this" (Chapter
xix.). The soul is not these things, and we must now try to say what it
is. It is one of these same personal centres, not taken at an instant,
but regarded as a "thing." It is a feeling whole which is considered to
continue in time, and to maintain a certain sameness. And the soul is,
therefore, not presented fact, but is an ideal construction which
transcends what is given. It is  emphatically the result of an ideal
process; but this process, on the other hand, has been arbitrarily
arrested at a very low point. Take a fleeting moment of your "given,"
and then, from the basis of a personal identity of feeling, enlarge this
moment by other moments and build up a "thing." Idealize "experience,"
so as to make its past one reality with its present, and so as to give
its history a place in the fixed temporal order. Resolve its contingency
enough to view it as a series of events, which have causal connections
both without and within. But, having gone so far, pause, and call a halt
to your process, or, having got to a soul, you will be hurried beyond
it. And, to keep your soul, you must remain fixed in a posture of
inconsistency. For, like every other "thing" in time, the soul is
essentially ideal. It has transcended the given moment, and has spread
out its existence beyond that which is "actual" or could ever be
experienced. And by its relations and connections of co- existence and
sequence, and by its subjection to "laws," it has raised itself into the
world of eternal verity. But to persist in this process of life would be
suicide. Its advance would force you to lose hold altogether on
"existence," and, with that loss, to forfeit individual selfness. And
hence, on the other side, the soul clings to its being in time, and
still reaches after the unbroken unity of content with reality. Its
contents, therefore, are allowed only to qualify the series of temporal
events. And this result is a mere compromise. Hence the soul persists
through a contrivance, and through the application of matter to a
particular purpose. And, because this application is founded on and
limited by no principle, the soul in the end must be judged to be rooted
in artifice. It is a series, which depends on ideal transcendence, and
yet desires to be taken as sensible fact. And its inconsistency is now
made manifest in its use of its contents. These (we have seen) are  as
wide as tile Universe itself, and, on this account, they are unable to
qualify the soul. And yet, on the other hand, they must do so, if the
soul is to have the quality which makes it itself. Hence these contents
must be taken from one side of their being, and the other side, for a
particular end, is struck out. In order for the soul to exist,
"experience" must be mutilated. It must be regarded so far as it makes a
difference to that series of events which is taken as a soul; it must be
considered just to that extent to which it serves as the adjective of a
temporal series--serves to make the "thisness" of the series of a
certain kind, and to modify its past and its future "thisness." But,
beyond this, experience is taken merely to be present to the soul and
operative within it. And the soul exists precisely so far as the
abstraction is maintained. Its life endures only so long as a particular
purpose holds. And thus it consists in a convenient but one-sided
representation of facts, and has no claim to be more than a useful
appearance.

 In brief, because the existence of the soul is not experienced and not
given, because it is made by, and consists in, transcendence of the
"present," and because its content is obviously never one with its
being, its "what" always in flagrant discrepancy with its "that"--
therefore its whole position is throughout inconsistent and untenable.
It is an arrangement natural and necessary, but for all that phenomenal
and illusive, a makeshift, valuable but still not genuine reality. And,
looked at by itself, the soul is an abstraction and mutilation. It is
the arbitrary use of material for a particular purpose. And it persists
only by refusing to see more in itself than subserves its own existence.

 It may be instructive, before we go on, to regard the same question
from the side of the Absolute. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume
that in  the Whole there is no material which is not a state of some
soul (Chapter xxvii). From this we might be tempted to conclude that
these souls are the Reality, or at least must be real. But that
conclusion would be false, for the souls would fall within the realm of
appearance and error. They would be, but, as such, they would not have
reality. They would require a resolution and a re- composition, in which
their individualities would be transmuted and absorbed (Chapter xvi.).
For we have seen that the Absolute is the union of content and
existence. It stands at a level above, and comprehending, those
distinctions and relations in which the imperfect unity of feeling is
dissipated. Let us then take the indefinite plurality of the
"this-nows," or immediate experiences, as the basis and starting-point,
and, on the other side, let us take the Absolute as the end, and let us
view the region between as a process from the first to the second. It
will be a field of struggle in which content is divorced from, and
strives once more towards, unity with being. Our assumption in part will
be false, since (as we have seen) the immediately given is already
inconsistent. But, in order to instruct ourselves, let us suppose here
that the "fact" of experience is real, and that, above it once more, the
Absolute gains higher reality--still where is the soul? The soul is not
immediate experience, for that comes given at one moment; and the soul
still less can be the perfected union of all being and content. This is
obvious, and, if so, the soul must fall in the middle-space of error and
appearance. It is the ideal manufacture of one extreme with a view to
reach the other, a manufacture suspended at a very low stage, and
suspended on no defensible ground. The plurality of souls in the
Absolute is, therefore, appearance, and their existence is not genuine.
But  because the upward struggle of the content to ideal perfection,
having made these souls, still rises both in them and above them, they,
in themselves, are nearer the level of the lower reality. The first and
transitory union of existence and content is, with souls, less
profoundly broken up and destroyed. And hence souls, taken as things
with a place in the time-series, are said to be facts and actually to
exist. Nay on their existence, in a sense, all reality depends. For the
higher process is carried on in a special relation with these lower
results; and thus, while moving in its way, it affects the souls in
their way; and thus everything happens in souls, and everything is their
states. And this arrangement seems necessary; but on the other hand, if
we view it from the side of the Absolute, it is plainly
self-inconsistent To gain consistency and truth it must be merged, and
recomposed in a result in which its specialty must vanish. Souls, like
their bodies, are, as such, nothing more than appearance.

 And, that we may realize this more clearly, we find ourselves turning
in a circular maze. Just as the body was for Nature, and upon the other
hand Nature merely through relation to a body, so in a different fashion
it is with the soul. For thought is a state of souls, and therefore is
made by them, while, upon its side, the soul is a product of thought.
The "thing," existing in time and possessor of "states," is made what it
is by ideal construction. But this construction itself appears to depend
on a psychical centre, and to exist merely as its "state." And such a
circle seems vicious. Again, the body is dependent on the soul, for the
whole of its material comes by way of sensation, and its identity is
built up by ideal construction. And yet this manufacture takes place as
an event in a soul, a soul which, further, exists only in relation to a
body.  But, where we move in circles like these, and where, pushing home
our enquiries, we can find nothing but the relation of unknown to
unknown--the conclusion is certain. We are in the realm of appearance,
of phenomena made by disruption of content from being, arrangements
which may represent, but which are not, reality. Such ways of
understanding are forced on us by the nature of the Universe, and
assuredly they possess their own worth for the Absolute (Chapter xxiv.).
But, as themselves and as they come to us, they are no less certainly
appearance. So far as we know them, they are but inconsistent
constructions; and, beyond our knowledge, they are forthwith beyond
themselves. The underlying and superior reality in each case we have no
right to call either a body or a soul. For, in becoming more, each loses
its title to that name. The body and soul are, in brief, phenomenal
arrangements, which take their proper place in the constructed series of
events; and, in that character, they are both alike defensible and
necessary. But neither is real in the end, each is merely phenomenal,
and one has no title to fact which is not owned by the other.

 We have seen, so far, that soul and body are, each alike, phenomenal
constructions, and we must next go on to point out the connection
between them. But, in order to clear the ground, I will first attempt to
dispose of several objections. (1) It will be urged against the
phenomenal view of the soul that, upon this, the soul loses independent
existence. If it is no more than a series of psychical events, it
becomes an appendage to the permanent body. For a psychical series, we
shall be told, has no inherent bond of continuity; nor is it, even as a
matter of fact, continuous; nor, again, does it offer anything of which
we can predicate "dispositions." Hence, if phenomenal, the soul sinks to
be an adjective of the  body. (2) And, from another side, we shall hear
it argued that the psychical series demands, as its condition, a
transcendent soul or Ego, and indeed without this is unintelligible. (3)
And, in the third place, we may be assured that some psychical fact is
given which contains more than phenomena, and that hence the soul has by
us been defined erroneously. I must endeavour to say something on these
objections in their order.

 1. I shall have to show lower down that it is impossible to treat soul
as the bare adjective of body, and I shall therefore say nothing on that
point at present. "But why," I may be asked, "not at least assist
yourself with the body? Why strain yourself to define the soul in mere
psychical terms? Would it not be better to call a soul those psychical
facts from time to time experienced within one organism?" I am forced to
reply in the negative. Such a definition would, in psychology, perhaps
not take us wrong, but, for all that, it remains incorrect and
indefensible. For, with lower organisms especially, it is not so easy to
fix the limits of a single organism. And, again further, we might
perhaps wish to define the organism by its relation to a single soul;
and, if so, we should have fallen into a vicious circle. Nor is it, once
more, even certain that the identities of soul and of body coincide. We,
I presume, are not sure that one soul might not have a succession of
bodies. And, in any case, we certainly do not know that one organism can
be organic to no more than one soul. There might be more than one
psychical centre at one time within the same body, and several bodies
might be organs to a higher unknown soul. And, even if we disregard
these possibilities as merely theoretical, we have still to deal with
the facts of mental disease. It seems at best doubtful if in some cases
the soul can be said to have continuous unity, or if it ought strictly
to be called single. And then, finally, there  remains the question, to
which we shall return, whether an organism is necessary in all cases for
the existence of a soul. We have perhaps with this justified our refusal
to introduce body into our definition of soul.

 But without this introduction what becomes of the soul? "What," we
shall be asked, "at any time can you say that the soul is, more
especially at those times when nothing psychical exists? And where will
you place the dispositions and acquired tendencies of the soul? For, in
the first place, the psychical series is not unbroken, and, in the
second place, dispositions are not psychical events. Are you then not
forced back to the body as the one continuous substrate?" This is a
serious objection, and, though our answer to it may prove sufficient, I
think no answer can quite satisfy.

 I must begin by denying a principle, or, as it seems to me, a prejudice
with regard to continuity. Real existence (we must allow) either is or
is not; and hence I agree also that, if in time, it cannot cease and
reappear, and that it must, therefore, be continuous. But, on the other
hand, we have proved that reality does not exist in time, but only
appears there. What we find in time is mere appearance; and with regard
to appearance I know no reason why it should not cease and reappear
without  forfeiting identity. A phenomenon A is produced by certain
conditions, which then are modified. Upon this, A, wholly or partially,
retires from existence, but, on another change, shows itself partly or
in full. A disappears into conditions which, even as such, need not
persist; but, when the proper circumstances are re-created, A exists
once again. Shall we assert that, if so, A's identity is gone? I do not
know on what principle. Or shall we insist that, at least in the
meantime, A cannot be said to be? But it seems not clear on what ground.
If we take such common examples as a rainbow, or a waterfall, or the
change of water into ice, we seek in vain for any principle but that of
working convenience. We feel sure that material atoms and their motion
continue unaltered, and that their existence, if broken, would be
utterly destroyed. But, unless we falsely take these atoms and their
motion for ultimate reality, we are resting here on no basis beyond
practical utility. And even here some of us are too inclined to lapse
into an easy-going belief in the "potential." But, as soon as these
atoms are left behind, can we even pretend to have any principle? We
call an organism identical, though we do not suppose that its atoms have
persisted. It is identical because its quality is (more or less) the
same, and because that quality has been (more or less) all the time
there. But why an interval must be fatal, is surely far from evident.
And, in fact, we are driven to the conclusion that we are arguing
without any rational ground. As soon as an existence in time is
perceived to be appearance, we can find no reason why it should not
lapse, and again be created. And with an organism, where even the matter
is not supposed to persist, we seem to have deserted every show of
principle.

 There is a further point which, before proceeding,  we may do well to
notice. We saw in the last chapter that part of Nature could hardly be
said to have actual existence (p. 277). Some of it seemed (at least at
some times) to be only hypothetical or barely potential; and I would
urge this consideration here with regard to the organism. My body is to
be real because it exists continuously; but, if, on the other hand, that
existence must be actual, can we call it continuous? The essential
qualities of my body (whatever these are) are certainly not, so far as
we know, perceived always. But, if so, and if they exist sometimes not
for perception but for thought, then most assuredly sometimes they do
not exist as such, and hence their continuity is broken. Thus we have
been forced to another very serious admission. We not only are ignorant
why continuity in time should be essential, but, so far as the organism
goes, we do not know that it possesses such continuity. It seems rather
to exist at times potentially and merely in its conditions. This is a
sort of existence which we shall discuss in the following chapter, but
it is at all events not existence actual and proper.

 After these more general remarks we may proceed to the difficulties
urged against our view of the soul. We have defined the soul as a series
of psychical events, and it has been objected that, if so, we cannot say
what the soul is at any one time. But at any one time, I reply, the soul
is the present datum of psychical fact, plus its actual past and its
conditional future. Or, until the last phrase has been explained, we may
content ourselves with saying that the soul is those psychical events,
which it both is now and has been. And this account, I admit, qualifies
something by adjectives which are not, and to offer it as an expression
of ultimate truth would be wholly indefensible. But then the soul, I
must repeat, is itself not ultimate fact. It is appearance,  and any
description of it must contain inconsistency. And, if any one objects,
he may be invited to define, for example, a body moving at a certain
rate, and to define it without predicating of the present what is either
past or future. And, if he will attempt this, he will, I think, perhaps
tend to lose confidence.

 But we have, so far, not said what we mean by "dispositions." A soul
after all, we shall be reminded, possesses a character, if not original,
at least acquired. And we certainly say that it is, because of that
which we expect of it. The soul's habits and tendencies are essential to
its nature, and, on the other hand, they cannot be psychical events.
Hence (the objection goes on to urge) they are not psychical at all, but
merely physical facts. Now to this I reply first that a disposition may
be "physical," and may, for all that, be still not an actual fact. Until
I see it defined so as to exclude reference to any past or future, and
freed from every sort of implication with the conditional and potential,
I shall not allow that it has been translated into physical fact. But,
even in that case, I should not accept the translation, for I consider
that we have a right everywhere for the sake of convenience to use the
"conditional." Into the proper meaning of this term I shall enquire in
the next chapter, but I will try to state briefly here how we apply it
to the soul. In saying that the soul has a disposition of a certain
kind, we take the present and past psychical facts as the subject, and
we predicate of this subject other psychical facts, which we think it
may become. The soul at present is such that it is part of those
conditions which, given the rest, would produce certain psychical
events. And hence the soul is the real possibility of these events, just
as objects in the dark are the possibility of colour. Now this way of
speaking is, of course, in the end incorrect, and is defensible only on
the ground of convenience. It is convenient, when facts are and have
been such and such, to have a short  way of saying what we infer that in
the future they may be. But we have no right to speak of dispositions at
all, if we turn them into actual qualities of the soul. The attempt to
do this would force us to go on enlarging the subject by taking in more
conditions, and in the end we should be asserting of the Universe at
large. I admit that it is arbitrary and inconsistent to predicate what
you cannot say the soul is, but what you only judge about it. But
everywhere, in dealing with phenomena, we can find no escape from
inconsistency and arbitrariness. We should not lessen these evils, but
should greatly increase them, if we took a disposition as meaning more
than the probable course of psychical events.

 But the soul, I shall be reminded, is not continuous in time, since
there are intervals and breaks in the psychical series. I shall not
attempt to deny this. We might certainly fall back upon unconscious
sensations, and insist that these, in any case and always, are to some
extent there. And such an assumption could hardly be shown to be untrue.
But I do not see that we could justify it on any sufficient ground, and
I will admit that the psychical series either is, or at all events may
be broken.

 But, on the other side, this admitted breach seems quite unimportant. I
can find no reason why a soul's existence, if interrupted and resumed,
should not be identical. Even apart from memory, if these divided
existences showed the same quality, we should call them the same, or, if
we declined, we should find no reason that would justify our refusal. We
might insist that, at any rate, in the interval the soul has lived
elsewhere, or that this  interval must, at all events, not be too long;
but, so far as I see, in both cases we should be asserting without a
ground. On the other hand, the amount of qualitative sameness, wanted
for psychical identity, seems fixed on no principle (Chapter ix.). And
the sole conclusion we can draw is this, that breaks in the temporal
series are no argument against our regarding it as a single soul.

 "What then in the interim," I may be asked, "do you say that the soul
is?" For myself, I reply, I should not say it is at all, when it does
not appear. All that in strictness I could assert would be that actually
the soul is not, though it has been, and again may be. And I have urged
above, that we can find no valid objection to intervals of
non-existence. But speaking not strictly, but with a view to practical
convenience, we might affirm that in these intervals the soul still
persists. We might say it is the conditions, into which it has
disappeared, and which probably will reproduce it. And, since the body
is a principal part of these conditions, we may find it convenient to
identify the "potential" soul with the body. This may be convenient, but
we must remember that really it is incorrect. For, firstly, conditions
are one thing, and actual fact another thing. And, in the second place,
the body (upon any hypothesis) is not all the conditions required for
the soul. It is impossible wholly to exclude the action of the
environment. And there is again, thirdly, a consideration on which I
must lay emphasis. If the soul is resolved and disappears into that
which may restore it, does not the same thing hold precisely with regard
to the body? Is it not conceivable that, in that interval when the soul
is "conditional," the body also should itself be dissolved into
conditions which afterwards re-create it? But, if so, these ulterior
conditions which now, I presume we are to say, the soul is, are
assuredly in strictness not the body at all. As a matter of  fact,
doubtless, this event does not happen within our knowledge. We do not
find that bodies disappear and once more are re-made; but, merely on
that ground, we are not entitled to deny that it is possible. And, if it
is possible, then I would urge at once the following conclusions. You
cannot, except as a matter of convenience, identify the conditions of
the soul with the body. And you cannot assert that the continuous
existence of the body is essentially necessary for the sameness and
unity of the soul.

 We have now dealt with the subject of the soul's continuity, and have
also said something on its "dispositions." And, before passing on to
objections of another kind, I will here try to obviate a
misunderstanding. The soul is an ideal construction, but a construction
by whom? Could we maintain that the soul exists only for itself? This
would be certainly an error, for we can say that a soul is before memory
exists, or when it does not remember. The soul exists always for a soul,
but not always for itself. And it is an ideal construction, not because
it is psychical, but because (like my body) it is a series appearing in
time. The same difficulty attaches to all phenomenal existence. Past and
future, and the Nature which no one perceives (Chapter xxii.) exist, as
such, only for some subject which thinks them. But this neither means
that their ultimate reality consists in being thought, nor does it mean
that they exist outside of finite souls. And it does not mean that the
Real is made by merely adding thought to our actual presentations.
Immediate experience in time, and thought, are each alike but false
appearance, and, in coming together, each must forego its own
distinctive character. In the Absolute there is neither mere existence
at one moment  nor any ideal construction. Each is merged in a higher
and all-containing Reality (Chapter xxiv.).

 2. We have seen, so far, that our phenomenal view of the soul does not
degrade it to an adjective depending on the body. Can we reply to
objections based on other grounds? The psychical series, we may be told,
demands as its condition a something transcendent, a soul or Ego which
stands above, and gives unity to, the series. But such a soul, I reply,
merely adds further difficulties to those we had before. No doubt the
series, being phenomenal, is the appearance of Reality, but it hardly
follows from this that its reality is an Ego or soul. We have seen
(Chapter x.) that such a being, because finite, is infected with its own
relations to other finites. And it is so far from giving unity to the
series of events, that their plurality refuses to come together with its
singleness. Hence the oneness remains standing outside the many, as a
further finite unit. You cannot show how the series becomes a system in
the soul; and, if you could, you cannot free that soul from its
perplexed position as one finite related to other finites. In short,
metaphysically your soul or Ego is a mass of confusion, and we have now
long ago disposed of it. And if it is offered us merely as a working
conception, which does not claim truth, then this conception, as we have
seen, will not work in metaphysics. Its alleged function must be
confined to psychology, an empirical science, and the further
consideration of it here would be, therefore, irrelevant.

 3. But our account of the soul, as a series of  events, may be attacked
perhaps from the ground of psychology itself. There are psychical facts,
it may be urged, which are more than events, and these facts, it may be
argued, refute our definition. I must briefly deal with this objection,
and my reply may be summed up thus. There are psychical facts, which are
more than events; but, if they are not also events, they are not facts
at all. I will take these two propositions in their order.

 (a) We have seen that my psychical states, and my private experience,
can be at the same time what they are, and yet something much more.
Every distinction that is made in the fact of presentation, every
content, or "what," that is loosened from its "that," is at once more
than a mere event. Nay an event itself, as one member in a temporal
series, is only itself by transcending its own  present existence. And
this transcendence becomes more obvious, when an identical quality
persists unaltered through a succession of changes. There is, to my
mind, no question as to our being concerned here with more than mere
events. And, far from contesting this, I have endeavoured to insist on
the conclusion that everything in time has a quality which passes beyond
itself.

 (b) But then, if so, have we allowed the force of the objection? Have
we admitted that there are facts which are not events in time? This
would be a grave misunderstanding, and against it we must urge our
second proposition. A fact. or event, is always more than itself; but,
if less than itself, it is no longer properly a fact. It has now been
taken as a content working loose from the "this," and has, so far,
become a mere aspect and abstraction. And yet this abstraction, on the
other hand, must have its existence. It must appear, somehow, as, or in
a particular event, with a given place and duration in the temporal
series. There are, in brief, aspects which, taken apart, are not events;
and yet these aspects must appear in psychical existence.

 The objection has failed to perceive this double nature of things, and
it has hence fallen blindly into a vicious dilemma. Because in our life
there is more than events, it has rashly argued that this "more" must be
psychical fact. But, if it is psychical fact, and not able to be
experienced, I do not know what it could mean, or in what wonderful way
we could be supposed to get at it. And, on the other side, to be
experienced without happening in the psychical series, or to occur there
without taking place as an event among events, seem phrases without
meaning. What we experience is a content, which is one with, and which
occurs as, a particular mental state. The same content, again, as ideal,
is used away from its state, and only appears there. By itself it is not
a fact; and, if it were one, it would,  so far, cease to be ideal, and
would therefore become a mere event among events.

 If you take the identity of a series, whether physical or psychical,
this identity, considered as such, is not an event which happens. But,
on the other hand, can we call it a fact of experience? To speak
strictly, we cannot, since all identity is ideal. It, as such, is not
directly experienced, even as occurring in the facts, and, still less,
as something which happens alongside of or between them. It is an
adjective which, as separate, could not exist, and its essence, we may
say, consists in distinction. But, on the other side, this distinction,
and, again the construction of a series, is an event. And it must happen
in a soul; for where else could it exist? As a mental state, more than
its mere content, it also must have a place, and duration, in the
psychical series. And, otherwise, it could not be a part of experience.
But the identity itself is but an aspect of the events, or event, and is
certainly ideal.

 "No," I shall be told, "the identity and continuity of the soul must be
more than this. It cannot fall in what is given, for all the given is
discrete. And it cannot consist in ideal content, for, in that case, it
would not be real. It must therefore come somehow along with phenomena,
in such a way that it does not happen as an event within the psychical
series." But, as soon as we consider this claim, its inconsistency is
obvious. If anything is experienced, now or always, along with what is
given, then this (whatever it is) is surely a psychical event, with a
place, or places, in the series. But, if, on the other hand, it has not,
in any sense, position or duration in my history, you will hardly
persuade me that it  makes part of my experience at all. I do not see,
in short, how anything can come there, unless it is prepared, from some
side, to enter and to take its place there. And, if it is not to be an
element in experience, it will be nothing. And I doubt if any one would
urge a claim so suicidal and so absurd, unless for the sake of, and in
order to defend, a preconceived doctrine. Because phenomena in time are
not real, there must be something more than temporal. But because we
wrongly assume that nothing is real, unless it exists as a thing,
therefore the element, which transcends time, must be somehow and
somewhere beside it. This element is a world, or a soul, or an Ego,
which never descends into our series. It never comes down there itself,
though we are forced, I presume, to say that it works, and that it makes
itself felt. But this irrational influence and position results merely
from our false assumption. We are attempting to pass beyond the series,
while we, in effect, deny that anything is real, unless it is a member
there. For our other world, and our soul, and our Ego, which exist
beside temporal events, have been taken themselves as but finite things.
They merely reduplicate phenomena, they do but double the world of
appearance. They leave on our hands unsolved the problem that vexed us
before, and they load us beside with an additional puzzle. We have now,
not only another existence no better than the first, but we have to
explain also how one of these stands to, or works on, the other. And the
result is open self- contradiction or thoughtless obscurity. But the
remedy is to purge ourselves of our groundless prejudice, and to seek
reality elsewhere than in the existence of things. Continuity and
identity, the other world and the Ego, do not, as such, exist. They are
ideal, and, as such, they are not facts. But none the less they have
reality, at least not inferior to that of temporal events. We must admit
that, in the full sense,  neither ideality nor existence is real. But
you cannot pass, from the one-sided denial of one, to the one-sided
assertion of the other. The attempt is based on a false alternative,
and, in either case, must result in self- contradiction.

 It is perhaps necessary, though wearisome, to add some remarks on the
Ego. The failure to see that continuity and identity are ideal, has
produced efforts to find the Ego existing, as such, as an actual fact.
This Ego is, on the one hand, to be somehow experienced as a fact, and,
on the other hand, it must not exist either as one or as a number of
events. And the attempt naturally is futile. For most assuredly, as we
find it, the self is determinate. It is always qualified by a content.
The Ego and Non-ego are at any time experienced, not in general, but
with a particular character. But such an appearance is obviously a
psychical event, with a given place in the series. And upon this I urge
the following dilemma. If your Ego has no content, it is nothing, and it
therefore is not experienced; but, if on the other hand it is anything,
it is a phenomenon in time. But "not at all," may be the answer, "since
the Ego is outside the series, and is merely related to it, and perhaps
acting on it." I do not see that this helps us. If, I repeat, your Ego
has no content, then anywhere it is nothing; and the relation of
something to this nothing, and again its action upon anything, are
utterly unmeaning. But, if upon the other hand this Ego has a content,
then, for the sake of argument, you may say, if you please, that it
exists. But, in any case, it stands outside, and it does not come into,
experience at all. "No, it does not come there itself; it never, so to
speak, appears in person; but its relation to phenomena, or its action
on them, is certainly somehow experienced,  or at least known." In this
answer the position seems changed, but it is really the same, and it
does but lead back to our old dilemma. You cannot, in any sense, know,
or perceive, or experience, a term as in relation, unless you have also
the other term to which it is related. And, if we will but ponder this,
surely it becomes self-evident. Well then, either you have not got any
relation of phenomena to anything at all; or else the other term, your
thing the Ego, takes its place among the rest. It becomes another event
among psychical events.

 It would be useless to pursue into its ramifications a view false at
the root, and based (as we have seen) on a vicious alternative. That
which is more than an event must also, from another side, exist, and
must thus appear in, or as, one member of the temporal series. But, so
far as it transcends time, it is ideal, and, as such, is not fact. The
attempt to take it as existing somehow and somewhere alongside, thrusts
it back into the sphere of finite particulars. In this way, with all our
struggles, we never rise beyond some world of mere events, and we
revolve vainly in a circle which brings us round to our starting-place.
If it were possible for us to apprehend the whole series at once, and to
take in its detail as one undivided totality, certainly then the
timeless would have been experienced as a fact. But in that case
ideality on the one side, and events on the other, would have each come
to an end in a higher mode of being.

 The objections, which we have discussed, have all shown themselves
ill-founded. There is certainly nothing experienced which is not an
event, though  we have seen that in events there is that which
transcends them. All continuity is ideal, and the arguments brought
against the oneness of a psychical series, we saw, were not valid. Nor
could we find that our phenomenal view of the soul brought it down to be
an adjective depending on the organism. For the organism itself is also
phenomenal. Soul and body are alike in being only appearance, and their
connection is merely the relation of phenomena. It is the special nature
of this relation that we have next to discuss.

 I will begin by pointing out a view from which we must dissent. The
soul and body may be regarded as two sides of one reality, or as the
same thing taken twice and from two aspects of its being. I intend to
say nothing here on the reasons which may lead to this conclusion, nor
to discuss the various objections which might be brought against them. I
will briefly state the ground on which I am forced to reject the
proposed identity. In the first place, even if we confine our attention
to phenomena, I do not see that we are justified in thus separating each
soul with its body from the rest of the world (p. 358). And there is a
fatal objection to this doctrine, if carried further. If in the end soul
and body are to be one thing, then, with whatever justification, you
have concluded to a plurality of finite reals within the Absolute. But
we have seen that such a conclusion is wholly indefensible. When soul
and body come together in Reality, I utterly fail to perceive any reason
why the special nature of each is, as such, to be preserved. It is one
thing to be convinced that no element, or aspect of phenomena, can be
lost in the Absolute. But it is quite another thing to maintain that
every appearance, when there, continues to keep its distinctive
character. To be resolved rather and to be merged, each as a factor in
what is higher, is the nature of such things as the body and the soul.

  And with this we are brought to a well-known and much-debated
question. Is there a causal connection between the physical and the
psychical, and are we to say that one series influences the other? I
will begin by stating the view which prima facie suggests itself, I will
then briefly discuss some erroneous doctrines, and will end by trying to
set out a defensible conclusion. And, first, the belief which occurs to
the unbiassed observer is that soul acts upon body and body on soul. I
do not mean by this that bare soul seems to work on bare body, for such
a distinction is made only by a further reflection. I mean that, if
without any theory you look at the facts, you will find that changes in
one series (whichever it is) are often concerned in bringing on changes
in the other. Psychical and physical, each alike, make a difference to
one another. It is obvious that alterations of the soul come from
movements in the organism, and it is no less obvious that the latter may
be consequent on the former. We may be sure that no one, except to save
a theory, would deny that in volition mind influences matter. And with
pain and pleasure such a denial would be even less natural. To hold that
now in the individual pleasure and pain do not move, but are mere idle
accompaniments, to maintain that never in past development have they
ever made a difference to anything --surely this strikes the common
observer as a wilful paradox. And, for myself, I doubt if most of those,
who have accepted the doctrine in general, have fully realized its
meaning.

 This natural view, that body and soul have influence on each other, we
shall find in the end to be proof against attack. But we must pass on
now to consider some opposing conclusions. The man who denies the
interaction in any sense of body and soul, must choose from amongst the
possibilities which remain. He may take the two series as going on
independently and side by side, or may  make one the subordinate and
adjective of the other. And I will begin by making some remarks on the
parallel series. But I must ignore the historical development of this
view, and must treat it barely as if it were an idea which is offered us
to-day.

 I would observe, first, that an assertion or a denial of causation can
hardly be proved if you insist on demonstration. You may show that every
detail we know points towards one result, and that we can find no
special reason for taking this result as false. And, having done so
much, you certainly have proved your conclusion. But, even after this, a
doubt remains with to what is possible. And, unless all other
possibilities can be disposed of, you have failed to demonstrate. In the
particular doctrine before us we have, I think, a case in point. The
mere coincidence of soul and body cannot be shown to be impossible; but
this bare possibility is, on the other hand, no good reason for
supposing the coincidence to be fact.

 Appearance points to a causal connection between the physical and
psychical series. And yet this appearance might possibly be a show,
produced in the following way. There might on each side be other
conditions, escaping our view, which would be enough to account for the
changes in each series. And we may even carry our supposition a step
further on. There might on both sides be, within each series, no causal
connection between its events. A play of unknown conditions might, on
either side, present the appearance of a series. The successive facts
would in that case show a regular sequence, but they would not actually
be members and links of any one connected series. I do not see how such
a suggestion can be proved to be impossible; but that is surely no
reason for regarding it as fact. And to this same result we are led,
when we return to consider the idea of two coinciding series. The  idea
seems baseless, and I do not think it necessary to dwell further on this
point.

 We seem, therefore, driven to regard soul and body as causally
connected, and the question will be as to the nature of their
connection. Can this be all, so to speak, on one side? Is the soul
merely an adjective depending on the body, and never more than an
effect? Or is, again, the body a mere accompaniment resulting from the
soul? Both these questions must be met by an emphatic negative. The
suggested relation is, in each case, inconsistent and impossible. And,
since there is no plausibility in the idea of physical changes always
coming from, and never reacting on, the soul, I will not stop to
consider it. I will pass to the opposite one- sidedness, a doctrine
equally absurd, though, at first sight, seeming more plausible.

 Psychical changes, upon this view, are never causes at all, but are
solely effects. They are adjectives depending upon the body, but which
at the same time make absolutely no difference to it. They do not quite
fall outside causation, for they are events which certainly are produced
by physical changes. But they enter the causal series in one character
only. They are themselves produced, but on the other hand nothing ever
results from them. And this does not merely mean that, for certain
purposes, you may take primary qualities as unaffected by secondary, and
may consider  secondary qualities as idle adjectives which issue from
primary. It means that all psychical changes are effects, brought about
by what is physical, while themselves absolutely without any influence
on the succession of phenomena. I have been forced to state this view in
my own terms as, though widely held, I do not find it anywhere precisely
expressed. Its adherents satisfy themselves with metaphors, and rest on
half worked out comparisons. And all that their exposition, to me, makes
clear, is the confusion which it springs from.

 The falseness of this doctrine can be exhibited from two points of
view. It involves the contradiction of an adjective which makes no
difference to its substantive, and the contradiction of an event in
time, which is an effect but not a cause. For the sake of brevity I
shall here confine myself to the second line of criticism. I must first
endeavour, in my own way, to give to the materialistic doctrine a
reasonable form; and I will then point out that its inconsistency is
inherent and not removable.

 If we agree to bring psychical events under the head of what is
"secondary," we may state the proposed way of connection as follows:

  A--B--C.

 *  *  *

 *  *  *.

  A, B, C is the succession of primary qualities, and it is taken to be
a true causal series. Between the secondary products, *, *, *, is no
causal connection, nor do they make any difference to the sequence of C
from B and of B from A. They are, each of them, adjectives which happen,
but which  produce no consequence. But, though their succession is not
really causal, it must none the less appear so, because it is regular.
And it must be regular, since it depends on a series which is
unalterably fixed by causation. And in this way (it may be urged) the
alleged inconsistency is avoided, and all is made harmonious. We are not
forced into the conclusion that the self-same cause can produce two
different effects. A is not first followed by mere B, and then again by
B*, since * is, in fact, irremovable from A. Nor is it necessary to
suppose that the sequence A--B must ever occur by itself. For * will, in
fact, accompany A, and * will always occur with B. Still this
inseparability will in no way affect our result, which is the outcome
and expression of a general principle. A--B--C is the actual and sole
thread of causation, while *, *, * are the adjectives which idly adorn
it. And hence these latter must seem to be that which really they are
not. They are in fact decorative, but either always or usually so as to
appear constructional.

 This is the best statement that I can make in defence of my unwilling
clients, and I have now to show that this statement will not bear
criticism. But there is one point on which I, probably, have exceeded my
instructions. To admit that the sequence A--B--C does not exist by
itself, would seem contrary to that view which is more generally held.
Yet, without this admission, the inconsistency can be exhibited more
easily.

 The Law of Causation is the principle of Identity, applied to the
successive. Make a statement involving succession, and you have
necessarily made a statement which, if true, is true always. Now, if it
is true universally that B follows A, then that sequence is what we mean
by a causal law. If, on the other hand, the sequence is not universally
true,  then it is not true at all. For B, in that case, must have
followed something more or less than A; and hence the judgment A --B was
certainly false. Thus a stated fact of succession is untrue, till it has
been taken as a fact of causation. And a fact of causation is truth
which is, and must be, universal. It is an abstracted relation, which is
either false always, or always true. And hence, if we are able to say
ever that B follows mere A, then this proposition A--B is eternal
verity. But, further, a truth cannot be itself and at the same time
something different. And therefore once affirm A--B, and you can not
affirm also and as well A--B*, if (that is to say) in both cases you are
keeping to the same A. For if the event * follows, while arising from no
difference, you must assert of mere A both "--B" and "--B*." But these
two assertions are incompatible. In the same way, if A* has, as a
consequence, mere B, it is impossible that bare A should possess the
same consequence. If it seems otherwise, then certainly A was not bare,
or else * was not relevant. And any other conclusion would imply two
incompatible assertions with regard to B.

 Hence we may come to a first conclusion about the view which makes an
idle adjective of the soul. If it asserts that these adjectives both
happen, and do not happen, for no reason at all, if it will say that the
physical sequence is precisely the same, both without them and with
them, then such a view flatly contradicts itself. For it not only
supposes differences, which do not make any difference--a  supposition
which is absurd; but it also believes in a decoration, which at one time
goes with, and at another time stays away from its construction, and
which is an event which, equally in either case, is without any reason.
And, with this, perhaps we may pass on.

 Let us return to that statement of the case which appeared to us more
plausible. There is a succession

  A--B--C

 *  *  *

 *  *  *,  and in this the secondary qualities are inseparable from the
primary. A--B--C is, in fact, never found by itself, but it is, for all
that, the true and the only causal sequence. We shall, however, find
that this way of statement does but hide the same mistake which before
was apparent. In the succession above, unless there really is more than
we are supposed to take in, and unless *, *, * are connected with
something outside, we have still the old inconsistency. If A--B--C is
the truth, then the succession, which we had, is in fact impossible;
and, if the sequence is modified, then A--B --C can not possibly be
true. I will not urge that, if it were true, it would at least be
undiscoverable, since, by the hypothesis, * is inseparable from A. I
admit that we may postulate sometimes where we cannot prove or observe;
and I prefer to show that such a postulate is here self-contradictory.
It is assumed that * is an adjective indivisible from A, but is an
adjective which at the same time makes no difference to its being. Or *,
at any rate, makes no difference to the action of A, but is perfectly
inert. But, if so, then, as before, A possesses two predicates
incompatible with each other. We cannot  indeed say, as before, that in
fact it is followed first by mere B, and then again by B*. But we, none
the less, are committed to assertions which clash. We hold that A
produces B, and that A produces B*; and one of these judgments must be
false. For, if A produces mere B, then it does not produce B*. Hence *
is either an event which is a gratuitous accident, or else * must have
somehow (indirectly or directly) made this difference in B. But, if so,
* is not inert, but is a part-cause of B; and therefore the sequence of
B from mere A is false. The plausibility of our statement has proved
illusory.

 I am loath to perplex the question by subtleties, which would really
carry us no further; but I will notice a possible evasion of the issue.
The secondary qualities, I may be told, do not depend each on one
primary, but are rather the adjectives of relations between these. They
attend on certain relations, yet make no difference to what follows. But
here the old and unresolved contradiction remains. It cannot be true
that any relation (say of A to E), which produces another relation (say
of B to F), should both produce this latter naked, and also attended by
an adjective, *. One of these assertions must be false, and, with it,
your conclusion. It is in short impossible to have differences which
come without a difference, or which make no difference to what follows
them. The attempt involves a contradiction, explicit or veiled, but in
either case ruinous to the theory which adopts it.

 We have now finished our discussion of erroneous views. We have seen
that to deny the active  connection of body and soul is either dangerous
or impossible. It is impossible, unless we are  prepared to contradict
ourselves, to treat the soul as a mere adjective not influencing the
body. And to accept, on the other hand, two coinciding and parallel
series is to adopt a conclusion opposed to the main bulk of appearance.
Nor for such a desertion of probability can I find any warrant. The
common view, that soul and body make a difference to one another, is in
the end proof against objection. And I will endeavour now to set it out
in a defensible form.

 Let me say at once that, by a causal connection of mind with matter, I
do not mean that one influences the other when bare. I do not mean that
soul by itself ever acts upon body, or that mere bodily states have an
action on bare soul. Whether anything of the kind is possible, I shall
enquire lower down; but I certainly see no reason to regard it as
actual. I understand that, normally, we have an event with two sides,
and that these two sides, taken together, are the inseparable cause of
the event which succeeds. What is the effect? It is a state of soul
going along with a state of body, or rather with a state of those parts
of our organism which are considered to be in immediate relation with
mind. And what are we to say is the cause? It is a double event of the
same kind, and the two sides of it, both in union, produce the effect.
The alteration of mind, which results, is not the effect of mind or
body, acting singly or alone, but of both working at once. And the state
of body, which accompanies it, is again the product of two influences.
It is brought about neither by bare body, nor yet again  by bare soul.
Hence a difference, made in one side, must make a difference to the
other side, and it makes a difference also to both sides of what
follows. And, though this statement will receive later some
qualification (p. 337), the causal connection of the soul's events, in
general, is inseparably double.

 In physiology and in psychology we, in practice, disregard this
complication. We for convenience sake regard as the cause, or as the
effect, what is in reality but a prominent condition or consequence. And
such a mutilation of phenomena is essential to progress. We speak of an
intellectual sequence, in which the conclusion, as a psychical event, is
the effect of the premises. We talk as if the antecedent mental state
were truly the cause, and were not merely one part of it. Where, in
short, we find that on either side the succession is regular, we regard
it as independent. And it is only where irregularity is forced on our
attention, that we perceive body and mind to interfere with one another.
But, at this point, practical convenience has unawares led us into
difficulty. We are puzzled now to comprehend how that which was
independent has been induced to leave its path. We begin to seek the
cause which forces it to exert and to suffer influence; and, with this,
we are well on the road to false theory and ruinous error.

 But the truth is that no mere psychical sequence is a fact, or in any
way exists. With each of its members is conjoined always a physical
event, and these physical events enter into every link of causation. The
state of mind, or body, is here never more than part-cause, or again
more than part-effect. We may attend to either of the sides, which for
our purpose is prominent; we may ignore the action of the other side,
where it is constant and regular; but we cannot deny that both really
contribute to the effect. Thus we speak of feelings and of ideas as
influencing the body. And so they do, since they  make a difference to
the physical result, and since this result is not the consequence from a
mere physical cause. But feelings and ideas, on the other hand, neither
act nor exist independent of body. The altered physical state is the
effect of conditions, which are, at once, both psychical and physical.
We find the same duplicity when we consider alterations of the soul. An
incoming sensation may be regarded as caused by the body; but this view
is, taken generally, one-sided and incorrect. The prominent condition
has been singled out, and the residue ignored. And, if we deny the
influence of the antecedent psychical state, we have pushed allowable
licence once more into mistake.

 The soul and its organism are each a phenomenal series. Each, to speak
in general, is implicated in the changes of the other. Their supposed
independence is therefore imaginary, and to overcome it by invoking a
faculty such as Will--is the effort to heal a delusion by means of a
fiction. In every psychical state we have to do with two sides, though
we disregard one. Thus in the "Association of Ideas" we have no right to
forget that there is a physical sequence essentially concerned. And the
law of Association must itself be extended, to take in connections
formed between physical and psychical elements. The one of these
phenomena, on its re-occurrence, may bring back the other. In this way a
psychical state, once conjoined with a physical, may normally restore
it; and hence this psychical state can be treated as the cause. It is
not properly the cause, since it is not the whole cause; but it is most
certainly an effective and differential condition. The physical event is
not the result from a mere physical state. And if the idea or feeling
had been absent, or if again it had not acted, this physical event would
not have happened.

 I am aware that such a statement is not an explanation, but I insist
that in the end no explanation  is possible. There are many enquiries
which are legitimate. To ask about the "seat" of the soul, and about the
ultimate modes of sequence and co-existence, both physical and
psychical, is proper and necessary. We may remain incapable, in part, of
resolving these problems; but at all events the questions they put are
essentially answerable, however little we are called upon to deal with
them here. But the connection of body and soul is in its essence
inexplicable, and the further enquiry as to the "how" is irrational and
hopeless. For soul and body are not realities. Each is a series,
artificially abstracted from the whole, and each, as we have seen, is
self-contradictory. We cannot in the end understand how either comes to
exist, and we know that both, if understood, would, as such, have been
transmuted. To comprehend them, while each is fixed in its own untrue
character, is utterly impossible. But, if so, their way of connection
must remain unintelligible.

 And the same conclusion may be reached by considering the causal
series. In this normally the two sides are inseparable from each other,
and it was by a licence only that we were permitted ever to disregard
one side. But, with this result, still we have not reached the true
causal connection. It is only by a licence that in the end both sides
taken together can be abstracted from the universe. The cause is not the
true cause unless it is the whole cause; and it is not the whole cause
unless in it you include the environment, the entire mass of unspecified
conditions in the background. Apart from this you have regularities, but
you have not attained to intelligible necessity. But the entire mass of
conditions is not merely inexhaustible, but also it is infinite; and
thus a complete knowledge of causation is theoretically impossible. Our
known causes and  effects are held always by a licence and partly on
sufferance. To observe regularities, to bring one under the other as far
as possible, to remove everywhere what can be taken as in practice
irrelevant, and thus to reduce the number of general facts--we cannot
hope for more than this in explaining concrete phenomena. And to seek
for more in the connection of body and soul is to pursue a chim‘ra.

 But, before we proceed, there are points which require consideration. A
state of soul seems not always to follow, even in part, from a preceding
state. And an arrangement of mere physical conditions seems to supply
the whole origin of a psychical life. And again, when the soul is
suspended and once more reappears, the sole cause of the reappearance
seems to lie in the body. I will begin by dealing with the question
about the soul's origin. We must remember, in the first place, that mere
body is an artificial abstraction, and that its separation from mind
disappears in the Whole. And, when the abstraction is admitted and when
we are standing on this basis, it is not certain, even then, that any
matter exists unconnected with soul (Chapter xxii.). Now, if we bear in
mind these considerations, we need not seek to deny that physical
conditions can be the origin of a psychical life. We might have at one
moment a material arrangement and at the next moment we might find that
this arrangement was modified, and was accompanied by a certain degree
of soul. Even if this as a fact does not happen, I can find absolutely
no reason to doubt that it is possible, nor does it seem to me to clash
with our preceding view. But we must beware of misunderstandings. We can
hardly believe, in the first place, that a soul, highly developed,
arises thus all at once. And we must remember, in the second place, that
a soul. which is the result of mere matter, on the other hand at once
qualifies and  reacts on that matter. Mere body will, even here, never
act upon bare mind. The event is single at one moment, and is double at
the next; but in this twofold result the sides will imply, and will make
a difference to one another. They are a joint-effect, and in what
follows, whether as passive or active, each is nothing by itself. The
soul is never mere soul, and the body, as soon as ever the soul has
emerged, is no longer bare body. And, when this is understood, we may
assent to the physical origin of mind. But we must remember that the
material cause of the soul will be never the whole cause. Matter is a
phenomenal isolation of one aspect of reality. And the event which
results from any material arrangement, really presupposes and depends on
the entire background of conditions. It is only through a selection, and
by a licence, that a mere physical cause can anywhere be supposed to
exist.

 And the same conclusion holds when we consider the suspension of a
soul. The psychical life of an organism seems more or less to disappear,
and again to be restored, and we have to ask whether this restoration is
effected by mere matter. We may distinguish here two questions, one of
which concerns fact, and the other possibility. It is first, I think,
impossible to be sure that anywhere psychical functions have ceased
wholly. You certainly cannot conclude from the absence of familiar
phenomena to the absence of everything, however different in degree or
in kind. And whether, as a fact, anywhere in an organism its soul is
quite suspended, I do not pretend to know. But assuming for argument's
sake that this is so, it does not lead to a new difficulty. We have a
case once more here, where physical conditions are the origin of a
psychical result, and there seems no need to add anything to  our
discussion of this point. And what we are to say the soul is in the
interval, during which it has ceased to exist, we have already enquired.

 And under this head of suspension may fall all those cases, where a
psychical association seems to have become merely physical. In
psychology we have connections, which once certainly or possibly were
conscious, but now, in part or altogether, and either always or at
times, appear to happen without any psychical links. But, however
interesting for psychology, these cases have little metaphysical
importance. And I will content myself here with repeating our former
warnings. It is, in the first place, not easy to be sure of our ground,
when we wholly exclude an unconscious process in the soul. But, even
when this has been excluded, and we are left with bare body, the body
will be no more than relatively bare. We shall have reached something
where the soul in question is absent, but where we cannot say that soul
is absent altogether. For there is no part of Nature, which we can say
(Chapter xxii.) is not directly organic to a soul or souls. And the
merely physical, we saw, is in any case a mere abstraction. It is set
apart from, and still depends on, the whole of experience.

 I will briefly notice another point. It may be objected that our view
implies interference with, or suspension of, the laws of matter or of
mind. And it will be urged that such interference is wholly untenable.
This objection would rest on a misunderstanding. Every law which is true
is true always and for ever; but, upon the other hand, every law is
emphatically an abstraction. And hence obviously all laws are true only
in the abstract. Modify the conditions, add some elements to make the
connection more concrete, and the law is transcended. It  is not
interfered with, and it holds, but it does not hold of this case. It
remains perfectly true, but is inapplicable where the conditions which
it supposes are absent.

 I have dwelt at length on the connection of body and soul, but it
presents a series of questions which we have, even yet, not discussed. I
must endeavour to dispose of these briefly. Can we say that bare soul
ever acts upon body, and can soul exist at all without matter, and if
so, in what sense? In our experience assuredly bare soul is not found.
Its existence there, and its action, are inseparable from matter; but a
question obviously can be asked with regard to what is possible. As to
this, I would begin by observing that, if bare soul exists, I hardly see
how we could prove its existence. We have seen (Chapter xxii.) that we
can set no bounds to the variety of bodies. An extended organism might,
none the less, be widely scattered and discontinuous; and again
organisms might be shared wholly or partially between souls. Further, of
whatever extended material a body is composed, there remains the
question of its possible functions and properties. I cannot see how, on
the one hand, we can fix the limits of these. But upon the other hand,
if we fail to do so, I do not understand by what process we even begin
to infer the existence of bare soul. And our result so far must be this.
We may agree that soul, acting or existing in separation from body, is a
thing which is possible; but we are still without the smallest reason,
further, for regarding it as real.

 But is such a soul indeed possible? Or let us rather ask, first, what
such a soul would mean. For, if disconnected from all extension, it
might even then not be naked. One can imagine an  arrangement of
secondary qualities, not extended but constant; and this might accompany
psychical life and serve as a body (p. 268). We have no reason for
seriously entertaining this idea, but, on the other hand, is there any
argument which would prove it impossible? And we may come to the same
conclusion with regard to bare soul. This would mean a psychical series
devoid of every quality that could serve as an organism. Of course if it
were a "spirit," immaterial and at the same time localized and extended,
it would be inconsistent with itself. But there is no necessity for our
falling into such self- contradiction. A psychical series without
extension or locality in space, I presume, is conceivable. And this bare
series might, for all we know, normally, or on occasion, even influence
body. Nay, for all that I can perceive, such a naked soul might do more.
Just as we saw that soul can follow from material conditions, so, in the
course of events, some matter might itself result from soul. All these
things are "possible" in this sense, that, within our knowledge, they
cannot any of them be proved to be unreal. But they are mere idle
possibilities. We can find no further ground for entertaining them, and
in an estimate of probability we could not give them an appreciable
value. But surely that which we have no more reason for taking as true,
is nothing which we need trouble ourselves to consider. We have in fact
no choice but to treat it as wholly non- existent.

 We have now discussed the general connection of soul with body. We have
seen that neither is reality. Each is a phenomenal series, and their
members, as events in time, are causally related. The changes on one
side in their sequence are  inseparable from, and affected by, the
changes on the other side. This, so far as body and soul are connected
at all, is the normal course of things. But when we went on to
investigate, we found a difference. The existence and action of bare
soul is a mere possibility. We have no further reason to believe in it;
nor, if it were fact, do I see how we should be able to discover it. But
the existence of mere body, and the appearance of soul as its
consequence, and again the partial absence or abeyance of psychical
links, we found much more than possible. When properly interpreted,
though we cannot prove that these are facts, they have very great
probability. Still there is not, after all, the smallest ground to
suppose that mere matter directly acts upon psychical states. To gain an
accurate view of this connection in all its features is exceedingly
difficult. But what is important for metaphysics, is to realize clearly
that the interest of such details is secondary. Since the phenomenal
series, in any case, come together in the Absolute, since their special
characters must be lost there and be dissolved in what transcends
them--the existence by itself of either body or soul is illusory. Their
separation may be used for particular purposes, but it is, in the end,
an untrue or a provisional abstraction.

 It is necessary, before ending this chapter, to say something on the
relation of soul to soul. The way of communication between souls, and
again their sameness and difference, are points on which we must be
careful to guard against error. It is certain, in the first place, that
experiences are all separate from each other. However much their
contents are identical, they are on the other hand made different by
appearing as elements in distinct centres of feeling. The immediate
experiences of finite beings cannot, as such, come together; and to  be
possessed directly of what is personal to the mind of another, would in
the end be unmeaning. Thus souls, in a sense at least, are separate;
but, upon the other hand, they are able to act on one other. And I will
begin by enquiring how, in fact, they exercise this influence.

 The direct action of soul on soul is, for all we know, possible; but we
have, at the same time, no reason for regarding it as more. That which
influences, and that which acts, is, so far as we know, always the
outside of our bodies. Nor, even if we admit abnormal perception and
influence at a distance, need we modify this result. For here the
natural inference would be to a medium extended in space, and of course,
like "ether," quite material. And in this way the abnormal connection,
if it exists, does not differ in kind from what is familiar. Again the
inside of one organism might, I presume, act directly on the inside of
another. But, if this is possible, we need not therefore consider it as
actual. Nor do such enquiries possess genuine metaphysical interest. For
the influence of the internal, whether body or soul, is not less
effective because it operates through, and with, the outside; nor would
it gain in reality by becoming direct. And with this we may dismiss an
idea, misemployed by superstition, but from which no conclusion of the
smallest importance could follow. A direct connection between souls we
cannot say is impossible, but, on the other hand, we find no good reason
for supposing it to exist. The possibility seems, in addition, to be
devoid of all interest.

 We may assume then that souls do not influence each other, except
through their bodies. And hence it is only by this way that they are
able to communicate. Alterations of the phenomenal group which I call my
body, produce further changes in the physical environment. And thus,
indirectly or  directly, other organisms are altered, with consequent
effects on the course of their accompanying souls. This account, which
is true of my soul, holds good also with others. The world is such that
we can make the same intellectual construction. We can, more or less,
set up a scheme, in which every one has a place, a system constant and
orderly, and in which the relations apprehended by each percipient
coincide. Why and how this comes about we in the end cannot understand;
but it is such an Uniformity of Nature which makes communication
possible.

 But this may suggest to us a doubt. If such alterations of bodies are
the sole means which we possess for conveying what is in us, can we be
sure in the end that we really have conveyed it? For suppose that the
contents of our various souls differed radically, might we not still, on
the same ground, be assured of their sameness? The objection is serious,
and must be admitted in part to hold good. I do not think we can be sure
that the sensible qualities we perceive are for every one the same. We
infer from the apparent identity of our structure that this is so; and
our conclusion, though not proved, possesses high probability. And,
again, it may be impossible in fact that, while the relations are
constant, the qualities should vary; but to assert this would be to pass
beyond the limits of our knowledge. What, however, we are convinced of,
is briefly this, that we understand and, again, are ourselves
understood. There is, indeed, a theoretical possibility that these other
bodies are without any souls, or that, while behaving as if they 
understood us, their souls really remain apart in worlds shut up from
ours. But, when this bare possibility is excluded, the question stands
thus. A common understanding being admitted, how much does that imply?
What is the minimum of sameness that we need suppose to be involved in
it?

 It might be interesting elsewhere to pursue this question at length,
but I must content myself here with an attempt briefly to indicate the
answer. The fact is that, in the main, we behave as if our internal
worlds were the same. But this fact means that, for each one, the inner
systems coincide. Through all their detail these several orders must
lead to the same result. But, if so, we may go further, and may conclude
that each comes to the same thing. What is the amount of variety then
which such coinciding orders will admit? We must, I presume, answer
that, for all we know, the details may be different, but that the
principles cannot vary. There seems to be a point beyond which, if laws
and systems come to the same thing, they must be actually the same. And
the higher we mount from facts of sense, and the wider our principles
have become, the more nearly we have approached to this point of
identity. Thus sensible qualities, we may suppose at one end, are
largely divergent; while, if we rise high enough at the other end, we
must postulate sameness. And, between these two extremes, as we advance,
the probability increases that coincidence results from identical
character. It is, for example, more likely that we share our general
morality with another man, than that we both have the same tastes or
odours in common. And with this I will pass from a subject which seems
both difficult and interesting, but which for metaphysics possesses but
secondary importance. Whatever variety there may be, cannot extend to
first principles; and all variety comes together, and is transformed, in
the Absolute.

  But there is a natural mistake which, perhaps, I should briefly
notice. Our inner worlds, I may be told, are divided from each other,
but the outer world of experience is common to all; and it is by
standing on this basis that we are able to communicate. Such a statement
would be incorrect. My external sensations are no less private to myself
than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls
within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its
elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it.
With regard to communicability, there is in fact not any difference of
kind, but only of degree. In every case the communication must be made
indirectly, and through the medium of our outsides. What is true is
that, with certain elements, the ways of expression may be shorter and
less mistakeable; and again the conditions, which secure a community of
perception, are, with certain elements, more constant and more subject
to our control. So much seems clear, but it is not true that our
physical experiences have unity, in any sense which is inapplicable to
the worlds we call internal. Nor again, even in practice, is it always
more easy to communicate an outer than an inner experience. In brief,
regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for
each is peculiar and private to that soul. But, if on the other hand,
you are considering identity of content, and, on that basis, are
transcending such particular existences, then there is, at once in
principle, no difference between the inner and the outer. No experience
can lie open to inspection from outside; no direct guarantee of identity
is possible. Both our knowledge of sameness, and  our way of
communication, are indirect and inferential. They must make the circuit,
and must use the symbol, of bodily change. If a common ruler of souls
could give to any one a message from the inside, such a message could
never be handed on but by alterations of bodies. That real identity of
ideal content, by which all souls live and move, cannot work in common
save by the path of external appearance.

 And, with this, we are led to the question of the identity between
souls. We have just seen that immediate experiences are separate, and
there is probably no one who would desire to advocate a contrary
opinion. But there are those, I presume, who will deny the possibility
of two souls being, in any respect, really the same. And we must
endeavour very briefly to clear our ideas on this matter.

 It would be, of course, absurd to argue that two persons are not two
but only one, or that, in general, differences are not different, but
simply the same; and any such contention would be, doubtless, a wilful
paradox. But the principle of what we may call the Identity of
Indiscernibles, has quite another meaning. It implies that sameness can
exist together with difference, or that what is the same is still the
same, however much in other ways it differs. I shall soon attempt to
define this principle more clearly, but what I would insist on, first,
is that to deny it is to affront common sense. It is, in fact, to use
words which could have no meaning. For every process of psychical
Association is based on this ground; and, to come to what is plainer,
every movement of our intellect rests wholly upon it. If you will not
assume that identity holds throughout different contexts, you cannot
advance one single step in apprehending the world. There will be neither
change nor endurance, and still less, motion  through space of an
identical body; there will neither be selves nor things, nor, in brief,
any intelligible fact, unless on the assumption that sameness in
differents is real. Apart from this main principle of construction, we
should be confined to the feeling of a single moment.

 And to appeal to Similarity or Resemblance would be a futile attempt to
escape in the darkness. For Similarity itself, when we view it in the
daylight, is nothing in the world but more or less unspecified sameness.
I will not dwell here on a point which elsewhere I have possibly pursued
ad nauseam. No one, perhaps, would ever have betaken himself to mere
resemblance, unless he had sought in it a refuge from the dangers of
Identity. And these dangers are the product of misunderstanding.

 There is a notion that sameness implies the denial of difference, while
difference is, of course, a palpable fact. But really sameness, while in
one respect exclusive of difference, in another respect most essentially
implies it. And these two "respects" are indivisible, even in idea.
There would be no meaning in sameness, unless it were the identity of
differences, the unity of elements which it holds together, but must not
confound. And in the same way difference, while it denies, presupposes
identity. For difference must depend on a relation, and a relation is
possible only on a basis of sameness. It is not common  sense that has
any desire to reject such truths, and blindly to stand upon difference
to the exclusion of identity. In ordinary science no one would question
the reality of motion, because it makes one thing the same throughout
diverse times and spaces. That things to be the same must always be
different, and to be different must be, therefore, the same--this is not
a paradox, until it is paradoxically stated. It does not seem absurd,
unless, wrongly, it is taken to imply that difference and sameness
themselves are actually not different. And, apart from such
misunderstanding, the ground and reason of the antagonism to identity is
furnished merely by one-sided and uncritical metaphysics.

 This mistaken opposition is based upon a truth, a truth that has been
misapprehended and perverted into error. What has been perceived, or
dimly felt, is in fact a principle that, throughout this work, has so
often come before us. The Real in the end is self- subsistent, and
contained wholly in itself; and its being is therefore not relative, nor
does it admit a division of content from existence. In short relativity
and self-transcendence, or, as we may call it, ideality, cannot as such
be the character of ultimate Reality. And, so far as this goes, we are
at one with the objectors to identity. But the question really is about
the conclusion which follows from this premise. Our conclusion is that
finite existence must, in the end, not be real; it is an appearance
which, as such, is transformed in the Absolute. But such a result
obviously does not imply that, within the world of phenomena, identity
is unreal. And hence the conclusion, which more or less explicitly is
drawn by our opponents, differs widely from ours. From the
self-subsistent nature of the Real they have  inferred the reality of
diverse existences, beings in any case several and finite, and without
community of essence. But this conclusion, as we have seen, is wholly
untenable. For plurality and separateness themselves exist only by means
of relations (Chapter iii.). To be different from another is to have
already transcended one's own being; and all finite existence is thus
incurably relative and ideal. Its quality falls, more or less, outside
its particular "thatness"; and, whether as the same or again as diverse,
it is equally made what it is by community with others. Finite elements
are joined by what divides, and are divided by what joins them, and
their division and their junction alike are ideal. But, if so, and
unless some answer is found to this contention, it is impossible to deny
that identity is a fact. It is not real ultimately, we are agreed, but
then facts themselves are not ultimate, and the question is confined to
the realm of phenomenal existence. For difference itself is but
phenomenal, and is itself assuredly not ultimate. And we may end, I
think, with this reply. Show us (we may urge) a region of facts which
are neither different nor yet the same; show us how quality without
relation, or how mere being, can differentiate; point out how difference
is to keep any meaning, as soon as sameness is wholly banished; tell us
the way in which sameness and difference can exist, if they may not be
ideal; explain how, if identity is not real, the world of experience in
any part holds together--at least attempt this, or else admit that
identity is ideal and is, at the same time, a fact, and that your
objection, in  short, had no basis but confusion and traditional
prejudice.

 But the principle that sameness is real and is not destroyed by
differences, demands, as we have seen, some explanation. It would be
absurd, for instance, to suppose that two souls really are but one soul,
since identity always implies and depends upon difference; and we may
now treat this point as sufficiently discussed. Sameness is real amid
differences; but we must neither deny that these differences, in one
sense, affect it, nor may we assert that sameness is always a working
connection. I will take these points in their order.

 We may say that what is once true remains true always, or that what is
the same in any one context, is still the same in any other context.
But, in affirming this, we must be on our guard against a serious
mistake. For a difference of conditions, it is obvious, will make a
difference to sameness, and it is certain that contexts can modify their
identical element. If, that is, rushing to the opposite extreme, you go
on to immerse wholly your truths in their conditions, if you refuse in
any respect to abstract from this total diversity, then the principle of
identity becomes inapplicable. You then would not have the same thing
under different circumstances, because you would have declined to see
anything whatever but difference. But, if we avoid these errors on each
side, the principle soon becomes clear. Identity obviously by its
essence must be more or less abstract; and, when we predicate it, we are
disregarding other sides of the whole. We are asserting that,
notwithstanding other aspects, this one aspect of sameness persists and
is real. We do not say how far it extends, or what proportion it bears
to the accompanying diversity; but sameness, so far as it goes, is
actually and genuinely the same. Given a fresh instance of a law, and
the law still holds good, though in the whole result this one  factor
may seem overborne. The other conditions here have joined to modify the
general consequence, but the law itself has worked fully, and has
maintained its selfsame character. And, given two individuals with any
part of their content indiscernible, then, while that is so, we are
bound, so far, to consider them the same. However much their diversity
may preponderate, however different may be the whole effect of each
separate compound, yet, for all that, what is the same in them is one
and identical. And our principle, thus understood, is surely
irrefragable, and wears the air, perhaps, more of triviality than of
paradox. Its results indeed often would be trivial, most empty and
frivolous. Its significance varies with various conditions. To know that
two souls have an element of their contents in common, may thus be quite
unimportant. Such knowledge may, again, assure us of the very gravest
and most fundamental truths. But of all this the principle itself, being
abstract, tells us nothing.

 And as to any working connection our principle is silent. Whether an
identical point in two things affects them otherwise, so as to cause
other changes to happen, we are unable to learn from it. For how a thing
works must depend on its special relations, while the principle, as we
have seen, remains perfectly general. Two souls, for example, which live
together, may by their identity be drawn into active community. If the
same were sundered in time, this, for our knowledge, would be
impossible. But, in the latter case, the identity exists actually as
much as it exists in the former. The amount of sameness, and the kind of
sameness, and what the sameness will bring forth--these points all fall
outside of our abstract principle. But if any one bases an objection on
this ground, he would seem to be arguing in effect that, because, in
fact, diverse identities exist, therefore identity, as a fact, has no
actual existence. And such a position seems irrational.

  Our result, so far, is that the sameness between souls is a fact. The
identity of their content is just as real as is their separate
existence. But this identity, on the other hand, need not imply a
further relation between them. It need not, so far as we can see, act in
any way; and its action, where it acts, appears to be always indirect.
Souls seem to influence one another only by means of their bodies.

 But this limited view of identity, as a working force, must be modified
when we consider the individual soul. In the course of its internal
history we must admit that the sameness of its states is an actual
mover. In other words the mechanical interpretation, if throughout
applicable to Nature, must in dealing with souls be in part given up.
And I will end the chapter by pointing out this important distinction.

 I mean by Nature here the physical world, considered merely as physical
and in abstraction from soul (Chapter xxii.). And in Nature sameness and
difference may be said everywhere to exist, but never anywhere to work.
This would, at least, appear to be the ideal of natural science, however
incompletely that ideal has been carried into practice. No element,
according to this principle, can be anything to any other, merely
because it is the same, or because it is different. For these are but
internal characters, while that which works is in every case an outward
relation. But then, if so, sameness and difference may appear at first
sight to have no  meaning at all. They may look like idle ornaments of
which science, if consistent, should strip itself. Such a conclusion,
however, would be premature, since, if these two characters are removed,
science bodily disappears. It would be impossible without them ever to
ask Why, or any longer to say Because. And the function of sameness and
difference, if we consider it, is obvious. For the external relations,
which work, are summed up in the laws; and, on the other hand, the
internal characters of the separate elements serve to connect them with
these universal strings or hinges. And thus, while inoperative, sameness
and difference are still effective indirectly, and in fact are
indispensable. This would appear to be the essence of the mechanical
view. But I am unable to state how far at present, through the higher
regions of Nature, it has been in practice applied; and again I do not
know how properly to interpret, for example, the (apparent) effect of
identity in the case of continued motion through space. To speak
generally, the mechanical view is in principle nonsense, because the
position of the laws is quite inconsistent and unintelligible. This is
indeed a defect which belongs necessarily to every special science
(Chapter xi.), but in the sphere of Nature it reaches its lowest
extreme. The identity of physical elements may thus be said to fall
outside their own being, their universality seems driven into banishment
and forced to reside solely in laws. And, since these laws on the one
hand are not physical, and since on the other hand they seem essential
to Nature, the essence of Nature seems, therefore, made alien to itself,
and to be on either side unnaturally sundered. However, compulsion from
outside is the one working principle which is taken to hold in the
physical world. And, at least if we are true to our ideal, neither
identity nor difference can act in Nature.

 When we come to psychology this is altered. I do not mean that there
the mechanical view ceases  wholly, nor do I mean that, where it is
superseded, as in the working of pleasure and pain, that which operates
must be ideal. But, to a greater or less extent, all psychology, in its
practice, is compelled to admit the working power of Identity. A
psychologist may employ this force unwillingly, or may deny that he
employs it; but without it he would be quite unable to make his way
through the subject. I do not propose here to touch upon Coalescence or
Blending, a principle much neglected by English psychologists. I will
come at once to Redintegration, or what is more familiar to us as
Association by Contiguity. Here we are forced to affirm that what
happens now in the soul happens because of something else which took
place there before. And it happens, further, because of a point of
identity connecting the present with the past. That is to say, the past
conjunction in the soul has become a law of its being. It actually
exists there again because it happened there once, and because, in the
present and in the past, an element of content is identical. And thus in
the soul we can have habits, while habits that are but physical exist,
perhaps, only through a doubtful metaphor. Where present and past
functions have not an inner basis of identity, the word habit, if used,
has no longer its meaning. Hence we may say that to a large extent the
soul is itself its own laws, consists, itself, in the identity between
its present and its past, and (unlike Nature) has its own ideal essence
not quite external to itself. This seems, at all events, the view which,
however erroneous, must be employed by every working psychologist.

  But I must hasten to add that this view remains gravely imperfect. It
is in the end impossible to maintain that anything is because it has
been. And with regard to the soul, such an objection can be pressed from
two sides. Suppose, in the first place, that another body like my own
were manufactured, can I deny that with this body would go everything
that I call my self? So long as the soul is not placed in the position
of an idle appendage, I have already, in principle, accepted this
result. I think that in such a case there would be the same associations
and of course the same memory. But we could no longer repeat here that
the soul is, because it has been. We should be compelled rather to
assert that (in a sense) the soul has been, because it now is. This
imaginary case has led us back, in fact, to that problem of
"dispositions," which we found before was insoluble. Its solution (so
far as we could perceive) would dissolve each of the constructions
called body and soul.

 And, in the second place, regarded from the inside, the psychological
view of identity is no less a compromise. We may perhaps apprehend this
by considering the double aspect of Memory. We remember, on the one
hand, because of prior events in our existence. But, on the other hand,
memory is most obviously a construction from the present, and it depends
absolutely upon that which at the moment we are. And this latter
movement, when developed, carries us wholly outside the psychological
view, and altogether beyond memory. For the main object of thought may
be called the attempt to get rid of mere conjunctions in the soul. A
true connection, in the end, we see cannot be true because once upon a
time its elements happened together. Mere associations, themselves
always universal from the first, are hence by thought deliberately
purified.  Starting from mere "facts"--from those relations which are
perceived in confused union with an irrelevant context--thought
endeavours to transform them. Its advance would end in an ideal world
where nothing stands by itself, where, in other words, nothing is forced
to stand in relation with what is foreign, but where, on the contrary,
truth consists in an absolute relativity. Every element here would be
because of something other which supports it, in which other, and in the
whole, it finds its own identity. I certainly admit that this ideal can
not be fully realized (Chapter xv.); but it furnishes the test by which
we must judge whatever offers itself as truth. And, measured by this
test, the psychological view is condemned.

 The entire phenomenal world, as a connected series, and, in this world,
the two constructions known as body and soul, are, all alike, imperfect
ways of regarding Reality. And these ways at every point have proved
unstable. They are arbitrary fixtures which tend throughout to transcend
their limits, the limits which, for the sake of practice, we are forced
to impose. And the result is everywhere inconsistency. We found that
body, attempting to work without identity, became unintelligible. And we
saw that the soul, admitting identity as a function in its life, ended
also in mere compromise. These things are both appearances, and both are
untrue; but still untruth has got degrees. And, compared with the
physical world, the soul is, by far, less unreal. It shows to a larger
extent that self- dependence in which Reality consists.

 But the discussion of degrees in Reality will engage us hereafter. We
may now briefly recall the main results of this chapter. We have seen
that body and soul are phenomenal constructions. They  are each
inconsistent abstractions, held apart for the sake of theoretical
convenience. And the superior reality of the body we found was a
superstition. Passing thence to the relation which seems to couple these
two makeshifts, we endeavoured to define it. We rejected both the idea
of mere concomitance, and of the one-sided dependence of the soul; and
we urged that an adjective which makes no difference to anything, is
nonsense. We then discussed briefly the possibilities of bare soul and
bare body, and we went from this to the relations which actually exist
between souls. We concluded that souls affect each other, in fact, only
through their bodies, but we insisted that, none the less, ideal
identity between souls is a genuine fact. We found, last of all, that,
in the psychical life of the individual, we had to recognise the active
working of sameness. And we ended this chapter with the reflection which
throughout has been near us. We have here been handling problems, the
complete solution of which would involve the destruction of both body
and soul. We have found ourselves naturally carried forward to the
consideration of that which is beyond them.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XXIV

DEGREES OF TRUTH AND REALITY  IN our last chapter we reached the
question of degrees in Truth and Reality, and we must now endeavour to
make clear what is contained in that idea. An attempt to do this,
thoroughly and in detail, would carry us too far. To show how the world,
physical and spiritual, realizes by various stages and degrees the one
absolute principle, would involve a system of metaphysics. And such a
system I am not undertaking to construct. I am endeavouring merely to
get a sound general view of Reality, and to defend it against a number
of difficulties and objections. But, for this, it is essential to
explain and to justify the predicates of higher and lower. While dealing
with this point, I shall develope further the position which we have
already assigned to Thought (Chapters xv. and xvi.).

 The Absolute, considered as such, has of course no degrees; for it is
perfect, and there can be no more or less in perfection (Chapter xx.).
Such predicates belong to, and have a meaning only in the world of
appearance. We may be reminded, indeed, that the same absoluteness seems
also possessed by existence in time. For a thing either may have a place
there, or may have none, but it cannot inhabit any interval between
presence and absence. This view would assume that existence in time is
Reality; and in practice, and for some purposes,  that is admissible.
But, besides being false, the assumption tends naturally to pass beyond
itself. For, if a thing may not exist less or more, it must certainly
more or less occupy existence. It may usurp ground by its direct
presence, but again, further, by its influence and relative importance.
Thus we should find it difficult, in the end, to say exactly what we
understand by "having" existence. We should even find a paradox in the
assertion, that everything alike has existence to precisely the same
degree.

 But here, in metaphysics, we have long ago passed beyond this one-sided
point of view. On one hand the series of temporal facts has been
perceived to consist in ideal construction. It is ideal, not indeed
wholly (Chapter xxiii.), but still essentially. And such a series is but
appearance; it is not absolute, but relative; and, like all other
appearance, it admits the distinction of more and less. On the other
hand, we have seen that truth, which again itself is appearance, both
unconsciously and deliberately diverges from this rude essay. And,
without considering further the exploded claim set up by temporal fact,
we may deal generally with the question of degrees in reality and truth.

 We have already perceived the main nature of the process of thinking.
Thought essentially consists in the separation of the "what" from the
"that." It may be said to accept this dissolution as its effective
principle. Thus it renounces all attempt to make fact, and it confines
itself to content. But by embracing this separation, and by urging this
independent development to its extreme, thought indirectly endeavours to
restore the broken whole. It seeks to find an arrangement of ideas,
self-consistent and complete; and by this predicate  it has to qualify
and make good the Reality. And, as we have seen, its attempt would in
the end be suicidal. Truth should mean what it stands for, and should
stand for what it means; but these two aspects in the end prove
incompatible. There is still a difference, unremoved, between the
subject and the predicate, a difference which, while it persists, shows
a failure in thought, but which, if removed, would wholly destroy the
special essence of thinking.

 We may put this otherwise by laying down that any categorical judgment
must be false. The subject and the predicate, in the end, cannot either
be the other. If however we stop short of this goal, our judgment has
failed to reach truth; while, if we attained it, the terms and their
relation would have ceased. And hence all our judgments, to be true,
must become conditional. The predicate, that is, does not hold unless by
the help of something else. And this "something else" cannot be stated,
so as to fall inside even a new and conditional predicate.

 It is however better, I am now persuaded, not to say that every
judgment is hypothetical. The word, it is clear, may introduce
irrelevant ideas. judgments are conditional in this sense, that what
they affirm is incomplete. It cannot be attributed to Reality, as such,
and before its necessary complement is added. And, in addition, this
complement in the end remains unknown. But, while it remains unknown, we
obviously cannot tell how, if present, it would act upon and alter our
predicate. For to suppose that its presence would make no difference is
plainly absurd, while the precise nature of the  difference falls
outside our knowledge. But, if so, this unknown modification of our
predicate may, in various degrees, destroy its special character. The
content in fact might so be altered, be so redistributed and blended, as
utterly to be transformed. And, in brief, the predicate may, taken as
such, be more or less completely untrue. Thus we really always have
asserted subject to, and at the mercy of, the unknown. And hence our
judgment, always but to a varying extent, must in the end be called
conditional.

 But with this we have arrived at the meeting-ground of error and truth.
There will be no truth which is entirely true, just as there will be no
error which is totally false. With all alike, if taken strictly, it will
be a question of amount, and will be a matter of more or less. Our
thoughts certainly, for some purposes, may be taken as wholly false, or
again as quite accurate; but truth and error, measured by the Absolute,
must each be subject always to degree. Our judgments, in a word, can
never reach as far as perfect truth, and must be content merely to enjoy
more or less of Validity. I do not simply mean by this term that, for
working purposes, our judgments are admissible and will pass. I mean
that less or more they actually possess the character and type of
absolute truth and reality. They can take the place of the Real to
various extents, because containing in themselves less or more of its
nature. They are its representatives, worse  or better, in proportion as
they present us with truth affected by greater or less derangement. Our
judgments hold good, in short, just so far as they agree with, and do
not diverge from, the real standard. We may put it otherwise by saying
that truths are true, according as it would take less or more to convert
them into reality.

 We have perceived, so far, that truth is relative and always imperfect.
We have next to see that, though failing of perfection, all thought is
to some degree true. On the one hand it falls short of, and, on the
other hand at the same time, it realizes the standard. But we must begin
by enquiring what this standard is.

 Perfection of truth and of reality has in the end the same character.
It consists in positive, self-subsisting individuality; and I have
endeavoured to show, in Chapter xx., what individuality means. Assuming
that the reader has recalled the main points of that discussion, I will
point out the two ways in which individuality appears. Truth must
exhibit the mark of internal harmony, or, again, the mark of expansion
and all- inclusiveness. And these two characteristics are diverse
aspects of a single principle. That which contradicts itself, in the
first place, jars, because the whole, immanent within it, drives its
parts into collision. And the way to find harmony, as we have seen, is
to re- distribute these discrepancies in a wider arrangement. But, in
the second place, harmony is incompatible with restriction and finitude.
For that which is not all- inclusive must by virtue of its essence
internally disagree; and, if we reflect, the reason of this becomes
plain. That which exists in a whole has external relations. Whatever it
fails to include within its own nature, must be related to it by the
whole, and related externally. Now these extrinsic relations, on the one
hand, fall outside of itself, but, upon the other hand,  cannot do so.
For a relation must at both ends affect, and pass into, the being of its
terms. And hence the inner essence of what is finite itself both is, and
is not, the relations which limit it. Its nature is hence incurably
relative, passing, that is, beyond itself, and importing, again, into
its own core a mass of foreign connections. Thus to be defined from
without is, in principle, to be distracted within. And, the smaller the
element, the more wide is this dissipation of its essence--a dissipation
too thorough to be deep, or to support the title of an intestine
division. But, on the contrary, the expansion of the element should
increase harmony, for it should bring these external relations within
the inner substance. By growth the element becomes, more and more, a
consistent individual, containing in itself its own nature; and it
forms, more and more, a whole inclusive of discrepancies and reducing
them to system. The two aspects, of extension and harmony, are thus in
principle one, though (as we shall see later) for our practice they in
some degree fall apart. And we must be content, for the present, to use
them independently.

 Hence to be more or less true, and to be more or less real, is to be
separated by an interval, smaller or greater, from all-inclusiveness or
self-consistency. Of two given appearances the one more wide, or more
harmonious, is more real. It approaches nearer to a single,
all-containing, individuality. To remedy its imperfections, in other
words, we should have to make a smaller alteration. The truth and the
fact, which, to be converted into the Absolute, would require less re-
arrangement and addition, is more real and truer. And this is what we
mean by  degrees of reality and truth. To possess more the character of
reality, and to contain within oneself a greater amount of the real, are
two expressions for the same thing.

 And the principle on which false appearance can be converted into truth
we have already set forth in our chapter on Error. The method consists,
as we saw, in supplementation and in re-arrangement; but I will not
repeat here our former discussion. A total error would mean the
attribution of a content to Reality, which, even when redistributed and
dissolved, could still not be assimilated. And no such extreme case
seems possible. An error can be total only in this sense that, when it
is turned into truth, its particular nature will have vanished, and its
actual self be destroyed. But this we must allow, again, to happen with
the lower kinds of truth. There cannot for metaphysics be, in short, any
hard and absolute distinction between truths and falsehoods. With each
assertion the question is, how much will be left of that assertion, if
we suppose it to have been converted into ultimate truth? Out of
everything that makes its special nature as the predication of this
adjective, how much, if anything, will survive? And the amount of
survival in each case, as we have already seen, gives the degree of
reality and truth.

 But it may perhaps be objected that there are judgments without any
real meaning, and that there are mere thoughts, which do not even
pretend to attribute anything to Reality. And, with these, it will be
urged that there can no longer remain the least degree of truth. They
may, hence, be adjectives of the Real, but are not judgments about it.
The discussion of this objection falls, perhaps, outside the main scope
of my work, but I should like briefly to point out that it rests on a
mistake. In the first place every judgment, whether positive or 
negative, and however frivolous its character, makes an assertion about
Reality. And the content asserted cannot, as we have seen, be altogether
an error, though its ultimate truth may quite transform its original
meaning. And, in the second place, every kind of thought implies a
judgment, in this sense that it ideally qualifies Reality. To question,
or to doubt, or to suggest, or to entertain a mere idea, is not
explicitly to judge. So much is certain and obvious. But, when we
enquire further into what these states necessarily imply, our conclusion
must be otherwise. If we use judgment for the reference, however
unconscious and indefinite, of thought to reality, then without
exception to think must be, in some sense, to judge. Thought in its
earliest stage immediately modifies a direct sensible presentation; and,
although, on one side, the qualification becomes conditional, and
although the reality, on the other side, becomes partly non-sensuous,
thought's main character is still preserved. The reference to reality
may be, in various degrees, undefined and at large. The ideal content
may be applied subject to more or less transformation; its struggling
and conditional character may escape our notice, or may again be
realized with less or more consciousness. But to hold a thought, so to
speak, in the air, without a relation of any kind to the Real, in any of
its aspects or spheres, we should find in the end to be impossible.

 This statement, I am aware, may seem largely paradoxical. The merely
imaginary, I may be told, is not referred to reality. It may, on the
contrary, be even with consciousness held apart. But, on  further
reflection, we should find that our general account will hold good. The
imaginary always is regarded as an adjective of the real. But, in
referring it, (a) we distinguish, with more or less consciousness, the
regions to which it is, and to which it is not, applicable. And (b) we
are aware, in different degrees, of the amount of supplementation and
re-arrangement, which our idea would require before it reached truth.
These are two aspects of the same principle, and I will deal briefly
with each.

 (a) With regard to the first point we must recall the want of unity in
the world, as it comes within each of us. The universe we certainly feel
is one, but that does not prevent it from appearing divided, and in
separate spheres and regions. And between these diverse provinces of our
life there may be no visible connection. In art, in morality and
religion, in trade or politics, or again in some theoretical pursuit, it
is a commonplace that the individual may have a world of his own. Or he
may rather have several worlds without rational unity, conjoined merely
by co-existence in his one personality. And this separation and
disconnectedness (we may fail to observe) is, in some degree, normal. It
would be impossible that any man should have a world, the various
provinces of which were quite rationally connected, or appeared always
in system. But, if so, no one, in accepting or rejecting ideas, can
always know the precise sense in which he affirms or denies. He means,
from time to time, by reality some one region of the Real, which
habitually he fails to distinguish and define. And the attempt at
distinction would but lead him to total bewilderment. The real world,
perhaps consciously, may be identified with the spatial system which we
construct. This is "actual fact," and everything else may be set apart
as mere thought, or as mere imagination or feeling, all equally unreal.
But, if so,  against our wills these banished regions, nevertheless,
present themselves as the worlds of feeling, imagination, and thought.
However little we desire it, these form, in effect, actual constituent
factors in our real universe. And the ideas, belonging to these several
fields, certainly cannot be entertained without an identification,
however vague, of each with its department of the Real. We treat the
imaginary as existing somehow in some world, or in some by-world, of the
imagination. And, in spite of our denial, all such worlds are for us
inevitably the appearances of that whole which we feel to be a single
Reality.

 And, even when we consider the extreme cases of command and of wish,
our conclusion is unshaken. A desire is not a judgment, but still in a
sense it implies one. It might, indeed, appear that what is ordered or
desired is, by its essence, divorced from all actual reality. But this
first impression would be erroneous. All negation, we must remember, is
relative. The idea, rejected by reality, is none the less predicable,
when its subject is altered. And it is predicable again, when (what
comes to the same thing) itself is modified. Neglecting this latter
refinement, we may point out how our account will hold good in the case
of desire. The content wished for certainly in one sense is absent from
reality; and the idea, we must be able to say, does not exist. But real
existence, on the other hand, has been taken here in a limited meaning.
And hence, outside that region of fact which repels the idea, it can, at
the same time, be affirmatively referred to reality. It is this
reference indeed which, we may say, makes the contradiction of desire
intolerable. That which I desire is not consciously  assumed to exist,
but still vaguely, somehow and in some strange region, it is felt to be
there; and, because it is there, its non-appearance excites painful
tension. Pursuing this subject we should find that, in every case in the
end, to be thought of is to be entertained as, and so judged to be,
real.

 (b) And this leads us to the second point. We have seen that every
idea, however imaginary, is, in a sense, referred to reality. But we saw
also that, with regard to the various meanings of the real subject, and
the diverse provinces and regions in which it appears, we are all, more
or less, unconscious. This same want of consciousness, in varying
amounts, is visible also in our way of applying the predicate. Every
idea can be made the true adjective of reality, but, on the other hand
(as we have seen), every idea must be altered. More or less, they all
require a supplementation and re-arrangement. But of this necessity, and
of the amount of it, we may be totally unaware. We commonly use ideas
with no clear notion as to how far they are conditional, and are
incapable of being predicated downright of reality. To the suppositions
implied in our statements we usually are blind; or the precise extent of
them is, at all events, not distinctly realized. This is a subject upon
which it might be interesting to enlarge, but I have perhaps already
said enough to make good our result. However little it may appear so, to
think is always,  in effect, to judge. And all judgments we have found
to be more or less true, and in different degrees to depart from, and to
realize, the standard. With this we may return from what has been,
perhaps, to some extent a digression.

 Our single standard, as we saw above, wears various aspects, and I will
now proceed briefly to exemplify its detail. (a) If we take, first, an
appearance in time, and desire to estimate the amount of its reality, we
have, on one side, to consider its harmoniousness. We have to ask, that
is, how far, before its contents can take their place as an adjective of
the Real, they would require re-arrangement. We have to enquire how far,
in other words, these contents are, or are not, self- consistent and
systematic. And then, on the other side, we must have regard to the
extent of time, or space, or both, which our appearance occupies. Other
things being equal, whatever spreads more widely in space, or again
lasts longer in time, is therefore more real. But (b), beside events, it
is necessary to take account of laws. These are more and less abstract
or concrete, and here our standard in its application will once more
diverge. The abstract truths, for example, of mathematics on one side,
and, on the other side, the more concrete connections of life or mind,
will each set up a varying claim. The first are more remote from fact,
more empty and incapable of self- existence, and they are therefore less
true. But the second, on the other hand, are narrower, and on this
account more false, since clearly they pervade, and hold good over, a
less extent of reality. Or, from the other side, the law which is more
abstract contradicts itself more, because it is  determined by exclusion
from a wider area. Again the generalization nearer sense, being fuller
of irrelevancy, will, looked at from this point of view, be more
internally discordant. In brief, whether the system and the true
individual is sought in temporal existence, or in the realm standing
above events, the standard still is the same. And it is applied always
under the double form of inclusiveness and harmony. To be deficient in
either of these aspects is to fall short of perfection; and, in the end,
any deficiency implies failure in both aspects alike.

 And we shall find that our account still holds good when we pass on to
consider higher appearances of the universe. It would be a poor world
which consisted merely of phenomenal events, and of the laws that
somehow reign above them. And in our everyday life we soon transcend
this unnatural divorce between principle and fact. (c) We reckon an
event to be important in proportion to its effectiveness, so far as its
being, that is, spreads in influence beyond the area of its private
limits. It is obvious that here the two features, of self-sufficiency
and self-transcendence, are already discrepant. We reach a higher stage
where some existence embodies, or in any way presents in itself, a law
and a principle. However, in the mere example and instance of an
universal truth, the fact and the law are still essentially alien to
each other, and the defective character of their union is plainly
visible. Our standard moves us on towards an individual with laws of its
own, and to laws which form the vital substance of a single existence.
And an imperfect appearance of this character we were compelled, in our
last chapter, to recognize in the individual habits of the soul. Further
in the beauty which presents us with a realized type, we find another
form of the union of fact with principle. And, passing from this to
conscious life, we are called on still for further uses and fresh
applications of our standard. In the  will of the individual, or of the
community, so far as adequately carried out and expressing itself in
outward fact, we have a new claim to harmonious and self- included
reality. And we have to consider in each case the consistency, together
with the range and area, of the principle, and the degree up to which it
has mastered and passed into existence. And we should find ourselves led
on from this, by partial defect, to higher levels of being. We should
arrive at the personal relation of the individual to ends theoretical
and practical, ends which call for realization, but which from their
nature cannot be realized in a finite personality. And, once more here,
our standard must be called in when we endeavour, as we must, to form a
comparative estimate. For, apart from the success or failure of the
individual's will, these ideas of ultimate goodness and reality
themselves possess, of course, very different values. And we have to
measure the amount of discordancy and limitation, which fixes the place
to be assigned, in each case, to these various appearances of the
Absolute.

 To some of these provinces of life I shall have to return in later
chapters. But there are several points to which, at present, I would
draw attention. I would repeat, first, that I am not undertaking to set
out completely the different aspects of the world; nor am I trying to
arrange these according to their comparative degrees of reality and
truth. A serious attempt to perform this would have to be made by any
rational system of first principles, but in this work I am dealing
solely with some main features of things. However, in the second place,
there is a consideration which I would urge on the reader. With any view
of the world which confines known reality to existence in time, and
which limits truth to the attempt to reproduce somehow the series of
events--with any view for which merely a thing  exists, or barely does
not exist, and for which an idea is false, or else is true-- how is it
possible to be just to the various orders of appearance? For, if we are
consistent, we shall send the mass of our chief human interests away to
some unreal limbo of undistinguished degradation. And, if we are not
consistent, yet how can we proceed rationally without an intellectual
standard? And I think we are driven to this alternative. We must either
be incapable of saying one word on the relative importance of things; we
can tell nothing of the comparative meaning, and place in the world,
owned by art, science, religion, social life or morality; we are wholly
ignorant as to the degrees of truth and reality which these possess, and
we cannot even say that for the universe any one of them has any
significance, makes any degree of difference, or matters at all. Either
this, or else our one-sided view must be revolutionized. But, so far as
I see, it can be revolutionized only in one of two ways. We may accept a
view of truth and reality such as I have been endeavouring to indicate,
or we must boldly subordinate everything to the test of feeling. I do
not mean that, beside our former inadequate ideal of truth, we should
set up, also and alongside, an independent standard of worth. For this
expedient, first, would leave no clear sense to "degrees of truth" or
"of reality"; and, in the second place, practically our two standards
would tend everywhere to clash. They would collide hopelessly without
appeal to any unity above them. Of some religious belief, for example,
or of some ‘sthetic representation, we might be compelled to exclaim,
"How wholly false, and yet how superior to truth, and how much more to
us than any possible reality." And of some successful and wide-embracing
theory we might remark that it was absolutely true and utterly
despicable, or of some physical facts, perhaps, that they deserved no
kind of attention. Such a  separation of worth from reality and truth
would mutilate our nature, and could end only in irrational compromise
or oscillation. But this shifting attitude, though common in life, seems
here inadmissible; and it was not this that I meant by a subordination
to feeling. I pointed to something less possible, but very much more
consistent. It would imply the setting up of feeling in some form as an
absolute test, not only of value but also of truth and reality. Here, if
we took feeling as our end, and identified it with pleasure, we might
assert of some fact, no matter how palpable, This is absolutely nothing.
Or, because it makes for pain, it is even worse, and is therefore even
less than nothing. Or because some truth, however obvious, seemed in our
opinion not favourable to the increase of pleasure, we should have to
treat it at once as sheer falsehood and error. And by such an attitude,
however impracticable, we should have at least tried to introduce some
sort of unity and meaning into our world.

 But if to make mere feeling our one standard is in the end impossible,
if we cannot rest in the intolerable confusion of a double test and
control, nor can relapse into the narrowness, and the inconsistency, of
our old mutilated view--we must take courage to accept the other
revolution. We must reject wholly the idea that known reality consists
in a series of events, external or inward, and that truth merely is
correspondence with such a form of existence. We must allow to every
appearance alike its own degree of reality, if not also of truth, and we
must  everywhere estimate this degree by the application of our single
standard. I am not here attempting even (as I have said) to make this
estimate in general; and, in detail, I admit that we might find cases
where rational comparison seems hopeless. But our failure in this
respect would justify no doubt about our principle. It would be solely
through our ignorance and our deficiency that the standard ever could be
inapplicable. And, at the cost of repetition, I may be permitted to
dwell briefly on this head.

 Our standard is Reality in the form of self- existence; and this, given
plurality and relations, means an individual system. Now we have shown
that no perfect system can possibly be finite, because any limitation
from the outside infects the inner content with dependence on what is
alien. And hence the marks of harmony and expansion are two aspects of
one principle. With regard to harmony (other things remaining the same),
that which has extended over and absorbed a greater area of the
external, will internally be less divided. And the more an element is
consistent, the more ground, other things being equal, is it likely to
cover. And if we forget this truth, in the case of what is either
abstracted for thought or is isolated for sense, we can recall it by
predicating these fragments, as such, of the Universe. We are then
forced to perceive both the inconsistency of our predicates, and the
large extent of outer supplement which we must add, if we wish to make
them true. Hence the amount of either wideness or consistency gives the
degree of reality and also of truth. Or, regarding the same thing from
the other side, you may estimate by what is lacking. You may measure the
reality of anything by the relative amount of transformation, which
would follow if its defects were made good. The more an  appearance, in
being corrected, is transmuted and destroyed, the less reality can such
an appearance contain; or, to put it otherwise, the less genuinely does
it represent the Real. And on this principle we succeeded in attaching a
clear sense to that nebulous phrase "Validity."

 And this standard, in principle at least, is applicable to every kind
of subject-matter. For everything, directly or indirectly, and with a
greater or less preservation of its internal unity, has a relative space
in Reality. For instance, the mere intensity of a pleasure or pain,
beside its occupancy of consciousness, has also an outer sphere or halo
of effects. And in some low sense these effects make a part of, or at
least belong to, its being. And with facts of perception their extent
both in time, and also in space, obviously gives us a point of
comparison between them. If, again, we take an abstract truth, which, as
such, nowhere has existence, we can consider the comparative area of its
working influence. And, if we were inclined to feel a doubt as to the
reality of such principles, we might correct ourselves thus. Imagine
everything which they represent removed from the universe, and then
attempt to maintain that this removal makes no real difference. And, as
we proceed further, a social system, conscious in its personal members
of a will carried out, submits itself naturally to our test. We must
notice here the higher development of concrete internal unity. For we
find an individuality, subordinating to itself outward fact, though not,
as such, properly visible within it. This superiority to mere appearance
in the temporal series is carried to a higher degree as we advance into
the worlds of religion, speculation, and art. The inward principle may
here become far wider, and have an intenser unity of its own; but, on
the side of temporal existence, it cannot possibly exhibit itself as
such. The higher the principle, and  the more vitally it, so to speak,
possesses the soul of things, so much the wider in proportion must be
that sphere of events which in the end it controls. But, just for this
reason, such a principle cannot be handled or seen, nor is it in any way
given to outward or inward perception. It is only the meaner realities
which can ever be so revealed, and which are able to be verified as
sensible facts.

 And it is only a standard such as ours which can assign its proper rank
to sense-presentation. It is solely by accepting such a test that we are
able to avoid two gross and opposite mistakes. There is a view which
takes, or attempts to take, sense-perception as the one known reality.
And there is a view which endeavours, on the other side, to consider
appearance in time as something indifferent. It tries to find reality in
the world of insensible thought. Both mistakes lead, in the end, to a
like false result, and both imply, and are rooted in, the same principle
of error. In the end each would force us to embrace as complete reality
a meagre and mutilated fraction, which is therefore also, and in
consequence, internally discrepant. And each is based upon one and the
same error about the nature of things. We have seen that the separation
of the real into idea and existence is a division admissible only within
the world of appearance. In the Absolute every such distinction must be
merged and disappears. But the disappearance of each aspect, we insisted
also, meant the satisfaction of its claims in full. And hence, though
how in detail we were unable to point out, either side must come
together with its opposite in the Whole. There thought and sense alike
find each its complement in the other. The principle that reality can
wholly consist in one of these two sides of appearance, we therefore
reject as a fundamental error.

 Let us consider more closely the two delusions  which have branched
from this stem. The first of these, perceiving that the series of events
is essential, concludes from this ground that mere sense, either outward
or inward, is the one reality. Or, if it stops short of this, it still
argues that to be real is to be, as such, perceptible. Because, that is,
appearance in the temporal series is found necessary for reality--a
premise which is true--an unconscious passage is made, from this truth,
to a vicious conclusion. To appear is construed to imply appearance
always, so to speak, in person. And nothing is allowed to be real,
unless it can be given bodily, and can be revealed, within one piece of
the series. But this conclusion is radically erroneous. No perception
ever, as we have seen clearly, has a character contained within itself.
In order to be fact at all, each presentation must exhibit ideality, or
in other words transcendence of self; and that which appears at any one
moment, is, as such, self- contradictory. And, from the other side, the
less a character is able, as such, to appear--the less its necessary
manifestation can be narrowed in time or in space--so much the more is
it capable of both expansion and inner harmony. But these two features,
as we saw, are the marks of reality.

 And the second of the mistakes is like the first. Appearance, once
more, is falsely identified with presentation, as such, to sense; and a
wrong conclusion is, once more, drawn from this basis. But the error now
proceeds in an opposite direction. Because the highest principles are,
obviously and plainly, not perceptible by sense, they are taken to
inhabit and to have their being in the world of pure thought. And this
other region, with more or less consistency, is held to constitute the
sole reality. But here, if excluded wholly from the serial flow of
events, this world of thought is limited externally  and is internally
discordant. While, if, further, we attempt to qualify the universe by
our mere ideal abstract, and to attach this content to the Reality which
appears in perception, the confusion becomes more obvious. Since the
sense- appearance has been given up, as alien to truth, it has been in
consequence set free, and is entirely insubordinate. And its concrete
character now evidently determines, and infects from the outside,
whatever mere thought we are endeavouring to predicate of the Real. But
the union in all perception of thought with sense, the co-presence
everywhere in all appearances of fact with ideality--this is the one
foundation of truth. And, when we add to this the saving distinction
that to have existence need not mean to exist, and that to be realized
in time is not always to be visible by any sense, we have made ourselves
secure against the worst of errors. From this we are soon led to our
principle of degrees in truth and reality. Our world and our life need
then no longer be made up arbitrarily. They need not be compounded of
the two hemispheres of fact and fancy. Nor need the Absolute reveal
itself indiscriminately in a chaos where comparison and value are
absent. We can assign a rational meaning to the distinctions of higher
and lower. And we have grown convinced that, while not to appear is to
be unreal, and while the fuller appearance marks the fuller reality, our
principle, with but so much, is only half stated. For comparative
ability to exist, individually and as such, within the region of sense,
is a sign everywhere, so far as it goes, of degradation in the scale of
being.

 Or, dealing with the question somewhat less abstractly, we may attempt
otherwise to indicate the true position of temporal existence. This, as
we have seen, is not reality, but it is, on the other hand, in our
experience one essential factor. And to  suppose that mere thought
without facts could either be real, or could reach to truth, is
evidently absurd. The series of events is, without doubt, necessary for
our knowledge, since this series supplies the one source of all ideal
content. We may say, roughly and with sufficient accuracy, that there is
nothing in thought, whether it be matter or relations, except that which
is derived from perception. And, in the second place, it is only by
starting from the presented basis that we construct our system of
phenomena in space and time. We certainly perceived (Chapter xviii.)
that any such constructed unity was but relative, imperfect, and
partial. But, none the less, less, a building up of the sense-world from
the ground of actual presentation is a condition of all our knowledge.
It is not true that everything, even if temporal, has a place in our one
"real" order of space or time. But, indirectly or directly, every known
element must be connected with its sequence of events, and, at least in
some sense, must show itself even there. The test of truth after all, we
may say, lies in presented fact.

 We should here try to avoid a serious mistake. Without existence we
have perceived that thought is incomplete; but this does not mean that,
without existence, mere thought in itself is complete fully, and that
existence to this super-adds an alien but necessary completion. For we
have found in principle that, if anything were perfect, it would not
gain by an addition made from the outside. And, here in particular,
thought's first object, in its pursuit of actual fact, is precisely the
enlarging and making harmonious of its own ideal content. And the reason
for this, as soon as we consider it, is obvious. The dollar, merely
thought of or imagined, is comparatively abstract and void of
properties. But the dollar, verified in space, has got its place  in,
and is determined by, an enormous construction of things. And to suppose
that the concrete context of these relations in no sense qualifies its
inner content, or that this qualification is a matter of indifference to
thought, is quite indefensible.

 A mere thought would mean an ideal content held apart from existence.
But (as we have learnt) to hold a thought is always somehow, even
against our will, to refer it to the Real. Hence our mere idea, now
standing in relation with the Real, is related also to the phenomenal
system of events in time. It is related to them, but without any
connection with the internal order and arrangements of their system. But
this means that our mere idea is determined by that system entirely from
the outside. And it will therefore itself be permeated internally, and
so destroyed, by the contingency forced into its content through these
chaotic relations. Considered from this side, a thought, if it actually
were bare, would stand at a level lower than the, so- called, chance
facts of sense. For in the latter we have, at least, some internal
connection with the context, and already a fixed relation of universals,
however impure.

 All reality must be revealed in the world of events; and that is most
real which, within such an order or orders, finds least foreign to
itself. Hence, if other things remain equal, a definite place in, and
connection with, the temporal system gives increase of reality. For thus
the relations to other elements, which must in any case determine,
determine, at least to some extent, internally. And thus the imaginary,
so far, must be poorer than the perceptible fact; or, in other words, it
is compulsorily qualified by a wider area of alien and destructive
relations. I have emphasized "if other things remain equal," for this
restriction is important. There is imagination which is higher, and more
true, and most emphatically more real, than any single fact  of sense.
And this brings us back to our old distinction. Every truth must appear,
and must subordinate existence; but this appearance is not the same
thing as to be present, properly and as such, within given limits of
sense-perception. With the general principles of science we may perhaps
see this at once. And again, with regard to the necessary appearances of
art or religion, the same conclusion is evident. The eternal experience,
in every case, fails to enter into the series of space or of time; or it
enters that series improperly, and with a show which in various ways
contradicts its essence. To be nearer the central heart of things is to
dominate the extremities more widely; but it is not to appear there
except incompletely and partially through a sign, an unsubstantial and a
fugitive mode of expression. Nothing anywhere, not even the realized and
solid moral will, can either be quite real, as it exists in time, or can
quite appear in its own essential character. But still the ultimate
Reality, where all appearance as such is merged, is in the end the
actual identity of idea and existence. And, throughout our world,
whatever is individual is more real and true; for it contains within its
own limits a wider region of the Absolute, and it possesses more
intensely the type of self-sufficiency. Or, to put it otherwise, the
interval between such an element and the Absolute is smaller. We should
require less alteration, less destruction of its own special nature, in
order to make this higher element completely real.

 We may now pass from this general principle to notice various points of
interest, and, in the first place, to consider some difficulties handed
on to this chapter. The problems of unperceived Nature, of dispositions
in the soul, and the meaning in general of "potential" existence,
require our attention. And I must begin by calling attention to an
error.  We have seen that an idea is more true in proportion as it
approaches Reality. And it approaches Reality in proportion as it grows
internally more complete. And from this we possibly might conclude that
thought, if completed as such, would itself be real; or that the ideal
conditions, if fully there, would be the same as actual perfection. But
such a conclusion would not hold; for we have found that mere thought
could never, as such, be completed; and it therefore remains internally
inconsistent and defective. And we have perceived, on the other side,
that thought, completed, is forced to transcend itself. It has then to
become one thing with sense and feeling. And, since these conditions of
its perfection are partly alien to itself, we cannot say either that, by
itself, it can arrive at completion, or that, when perfected, it, as
such, any longer exists.

 And, with this, we may advance to the consideration of several
questions. We found (Chapter xxii.) that parts of the physical world
might exist, and yet might exist, for us, only in the shape of thought.
But we realized also that in the Absolute, where the contents of all
finite selves are fused, these thought-existences must, in some way, be
re-combined with sense. And the same conclusion held good also with
psychical dispositions (Chapter xxiii.). These, in their proper
character, have no being except in the world of thought. For they, as we
saw, are conditional; and the conditional, as such, has not actual
existence. But once more here the ideas--how in detail we cannot
say--must find their complement in the Whole. With the addition of this
other side they will make part of the concrete Reality.

 Our present chapter, perhaps, may have helped us to see more clearly on
these points. For we have found that ideal conditions, to be complete
and in this way to become real, must transcend themselves. They have to
pass beyond the world  of mere thought. And we have seen, in the second
place, that every idea must possess a certain amount both of truth and
reality. The ideal content must appear in the region of existence; and
we have found that we have no right ever to regard it as unreal, because
it is unable, as such, to show itself and to occupy a place there. We
may now apply this principle both to the capacities of the soul, and to
the unseen part of Nature. The former cannot properly exist, and the
latter (so far as we saw) certainly need not do so. We may consider them
each to be, as such, incapable of appearance. But this admission (we now
have learnt) does not weaken, by itself, their claim to be real. And the
amount of their reality, when our standard is applied, will depend on
their importance, on the influence and bearing which each of them
possesses in the universe.

 Each of them will fall under the head of "potential existence," and we
may pass on to consider the meaning of this phrase. The words
"potential," and "latent," and "nascent," and we may add "virtual" and
"tendency," are employed too often. They are used in order to imply that
a certain thing exists; and this, although either we ought to know, or
know, that the thing certainly does not exist. It would be hard to
over-estimate the service rendered by these terms to some writers on
philosophy. But that is not our business here. Potential existence means
a set of conditions, one part of which is present at a certain point of
space or time, while the other part remains ideal. It is used generally
without any clear perception as to how much is wanted in order to make
these conditions complete. And then the whole is spoken of, and is
regarded, as existing at the point where actually but a portion of its
factors are present. Such an abuse clearly is indefensible.

 "Potential existence" is fairly applicable in the  following sense. We
may mean by it that something somehow appears already in a given point
of time, although it does not as yet appear fully or in its own proper
character. I will try to show later the positive conditions required for
this use, but it is better to begin by pointing out where it is quite
inadmissible. We ought not to speak of potential existence where, if the
existence were made actual, the fact given now would be quite gone. That
part of the conditions which appears at present, must produce causally
the rest; and, in order for this to happen, foreign matter must be
added. But, if so much is added that the individuality of this first
appearance is wholly destroyed, or is even overwhelmed and swamped--
"potential existence" is inapplicable. Thus the death of a man may
result from the lodgment of a cherry-stone; but to speak of every
cherry-stone as, therefore, the potential death of a man, and to talk of
such a death as appearing already in any and every stone, would surely
be extravagant. For so large an amount of foreign conditions must
contribute to the result, that, in the end, the condition and the
consequence are joined externally by chance. We may perhaps apprehend
this more clearly by a grosser instance of misuse. A piece of bread,
eaten by a poet, may be a condition required for the production of a
lyrical poem. But would any one place such a poem's existence already
virtually in each piece of food, which may be considered likely by any
chance to make its way into a poet?

 These absurdities may serve to suggest the proper employment of our
term. It is applicable wherever the factor present is considered capable
of producing the rest; and it must effect this without the entire loss
of its own existing character. The individuality, in other words, must
throughout the process be continuous; and the end must very largely be
due to the beginning. And these are  two aspects of one principle. For
clearly, if more than a certain amount of external conditions are
brought in, the ideal identity of the beginning and of the end is
destroyed. And, if so, obviously the result itself was not there at the
first, and could in no rational sense have already appeared there. The
ordinary example of the egg, which itself later becomes a fowl, is thus
a legitimate application of potential existence. On the other hand to
call every man, without distinction, a potential case of scarlet fever,
would at least border on inaccuracy. While to assert that he now is
already such products as can be produced only by his own disintegration,
would be obviously absurd. Potential existence can, in brief, be used
only where "development" or "evolution" retains its proper meaning. And
by the meaning of evolution I do not understand that arbitrary misuse of
the term, which has been advocated by a so-called "System of
Philosophy."

 Under certain conditions, then, the idea of potential being may be
employed. But I must add at once that it can be employed nowhere with
complete truth and accuracy. For, in order for anything to evolve
itself, outer conditions must come in; and it is impossible in the end
to assign a limit to the extent of this foreign matter. The genuine
cause always must be the whole cause, and the whole cause never could be
complete until it had taken in the universe. This is no mere speculative
refinement, but a difficulty experienced in working; and we met it
lately while enquiring into the body and soul (Chapter xxiii.). In
strictness you can never assert that a thing will be, because of that
which it is; but, where you cannot assert this, potential existence is
partly inaccurate. It must be applied more or less vaguely, and more or
less on sufferance. We are, in brief, placed between two dangers. If,
with anything finite, you refuse wholly to  predicate its
relations--relations necessarily in part external, and in part,
therefore, variable--then your account of this thing will fall short and
be empty. But, otherwise, you will be affirming of the thing that which
only it may be.

 And, once driven to enter on this course, you are hurried away beyond
all landmarks. You are forced indefinitely to go on expanding the
subject of your predicates, until at last it has disappeared into
something quite different. And hence, in employing potential existence,
we are, so to speak, on an inclined plane. We start by saying, "A is
such that, under probable conditions, its nature will develope into B;
and therefore, because of this, I venture already to call it B." And we
end by claiming that, because A may possibly be made to pass into
another result C, C may, therefore, on this account, be predicated
already. And we have to hold to this, although C, to but a very small
extent, has been produced by A, and although, in the result, A itself
may have totally vanished.

 We must therefore admit that potential existence implies, to some
extent, a compromise. Its use, in fact, cannot be defined upon a very
strict principle. Still, by bearing in mind what the term endeavours to
mean, and what it always must be taken more or less to involve, we may,
in practice, succeed in employing it conveniently and safely. But it
will remain, in the end, a wide- spread source of confusion and danger.
The more a writer feels himself led naturally to have recourse to this
phrase, the better cause he probably has for at least attempting to
avoid it.

 It may throw light on several problems, if we consider further the
general nature of Possibility and Chance. We touched on this subject
above,  when we enquired if complete possibility is the same as reality
(p. 383). Our answer to that question may be summed up thus: Possibility
implies the separation of thought from existence; but, on the other
hand, since these two extremes are essentially one, each, while divided
from the other, is internally defective. Hence if the possible could be
completed as such, it would have passed into the real. But, in reaching
this goal, it would have ceased altogether to be mere thought, and it
would in consequence, therefore, be no longer possibility.

 The possible implies always the partial division of idea from reality.
It is, properly, the consequence in thought from an ideal antecedent. It
follows from a set of conditions, a system which is never complete in
itself, and which is not taken to be real, as such, except through part
of its area. But this last qualification is necessary. The possible,
itself, is not real; but its essence partly transcends ideas, and it has
no meaning at all unless it is possible really. It must be developed
from, and be relative to, a real basis. And, hence, there can be no such
thing as unconditional possibility. The possible, in other words, is
always relative. And, if it attempts to be free, it ceases to be itself.

 We shall understand this, perhaps, better, if we recall the nature of
relative chance (Chapter xix.). Chance is the given fact which falls
outside of some ideal whole or system. And any element, not included
within such an universal, is, in relation to that universal, bare fact,
and so relative chance. Chance, in other words, would not be actual
chance, if it were not also more. It is viewed in negative relation to
some idea, but it could not exist in relation unless in itself it were
ideal already. And with relative possibility, again, we find a
counterpart implication. The possible itself would not be possible, if
it were not more, and if it were not partially real. There must be an
actual basis in  which a part of its conditions is realized, though, by
and in the possible, this actual basis need not be expressed, but may be
merely understood. And, since the conditions are manifold, and since the
part which is taken as real is largely variable, possibility varies
accordingly. Its way of completing itself, and in particular the actual
basis which it implies, are both capable of diversity. Thus the
possibility of an element is different, according as it is understood in
these diverse relations. Possibility and chance, we may say, stand to
one another thus. An actual fact more or less ignores the ideal
complement which, within its own being, it involves. And hence, if you
view it merely in relation to some system which falls outside itself,
the actual fact is, so far, chance. The possible, on the other hand,
explicitly isolates one part of the ideal complement, and, at the same
time, implies, more or less vaguely, its real completion. It fluctuates,
therefore, with the various conditions which are taken as necessary to
complete it. But of these conditions part must have actual existence, or
must, as such, be real.

 And this account still holds good, when we pass to the lowest grade of
possibility. I take an idea, which, in the first place, I cannot call
unmeaning. And this idea, secondly, I do not see to contradict itself or
the Reality. I therefore assume that it has not this defect. And, merely
on the strength of this, I go on to call such an idea possible. It might
seem as if here we had passed from relative to unconditional
possibility; but that view would be erroneous. The possible here is
still a consequence from conditions, part of which is actual. For,
though of its special conditions we know nothing, we are not quite
ignorant. We have assumed in it more or less of the general character,
material and formal, which is owned by Reality. This character is its
actual basis and real ground of possibility.  And, without this, the
idea would cease altogether to be possible.

 What are we to say then about the possibility, or about the chance,
which is bare, and which is not relative, but absolute and
unconditional? We must say of either that it presents one aspect of the
same fundamental error. Each expresses in a different way the same main
self-contradiction; and it may perhaps be worth while to exhibit this in
detail. With mere possibility the given want of all connection with the
Real is construed into a ground for positive predication. Bare chance,
again, gives us as a fact, and gives us therefore in relation, an
element which it still persists is unrelated. I will go on to explain
this statement.

 I have an idea, and, because in my opinion I know nothing about it, I
am to call it possible. Now, if the idea has a meaning, and is taken not
to contradict itself, this (as we have seen) is, at once, a positive
character in the idea. And this gives a known reason for, at once so
far, regarding it as actual. And such a possibility, because in relation
with an attribute of the Real, we have seen, is still but a relative
possibility. In absolute possibility we are supposed to be without this
knowledge. There, merely because I do not find any relation between my
idea and the Reality, I am to assert, upon this, that my idea is
compatible. And the assertion clearly is inconsistent. Compatible means
that which in part is perceived to be true; it means that which
internally is connected with the Real. And this implies assimilation,
and it involves penetration of the element by some quality or qualities
of the Real. If the element is compatible it will be preserved, though
with a greater or less destruction of its particular character. But in
bare possibility I have perverted the sense of compatible. Because I
find absence of incompatibility, because, that is,  I am without a
certain perception, I am to call my idea compatible. On the ground of my
sheer ignorance, in other words, I am to know that my idea is
assimilated, and that, to a greater or less extent, it will survive in
Reality. But such a position is irrational.

 That which is unconditionally possible is viewed apart from, and is
supposed to remain undetermined by, relation to the Real. There are no
seen relations, and therefore none, and therefore no alien relations
which can penetrate and dissolve our supposed idea. And we hold to this,
even when the idea is applied to the Real. But a relation to the Real
implies essentially a relation to what the Real possesses, and hence to
have no relations of one's own means to have them all from the outside.
Bare possibility is therefore, against its will, one extreme of
relatedness. For it is conjoined de facto with the Reality, as we have
that in our minds; and, since the conjunction is external, the
relatedness is given by outer necessity. But necessary relation of an
element to that which is outside means, as we know, the disruption of
this element internally. The merely possible, if it could exist, would
be, therefore, for all we know, sheer error. For it would, so far as we
know, be an idea, which, in no way and to no extent, is accepted by
Reality. But possibility, in this sense, has contradicted itself.
Without an actual basis in, and without a positive connection with,
Reality, the possible is, in short, not possible at all.

  There is a like self-contradiction in absolute chance. The absolutely
contingent would mean a fact which is given free from all internal
connection with its context. It would have to stand without relation, or
rather with all its relations outside. But, since a thing must be
determined by the relations in which it stands, the absolutely
contingent would thus be utterly determined from the outside. And so, by
consequence, chance would involve complete internal dissipation. It
would hence implicitly preclude the given existence which explicitly it
postulates. Unless chance is more than mere chance, and thus consents to
be relative, it fails to be itself. Relative chance implies inclusion
within some ideal whole, and, on that basis, asserts an external
relation to some other whole. But chance, made absolute, has to affirm a
positive existence in relation, while insisting that all relations fall
outside this existence. And such an idea contradicts itself.

 Or, again, we may bring out the same discrepancy thus. In the case of a
given element we fail to see its connection with some system. We do not
perceive in its content the internal relations to what is beyond it--
relations which, because they are ideal, are necessary and eternal.
Then, upon the ground of this failure, we go on to a denial, and we
insist that no such internal relations are present. But every relation,
as we have learnt, essentially penetrates the being of its terms, and,
in this sense, is intrinsical; or, in other words, every relation must
be a relation of content. And hence the element, deprived by bare chance
of all ideal relations, is unrelated altogether. But, if unrelated and
undetermined, it is no longer any separate element at all. It cannot
have the existence ascribed to it by absolute chance.

 Chance and possibility may be called two different  aspects of one
complex. Relative chance stands for something which is, but is, in part,
not connected and understood. It is therefore that which exists, but, in
part, only somehow. The relatively possible is, on the other hand, what
is understood incompletely, and yet is taken, more or less only somehow,
to be real. Each is thus an imperfect way of representing reality. Or we
may, if we please, repeat the distinction in another form. In bare
chance something is to be given, and therefore given in a connection of
outer relations; and it yet is regarded as not intrinsically related.
The abstractly possible, again, is the not-related; but it is taken, at
the same time, in relation with reality, and is, therefore, unawares
given with external relations. Chance forgets, we may say, the essential
connection; and possibility forgets its de facto relation to the Real,
that is, its given external conjunction with context. Chance belongs to
the world of existence and possibility to thought; but each contains at
bottom the same defect, and each, against its will, when taken bare,
becomes external necessity. If the possible could be given, it would be
indifferently chance or fate. If chance is thought of, it is at once but
merely possible; for what is contingent has no complete connection with
Reality.

 With this I will pass from a subject, on which I have dwelt perhaps too
long. There is no such thing as absolute chance, or as mere external
necessity, or as unconditional possibility. The possible must, in part,
be really, and that means internally, necessary. And the same, again, is
true of the  contingent. Each idea is relative, and each lays stress on
an opposite aspect of the same complex. And hence each, forced to a
one-sided extreme, disappears altogether.

 We are led from this to ask whether there are degrees of possibility
and contingency, and our answer to this question must be affirmative. To
be more or less possible, and to be more or less true, and intrinsically
necessary,--and, from the other side, to be less or more
contingent--are, in the end, all the same. And we may verify here, in
passing, the twofold application of our standard. That which is more
possible is either internally more harmonious and inclusive; it is, in
other words, nearer to a complete totality of content, such as would
involve passage into, and unity with, the Real. Or the more possible is,
on the other hand, partly realized in a larger number of ideal groups.
Every contact, even with a point in the temporal series, means ideal
connection with a concrete group of relations. Hence the more widely
possible is that which finds a smaller amount of content lying wholly
outside its own area. It is, in other words, the more individual, the
truer, and more real. And, since it contains more connections, it has in
itself more internal necessity. For a like reason, on the other side,
increase of contingency means growth in falseness. That which, so far as
it exists, has more external necessity--more conjunction from the
outside with intelligible systems-- has, therefore, less connection with
any. It is hence more empty, and, as we have seen, on that account less
self-contained and harmonious. This brief account, however incorrect to
the eye of common sense, may perhaps, as part of our main thesis, be
found defensible.

 It will throw a light on that thesis, if we end by briefly considering
the "ontological" proof. In  Chapter xiv. we were forced to deal with
this in one of its bearings, and here we may attempt to form an estimate
of its general truth. As an argument, it is a conclusion drawn from the
presence of some thought to the reality of that which the thought
contains. Now of course any one at a glance can see how futile this
might be. If you identify reality with spatial or even temporal
existence, and understand by thought the idea of some distinct finite
object, nothing seems more evident than that the idea may be merely "in
my head." When, however, we turn from this to consider the general
nature of error, then what seemed so evident becomes obscure and
presents us with a puzzle. For what is "in my head" must, after all, be
surely somewhere in the universe. And when an idea qualifies the
universe, how can it be excluded from reality? The attempt to answer
such a question leads to a distinction between reality and finite
existence. And, upon this, the ontological proof may perhaps seem better
worth examining.

 Now a thought only "in my head," or a bare idea separated from all
relation to the real world, is a false abstraction. For we have seen
that to hold a thought is, more or less vaguely, to refer it to Reality.
And hence an idea, wholly un-referred, would be a self-contradiction.
This general result at once bears upon the ontological proof. Evidently
the proof must start with an idea referred to and qualifying Reality,
and with Reality present also and determined by the content of the idea.
And the principle of the argument is simply this, that, standing on one
side of such a whole, you find yourself moved necessarily towards the
other side. Mere thought, because incomplete, suggests logically the
other element already implied in it; and that element is the Reality
which appears in existence. On precisely the same principle, but
beginning from the other end, the "Cosmological" proof may be  said to
argue to the character of the Real. Since Reality is qualified by
thought, it therefore must possess whatever feature thought's essence
involves. And the principle underlying these arguments--that, given one
side of a connected whole, you can go from this to the other sides --is
surely irrefragable.

 The real failure of the ontological proof lies elsewhere. For that
proof does not urge merely that its idea must certainly somehow be real.
It goes beyond this statement, and qualifies it by "real as such." And
here the argument seems likely to deviate into error. For a general
principle that every predicate, as such, is true of Reality, is
evidently false. We have learnt, on the contrary, that truth and reality
are matter of degree. A predicate, we may say, in no case is, as such,
really true. All will be subject to addition, to qualification and
re-arrangement. And truth will be the degree up to which any predicate,
when made real, preserves its own character. In Chapter xiv., when
dealing with the idea of perfection, we partly saw how the ontological
argument breaks down. And the general result of the present chapter
should have cleared away difficulties. Any arrangement existing in my
head must qualify the absolute Reality. But, when the false abstraction
of my private view is supplemented and made good, that arrangement may,
as such, have completely disappeared. The ontological proof then should
be merely another way of insisting on this doctrine. Not every idea
will, as such, be real, or, as such, have existence. But the greater the
perfection of a thought, and the more its possibility and its internal
necessity are increased, so much more reality it possesses. And so much
the more necessarily must it show itself, and appear somehow in
existence.

 But the ontological argument, it will be rightly said, makes no
pretence of being applicable to every  finite matter. It is used of the
Absolute, and, if confined to that, will be surely legitimate. We are, I
think, bound to admit this claim. The idea of the Absolute, as an idea,
is inconsistent with itself; and we find that, to complete itself, it is
internally driven to take in existence. But even here we are still
compelled to keep up some protest against the addition of "as such." No
idea in the end can, strictly as such, reach reality; for, as an idea,
it never includes the required totality of conditions. Reality is
concrete, while the truest truth must still be more or less abstract. Or
we may put the same thing otherwise by objecting to the form of the
argument. The separation, postulated in the premise, is destroyed by the
conclusion; and hence the premise itself could not have been true. This
objection is valid, and it is not less valid because it holds, in the
end, of every possible argument. But the objection disappears when we
recognise the genuine character of the process. This consists in the
correction by the Whole of an attempted isolation on the part of its
members. And, whether you begin from the side of Existence or of
Thought, the process will remain essentially the same. There is a
subject and a predicate, and there is the internal necessity, on each
side, of identity with the other side. But, since in this consummation
the division as such is transcended, neither the predicate nor the
subject is able to survive. They are each preserved, but transmuted.

 There is another point on which, in conclusion, it is well to insist.
If by reality we mean existence as a presented event, then to be real,
in this sense, marks a low type of being. It needs no great advance in
the scale of reality and truth, in order to make a thing too good for
existence such as this. And I will illustrate my meaning by a kind of
bastard use of the ontological proof. Every idea,  it is certain,
possesses a sensible side or aspect. Beside being a content, it, in
other words, must be also an event. Now to describe the various
existences of ideas, as psychical events, is for the most part a task
falling outside metaphysics. But the question possesses a certain
bearing here. The existence of an idea can be, to a greater or to a less
degree, incongruous with its content; and to predicate the second of the
first would involve various amounts of inconsistency. The thought of a
past idea, for example, is a present state of mind; the idea of a virtue
may be moral vice; and the horse, as judged to exist, cannot live in the
same field with the actual horse-image. On the other hand, at least in
most cases, to think of anger is, to however slight an extent, to be
angry; and, usually, ideas of pleasures and pains are, as events,
themselves pleasures and pains in fact. Wherever the idea can be merely
one aspect of a single presentation, there we can say that the ideal
content exists, and is an actual event. And it is possible, in such
cases, to apply a semblance of the ontological proof. Because, that is,
the existence of the fact is necessary, as a basis and as a condition,
for the idea, we can go from the presence of the idea to the presence of
the fact. The most striking instance would be supplied by the idea of
"this" or "mine." Immediate contact with Reality can obviously, as a
fact, never fail us; and so, when we use the idea of this contact, we
take it always from the fact as, in some form, that appears. It is
therefore impossible that, given the idea, its existence should be
lacking.

 But, when we consider such a case more closely,  its spuriousness is
manifest. For (a), in the first place, the ideal content is not moved
from within. It does not of itself seek completion through existence,
and so imply that by internal necessity. There is no intrinsic
connection, there is but a mere found conjunction, between the two sides
of idea and existence. And hence the argument, to be valid here, must be
based on the mediation of a third element, an element co-existing with,
but of itself extraneous to, both sides. But with this the essence of
the ontological argument is wanting. And (b), in the second place, the
case we are considering exhibits another gross defect. The idea, which
it predicates of the Real, possesses hardly any truth, and has not risen
above the lowest level of worth and reality. I do not mean merely that
the idea, as compared with its own existence, is abstract, and so false.
For that objection, although valid, is relatively slight. I mean that,
though the argument starting from the idea may exhibit existence, it is
not able to show either truth or reality. It proves on the other hand,
contrary to its wish, a vital failure in both. Neither the subject, nor
again the predicate, possesses really the nature assigned to it. The
subject is taken as being merely a sensible event, and the predicate is
taken as one feature included in that fact. And in each of these
assumptions the argument is grossly mistaken. For the genuine subject is
Reality, while the genuine predicate asserts of this every character
contained in the ostensible predicate and subject. The idea, qualified
as existing in a certain sensible event, is the predicate, in other
words, which is affirmed of the Absolute. And since such a predicate is
a poor abstraction, and since its essence, therefore, is determined by
what falls outside its own being, it is, hence, inconsistent with
itself, and contradicts its proper subject.  We have in brief, by
considering the spurious ontological proof, been led once more to the
conclusion that existence is not reality.

 Existence is not reality, and reality must exist. Each of these truths
is essential to an understanding of the whole, and each of them,
necessarily in the end, is implied in the other. Existence is, in other
words, a form of the appearance of the Real. And we have seen that to
appear, as such, in one or in many events, is to show therefore a
limited and low type of development. But, on the other hand, not to
appear at all in the series of time, not to exhibit one's nature in the
field of existence, is to be false and unreal. And to be more true, and
to be more real, is, in some way or other, to be more manifest
outwardly. For the truer always is wider. There is a fair presumption
that any truth, which cannot be exhibited at work, is for the most part
untrue. And, with this understanding, we may take our leave of the
ontological proof. Our inspection of it, perhaps, has served to confirm
us in the general doctrine arrived at in our chapter. It is only a view
which asserts degrees of reality and truth, and which has a rational
meaning for words such as "higher" and "lower"--it is only such a view
which can do justice alike to the sides of idea and existence.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XXV GOODNESS  IN a former chapter I tried to show, briefly, that
the existence of evil affords no good ground for an objection against
our Absolute. Evil and good are not illusions, but they are most
certainly appearances. They are one-sided aspects, each over-ruled and
transmuted in the Whole. And, after the discussions of our last chapter,
we should be better able to appreciate their position and value. As with
truth and error, so with good and bad, the opposition is not absolute.
For, to some extent and in some manner, perfection is everywhere
realized. And yet, upon the other hand, the distinction of degrees is no
less vital. The interval which exists between, and which separates, the
lower and the higher, is measured by the idea of perfect Reality. The
lower is that which, to be made complete, would have to undergo a more
total transformation of its nature. And viewed from the ground of what
is higher--of what they fail to reach or even oppose--the lower truth
and lower goodness become sheer error and evil. The Absolute is perfect
in all its detail, it is equally true and good throughout. But, upon the
other side, each distinction of better and more true, every degree and
each comparative stage of reality is essential. They are made and
justified by the all-pervasive action of one immanent perfection.

 And guided by this two-fold principle we might approach without
misgiving the diverse worlds of  appearance. But in this work I am
endeavouring merely to defend a general view. And so, both on the whole
and here in particular with regard to goodness, I cannot attempt to deal
fully with any aspect of the Absolute. It is mainly the common prejudice
in favour of the ultimate truth of morality or religion, that has led me
to give to them here a space which perhaps is undue. But, even with
this, I can but touch on certain features of the subject; and I must
deal chiefly with those which are likely to be urged as objections to
our doctrine.

 We may speak of the good, generally, as that which satisfies desire. It
is that which we approve of, and in which we can rest with a feeling of
contentment. Or we may describe it again, if we please, as being the
same as worth. It contains those elements which, also, we find in truth.
Truth and goodness are each the correspondence, or rather each the
identity, of idea and existence. In truth we start with existence, as
being the appearance of perfection, and we go on to complete ideally
what really must be there. In goodness, on the other hand, we begin with
an idea of what is perfect, and we then make, or else find, this same
idea in what exists. And the idea also I take to be desired. Goodness is
the verification in existence of a desired ideal content, and it thus
implies the measurement of fact by a suggested idea. Hence both goodness
and truth contain the separation of idea and existence, and involve a
process in time. And,  therefore, each is appearance, and but a
one-sided aspect of the Real.

 But the good (it may be objected) need involve no idea. Is not the
pleasant, as such, good? Is not at any rate any feeling in which we rest
with satisfaction, at once good in itself? I answer these questions in
the negative. Good, in the proper sense, implies the fulfilment of
desire; at least, if you consider anything apart from the realization of
a suggested idea, it is at a stage below goodness. Such an experience
would be, but it would not, properly, have yet become either good or
true. And on reflection, perhaps, we should not wish to make use of
these terms. For, at our level of mental life, whatever satisfies and
contents us can hardly fail to have some implication with desire. And,
if we take it where as yet it suggests nothing, where we have no idea of
what we feel, and where we do not realize, however dimly, that "it is
this which is good"--then it is no paradox to refuse to such a stage the
name of goodness. Such a feeling would become good, if for a moment I
were so to regard it; for I then should possess the idea of what
satisfies, and should find that idea given also in fact. But, where
ideas are absent, we should not speak of anything as being actually good
or true. Goodness and truth may be there potentially, but as yet neither
of them is there.

 And that an idea is required for goodness seems fairly clear, but with
regard to desire there is more room for doubt. I may approve, in the
sense of finding a pleasant idea realized, and yet, in some cases,
desire appears to be absent. For, in some cases, existence does not
oppose my idea, and there  is, hence, no place open for the tension of
desire. This assertion might be combated, but, for myself, I am prepared
to admit it. And the inclusion of desire in the idea of good, to this
extent I allow, may be called arbitrary. But it seems justifiable,
because (as things are) desire must be developed. Approval without
desire is but an extreme and a passing condition. There cannot fail to
come a wavering, and so an opposition, in my state; and with this at
once we have the tension required for desire. Desire, I thus admit, may,
for the moment, be absent from approval; but, because it necessarily
must ensue, I take it as essential. Still this point, in my opinion, has
little importance. What is important is to insist that the presence of
an idea is essential to goodness.

 And for this reason we must not admit that the pleasant, as such, is
good. The good is pleasant, and the better, also, is in proportion more
pleasant. And we may add, again, that the pleasant is generally good, if
we will leave out "as such." For the pleasant will naturally become
desired, and will therefore on the whole be good. But we must not assert
that everything pleasant is the satisfaction of a desire, or even always
must imply desire or approval. And hence, since an idea may be absent,
the pleasant sometimes may be not properly good.

 And against the identification of bare pleasure, as such, with the good
we may unhesitatingly pronounce. Such a view separates the aspect of
pleasure, and then denies that anything else in the world is worth
anything at all. If it merely asserted that the more pleasant and the
better were one, its position would be altered. For, since pleasure goes
with everything that is free from discord, or has merged discord in
fuller harmony, naturally the higher degree of individuality will be
therefore more pleasant. And we have included pleasure as an  essential
element in our idea of perfection (Chapter xx.). But it will hardly
follow from this that nothing in the universe except pleasure is good,
and that, taking this one aspect as the end, we may regard all else as
mere means. Where everything is connected in one whole, you may abstract
and so may isolate any one factor. And you may prove at your ease that,
without this, all the rest are imperfect and worthless; and you may show
how, this one being added, they all once more gain reality and worth.
And hence of every one alike you may conclude that it is the end for the
sake of which all the others exist. But from this to argue, absolutely
and blindly, that some one single aspect of the world is the sole thing
that is good, is most surely illogical. It is to narrow a point of view,
which is permissible only so long as it is general, into a one-sided
mistake. And thus, in its denial that anything else beside pleasure is
good, Hedonism must be met by a decided rejection.

 Is a thing desired always, because it is first pleasant, or is it ever
pleasant rather, on the other hand, because we desire it? And we may ask
the same question as to the relation of the desired to the good. But,
again, is anything true because I am led to think it, or am I rather led
to think it because of its truth? And, once more, is it right because I
ought, or does the "because" only hold in the opposite direction? And is
an object  beautiful because it affects me, or is, on the other hand, my
emotion the result of its beauty? In each of these cases we first have
made a separation which is too rigid, and on this foundation are built
questions which threaten us with a dilemma. We set down upon each side,
as a fact and as presupposed, what apart from the other side, at least
sometimes, would have no existence. If good is the satisfaction of
desire, you may take desire as being its condition; but, on the other
hand, you would desire hardly anything at all, unless in some sense it
had given satisfaction already. Certainly the pleasant, as we have seen,
may, for a time and at a low level, be not approved of or desired. But
it is another thing to assert that goodness consists in, or is a mere
result from, pleasure.

 That which consistent Hedonism would, at least by implication, deny, is
the direction of desire in the end towards anything but pleasure.
Something is pleasant as a fact, and solely for that cause it is
desired; and with this the whole question seems forthwith settled. But
pleasure itself, like every other fact, cannot be something which just
happens. Upon its side also, assuredly, it is not without a reason. And,
when we ask, we find that pleasure co-exists always with what we call
perfection or individuality. But, if so, then surely the "because" holds
as firmly in one way as in the other. And, so far as I see, if we have a
right to deny that a certain character is necessary for pleasure, we
should have the same right to repudiate the connection between pleasure
and desire. If the one co-existence is mere accident and a conjunction
which happens, then why not also, and as much, the other? But, if we
agree that the connection is two-sided, and that a degree of relative
perfection is essential to pleasure, just as pleasure, on its side, is
an element in perfection, then Hedonism, at once, is in principle
refuted. The object of desire will never fail, as  such, to contain more
than pleasure; and the idea that either pleasure, or any other aspect,
is the single End in the universe must be allowed to be untenable
(Chapter xxvi.). I may perhaps put this otherwise by urging that, even
if Hedonism were true, there would be no possible way in which its truth
could be shown.

 Passing from this mistake I will notice another doctrine from which we
must dissent. There is a temptation to identify goodness with the
realization of the Will; and, on the strength of a certain assumption,
this conclusion would, taken broadly, be right. But we shall see that
this assumption is not tenable (Chapter xxvi.), and, without it, the
conclusion cannot stand. We have noticed that the satisfaction of desire
can be found as well as made by the individual. And where experienced
existence is both pleasant and satisfies desire, I am unable to see how
we can refuse to call it good. Nor, again, can pleasure be limited so as
to be the feeling of the satisfied will, since it clearly seems to exist
in the absence of volition.

 I may perhaps express our general view by saying that the good is
co-extensive with approbation. But I should add that approbation is to
be taken in  its widest sense. To approve is to have an idea in which we
feel satisfaction, and to have or imagine the presence of this idea in
existence. And against the existence which, actually or in imagination,
fails to realize the idea, the idea becomes an "is to be," a "should" or
an "ought." Nor is approbation in the least confined to the realm of
morality proper, but is found just as much in the worlds of speculation
or art. Wherever a result, external or inward, is measured by an idea
which is pleasant, and is seen to correspond, we can, in a certain
sense, be said to approve. And, where we approve, there certainly we can
be said also to find the result good.

 The good, in general, is often identified with the desirable. This, I
think, is misleading. For the desirable means that which is to be, or
ought to be, desired. And it seems, hence, to imply that the good  might
be good, and yet not be desired, or, again, that something might be
desired which is not good. And, if good is taken generally, these
assertions at least are disputable. The term "desirable" belongs to the
world of relative goods, and has a clear meaning only where we can speak
of better and worse. But to good in general it seems not strictly
applicable. A thing is desirable, when to desire it is better. It is not
desirable, properly, when you can say no more than that to desire it is
good.

 The good might be called desirable in the sense that it essentially has
to be desired. For desire is not an external means, but is contained and
involved in goodness, or at least follows from it necessarily. Goodness
without desire, we might say, would not be itself, and it is hence
desirable (p. 404). This use of "desirable" would call attention to an
important point, but, for the reason given above, would be misleading.
At any rate it clearly separates for the moment desire from goodness.

 We have attempted now to fix generally the meaning of goodness, and we
may proceed from this to lay stress on its contradictory character. The
good is not the perfect, but is merely a one-sided aspect of perfection.
It tends to pass beyond itself, and, if it were completed, it would
forthwith cease properly to be good. I will exhibit its incompleteness
first by asking what it is that is good, and will then go on briefly to
point out the self-contradiction in its essence.

  If we seek to know what is goodness, we find it always as the
adjective of something not itself. Beauty, truth, pleasure, and
sensation are all things that are good. We desire them all, and all can
serve as types or "norms" by which to guide our approbation. And hence,
in a sense, they all will fall under and be included in goodness. But
when we ask, on the other hand, if goodness exhausts all that lies in
these regions, the answer must be different. For we see at once that
each possesses a character of its own; and, in order to be good, the
other aspects of the universe must also be themselves. The good then, as
such, is obviously not so wide as the totality of things. And the same
conclusion is at once forced on us, if we go on to examine the essence
of goodness. For that is self- discrepant, and is therefore appearance
and not Reality. The good implies a distinction of idea from existence,
and a division which, in the lapse of time, is perpetually healed up and
re-made.

 And such a process is involved in the inmost being of the good. A
satisfied desire is, in short, inconsistent with itself For, so far as
it is quite satisfied, it is not a desire; and, so far as it is a
desire, it must remain at least partly unsatisfied. And where we are
said to want nothing but what we have, and where approbation precludes
desire, we have, first, an ideal continuance of character in conflict
with change. But in any case, apart from this, there is implied the
suggestion of an idea, distinct from the fact while identified with it.
Each of these features is necessary, and each is inconsistent with the
other. And the resolution of this difference between idea and existence
is both demanded by the good, and yet remains unattainable. Its
accomplishment, indeed, would destroy the proper essence of goodness,
and the good is therefore in itself incomplete and self-transcendent. It
moves towards an other and a  higher character, in which, becoming
perfect, it would be merged.

 Hence obviously the good is not the Whole, and the Whole, as such, is
not good. And, viewed thus in relation to the Absolute, there is nothing
either bad or good, there is not anything better or worse. For the
Absolute is not its appearances. But (as we have seen throughout) such a
truth is itself partial and false, since the Absolute appears in its
phenomena and is real nowhere outside them. We indeed can only deny that
it is any one, because it is all of them in unity. And so, regarded from
this other side, the Absolute is good, and it manifests itself
throughout in various degrees of goodness and badness. The destiny of
goodness, in reaching which it must itself cease to be, is accomplished
by the Whole. And, since in that consummation idea and existence are not
lost but are brought into harmony, the Whole therefore is still good.
And again, since reference to the perfect makes finite satisfactions all
higher and lower, the Absolute is realized in all of them to different
degrees. I will briefly deal with this latter point.

 We saw, in our last chapter, the genuine meaning of degrees in reality
and truth. That is more perfect which is separated from perfection by a
smaller interval. And the interval is measured by the amount of
re-arrangement and of addition required in order to turn an appearance
into Reality. We found, again, that our one principle has a double
aspect, as it meets two opposite defects in phenomena. For an element is
lower as being either more narrow or less harmonious. And we perceived,
further, how and why these two defects are essentially connected.
Passing now to goodness, we must content ourselves by observing in
general that the same principle holds. The satisfaction which is more
true and more real, is better. And we measure, here again, by the double
aspect of  extension and harmony. Only the perfect and complete would,
in the end, content our desires. And a satisfaction more consistent with
itself, or again wider and fuller, approaches more nearly to that
consummation in which we could rest. Further the divergence of these two
aspects is itself but apparent, and consists merely in a one- sided
confinement of our view. For a satisfaction determined from the outside
cannot internally be harmonious, while on the other hand, if it became
all- inclusive, it would have become also concordant. In its application
this single principle tends naturally to fall apart into two different
standards. Still, for all that, it remains in essence and at bottom the
same, and it is everywhere an estimation by the Absolute.

 In a sense, therefore, the Absolute is actually good, and throughout
the world of goodness it is truly realized in different degrees of
satisfaction. Since in ultimate Reality all existence, and all thought
and feeling, become one, we may even say that every feature in the
universe is thus absolutely good.

 I have now briefly laid down the general meaning and significance of
goodness, and may go on to consider it in a more special and restricted
sense. The good, we have seen, contains the sides of existence and idea.
And the existence, so far, has been found to be in accordance with the
idea, but the idea itself, so far, has not necessarily produced or
realized itself in the fact. When, however, we take goodness in its
narrower meaning, this last feature is essential. The good, in short,
will become the realized end or completed will. It is now an idea which
not only has an answering  content in fact, but, in addition also, has
made, and has brought about, that correspondence. We may say that the
idea has translated or has carried itself out into reality; for the
content on both sides is the same, and the existence has become what it
is through the action of the idea. Goodness thus will be confined to the
realm of ends or of self-realization. It will be restricted, in other
words, to what is commonly called the sphere of morality.

 For we must here take self-realization to have no meaning except in
finite souls; and of course every soul is finite, though certainly not
all are human. Will, implying a process in time, cannot belong, as such,
to the Absolute; and, on the other side, we cannot assume the existence
of ends in the physical world. I shall return in the next chapter to
this question of teleology in Nature, but, for the sake of convenience,
we must here exclude it from our view. There is to be, in short, no
self-realization except that of souls.

 Goodness then, at present, is the realization of its idea by a finite
soul. It is not perfection simply, but perfection as carried out by a
will. We must forget, on the one hand, that, as we have seen,
approbation goes beyond morality; and we must, as yet, be blind to that
more restricted sense in which morality is inward. Goodness is, here, to
be the carrying out by the individual of his idea of perfection. And we
must go on to show briefly how, in this sense also, the good is
inconsistent. It is a point of view which is compelled perpetually to
pass beyond itself.

 If we enquire, once more, "What is good?" in the sense of asking for
some element of content which is special, we must answer, as before,
"There is nothing." Pleasure, we have seen, is by itself not the essence
of goodness; and, on the other hand, no feature of the world falls
outside of what is good. Beauty, truth, feeling, and sensation, every 
imaginable matter must go to constitute perfection. For perfection or
individuality is a system, harmonious and thus inclusive of everything.
And goodness we have now taken to be the willed reality of its
perfection by a soul. And hence neither the form of system by itself,
nor again, any one matter apart from the whole, is either perfect or
good.

 But, as with truth and reality, so with goodness our one standard
becomes double, and individuality falls apart into the aspects of
harmony and extent. In principle, and actually in the end, these two
features must coincide (Chapter xxiv.); but in judging of phenomena we
are constantly forced to apply them separately. I propose to say nothing
about the various concrete modes in which this two-fold perfection has
been realized in fact. But, solely with a view to bring out the radical
vice of all goodness, I will proceed to lay stress on this divergence in
application. The aspects of extent and of harmony come together in the
end, but no less certainly in that end goodness, as such, will have
perished.

 I am about, in other words, to invite attention to what is called
self-sacrifice. Goodness is the realization by an individual of his own
perfection, and that perfection consists, as we have seen, in both
harmony and extent. And provisionally these two features will not quite
coincide. To reduce the raw material of one's nature to the highest
degree of system, and to use every element from whatever source as a
subordinate means to this object, is certainly one genuine view of
goodness. On the other hand to widen as far as possible the end to be
pursued, and to realize this through the distraction or the dissipation
of one's own individuality, is certainly also good. An individual
system, aimed at in one's self, and again the subordination of one's own
development to a wide- embracing end, are each  an aspect of the moral
principle. So far as they are discrepant, these two pursuits may be
called, the one, self-assertion, and the other, self-sacrifice. And,
however much these must diverge, each is morally good; and, taken in the
abstract, you cannot say that one is better than the other.

 I am far from suggesting that in morality we are forced throughout to
make a choice between such incompatible ideals. For this is not the
case, and, if it were so, life could hardly be lived. To a very large
extent by taking no thought about his individual perfection, and by
aiming at that which seems to promise no personal advantage, a man
secures his private welfare. We may, perhaps, even say that in the main
there is no collision between self-sacrifice and self- assertion, and
that on the whole neither of these, in the proper sense, exists for
morality. But, while admitting or asserting to the full the general
identity of these aspects, I am here insisting on the fact of their
partial divergence. And that, at least in some respects and with some
persons, these two ideals seem hostile no sane observer can deny.

 In other words we must admit that two great divergent forms of moral
goodness exist. In order to realize the idea of a perfect self a man may
have to choose between two partially conflicting methods. Morality, in
short, may dictate either self-sacrifice or self-assertion, and it is
important to clear our ideas as to the meaning of each. A common mistake
is to identify the first with the living for others, and the second with
living for oneself. Virtue upon this view is social, either directly or
indirectly, either visibly or invisibly. The development of the
individual, that is, unless it reacts to increase the welfare of
society, can certainly not be moral. This doctrine I am still forced to
consider as a truth which has been exaggerated and perverted into error.
There  are intellectual and other accomplishments, to which I at least
cannot refuse the title of virtue. But I cannot assume that, without
exception, these must all somehow add to what is called social welfare;
nor, again, do I see how to make a social organism the subject which
directly possesses them. But, if so, it is impossible for me to admit
that all virtue is essentially or primarily social. On the contrary, the
neglect of social good, for the sake of pursuing other ends, may not
only be moral self-assertion, but again, equally under other conditions,
it may be moral self-sacrifice. We can even say that the living "for
others," rather than living "for myself," may be immoral and selfish.

 And you can hardly make the difference between self- sacrifice and
self-assertion consist in this, that the idea pursued, in one case,
falls beyond the individual and, in the other case, fails to do so. Or,
rather, such a phrase, left undefined, can scarcely be said to have a
meaning. Every permanent end of every kind will go beyond the
individual, if the individual is taken in his lowest sense. And, passing
that by, obviously the content realized in an individual's perfection
must be also above him and beyond him. His perfection is not one thing
apart from the rest of the universe, and he gains it only by
appropriating, and by reducing to a special harmony, the common
substance of all. It is obvious that his private welfare, so far as he
is social, must include to some extent the welfare of others. And his
intellectual, ‘sthetic, and moral development, in short the whole ideal
side of his nature, is clearly built up out of elements which he shares
with other souls. Hence the individual's end in self-advancement must
always transcend his private being. In fact, the difference between
self-assertion and self-sacrifice does not lie in the contents which are
used, but in the diverse uses which are made of them; and I will attempt
to explain this.

  In moral self-assertion the materials used may be drawn from any
source, and they may belong to any world. They may, and they must,
largely realize ends which visibly transcend my life. But it is self-
assertion when, in applying these elements, I am guided by the idea of
the greatest system in myself. If the standard used in measuring and
selecting my material is, in other words, the development of my
individual perfection, then my conduct is palpably not self- sacrifice,
and may be opposed to it. It is self- sacrifice when I pursue an end by
which my individuality suffers loss. In the attainment of this object my
self is distracted, or is diminished, or even dissipated. I may, for
social purposes, give up my welfare for the sake of other persons; or
again I may devote myself to some impersonal pursuit, by which the
health and harmony of my self is injured. Wherever the moral end
followed is followed to the loss of individual well-being, then that is
self-sacrifice, whether I am living "for others" or not. But
self-sacrifice is also, and on the other hand, a form of
self-realization. The wider end, which is aimed at, is, visibly or
invisibly, reached; and in that pursuit and that attainment I find my
personal good.

 It is the essential nature of my self, as finite, equally to assert
and, at the same time, to pass beyond itself; and hence the objects of
self-sacrifice and of self-advancement are each equally mine. If we are
willing to push a metaphor far beyond its true and natural limits, we
may perhaps state the contrast thus. In self-assertion the organ
considers first its own development, and for that purpose it draws
material from the common life of all organs. But in self-sacrifice the
organ aims at realizing some feature of the life larger than its own,
and is ready to do this at the cost of injury to its own existence. It
has foregone the idea of a perfection, individual,  rounded, and
concrete. It is willing to see itself abstract and mutilated,
over-specialized, or stunted, or even destroyed. But this actual defect
it can make up ideally, by an expansion beyond its special limits, and
by an identification of its will with a wider reality. Certainly the two
pursuits, thus described, must in the main coincide and be one. The
whole is furthered most by the self-seeking of its parts, for in these
alone the whole can appear and be real. And the part again is
individually bettered by its action for the whole, since thus it gains
the supply of that common substance which is necessary to fill it. But,
on the other hand, this general coincidence is only general, and
assuredly there are points at which it ceases. And here self-assertion
and self-sacrifice begin to diverge, and each to acquire its distinctive
character.

 Each of these modes of action realizes the self, and realizes that
which is higher; and (I must repeat this) they are equally virtuous and
right. To what then should the individual have any duty, if he has none
to himself? Or is it, again, really supposed that in his perfection the
whole is not perfected, and that he is somewhere enjoying his own
advantage and holding it apart from the universe? But we have seen that
such a separation between the Absolute and finite beings is meaningless.
Or shall we be assured, upon the other side, that for a thing to
sacrifice itself is contrary to reason? But we have found that the very
essence of finite beings is self-contradictory, that their own nature
includes relation to others, and that they are already each outside of
its own existence. And, if so, surely it would be impossible, and most
contrary to reason, that the finite, realizing itself, should not also
transcend its own limits. If a finite individual really is not
self-discrepant, then let that be argued and shown. But, otherwise, that
he should be compelled to follow two ideals of perfection which diverge,
 appears natural and necessary. And each of these pursuits, in general
and in the abstract, is equally good. It is only the particular
conditions which in each case can decide between them.

 Now that this divergence ceases, and is brought together in the end, is
most certain. For nothing is outside the Absolute, and in the Absolute
there is nothing imperfect. And an unaccomplished object, implying
discrepancy between idea and existence, is most surely imperfection. In
the Absolute everything finite attains the perfection which it seeks;
but, upon the other hand, it cannot gain perfection precisely as it
seeks it. For, as we have seen throughout, the finite is more or less
transmuted, and, as such, disappears in being accomplished. This common
destiny is assuredly the end of the Good. The ends sought by
self-assertion and self-sacrifice are, each alike, unattainable. The
individual never can in himself become an harmonious system. And in the
wider ideal to which he devotes himself, no matter how thoroughly, he
never can find complete self-realization. For, even if we take that
ideal to be perfect and to be somehow completely fulfilled, yet, after
all, he himself is not totally absorbed in it. If his discordant element
is for faith swallowed up, yet faith, no less, means that a jarring
appearance remains. And, in the complete gift and dissipation of his
personality, he, as such, must vanish; and, with that, the good is, as
such, transcended and submerged. This result is but the conclusion with
which our chapter began. Goodness is an appearance, it is phenomenal,
and therefore self- contradictory. And therefore, as was the case with
degrees of truth and reality, it shows two forms of one standard which
will not wholly coincide. In the end, where every discord is brought to
harmony, every idea is also realized. But there, where nothing can be
lost, everything, by addition and by re-arrangement,  more or less
changes its character. And most emphatically no self-assertion nor any
self-sacrifice, nor any goodness or morality, has, as such, any reality
in the Absolute. Goodness is a subordinate and, therefore, a
self-contradictory aspect of the universe.

 And, with this, it is full time that we went forward; but, for the sake
of some readers, I will dwell longer on the relative character of the
Good. Too many English moralists assume blindly that goodness is
ultimate and absolute. For as regards metaphysics they are incompetent,
and that in the religion which probably they profess or at least esteem,
morality, as such, is subordinate--such a fact suggests to them nothing.
They are ignorant of the view for which all things finite in different
degrees are real and true, and for which, at the same time, not one of
them is ultimate. And they cannot understand that the Whole may be
consistent, when the appearances which qualify it conflict with one
another. For holding on to each separate appearance, as a thing absolute
and not relative, they fix these each in that partial character which is
unreal and untrue. And such one-sided abstractions, which in coming
together are essentially transformed, they consider to be ultimate and
fundamental facts. Thus in goodness the ends of self-assertion and of
self-sacrifice are inconsistent, each with itself and each with the
other. They are fragmentary truths, neither of which is, as such,
ultimately true. But it is just these relative aspects which the popular
moralist holds to, each as real by itself; and hence ensues a blind
tangle of bewilderment and error. To follow this in detail is not my
task, and still less my desire, but it may be instructive, perhaps,
briefly to consider it further.

 There is first one point which should be obvious, but which seems often
forgotten. In asking  whether goodness can, in the end, be
self-consistent and be real, we are not concerned merely with the
relation between virtue and selfishness. For suppose that there is no
difference between these two, except merely for our blindness, yet,
possessing this first crown of our wishes, we have still not solved the
main problem. It will certainly now be worth my while to seek the good
of my neighbour, since by no other course can I do any better for
myself, and since what is called self- sacrifice, or benevolent action,
is in fact the only possible way to secure my advantage. But then, upon
the other hand, a mere balance of advantage, however satisfactory the
means by which I come to possess it, is most assuredly not the
fulfilment of my desire. For the desire of human beings (this is surely
a commonplace) has no limit. Goodness, in other words, must imply an
attempt to reach perfection, and it is the nature of the finite to seek
for that which nothing finite can satisfy. But, if so, with a mere
balance of advantage I have not realized my good. And, however much
virtue may be nothing in the world but a refined form of self- seeking,
yet, with this, virtue is not one whit the less a pursuit of what is
inconsistent and therefore impossible. And goodness, or the attainment
of such an impossible end, is still self-contradictory.

 Further, since it seems necessary for me not to be ashamed of
platitude, let me call the attention of the reader to some evident
truths. No existing social organism secures to its individuals any more
than an imperfect good, and in all of them self-sacrifice marks the fact
of a failure in principle. But even in an imaginary society, such as is
foretold to us in the New Jerusalem of Mr. Spencer, it is only for
thoughtless credulity that evil has vanished. For it is not easy to
forget that finite beings are physically subject to accident, or easy to
believe that this their natural essence is somehow to be  removed. And,
even so and in any case, the members of an organism must of necessity be
sacrificed more or less to the whole. For they must more or less be made
special in their function, and that means rendered, to some extent, one-
sided and narrow. And, if so, the harmony of their individual being must
inevitably in some degree suffer. And it must suffer again, if the
individual devotes himself to some ‘sthetic or intellectual pursuit. On
the other side, even within the New Jerusalem, if a person aims merely
at his own good, he, none the less, is fore- doomed to imperfection and
failure. For on a defective and shifting natural basis he tries to build
a harmonious system; and his task, hopeless for this reason, is for
another reason more hopeless. He strives within finite limits to
construct a concordant whole, when the materials which he is forced to
use have no natural endings, but extend themselves indefinitely beyond
himself into an endless world of relations. And, if so, once more we
have been brought back to the familiar truth, that there is no such
possibility as human perfection. But, if so, then goodness, since it
must needs pursue the perfect, is in its essence self- discrepant, and
in the end is unreal. It is an appearance one-sided and relative, and
not an ultimate reality.

 But to this idea of relativity, both in the case of goodness and every
other order of phenomena, popular philosophy remains blind. Everything,
for it, is either a delusion, and so nothing at all, or is on the other
hand a fact, and, because it exists, therefore, as such, real. That
reality can appear nowhere except in a system of relative unrealities,
that, taken apart from this system, the several appearances are in
contradiction with one another and each within itself, that,
nevertheless, outside of this field of jarring elements there neither is
nor can be anything, and that, if appearances were not irremediably
self-discrepant, they could not possibly be the appearances of the
Real--all this to popular thought remains meaningless. Common sense
openly revolts against the idea of a fact which is not a reality; or
again, as sober criticism, it plumes itself on suggesting cautious
questions, doubts which dogmatically assume the truth of its coarsest
prejudices. Nowhere are these infirmities illustrated better than by
popular Ethics, in the attitude it takes towards the necessary
discrepancies of goodness. That these discrepancies exist because
goodness is not absolute, and that their solution is not possible until
goodness is degraded to an appearance--such a view is blindly ignored.
Nor is it asked if these opposites, self-assertion and self-sacrifice,
are not each internally inconsistent and so irrational. But the
procedure is, first, tacitly to assume that each opposite is fixed, and
will not pass beyond itself. And then, from this basis, one of the
extremes is rejected as an illusion; or else, both being absolute and
solid, an attempt is made to combine them externally or to show that
somehow they coincide. I will add a few words on these developments.

 (i.) The good may be identified with self-sacrifice, and self-assertion
may, therefore, be totally excluded. But the good, as self-sacrifice, is
clearly in collision with itself. For an act of self-denial is, no less,
in some sense a self-realization, and it inevitably includes an aspect
of self-assertion. And hence the good, as the mere attainment of
self-sacrifice, is really unmeaning. For it is in finite selves, after
all, that the good must be realized. And, further, to say that
perfection must be always the perfection of something else, appears
quite inconsistent. For it will mean either that on the whole the good
is nothing whatever, or else that it consists in that which each does or
may enjoy, yet not as good, but as a something extraneously added unto
him. The good, in other words, in this case  will be not good; and in
the former case it will be nothing positive, and therefore nothing. That
each should pursue the general perfection, should act for the advantage
of a whole in which his self is included, or should add to a collection
in which he may share--is certainly not pure self-sacrifice. And a maxim
that each should aim purely at his neighbour's welfare in separation
from his own, we have seen is self-inconsistent. It can hardly be
ultimate or reasonable, when its meaning seems to end in nonsense.

 (ii.) Or, rejecting all self-transcendence as an idle word, popular
Ethics may set up pure self-assertion as all that is good. It may
perhaps desire to add that by the self-seeking of each the advantage of
all is best secured, but this addition clearly is not contained in
self-assertion, and cannot properly be included. For by such an
addition, if it were necessary, the end at once would have been
essentially modified. It was self- assertion pure, and not qualified,
which was adopted as goodness; and it is this alone which we must now
consider. And we perceive first (as we saw above) that such a good is
unattainable, since perfection cannot be realized in a finite being. Not
only is the physical basis too shifting, but the contents too
essentially belong to a world outside the self; and hence it is
impossible that they should be brought to completion and to harmony
within it. One may indeed seek to approach nearer to the unattainable.
Aiming at a system within oneself, one may forcibly abstract from the
necessary connections of the material used. We may consider this and
strive to apply it one-sidedly, and in but a single portion of its
essential aspects. But the other aspect inseparably against  our will is
brought in, and it stamps our effort with inconsistency. Thus even to
pursue imperfectly one's own advantage by itself is unreasonable, for by
itself and purely it has no existence at all. It was a trait
characteristic of critical Common Sense when it sought for the
individual's moral end by first supposing him isolated. For a dogmatic
assumption that the individual remains what he is when you have cut off
his relations, is very much what the vulgar understand by criticism.
But, when such a question is discussed, it must be answered quite
otherwise. The contents, asserted in the individual's self-seeking,
necessarily extend beyond his private limits. A maxim, therefore, merely
to pursue one's own advantage is, taken strictly, inconsistent. And a
principle which contradicts itself is, once more, not reasonable.

 (iii.) In the third place, admitting self-assertion and self-denial as
equally good, popular thought attempts to bring them together from
outside. Goodness will now consist in the coincidence of these
independent goods. The two are not to be absorbed by and resolved into a
third. Each, on the other hand, is to retain unaltered the character
which it has, and the two, remaining two, are somehow to be conjoined.
And this, as we have seen throughout our work, is quite impossible. If
two conflicting finite elements are anywhere to be harmonized, the first
condition is that each should forego and should transcend its private
character. Each, in other words, working out the discrepancy  already
within itself, passes beyond itself and unites with its opposite in a
product higher than either. But such a transcendence can have no meaning
to popular Ethics. That has assumed without examination that each finite
end, taken by itself, is reasonable; and it therefore demands that each,
as such, should together be satisfied. And, blind to theory, it is blind
also to the practical refutation of its dogmas by everyday life. There a
man can seek the general welfare in his own, and can find his own end
accomplished in the general; for goodness there already is the
transcendence and solution of one-sided elements. The good is already
there, not the external conjunction, but the substantial identity of
these opposites. They are not coincident with, but each is in, and makes
one aspect of, the other. In short, already within goodness that work is
imperfectly begun, which, when completed, must take us beyond goodness
altogether. But for popular Ethics, as we saw, not only goodness itself,
but each of its one-sided features is fixed as absolute. And, these
having been so fixed in irrational independence, an effort is made to
find the good in their external conjunction.

 Goodness is apparently now to be the coincidence of two ultimate goods,
but it is hard to see how such an end can be ultimate or reasonable.
That two elements should necessarily come together, and, at the same
time, that neither should be qualified by this relation, or again that a
relation in the end should not imply a whole, which subordinates and
qualifies the two terms-- all this in the end seems unintelligible. But,
again, if the relation and the whole are to qualify the terms, one does
not understand how either by itself could ever have been ultimate. In
short, the bare conjunction of  independent reals is an idea which
contradicts itself. But of this naturally Common Sense has no knowledge
at all, and it therefore blindly proceeds with its impossible task.

 That task is to defend the absolute character of goodness by showing
that the discrepancies which it presents disappear in the end, and that
these discrepant features, none the less, survive each in its own
character. But by popular Ethics this task usually is not understood. It
directs itself therefore to prove the coincidence of self-seeking and
benevolence, or to show, in other words, that self-sacrifice, if moral,
is impossible. And with this conclusion reached, in its opinion, the
main problem would be solved. Now I will not ask how far in such a
consummation its ultimate ends would, one or both, have been
subordinated; for by its conclusion, in any case, the main problem is
not touched. We have already seen that our desires, whether for
ourselves or for others, do not stop short of perfection. But where each
individual can say no more than this, that it has been made worth his
while to regard others' interests, perfection surely may be absent. And
where the good aimed at is absent, to affirm that we have got rid of the
puzzle offered by goodness seems really thoughtless. It is, however, a
thoughtlessness which, as we have perceived, is characteristic; and let
us pass to the external means employed to produce moral harmony.

 Little need here be said. We may find, thrust forward or indicated
feebly, a well-worn contrivance. This is of course the deus ex machina,
an idea which no serious student of first principles is called on to
consider. A God which has to make things what otherwise, and by their
own nature, they are not,  may summarily be dismissed as an exploded
absurdity. And that perfection should exist in the finite, as such, we
have seen to be even directly contrary to the nature of things. A
supposition that it may be made worth my while to be
benevolent--especially when an indefinite prolongation of my life is
imagined--cannot, in itself and for our knowledge, be called impossible.
But then, upon the other hand, we have remarked that such an imagined
improvement is not a solution of the actual main problem. The belief may
possibly add much to our comfort by assuring us that virtue is the best,
and is the only true, selfishness. But such a truth, if true, would not
imply that both or either of our genuine ends is, as such, realized.
And, failing this, the wider discrepancy has certainly not been removed
from goodness. We may say, in a word, that the deus ex machina refuses
to work. Little can be brought in by this venerable artifice except a
fresh source of additional collision and perplexity. And, giving up this
embarrassing agency, popular Ethics may prefer to make an appeal to
"Reason." For, if its two moral ends are each reasonable, then, if
somehow they do not coincide, the nature of things must be unreasonable.
But we have shown, on the other hand, that neither end by itself is
reasonable; and, if the nature of things were to bring together elements
discordant within themselves and conflicting with one another, and were
to attempt, without transforming their character, to make these
coincide,--the nature of things would have revealed itself as an
apotheosis of unreason or of popular Ethics. And, baffled by its failure
to find its dogmas realized in the universe, this way of thinking at
last may threaten us with total scepticism. But here, once more, it is
but speaking of that of which it knows really nothing; for an honest
scepticism is a thing outside its comprehension. An honest and
truth-seeking  scepticism pushes questions to the end, and knows that
the end lies hid in that which is assumed at the beginning. But the
scepticism (so-called) of Common Sense from first to last is dogmatic.
It takes for granted, first, without examination that certain doctrines
are true; it then demands that this collection of dogmas should come to
an agreement; and, when its demand is rejected by the universe, it none
the less persists in reiterating its old assumptions. And this
dogmatism, simply because it is baffled and perplexed, gets the name of
scepticism. But a sincere scepticism, attacking without fear each
particular prejudice, finds that every finite view, when taken by
itself, becomes inconsistent. And borne on this inconsistency, which in
each case means a self-transcendence, such a scepticism is lifted to see
a whole in which all finites blend and are resolved. But when each fact
and end has foregone its claim, as such, to be ultimate or reasonable,
then reason and harmony in the highest sense have begun to appear. And
scepticism in the end survives as a mere aspect of constructive
metaphysics. With this we may leave the irrational dogmas of popular
Ethics.

 The discussion of these has been wearisome, but perhaps not
uninstructive. It should have confirmed us in our general conclusion as
to the nature of the good. Goodness is not absolute or ultimate; it is
but one side, one partial aspect, of the nature of things. And it
manifests its relativity by inconsistency, by a self- contradiction in
principle, and by a tendency shown towards separation in that
principle's working, an attempted division, which again is inconsistent
and cannot rest in itself. Goodness, as such, is but appearance which is
transcended in the Absolute. But, upon the other hand, since in that
Absolute no appearance is lost, the good is a main and essential factor
in the  universe. By accepting its transmutation it both realizes its
own destiny and survives in the result.

 We might reach the same conclusion, briefly perhaps, by considering the
collision of ends. In the Whole every idea must be realized; but, on the
other hand, the conflict of ends is such that to combine them
mechanically is quite impossible. It will follow then that, in their
attainment, their characters must be transmuted. We may say at once that
none of them, and yet that each of them, is good. And among these ends
must be included what we rightly condemn as Evil (Chapter xvii.). That
positive object which is followed in opposition to the good, will unite
with, and will conduce to, the ultimate goal. And the conduct which
seems merely bad, which appears to pursue no positive content and to
exhibit no system, will in the same way become good. Both by its
assertion and its negation it will subserve an over-ruling end. Good and
evil reproduce that main result which we found in our examination of
truth and error. The opposition in the end is unreal, but it is, for all
that, emphatically actual and valid. Error and evil are facts, and most
assuredly there are degrees of each; and whether anything is better or
worse, does without any doubt make a difference to the Absolute. And
certainly the better anything is, the less totally in the end is its
being over-ruled. But nothing, however good, can in the end be real
precisely as it appears. Evil and good, in short, are not ultimate; they
are relative factors which cannot retain their special characters in the
Whole. And we may perhaps now venture to consider this position
established.

 But, bearing in mind the unsatisfactory state of current thought on
these topics, I think it well to follow the enquiry into further detail.
There is a more refined sense in which we have not yet dealt  with
goodness. The good, we may be informed, is morality, and morality is
inward. It does not consist in the attainment of a mere result, either
outside the self or even within it. For a result must depend on, and be
conditioned by, what is naturally given, and for natural defects or
advantages a man is not responsible. And therefore, so far as regards
true morality, any realized product is chance; for it must be infected
and modified, less or more, by non-moral conditions. It is, in short,
only that which comes out of the man himself which can justify or
condemn him, and his disposition and circumstances do not come from
himself. Morality is the identification of the individual's will with
his own idea of perfection. The moral man is the man who tries to do the
best which he knows. If the best he knows is not the best, that is,
speaking morally,  beside the question. If he fails to accomplish it,
and ends in an attempt, that is once more morally irrelevant. And hence
(we may add) it will be hard to find a proper sense in which different
epochs can be morally compared, or in which the morality of one time or
person stands above that of others. For the intensity of a volitional
identification with whatever seems best appears to contain and to
exhaust the strict essence of goodness. On this alone are based moral
responsibility and desert, and on this, perhaps, we are enabled to build
our one hope of immortality.

 This is a view towards which morality seems driven irresistibly. That a
man is to be judged solely by his inner will seems in the end
undeniable. And, if such a doctrine contradicts itself and is
inconsistent with the very notion of goodness, that will be another
indication that the good is but appearance. We may even say that the
present view takes a pride in its own discrepancies. It might, we must
allow, contradict itself more openly. For it might make morality consist
in the direct denial of that very element of existence, without which it
actually is nothing. But the same inconsistency, if more veiled, is
still inherent in our doctrine. For a will, after all, must do something
and must be characterized by what it does; while, on the other hand,
this very character of what it does must depend on that which is "given"
to it. And we shall have to choose between two fatal results; for either
it will not matter what one does, or else something beyond and beside
the bare "will" must be admitted to be good.

 I will begin by saying a few words on what is called "moral desert." If
this phrase implies that for either good or bad there is any reward
beyond themselves, it is at once inconsistent. For, if  between virtue
and happiness there is an essential connection, then virtue must be
re-defined so as to take in all its essence. But if, on the other hand,
the connection is but external, then in what proper sense are we to call
it moral? We must either give up or alter the idea of desert, or else
must seriously modify our extreme conception of moral goodness. And with
this I will proceed to show how in its working that conception breaks
down.

 It is, first, in flat contradiction with ordinary morality. I am not
referring to the fact that in common life we approve of all human
qualities which to us seem desirable. Beauty, riches, strength, health
and fortune --everything, and, perhaps, more than everything, which
could be called a human excellence--we find admirable and approve of.
But such approbations, together with their counterpart disapprovals, we
should probably find ourselves unwilling to justify morally. And,
passing this point by for the present, let us attend solely to those
excellencies which would by all be called moral. These, the common
virtues of life by which individuals are estimated, obviously depend to
a large extent on disposition and bringing up. And to discard them
utterly, because, or in so far as, you cannot attribute them to the
individual's will, is a violent paradox. Even if that is correct, it is
at least opposed to every-day morality.

 And this doctrine, when we examine it further, is found to end in
nothing. Its idea is to credit a man merely with what comes out of his
will, and that in fine is not anything. For in the result from the will
there is no material which is not derived from a "natural" source; and
the whole result, whether in its origin, its actual happening, or its
end, is throughout conditioned and qualified by "natural" factors. The
moral man is allowed not to be omnipotent or omniscient He is morally
perfect, if only he will but do what he knows. But how  can he do it
when weakness and disease, either bodily or mental, opposes his effort?
And how can he even make the effort, except on the strength of some
"natural" gift? Such an idea is psychologically absurd. And, if we take
two different individuals, one dowered with advantages external and
inward, and the other loaded with corresponding drawbacks, and if, in
judging these, we refuse to make the very smallest allowance--in what
have we ended? But to make an allowance would be to give up the essence
of our doctrine, for the moral man no longer would be barely the man who
wills what he knows. The result then is that we are unable to judge
morally at all, for, otherwise, we shall be crediting morality with a
foreign gift or allowance. Nor, again, do we find a less difficulty,
when we turn to consider moral knowledge. For one man by education or
nature will know better than another, and certainly no one can possibly
know always the best. But, once more, we cannot allow for this, and must
insist that it is morally irrelevant. In short, it matters nothing what
any one knows, and we have just seen that it matters as little what any
one does. The distinction between evil and good has in fact disappeared.
And to fall back on the intensity of the moral struggle will not help
us. For that intensity is determined, in the first place, by natural
conditions, and, in the next place, goodness would be taken to consist
in a struggle with itself. To make a man better you would in some cases
have to add to his badness, in order to increase the division and the
morality within him. Goodness, in short, meant at the beginning  that
one does what one can, and it has come now to mean merely that one does
what one does. Or rather, whatever one does and whatever one wills, it
is all alike infected by nature and morally indifferent. There is, in
plain words, no difference left between goodness and badness.

 But such a conclusion, we may possibly yet be told, is quite mistaken.
For, though all the matter of goodness must be drawn from outside, yet
the self, or the will, has a power of appropriation. By its formal act
it works up and transforms that given matter, and it so makes its own,
and makes moral, the crude natural stuff. Still, on the other side, we
must insist that every act is a resultant from psychical conditions. A
formal act which is not determined by its matter, is nonsense, whether
you consider that act in its origin or in its outcome. And, again, if
the act is not morally characterized and judged by its matter, will
there in the end be a difference between the good and the bad? Whether
you look at its psychical genesis or at its essential character, the
act, if it is to be possible, cannot be merely formal, and it will
therefore vitally depend on that which has been called non-moral.

 A form independent of matter is certainly nothing, and, as certainly
therefore, it cannot be morality. It can at most be offered as such, and
asserted to be so by a chance content which fills it and professes to be
moral. Morality has degenerated into  self- approbation which only is
formal, and which therefore is false. It has become the hollow
conscience for which acts are good because they happen to be its own, or
merely because somehow it happens to like them. Between the assertion
and the fact there is here no genuine connection. it is empty self-will
and self-assurance, which, swollen with private sentiment or chance
desire, wears the mask of goodness. And hence that which professes
itself moral would be the same as mere badness, if it did not differ,
even for the worse, by the addition of hypocrisy. For the bad, which
admits not only that others but that itself is not good, has, in
principle at least, condemned vain self-sufficiency and self-will. The
common confession that the self in itself is worthless, has opened that
self to receive worth from a good which transcends it. Morality has been
driven to allow that goodness and badness do not wholly depend on
ourselves, and, with this admission, it has now finally passed beyond
itself. We must at last have come to the end, when it has been
proclaimed a moral duty to be non- moral.

 That it is a moral duty not to be moral wears the form of a paradox,
but it is the expression of a principle which has been active and has
shown itself throughout. Every separate aspect of the universe, if you
insist on it, goes on to demand something higher than itself. And, like
every other appearance, goodness implies that which, when carried out,
must absorb it. Yet goodness cannot go back; for to identify itself,
once more, with the earlier stage of its development would be, once
more, to be driven forward to the point we have reached. The problem can
be solved only when the various stages  and appearances of morality are
all included and subordinated in a higher form of being. In other words
the end, sought for by morality, is above it and is super-moral. Let us
gain a general view of the moral demands which call for satisfaction.

 The first of these is the suppression of the divorce between morality
and goodness. We have seen that every kind of human excellence, beauty,
strength, and even luck, are all undeniably good. It is idle pretence if
we assert that such gifts are not desired, and are not also approved of.
And it is a moral instinct after all for which beauty counts as virtue.
For, if we attempt to deny this and to confine virtue to what is
commonly called moral conduct, our position is untenable. We are at once
hurried forward by our admitted principle into further denials, and
virtue recedes from the world until it ceases to be virtue. It seeks an
inward centre not vitiated by any connection with the external, or, in
other words, as we have seen, it pursues the unmeaning. For the
excellence which barely is inner is nothing at all. We must either allow
then that physical excellences are good, or we must be content to find
virtue not realized anywhere. Hence there will be virtues more or less
outward, and less or more inward and spiritual. We must admit kinds and
degrees and different levels of virtue. And morality must be
distinguished as a special form of the general goodness. It will be now
one excellence among others, neither including them all, nor yet capable
of a divorced and independent existence. Morality has proved unreal
unless it stands on, and vitally consists in, gifts naturally good. And
thus we have been forced to  acknowledge that morality is a gift; since,
if the goodness of the physical virtues is denied, there is left, at
last, no goodness at all. Morality, in short, finds it essential that
every excellence should be good, and it is destroyed by a division
between its own world and that of goodness.

 It is a moral demand then that every human excellence should genuinely
be good, while at the same time a high rank should be reserved for the
inner life. And it is a moral demand also that the good should be
victorious throughout. The defects and the contradiction in every self
must be removed, and must be succeeded by perfect harmony. And, of
course, all evil must be overruled and so turned into goodness. But the
demand of morality has also a different side. For, if goodness as such
is to remain, the contradiction cannot quite cease, since a discord, we
saw, was essential to goodness. Thus, if there is to be morality, there
cannot altogether be an end of evil. And, so again, the two aspects of
self- assertion and of self-sacrifice will remain. They must be
subordinated, and yet they must not have entirely lost their distinctive
characters. Morality in brief calls for an unattainable unity of its
aspects, and, in its search for this, it naturally is led beyond itself
into a higher form of goodness. It ends in what we may call religion.

  In this higher mode of consciousness I am not suggesting that a full
solution is found. For religion  is practical, and therefore still is
dominated by the idea of the Good; and in the essence of this idea is
contained an unsolved contradiction. Religion is still forced to
maintain unreduced aspects, which, as such, cannot be united; and it
exists in short by a kind of perpetual oscillation and compromise. Let
us however see the manner in which it rises above bare morality.

 For religion all is the perfect expression of a supreme will, and all
things therefore are good. Everything imperfect and evil, the conscious
bad will itself, is taken up into and subserves this absolute end. Both
goodness and badness are therefore good, just as in the end falsehood
and truth were each found to be true. They are good alike, but on the
other hand they are not good equally. That which is evil is transmuted
and, as such, is destroyed, while the good in various degrees can still
preserve its own character. Goodness, like truth, we saw was
supplemented rather than wholly overruled. And, in measuring degrees of
goodness, we must bear in mind the double aspect of appearance, and the
ultimate identity of intenseness and extent. But in religion, further,
the finite self does attain its  perfection, and the separation of these
two aspects is superseded and overcome. The finite self is perfect, not
merely when it is viewed as an essential organ of the perfect Whole, but
it also realizes for itself and is aware of perfection. The belief that
its evil is overruled and its good supplemented, the identity in
knowledge and in desire with the one overmastering perfection, this for
the finite being is self-consciousness of itself as perfect. And in the
others it finds once more the same perfection realized. For where a
whole is complete in finite beings, which know themselves to be elements
and members of its system, this is the consciousness in such individuals
of their own completeness. Their perfection is a gift without doubt, but
there is no reality outside the giver, and the separate receiver of the
gift is but a false appearance.

 But, on the other hand, religion must not pass wholly beyond goodness,
and it therefore still maintains the opposition required for practice.
Only by doing one's best, only by the union of one's will with the Good,
can one attain to perfection. In so far as this union is absent, the
evil remains; and to remain evil is to be overruled, and, as such, to
perish utterly. Hence the ideal perfection of the self serves to
increase its hostility towards its own imperfection and evil. The self
at once struggles to be perfect, and knows at the same time that its
consummation is already worked out. The moral relation survives as a
subordinate but an effective aspect.

 The moral duty not to be moral is, in short, the duty to be religious.
Every human excellence for religion is good, since it is a manifestation
of the reality of the supreme Will. Only evil, as such, is not good,
since in its evil character it is absorbed; and in that character it
really is, we may say, something else. Evil assuredly contributes to the
good of the whole, but it contributes something which in that whole is
quite transformed from its own nature.  And while in badness itself
there are, in one sense, no degrees, there are, in another sense,
certainly degrees in that which is bad. In the same way religion
preserves intact degrees and differences in goodness. Every individual,
in so far as he is good, is perfect. But he is better, first in
proportion to his contribution to existing excellence, and he is better,
again, according as more intensely he identifies his will with
all-perfecting goodness.

 I have set out, baldly and in defective outline, the claim of religion
to have removed contradiction from the Good. And we must consider now to
what extent such a claim can be justified. Religion seems to have
included and reduced to harmony every aspect of life. It appears to be a
whole which has embraced, and which pervades, every detail. But in the
end we are forced to admit that the contradiction remains. For, if the
whole is still good, it is not harmonious; and, if it has gone beyond
goodness, it has carried us also beyond religion. The whole is at once
actually to be good, and, at the same time, is actually to make itself
good. Neither its perfect goodness, nor yet its struggle, may be
degraded to an appearance. But, on the other hand, to unite these two
aspects consistently is impossible. And, even if the object of religion
is taken to be imperfect and finite, the contradiction will remain. For
if the end desired by devotion were thoroughly accomplished, the need
for devotion and, therefore, its reality would have ceased. In short, a
self other than the object must, and must not, survive, a vital
discrepancy to be found again in intense sexual love. Every form of the
good is impelled from within to pass beyond its own essence. It is an
appearance, the stability of which is maintained by oscillation, and the
acceptance of which depends largely on compromise.

 The central point of religion lies in what is called  faith. The whole
and the individual are perfect and good for faith only. Now faith is not
mere holding a general truth, which in detail is not verified; for that
attitude, of course, also belongs to theory. Faith is practical, and it
is, in short, a making believe; but, because it is practical, it is at
the same time a making, none the less, as if one did not believe. Its
maxim is, Be sure that opposition to the good is overcome, and
nevertheless act as if it were there; or, Because it is not really
there, have more courage to attack it. And such a maxim, most assuredly,
is not consistent with itself; for either of its sides, if taken too
seriously, is fatal to the other side. This inner discrepancy however
pervades the whole field of religion. We are tempted to exemplify it,
once again, by the sexual passion. A man may believe in his mistress,
may feel that without that faith he could not live, and may find it
natural, at the same time, unceasingly to watch her. Or, again, when he
does not believe in her or perhaps even in himself, then he may desire
all the more to utter, and to listen to, repeated professions. The same
form of self-deception plays its part in the ceremonies of religion.

 This criticism might naturally be pursued into indefinite detail, but
it is sufficient for us here to have established the main principle. The
religious consciousness rests on the felt unity of unreduced opposites;
and either to combine these consistently, or upon the other hand to
transform them is impossible for religion. And hence self-contradiction
in theory, and oscillation in sentiment, is inseparable from its
essence. Its dogmas must end in one-sided error, or else in senseless
compromise. And, even in its practice, it is beset with two imminent
dangers, and it has without clear vision to balance itself between rival
abysses. Religion may dwell too intently on the discord in the world or
in the self. In the former case it foregoes its perfection and peace,
while, at the same time, it may none the less  forget the difference
between its private will and the Good. And, on the other side, if it
emphasizes this latter difference, it is then threatened with a lapse
into bare morality. But again if, flying from the discord, religion
keeps its thought fixed on harmony, it tends to suffer once more. For,
finding that all is already good both in the self and in the world, it
may cease to be moral at all, and becomes at once, therefore,
irreligious. The truth that devotion even to a finite object may lift us
above moral laws, seduces religion into false and immoral perversions.
Because, for it, all reality is, in one sense, good alike, every action
may become completely indifferent. It idly dreams its life away in the
quiet world of divine inanity, or, forced into action by chance desire,
it may hallow every practice, however corrupt, by its empty spirit of
devotion. And here we find reproduced in a direr form the monstrous
births of moral hypocrisy. But we need not enter into the pathology of
the religious consciousness. The man who has passed, however little,
behind the scenes of the religious life, must have had his moments of
revolt. He must have been forced to doubt if the bloody source of so
many open crimes, the parent of such inward pollution can possibly be
good.

 But if religion is, as we have seen, a necessity, such a doubt may be
dismissed. There would be, in the end perhaps, no sense in the enquiry
if religion has, on the whole, done more harm than good. My object has
been to point out that, like morality, religion is not ultimate. It is a
mere appearance, and is therefore inconsistent with itself. And it is
hence liable on every side to shift beyond its own limits. But when
religion, balancing itself between extremes, has lost its balance on
either hand, it becomes irreligious. If it was a moral duty to find more
than morality in religion, it is, even more emphatically, a religious
duty still to be moral. But each of these is  a mode and an expression
at different stages of the good; and the good, as we have found, is a
self-contradictory appearance of the Absolute.

 It may be instructive to bring out the same inconsistency from another
point of view. Religion naturally implies a relation between Man and
God. Now a relation always (we have seen throughout) is self-
contradictory. It implies always two terms which are finite and which
claim independence. On the other hand a relation is unmeaning, unless
both itself and the relateds are the adjectives of a whole. And to find
a solution of this discrepancy would be to pass entirely beyond the
relational point of view. This general conclusion may at once be
verified in the sphere of religion.

 Man is on the one hand a finite subject, who is over against God, and
merely "standing in relation." And yet, upon the other hand, apart from
God man is merely an abstraction. And religion perceives this truth, and
it affirms that man is good and real only through grace, or that again,
attempting to be independent, he perishes through wrath. He does not
merely "stand in relation," but is moved inly by his opposite, and
indeed, apart from that inward working, could not stand at all. God
again is a finite object, standing above and apart from man, and is
something independent of all relation to his will and intelligence.
Hence God, if taken as a thinking and feeling being, has a private
personality. But, sundered from those relations which qualify him, God
is inconsistent emptiness; and, qualified by his relation to an Other,
he is distracted finitude. God is therefore taken, again, as
transcending this external relation. He wills and knows himself, and he
finds his reality and self-consciousness, in union with man. Religion is
therefore a process with inseparable factors, each appearing on either
side. It is the unity of man and God, which, in various  stages and
forms, wills and knows itself throughout. It parts itself into opposite
terms with a relation between them; but in the same breath it denies
this provisional sundering, and it asserts and feels in either term the
inward presence of the other. And so religion consists in a practical
oscillation, and expresses itself only by the means of theoretical
compromise. It would shrink perhaps from the statement that God loves
and enjoys himself in human emotion, and it would recoil once more from
the assertion that love can be where God is not, and, striving to hug
both shores at once, it wavers bewildered. And sin is the hostility of a
rebel against a wrathful Ruler. And yet this whole relation too must
feel and hate itself in the sinner's heart, while the Ruler also is torn
and troubled by conflicting emotions. But to say that sin is a necessary
element in the Divine self-consciousness--an element, however, emerging
but to be forthwith absorbed, and never liberated as such--this would
probably appear to be either nonsense or blasphemy. Religion prefers to
put forth statements which it feels are untenable, and to correct them
at once by counter-statements which it finds are no better. It is then
driven forwards and back between both, like a dog which seeks to follow
two masters. A discrepancy worth our notice is the position of God in
the universe. We may say that in religion God tends always to pass
beyond himself. He is necessarily led to end in the Absolute, which for
religion is not God. God, whether a "person" or not, is, on the one
hand, a finite being and an object to man. On the other hand, the
consummation, sought by the religious consciousness, is the perfect
unity of these terms. And, if so, nothing would in the end fall outside
God. But to take God as the ceaseless oscillation and changing movement
of the process, is out of the question. On the other side the harmony of
all these discords demands, as we have shown, the alteration of their
finite  character. The unity implies a complete suppression of the
relation, as such; but, with that suppression, religion and the good
have altogether, as such, disappeared. If you identify the Absolute with
God, that is not the God of religion. If again you separate them, God
becomes a finite factor in the Whole. And the effort of religion is to
put an end to, and break down, this relation--a relation which, none the
less, it essentially presupposes. Hence, short of the Absolute, God
cannot rest, and, having reached that goal, he is lost and religion with
him. It is this difficulty which appears in the problem of the religious
self-consciousness. God must certainly be conscious of himself in
religion, but such self-consciousness is most imperfect. For if the
external relation  between God and man were entirely absorbed, the
separation of subject and object would, as such, have gone with it. But
if again the self, which is conscious, still contains in its essence a
relation between two unreduced terms, where is the unity of its
selfness? In short, God, as the highest expression of the realized good,
shows the contradiction which we found to be inherent in that principle.
The falling apart of idea and existence is at once essential to goodness
and negated by Reality. And the process, which moves within Reality, is
not Reality itself. We may say that God is not God, till he has become
all in all, and that a God which is all in all is not the God of
religion. God is but an aspect, and that must mean but an appearance, of
the Absolute.

 Through the remainder of this chapter I will try to remove some
misunderstandings. The first I have to notice is the old confusion as to
matter of fact; and I will here partly repeat the conclusions of our
foregoing chapters. If religion is appearance, then the self and God, I
shall be told, are illusions, since they will not be facts. This is the
prejudice which everywhere Common Sense opposes to philosophy. Common
Sense is persuaded that the first rude way, in which it interprets
phenomena, is ultimate truth; and neither reasoning, nor the ceaseless
protests of its own daily experience, can shake its assurance. But we
have seen that this persuasion rests on barbarous error. Certainly a man
knows and experiences everywhere the ultimate Reality, and indeed is
able to know and experience nothing else. But to know it or experience
it, fully and as such, is a thing utterly impossible. For the whole of
finite being and knowledge consists vitally in appearance, in the
alienation of the two aspects of existence and content. So that, if
facts are to be ultimate and real, there are no facts anywhere or at
all. There will be one single fact, which is the  Absolute. But if, on
the other hand, facts are to stand for actual finite events, or for
things the essence of which is to be confined to a here or a now--facts
are then the lowest, and the most untrue, form of appearance. And in the
commonest business of our lives we rise above this low level. Hence it
is facts themselves which, in this sense, should be called illusory.

 In the religious consciousness, especially, we are not concerned with
such facts as these. Its facts, if pure inward experiences, are
surcharged with a content which is obviously incapable of confinement
within a here or a now. And, in the seeming concentration within one
moment of all Hell or all Heaven, the incompatibility of our "fact" with
its own existence is forced on our view. The same truth holds of all
external religious events. These are not religious until they have a
significance which transcends their sensible finitude. And the general
question is not whether the relation of God to man is an appearance,
since there is no relation, nor any fact, which can possibly be more.
The question is, where in the world of appearance is such a fact to be
ranked. What, in other words, is the degree of its reality and truth?

 To enter fully into such an enquiry is impossible here. If however we
apply the criterion gained in the preceding chapter, we can see at once
that there is nothing more real than what comes in religion. To compare
facts such as these with what is given to us in outward existence, would
be to trifle with the subject. The man, who demands a reality more solid
than that of the religious consciousness, seeks he does not know what.
Dissatisfied with the reality of man and God as he finds them there in
experience, he may be invited to state intelligibly what in the end
would content him. For God and man, as two sensible existences, would be
degraded past recognition. We may say that the God which  could exist,
would most assuredly be no God. And man and God as two realities,
individual and ultimate, "standing" one cannot tell where, and with a
relation "between" them--this conjunction, we have seen, is
self-contradictory, and is therefore appearance. It is a confused
attempt to seize and hold in religion that Absolute, which, if it really
were attained, would destroy religion. And this attempt, by its own
inconsistency, and its own failure and unrest, reveals to us once more
that religion is not final and ultimate.

 But, if so, what, I may be asked, is the result in practice? That, I
reply at once, is not my business; and insistence on such a question
would rest on a hurtful prejudice. The task of the metaphysician is to
enquire into ultimate truth, and he cannot be called on to consider
anything else, however important it may be. We have but little notion in
England of freedom either in art or in science. Irrelevant appeals to
practical results are allowed to make themselves heard. And in certain
regions of art and science this sin brings its own punishment; for we
fail through timidity and through a want of singleness and sincerity.
That a man should treat of God and religion in order merely to
understand them, and apart from the influence of some other
consideration and inducement, is to many of us in part unintelligible,
and in part also shocking. And hence English thought on these subjects,
where it has not studied in a foreign school, is theoretically
worthless. On my own mind the effect of this prejudice is personally
deterrent. If to show theoretical interest in morality and religion is
taken as the setting oneself up as a teacher or preacher, I would rather
leave these  subjects to whoever feels that such a character suits him.
And, if I have touched on them here, it was because I could not help it.

 And, having said so much, perhaps it would be better if I said no more.
But with regard to the practical question, since I refuse altogether to
answer it, I may perhaps safely try to point out what this question is.
It is clear that religion must have some doctrine, however little that
may be, and it is clear again that such doctrine will not be ultimate
truth. And by many it is apparently denied that anything less can
suffice. If however we consider the sciences we find them too in a
similar position. For their first principles, as we have seen, are in
the end self-contradictory. Their principles are but partially true, and
yet are valid, because they will work. And why then, we may ask, are
such working ideas not enough for religion? There are several serious
difficulties, but the main difficulty appears to be this. In the
sciences we know, for the most part, the end which we aim at; and,
knowing this end, we are able to test and to measure the means. But in
religion it is precisely the chief end upon which we are not clear. And,
on the basis of this confused disagreement, a rational discussion is not
possible. We want to get some idea as to the doctrines really requisite
for religion; and we begin without having examined the end for which the
doctrines are required, and by which obviously, therefore, they must be
judged. From time to time this or that man finds that a certain belief,
or set of beliefs, seems to lie next his heart. And on this at once he
cries aloud that, if these particular doctrines are not true, all
religion is at an end. And this is what the public admires, and what it
calls a defence of religion.

 But if the problem is to be, I do not say solved, but discussed
rationally at all, we must begin by an enquiry into the essence and end
of religion. And  to that enquiry, I presume, there are two things
indispensable. We must get some consistent view as to the general nature
of reality, goodness, and truth, and we must not shut our eyes to the
historical facts of religion. We must come, first, to some conclusion
about the purpose of religious truths. Do they exist for the sake of
understanding, or do they subserve and are they ancillary to some other
object? And, if the latter is true, what precisely is this end and
object, which we have to use as their criterion? If we can settle this
point we can then decide that religious truths, which go beyond and
which fall short of their end, possess no title to existence. If, in the
second place again, we are not clear about the nature of scientific
truth, can we rationally deal with any alleged collision between
religion and science. We shall, in fact, be unable to say whether there
is any collision or none; or again, supposing a conflict to exist, we
shall be entirely at a loss how to estimate its importance. And our
result so far is this. If English theologians decline to be in earnest
with metaphysics, they must obviously speak on some topics, I will not
say ignorantly, but at least without having made a serious attempt to
gain knowledge. But to be in earnest with metaphysics is not the affair
of perhaps one or two years; nor did any one ever do anything with such
a subject without giving himself up to it. And, lastly, I will explain
what I mean by attention to history. If religion is a practical matter,
it would be absurd wholly to disregard the force of continuous occupancy
and possession. But history, on the other hand, supplies teachings of a
different order. If, in the past and the present, we find religion
appearing to flourish in the absence of certain particular doctrines, it
is not a light step to proclaim these doctrines as essential to
religion. And to do this without discussion and dogmatically, and to
begin one's work by some bald assumption, perhaps about the necessity 
of a "personal" God, is to trifle indecently with a subject which
deserves some respect.

 What is necessary, in short, is to begin by looking at the question
disinterestedly and looking at it all round. In this way we might
certainly expect to arrive at a rational discussion, but I do not feel
any right to assume that we should ever arrive at more. Perhaps the
separation of the accidental from the essential in religion can be
accomplished only by a longer and a ruder process. It must be left,
perhaps, to the blind competition of rival errors, and to the coarse
struggle for existence between hostile sects. But such a conclusion,
once more, should not be accepted without a serious trial. And this is
all that I intend to say on the practical problem of religion.

 I will end this chapter with a word of warning against a dangerous
mistake. We have seen that religion is but appearance, and that it
cannot be ultimate. And from this it may be concluded, perhaps, that the
completion of religion is philosophy, and that in metaphysics we reach
the goal in which it finds its consummation. Now, if religion
essentially were knowledge, this conclusion would hold. And, so far as
religion involves knowledge, we are again bound to accept it. Obviously
the business of metaphysics is to deal with ultimate truth, and in this
respect, obviously, it must be allowed to stand higher than religion.
But, on the other side, we have found that the essence of religion is
not knowledge. And this certainly does not mean that its essence
consists barely in feeling. Religion is rather the attempt to express
the complete reality of goodness through every aspect of our being. And,
so far as this goes, it is at once something more, and therefore
something higher, than philosophy.

 Philosophy, as we shall find in our next chapter, is itself but
appearance. It is but one appearance  among others, and, if it rises
higher in one respect, in other ways it certainly stands lower. And its
weakness lies, of course, in the fact that it is barely theoretical.
Philosophy may be made more undoubtedly, and incidentally it is more;
but its essence clearly must be confined to intellectual activity. It is
therefore but a one-sided and inconsistent appearance of the Absolute.
And, so far as philosophy is religious, to that extent we must allow
that it has passed into religion, and has ceased, as such, any longer to
be philosophy. I do not suggest to those who, dissatisfied with
religious beliefs, may have turned seriously to metaphysics, that they
will not find there what they seek. But they will not find it there, or
anywhere else, unless they have brought it with them. Metaphysics has no
special connection with genuine religion, and neither of these two
appearances can be regarded as the perfection of the other. The
completion of each is not to be found except in the Absolute.
--------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XXVI THE ABSOLUTE AND ITS APPEARANCES  WE have seen now that
Goodness, like Truth, is a one- sided appearance. Each of these aspects,
when we insist on it, transcends itself. By its own movement each
developes itself beyond its own limits and is merged in a higher and
all-embracing Reality. It is time that we endeavoured to close our work
by explaining more fully the character of this real unity. We have
certainly not attempted to do justice to the various spheres of
phenomena. The account which we have given of truth and goodness is but
a barren outline, and this was the case before with physical Nature, and
with the problem of the soul. But to such defects we must resign
ourselves. For the object of this volume is to state merely a general
view about Reality, and to defend this view against more obvious and
prominent objections. The full and proper defence would be a systematic
account of all the regions of appearance, for it is only the completed
system which in metaphysics is the genuine proof of the principle. But,
unable to enter on such an undertaking, I must none the less endeavour
to justify further our conclusion about the Absolute.

 There is but one Reality, and its being consists in experience. In this
one whole all appearances come together, and in coming together they in
various degrees lose their distinctive natures. The essence of reality
lies in the union and agreement of existence and content, and, on the
other side,  appearance consists in the discrepancy between these two
aspects. And reality in the end belongs to nothing but the single Real.
For take anything, no matter what it is, which is less than the
Absolute, and the inner discrepancy at once proclaims that what you have
taken is appearance. The alleged reality divides itself and falls apart
into two jarring factors. The "what" and the "that" are plainly two
sides which turn out not to be the same, and this difference inherent in
every finite fact entails its disruption. As long as the content stands
for something other than its own intent and meaning, as long as the
existence actually is less or more than what it essentially must imply,
so long we are concerned with mere appearance, and not with genuine
reality. And we have found in every region that this discrepancy of
aspects prevails. The internal being of everything finite depends on
that which is beyond it. Hence everywhere, insisting on a so-called fact
we have found ourselves led by its inner character into something
outside itself. And this self-contradiction, this unrest and ideality of
all things existing is a clear proof that, though such things are, their
being is but appearance.

 But, upon the other hand, in the Absolute no appearance can be lost.
Each one contributes and is essential to the unity of the whole. And
hence we have observed (Chapter xxv.) that any one aspect, when viewed
by itself, may be regarded as the end for which the others exist.
Deprived of any one aspect or element the Absolute may be called
worthless. And thus, while you take your stand on some one valuable
factor, the others appear to you to be means which subserve its
existence. Certainly your position in such an attitude is one-sided and
unstable. The other factors are not external means to, but are implied
in, the first, and your attitude, therefore, is but provisional and in
the end untrue. It may however have served to indicate that truth which
we  have here to insist on. There is nothing in the Absolute which is
barely contingent or merely accessory. Every element, however
subordinate, is preserved in that relative whole in which its character
is taken up and merged. There are main aspects of the universe of which
none can be resolved into the rest. Hence from this ground we cannot say
of these main aspects that one is higher in rank or better than another.
They are factors not independent, since each of itself implies and calls
in something else to complete its defects, and since all are over-ruled
in that final whole which perfects them. But these factors, if not
equal, are not subordinate the one to the other, and in relation to the
Absolute they are all alike essential and necessary.

 In the present chapter, returning to the idea of the Absolute as a
whole of experience, I will from this point of view survey briefly its
main aspects. Of the attitudes possible in experience I will try to show
that none has supremacy. There is not one mode to which the others
belong as its adjectives, or into which they can be resolved. And how
these various modes can come together into a single unity must remain
unintelligible. Reserving to the next chapter a final discussion on the
positive nature of this Unity, I will lay stress here on another side.
The Absolute is present in, and, in a sense, it is alike each of its
special appearances; though present everywhere again in different values
and degrees. I shall attempt in passing to clear up some questions with
regard to Nature, and I will end the chapter with a brief enquiry as to
the meaning of Progress, and as to the possibility of a continuance of
personal life after death.

 Everything is experience, and also experience is one. In the next
chapter I shall once more consider if it is possible to doubt this, but
for the  present I shall assume it as a truth which has held good. Under
what main aspects then, let us ask, is experience found? We may say,
speaking broadly, that there are two great modes, perception and thought
on the one side, and will and desire on the other side. Then there is
the ‘sthetic attitude, which will not fall entirely under either of
these heads; and again there is pleasure and pain which seem something
distinct from both. Further we have feeling, a term which we must take
in two senses. It is first the general state of the total soul not yet
at all differentiated into any of the preceding special aspects. And
again it is any particular state so far as internally that has
undistinguished unity. Now of these psychical modes not any one is
resolvable into the others, nor can the unity of the Whole consist in
one or another portion of them. Each of them is incomplete and
one-sided, and calls for assistance from without. We have had to
perceive this in great part already through former discussions, but I
will briefly resume and in some points supplement that evidence here. I
am about to deal with the appearances of the Absolute mainly from their
psychical side, but a full psychological discussion is impossible, and
is hardly required. I would ask the reader, whose views in certain ways
may be divergent from mine, not to dwell on divergencies except so far
as they affect the main result.

 (1) If we consider first of all the aspect of pleasure and pain, it is
evident that this cannot be the substance or foundation of Reality. For
we cannot regard the other elements as adjectives of, or dependents on,
this one; nor again can we, in any way or in any sense, resolve them
into it. Pleasure and pain, it is obvious, are not the one thing real.
But are they real at all, as such, and independently of the rest? Even
this we are compelled to deny. For pleasure and pain are antagonistic;
and when in the Whole they have come together with a balance  of
pleasure, can we be even sure that this result will be pleasure as such?
There is however a far more serious objection to the reality of pleasure
and pain. For these are mere abstractions which we separate from the
pleasant and the painful; and to suppose that they are not connected
with those states and processes, with which they are always conjoined,
would be plainly irrational. Indeed pleasure and pain, as things by
themselves, would contradict their known character. But, if so, clearly
they cannot be real in themselves, and their reality and essence will in
part fall beyond their own limits. They are but appearances and
one-sided adjectives of the universe, and they are real only when taken
up into and merged in that totality.

 (2) From mere pleasure and pain we may pass on to feeling, and I take
feeling in the sense of the immediate unity of a finite psychical
centre. It means for me, first, the general condition before
distinctions and relations have been developed, and where as yet neither
any subject nor object exists. And it means, in the second place,
anything which is present at any stage of mental life, in so far as that
is only present and simply is. In this latter sense we may say that
everything actual, no matter what, must be felt; but we do not call it
feeling except so far as we take it as failing to be more. Now, in
either of these senses, is it possible to consider feeling as real, or
as a consistent aspect of reality? We must reply in the negative.

 Feeling has a content, and this content is not consistent within
itself, and such a discrepancy tends to destroy and to break up the
stage of feeling. The matter may be briefly put thus--the finite 
content is irreconcilable with the immediacy of its existence. For the
finite content is necessarily determined from the outside; its external
relations (however negative they may desire to remain) penetrate its
essence, and so carry that beyond its own being. And hence, since the
"what" of all feeling is discordant with its "that," it is appearance,
and, as such, it cannot be real. This fleeting and untrue character is
perpetually forced on our notice by the hard fact of change. And, both
from within and from without, feeling is compelled to pass off into the
relational consciousness. It is the ground and foundation of further
developments, but it is a foundation that bears them only by a ceaseless
lapse from itself. Hence we could not, in any proper sense, call these
products its adjectives. For their life consists in the diremption of
feeling's unity, and this unity is not again restored and made good
except in the Absolute.

 (3) We may pass next to the perceptional or theoretic, and again, on
the other side, to the practical aspect. Each of these differs from the
two foregoing by implying distinction, and, in the first place, a
distinction between subject and object. The perceptional side has at the
outset, of course, no special existence; for it is given at first in
union with the practical side, and is but slowly differentiated. But
what we are concerned with here is to attempt to apprehend its specific
nature. One or more elements are separated from the confused mass of
feeling, and stand apparently by themselves and over against this. And
the distinctive character of such an object is that it seems simply to
be. If it appeared to influence the mass which it confronts, so as to
lead that to act on it and alter it, and if such a relation qualified
its nature, the attitude would be  practical. But the perceptional
relation is supposed to fall wholly outside the essence of the object.
It is in short disregarded, or else is dismissed as a something
accidental and irrelevant. For the reality, as thought of or as
perceived, in itself simply is. It may be given, or again sought for,
discovered or reflected on, but all this--however much there may be of
it--is nothing to it. For the object only stands in relation, and
emphatically in no sense is the relation in which it stands.

 This is the vital inconsistency of the real as perception or thought.
Its essence depends on qualification by a relation which it attempts to
ignore. And this one inconsistency soon exhibits itself from two points
of view. The felt background, from which the theoretic object stands
out, is supposed in no way to contribute to its being. But, even at the
stage of perception or sensation, this hypothesis breaks down. And, when
we advance to reflective thinking, such a position clearly is untenable.
The world can hardly stand there to be found, when its essence appears
to be inseparable from the process of finding, and when assuredly it
would not be the whole world unless it included within itself both the
finding and the finder. But, this last perfection once reached, the
object no longer could stand in any relation at all; and, with this, its
proper being would be at once both completed and destroyed. The
perceptional attitude would entirely have passed beyond itself.

 We may bring out again the same contradiction if we begin from the
other side. As perceived or thought of the reality is, and it is also
itself. But its self obviously, on the other hand, includes relation to
others, and it is determined inwardly by those others from which it is
distinguished. Its content therefore slides beyond its existence, its
"what" spreads out beyond its "that." It thus no longer is, but has
become something ideal in which  the Reality appears. And, since this
appearance is not identical with reality, it cannot wholly be true.
Hence it must be corrected, until finally in its content it has ceased
to be false. But, in the first place, this correction is merely ideal.
It consists in a process throughout which content is separated from
existence. Hence, if truth were complete, it would not be truth, because
that is only appearance; and in the second place, while truth remains
appearance, it cannot possibly be complete. The theoretic object moves
towards a consummation in which all distinction and all ideality must be
suppressed. But, when that is reached, the theoretic attitude has been,
as such, swallowed up. It throughout on one hand presupposes a relation,
and on the other hand it asserts an independence; and, if these jarring
aspects are removed or are harmonized, its proper character is gone.
Hence perception and thought must either attempt to fall back into the
immediacy of feeling, or else, confessing themselves to be one-sided and
false, they must seek completion beyond themselves in a supplement and
counterpart.

 (4) With this we are naturally led to consider the practical aspect of
things. Here, as before, we must have an object, a something distinct
from, and over against, the central mass of feeling. But in this case
the relation shows itself as essential, and is felt as opposition. An
ideal alteration of the object is suggested, and the suggestion is not
rejected by the feeling centre; and the process is completed by this
ideal qualification, in me, itself altering, and so itself becoming, the
object. Such is, taken roughly, the main essence of the practical
attitude, and its one- sidedness and insufficiency are evident at once.
For it consists in the healing up of a division which it has no power to
create, and which, once healed up, is the entire removal of the
practical attitude. Will certainly produces, not mere ideas, but actual
existence. But it depends on ideality and mere  appearance for its
starting-point and essence; and the harmony which it makes is for ever
finite, and hence incomplete and unstable. And if this were not so, and
if the ideal and the existing were made one, the relation between them
would have disappeared, and will, as such, must have vanished. Thus the
attitude of practice, like all the rest, is not reality but is
appearance. And with this result we may pass onwards, leaving to a later
place the consideration of certain mistakes about the will. For since
the will implies and presupposes the distinction made in perception and
idea, we need hardly ask if it possesses more reality than these.

 (5) In the ‘sthetic attitude we may seem at last to have transcended
the opposition of idea to existence, and to have at last surmounted and
risen beyond the relational consciousness. For the  ‘sthetic attitude
seems to retain the immediacy of feeling. And it has also an object with
a certain character, but yet an object self-existent and not merely
ideal. This aspect of the world satisfies us in a way unattainable by
theory or practice, and it plainly cannot be reduced and resolved into
either. However, when we consider it more narrowly, its defects become
patent. It is no solution of our problems, since it fails to satisfy
either the claims of reality or even its own.

 That which is ‘sthetic may generally be defined as the self-existent
emotional. It can hardly all fall properly under the two heads of the
beautiful and ugly, but for my present purpose it will be convenient to
regard it as doing so. And since in the Absolute ugliness, like error
and evil, must be overpowered and absorbed, we may here confine our
attention entirely to beauty.

 Beauty is the self-existent pleasant. It is certainly not the
self-existent which enjoys its own pleasure, for that, so far as one
sees, need not be beautiful at all. But the beautiful must be
self-existent, and its being must be independent as such. Hence it must
exist as an individual and not merely in idea. Thoughts, or even
thought-processes, may be beautiful, but only so if they appear, as it
were, self-contained, and, in a manner, for sense. But the beautiful,
once more, must be an object. It must stand in relation to my mind, and
again it must possess a distinguished ideal content. We cannot say that
mere feeling is beautiful, though in a complex whole we may find at once
the blended aspects of feeling and of beauty. And the beautiful, last of
all, must be actually pleasant. But, if so, then once more it must be
pleasant for some one.

 Such a union of characters is inconsistent, and  we require no great
space to point out its discrepancy. Let us first abstract from the
pleasantness and from the relation to me, and let us suppose that the
beautiful exists independently. Yet even here we shall find it in
contradiction with itself. For the sides of existence and of content
must be concordant and at one; but, on the other hand, because the
object is finite, such an agreement is impossible. And thus, as was the
case with truth and goodness, there is a partial divergence of the two
aspects of extension and harmony. The expression is imperfect, or again
that which is expressed is too narrow. And in both ways alike in the end
there is want of harmoniousness, there is an inner discrepancy and a
failure in reality. For the content-- itself in any case always finite,
and so always inconsistent with itself--may even visibly go beyond its
actual expression, and be merely ideal. And, on the other side, the
existing expression must in various ways and degrees fall short of
reality. For, taken at its strongest, it after all must be finite fact.
It is determined from the outside, and so must internally be in discord
with itself. Thus the beautiful object, viewed as independent, is no
more than appearance.

 But to take beauty as an independent existence is impossible. For
pleasure belongs to its essence, and to suppose pleasure, or any
emotion, standing apart from some self seems out of the question. The
beautiful, therefore, will be determined by a quality in me. And in any
case, because (as we have seen) it is an object for perception, the
relation involved in perception must be essential to its being. Either
then, both as perceived and as emotional, beauty will be characterized
internally by what falls outside itself. And obviously in this case it
will  have turned out to be appearance. Or, on the other hand, it must
include within its own limits this external condition of its life. But,
with that total absorption of the percipient and sentient self, the
whole relation, and with it beauty as such, will have vanished.

 The various aspects, brought together in the ‘sthetic object, have been
seen to fall apart. Beauty is not really immediate, or independent, or
harmonious in itself. And, attempting to satisfy these requirements, it
must pass beyond its own character. Like all the other aspects this also
has been shown to be appearance.

 We have now surveyed the different regions of experience, and have
found each to be imperfect. We certainly cannot say that the Absolute is
any one of them. On the other hand each can be seen to be insufficient
and inconsistent, because it is not also, and as well, the rest. Each
aspect to a certain extent, already in fact, implies the others in its
existence, and in order to become Reality would have to go on to include
them wholly. And hence Reality seems contained in the totality of these
its diverse provinces, and they on their side each to be a partial
appearance of the universe. Let us once more briefly pass them in
review.

 With pleasure or pain we can perceive at once that its nature is
adjectival. We certainly cannot, starting with what we know of pleasure
and pain, show that this directly implies the remaining aspects of the
world. We must be satisfied with the knowledge that pain and pleasure
are adjectives, adjectives, so far as we see, attached to every other
aspect of experience. A complete insight into the conditions of these
adjectives is not attainable; but, if we could get it, it doubtless
would include every side of the universe. But, passing from pleasure and
pain to Feeling, we can verify there at once the  principle of discord
and development in its essence. The sides of content and existence
already strive to diverge. And hence feeling changes not merely through
outer force but through internal defect. The theoretical, the practical,
and the ‘sthetic aspect of things are attempts to work out and make good
this divergence of existence and idea. Each must thus be regarded as a
one-sided and special growth from feeling. And feeling still remains in
the background as the unity of these differences, a unity that cannot
find its complete expression in any or in all of them. Defect is obvious
at once in the ‘sthetic attitude. Beauty both attempts and fails to
arrive at immediate reality. For, even if you take it as real apart from
relation to a percipient, there is never entire accordance between its
two demands for completeness and harmony. That which is expressed in
fact remains too narrow, and that which is wider remains imperfectly
expressed. And hence, to be entirely beautiful, the object would have
also to be completely good and wholly true. Its idea would require to be
self-contained, and so all-embracing, and to be carried out in an
existence no less self-sufficient. But, if so, the distinctive
characters of truth and goodness and beauty would have vanished. We
reach again the same result if we turn to the theoretical aspect of the
world. Perception or theory, if it were but true, must also be good. For
the fact would have to be so taken that it exhibited no difference form
the thought. But such a concord of idea and existence would certainly
also be goodness. And again, being individual, it would as certainly no
less be beautiful. But on the other hand, since all these divergences
would have been absorbed, truth, beauty and goodness, as such, would no
longer exist. We arrive at the same conclusion when we begin from the
practical side. Nothing would content us finally but the complete union
of harmony and extent. A reality that  suggested any idea not existing
actually within its limits, would not be perfectly good. Perfect
goodness would thus imply the entire and absolute presence of the ideal
aspect. But this, if present, would be perfect and absolute truth. And
it would be beautiful also, since it would entail the individual harmony
of existence with content. But, once again, since the distinctive
differences would now have disappeared, we should have gone beyond
beauty or goodness or truth altogether.

 We have seen that the various aspects of experience imply one another,
and that all point to a unity which comprehends and perfects them. And I
would urge next that the unity of these aspects is unknown. By this I
certainly do not mean to deny that it essentially is experience, but it
is an experience of which, as such, we have no direct knowledge. We
never have, or are, a state which is the perfect unity of all aspects;
and we must admit that in their special natures they remain
inexplicable. An explanation would be the reduction of their plurality
to unity, in such a way that the relation between the unity and the
variety was understood. And everywhere an explanation of this kind in
the end is beyond us. If we abstract one or more of the aspects of
experience, and use this known element as a ground to which the others
are referred, our failure is evident. For if the rest could be developed
from this ground, as really they cannot be, they with their differences
can yet not be  predicated of it. But, if so, in the end the whole
diversity must be attributed as adjectives to a unity which is not
known. Thus no separate aspect can possibly serve as an explanation of
the others. And again, as we have found, no separate aspect is by itself
intelligible. For each is inconsistent with itself, and so is forced to
take in others. Hence to explain would be possible only when the whole,
as such, was comprehended. And such an actual and detailed comprehension
we have seen is not possible.

 Resting then on this general conclusion we might go forward at once. We
might assume that any reduction of the Absolute to one or two of the
special modes of experience is out of the question, and we might
forthwith attempt a final discussion of its nature and unity. It may
however be instructive to consider more closely a proposed reduction of
this kind. Let us ask then if Reality can be rightly explained as the
identity of Thought and Will. But first we may remind ourselves of some
of those points which a full explanation must include.

 In order to understand the universe we should require to know how the
special matter of sense stands everywhere to its relations and forms,
and again how pleasure and pain are connected with these forms and these
qualities. We should have to comprehend further the entire essence of
the relational consciousness, and the connection between its unity and
its plurality of distinguished terms. We should have to know why
everything (or all but everything) comes in finite centres of immediate
feeling, and how these centres with regard to one another are not
directly pervious. Then there is process in time with its perpetual
shifting of content from existence, a happening which seems certainly
not all included under will and thought. The physical world again
suggests some problems. Are there really ideas and ends that work in
Nature?  And why is it that, within us and without us, there is a
knowable arrangement, an order such that existence answers to thought,
and that personal identity and a communication between souls is
possible? We have, in short, on one side a diversity and finitude, and
on the other side we have a unity. And, unless we know throughout the
universe how these aspects stand the one to the other, the universe is
not explained.

 But a partial explanation, I may here be reminded, is better than none.
That in the present case, I reply, would be a serious error. You take
from the whole of experience some element or elements as a principle,
and you admit, I presume, that in the whole there remains some aspect
unexplained and outstanding. Now such an aspect belongs to the universe,
and must, therefore, be predicated of a unity not contained in your
elements. But, if so, your elements are at once degraded, for they
become adjectives of this unknown unity. Hence the objection is not that
your explanation is incomplete, but that its very principle is unsound.
You have offered as ultimate what in its working proclaims itself
appearance. And the partial explanation has implied in fact a false
pretence of knowledge.

 We may verify this result at once in the proposed reduction of the
other aspects of the world to intelligence and will. Before we see
anything of this in detail we may state beforehand its necessary and
main defect. Suppose that every feature of the universe has been fairly
brought under, and included in these two aspects, the universe still
remains unexplained. For the two aspects, however much one implies and
indeed is the other, must in some sense still be two. And unless we
comprehend how their plurality, where they are diverse, stands to their
unity, where they are at one, we have ended in failure. Our principles
after all will not be ultimate, but will themselves be the twofold
appearance of a unity left  unexplained. It may however repay us to
examine further the proposed reduction.

 The plausibility of this consists very largely in vagueness, and its
strength lies in the uncertain sense given to will and intelligence. We
seem to know these terms so well that we run no risk in applying them,
and then imperceptibly we pass into an application where their meaning
is changed. We have to explain the world, and what we find there is a
process with two aspects. There is a constant loosening of idea from
fact, and a making-good once more in a new existence of this recurring
discrepancy. We find nowhere substances fixed and rigid. They are
relative wholes of ideal content, standing on a ceaselessly renewed
basis of two-sided change. Identity, permanence, and continuity, are
everywhere ideal; they are unities for ever created and destroyed by the
constant flux of existence, a flux which they provoke, and which
supports them and is essential to their life. Now, looking at the
universe so, we may choose to speak of thought wherever the idea becomes
loose from its existence in fact; and we may speak of will wherever this
unity is once more made good. And, with this introduction of what seems
self- evident, the two main aspects of the world appear to have found an
explanation. Or we possibly might help ourselves to this result by a
further vagueness. For everything, at all events, either is, or else
happens in time. We might say then that, so far as it happens, it is
produced by will, and that, so far as it is, it is an object for
perception or thought. But, passing this by without consideration, let
us regard the process of the world as presenting two aspects. Thought
must then be taken as the idealizing side of this process, and will, on
the other hand, must be viewed as the side which makes ideas to be real.
And let us, for the present also, suppose that will and thought are in
themselves more or less self-evident.

  Now it is plain, first, that such a view compels us to postulate very
much more than we observe. For ideality certainly does not appear to be
all produced by thought, and actual existence, as certainly, does not
all appear as the effect of will. The latter is obvious whether in our
own selves, or in the course of Nature, or again in any other of the
selves that we know. And, with regard to ideality or the loosening of
content from fact, this is everywhere the common mark of appearance. It
does not seem exclusively confined to or distinctive of thinking.
Thought does not seem co- extensive in general with the relational form,
and it must be said to accept, as well as to create, ideal distinctions.
Ideality appears, in short, often as the result of psychical changes and
processes which do not seem, in the proper sense, to imply any thinking.
These are difficulties, but still they may perhaps be dealt with. For,
just as we could set no limits to the possible existences of souls, so
we can fix no bounds to the possible working of thought and will. Our
mere failure to discover them here or there, and whether within
ourselves or again outside us, does not anywhere disprove their
existence. And as souls to an unknown extent can have their life and
world in common, so the effects of will and thought may show themselves
there where the actual process is not experienced. That which comes to
me as a mechanical occurrence, or again as an ideal distinction which I
have never made, may none the less, also and essentially, be will and
thought. And it may be experienced as such, completely or partly,
outside me. My reason and my plan to other finite centres may only be
chance, and their intelligible functions may strike on me as a dark
necessity. But for a higher unity our blind entanglement is lucid order.
The world discordant, half-completed, and accidental for each one, is in
the Whole a compensated system of conspiring particulars. Everything
there is the joint result of two functions which in their  working are
one, and every least detail is still the outcome of intelligence and
will. Certainly such a doctrine is a postulate, in so far as its
particulars cannot be verified. But taken in general it may be urged
also as a legitimate inference and a necessary conclusion.

 Still in the way of this conclusion, which I have tried to set out, we
find other difficulties as yet unremoved. There is pleasure and pain,
and again the facts of feeling and of the ‘sthetic consciousness. Now,
if thought and will fail to explain these, and they, along with thought
and will, have to be predicate unexplained of the Unity, the Unity after
all is unknown. Feeling, in the first place, cannot be regarded as the
indifferent ground of perception and will; for, if so, this ground
itself offers a new fact which requires explanation. Feeling therefore
must be taken as a sort of confusion, and as a nebula which would grow
distinct on closer scrutiny. And the ‘sthetic attitude, perhaps, may be
regarded as the perceived equilibrium of both our functions. It must be
admitted certainly that such an attitude, if the unity alike of thought
and will, remains a source of embarrassment. For it seems hardly
derivable from both as diverse; and, taken as their unity, it, upon the
other side, certainly fails to contain or account for either. And, if we
pass from this to pleasure and pain, we do but gain another difficulty.
For the connection of these adjectives with our two functions seems in
the end inexplicable, while, on the other hand, I do not perceive that
this connection is self-evident. We seem in fact drifting towards the
admission that there are other aspects of the world, which must be
referred as adjectives to our identity of will and thought, while their
inclusion within will or thought remains uncertain. But this is
virtually to allow that thought and will are not the essence of the
universe.

  Let us go on to consider internal difficulties. Will and understanding
are to be each self-evident, but on the other hand each evidently, apart
from the other, has lost its special being. For will presupposes the
distinction of idea from fact--a distinction made actual by a process,
and presumably itself due to will. And thought has to start from the
existence which only will can make. Hence it presupposes, and again as
an existing process seems created by, will, although will on its side is
dependent on thought. We must, I presume, try to meet this objection by
laying stress on the aspect of unity. Our two functions really are
inseparable, and it therefore is natural that one should imply and
should presuppose the other. Certainly hitherto we have found everywhere
that an unresting circle of this kind is the mark of appearance, but let
us here be content to pass on. Will and thought everywhere then are
implicated the one with the other. Will without an idea, and thought
that did not depend upon will, would neither be itself. To a certain
extent, then, will essentially is thought; and, just as essentially, all
thought is will. Again the existence of thought is an end which will
calls into being, and will is an object for the reflections and
constructions of theory. They are not, then, two clear functions in
unity, but each function, taken by itself, is still the identity of
both. And each can hardly be itself, and not the other, as being a mere
preponderance of itself; for there seems to be no portion of either
which can claim to be, if unsupported and alone. Will and thought then
differ only as we abstract and consider aspects one-sidedly; or, to
speak plainly, their diversity is barely appearance.

 If however thought and will really are not different, they are no
longer two elements or principles. They are not two known diversities
which serve to explain the variety of the world. For, if their
difference is appearance, still that very appearance  is what we have
most to explain. We are not to go outside will and thought, in order to
seek our explanation; and yet, keeping within them, we seem unable to
find any. The identity of both is no solution, unless that identity
explains their difference; for this difference is the very problem
required to be solved. We have given us a process of happening and
finitude, and in this process we are able to point out two main aspects.
To explain such a process is to say why and how it possesses and
supports this known diversity. But by the proposed reduction to will and
thought we have done little more than give two names to two unexplained
aspects. For, ignore every other difficult, and you have still on your
hands the main question, Why is it that thought and will diverge or
appear to diverge? It is in this real or apparent divergence that the
actual world of finite things consists.

 Or examine the question from another side. Will and thought may be
appealed to in order to explain the given process in time, and certainly
each of them contains in its nature a temporal succession. Now a process
in time is appearance, and not, as such, holding of the Absolute. And,
if we urge that thought and will are twin processes reciprocal and
compensating, that leaves us where we were. For, as such, neither can be
a predicate of the real unity, and the nature of that unity, with its
diversity of appearance, is left unexplained. And to place the whole
succession in time on the side of mere perception, and to plead that
will, taken by itself, is not really a process, would hardly serve to
assist us. For if will has a content, then that content is perceptible
and must imply temporal lapse, and will, after all, surely can stand no
higher than that which it wills. And, without an ideal content, will is
nothing but a blind appeal to the unknown. It is itself unknown, and of
this unknown something we are forced now to predicate as an adjective
the  unexplained world of perception. Thus, in the end, will and thought
are two names for two kinds of appearance. Neither, as such, can belong
to the final Reality, and, in the end, both their unity and their
diversity remains inexplicable. They may be offered as partial and as
relative, but not as ultimate explanations.

 But if their unity is thus unknown, should we call it their unity? Have
they any right to arrogate to themselves the whole field of appearance?
If we are to postulate thought and will where they are not observed, we
should at least have an inducement. And, if after all they fail to
explain our world, the inducement seems gone. Why should we strain
ourselves to bring all phenomena under two heads, if, when we have
forced them there, these heads, with the phenomena, remain unexplained?
It would be surely better to admit that appearances are of more kinds,
and have more aspects, than only two, and to allow that their unity is a
mode of experience not directly accessible. And this result is confirmed
when we recall some preceding difficulties. Pleasure and pain, feeling,
and the ‘sthetic consciousness would hardly fall under any mere unity of
intelligence and will; and again the relation of sensible qualities to
their arrangements, the connection of matter with form, remained
entirely inexplicable. In short, even if the unity of thought and will
were by itself self-evident, yet the various aspects of the world can
hardly be reduced to it. And, on the other side, even if this reduction
were accomplished, the identity of will and thought, and their
diversity, are still not understood. If finitude and process in time is
reduced to their divergence, how is it they come to diverge? The
reduction cannot be final, so long as the answer to such a question
falls somewhere outside it.

 The world cannot be explained as the appearance  of two counterpart
functions, and with this result we might be contented to pass on. But,
in any case, such functions could not be identified with what we know as
intelligence and will; and it may be better perhaps for a little to
dwell on this point. We assumed above that will and thought were by
themselves self- evident. We saw that there was a doubt as to how much
ground these two functions covered. Still the existence of an idealizing
and of a realizing function, each independent and primary, we took for
granted. But now, if we consider the facts given to us in thinking and
willing, we shall have to admit that the powers required are not to be
found. For, apart from the question of range, will and thought are
nowhere self-evident or primary. Each in its working depends on
antecedent connections, connections which remain always in a sense
external and borrowed. I will endeavour briefly to explain this.

 Thought and will certainly contain transitions, and these transitions
were taken above as self-evident. They were regarded as something
naturally involved in the very essence of these functions, and we hence
did not admit a further question about their grounds. But, if we turn to
thought and will in our experience, such an assumption is refuted. For
in actual thinking we depend upon particular connections, and, apart
from this given matter, we should be surely unable to think. These
connections cannot be taken all as inherent in the mere essence of
thought, for most of them at least seem to be empirical and supplied
from outside. And I am entirely unable to see how they can be regarded
as self-evident. This result is confirmed when we consider the making of
distinctions. For, in the first place, distinctions largely seem to grow
up apart from our thinking, in the proper sense; and, next, a
distinguishing power of thought, where it exists, appears to rest on,
and to work from, prior difference. It is thus a result due to acquired
and empirical  relations. The actual transitions of thinking are, in
short, not self-evident, or, to use another phrase, they cannot be taken
as immanent in thought. Nor, if we pass to volition, do we find its
processes in any better case; for our actions neither are self-evident
nor are they immanent in will. Let us abstract from the events in Nature
and in our selves with which our will seems not concerned. Let us
confine our attention wholly to the cases where our idea seems to make
its existence in fact. But is the transition here a thing so clear that
it demands no explanation? An idea desired in one case remains merely
desired, in another case it turns into actual existence. Why then the
one, we enquire, and not also the other? "Because in the second place,"
you may reply, "there is an action of will, and it is this act which
explains and accounts for the transition." Now I will not answer here
that it is the transition which, on the other hand, is the act. I will
for the moment accept the existence of your preposterous faculty. But I
repeat the question, why is one thing willed and not also the other? Is
this difference self-evident, and self-luminous, and a feature
immediately revealed in the plain essence of will? For, if it is not so,
it is certainly also not explained by volition. It will be something
external to the function, and given from outside. And thus, with will
and thought alike, we must accept this same conclusion. There is no
willing or thinking apart from the particular acts, and these particular
acts, as will and thought, are clearly not self-evident. They involve in
their essences a connection supplied from without. And will and thought
therefore, even where without doubt they exist, are dependent and
secondary. Nothing can be explained in the end by a reduction to either
of these functions.

  This conclusion, not dependent on psychology, finds itself supported
and confirmed there. For will and thought, in the sense in which we know
them, clearly are not primary. They are developed from a basis which is
not yet either, and which never can fully become so. Their existence is
due to psychical events and ways of happening, which are not distinctive
of thought or will. And this basis is never, so to speak, quite absorbed
by either. They are differentiations whose peculiar characters never
quite specialize all their contents. In other words will and thought
throughout depend on what is not essentially either, and without these
psychical elements which remain external, their processes would cease.
There is, in brief, a common substance with common laws; and of this
material will and thought are one-sided applications. Far from
exhausting this life, they are contained within it as subordinate
functions. They are included in it as dependent and partial
developments.

 Fully to work out this truth would be the business of psychology, and I
must content myself here with a brief notice of some leading points.
Thought is a development from a ground of preceding ideality. The
division of content from existence is not created but grows. The laws of
Association and Blending already in themselves imply the working of
ideal elements; and on these laws thought stands and derives from them
its actual processes. It is the blind pressure and the struggle of
changed sensations, which, working together with these laws, first
begins to loosen ideal content from psychical fact. And hence we may say
that thought proper is the outcome, and not the creator, of idealizing
functions. I do not mean that the development of thought can be fully
explained, since that would imply a clear insight into the general
origin of the relational form. And I doubt if we can follow and retrace
in detail the transition  to this from the stage of mere feeling. But I
would insist, none the less, that some distinguishing is prior to
thought proper. Synthesis and analysis, each alike, begin as psychical
growths; each precedes and then is specialized and organized into
thinking. But, if so, thought is not ultimate. It cannot for one moment
claim to be the sole parent and source of ideality.

 And if thought is taken as a function primary, and from the first
implied in distinction and synthesis, even on this mistaken basis its
dependent character is plain. For the connections and distinctions, the
ideal relations, in which thought has its being--from where do they
come? As particular they consist at least partly in what is special to
each, and these special natures, at least partly, can be derived from no
possible faculty of thinking. Thought's relations therefore still must
depend on what is empirical. They are in part the result of perception
and mere psychical process. Therefore (as we saw above) thought must
rest on these foreign materials; and, however much we take it as primary
and original, it is still not independent. For it never in any case can
absorb its materials into essential functions. Its connections may be
familiar and unnoticed, and its sequences may glide without a break. Nay
even upon reflection we may feel convinced that our special arrangement
is true system, and may be sure that somehow its connections are not
based on mere conjunction. But if we ask, on the other hand, if this
ideal system can come out of bare thought, or can be made to consist in
it, the answer must be different. Why connections in particular are just
so, and not more or less otherwise--this can be explained in the end by
no faculty of thinking. And thus, if thought in its origin is not
secondary, its essence remains so. If in its ideal matter it is a result
from mere psychical  growth, its ideal connections in part will
throughout be presupposed and not made by itself. And a connection,
supposed to be made, would even be disowned as a fiction. Hence, on any
psychological view, these connections are not inherent and essential.
But for the truer view, we have seen above, thought altogether is
developed. It grows from, and still it consists in, processes not
dependent on itself. And the result may be summed up thus; certainly all
relations are ideal, and as certainly not all relations are products of
thinking.

 If we turn to volition, psychology makes clear that this is developed
and secondary. An idea, barely of itself, possesses no power of passing
over into fact, nor is there any faculty whose office it is to carry out
this passage. Or, for the sake of argument, suppose that such a faculty
exists, yet some ideas require (as we saw) an extraneous assistance. The
faculty is no function, in short, unless specially provoked. But that
which makes will, or at least makes it behave as itself, is surely a
condition on which the being of will is dependent. Will, in brief, is
based on associations, psychical and physical at once, or, again, upon
mere physiological connections. It presupposes these, and throughout its
working it also implies them, and we are hence compelled to consider
them as part of its essence. I am quite aware that on the nature of will
there is a great diversity of doctrine, but there are some views which I
feel justified in not considering seriously. For any sane psychology
will must presuppose, and must rest on, junctions physical and
psychical, junctions which certainly are not will. Nor is there any
stage of its growth at which will has absorbed into a special essence
these  presupposed workings. But, if so, assuredly will cannot be taken
as primary.

 The universe as a whole may be called intelligible. It may be known to
come together in such a way as to realize, throughout and thoroughly,
the complete demands of a perfect intellect. And every single element,
again, in the world is intelligible, because it is taken up into and
absorbed in a whole of this character. But the universe is not
intelligible in the sense that it can throughout be understood; nor,
starting from the mere intellect, could you anticipate its features in
detail. For, in answering the demands of the intellect, the Whole
supplements and makes good its characteristic defects, so that the
perfected intellect, with these, has lost its own special nature. And
this conclusion holds again of every other aspect of things. None of
them is intelligible, as such, because, when become intelligible, they
have ceased also, as such, to be. Hence no single aspect of the world
can in the end be explained, nor can the world be explained as the
result either of any or all of them. We have verified this truth above
in the instance of thought and of will. Thought is not intelligible
because its particular functions are not self-evident, and because,
again, they cannot be derived from, or shown to be, parts immanent in
itself. And the same defect once more belongs also to will. I do not
mean merely that will's special passages are not intellectual. I mean
that they are not intelligible, nor by themselves luminous, nor in any
sense self-evident. They are occurrences familiar more or less, but
never containing each in itself its own essence and warrant. That
essence,  as we have seen, remains a fact which is conditioned from
without, and it therefore remains everywhere partly alien. It is futile
to explain the whole as the unity of two or more factors, when none of
these can by itself be taken as evident, and when the way, in which
their variety is brought together, remains in detail unintelligible.

 With this result it is time that we went forward, but I feel compelled,
in passing, to remark on the alleged supremacy of Will. In the first
place, if will is Reality, it is incumbent on us to show how appearance
is related to this ground. And, on our failure, we have an unknown unity
behind this relation, and will itself must take the place of a partial
appearance. But, when we consider will's character, the same conclusion
is in any case plain. What we know as will implies relation and a
process, and an unsolved discrepancy of elements. And the same remark
holds of energy or activity, or of anything else of the kind. Indeed, I
have dwelt so often on this head that I must consider it disposed of. I
may, however, be told perhaps that this complexity is but the appearance
of will, and that will itself, the real and supreme, is something other
and different. But, if so, the relation of appearance to this reality is
once more on our hands. And, even apart from that, such an appeal to
Will-in-itself is futile. For what we know as will contains the process,
and what we do not know as will has no right to the name. It may be a
mere physical happening, or may imply a metaphysical Reality, and in
either case we have already dealt with it so far as is required. In
short, an appeal to will, either in metaphysics or in psychology, is an
uncritical attempt to make play with the unknown. It is the pretence of
a ground or an explanation, where the ground is not understood or the
explanation discovered. And, so far as metaphysics is concerned, one can
perhaps account for  such a barren self-deception. The mere intellect
has shown itself incompetent to explain all phenomena, and so naturally
recourse is had to the other side of things. And this unknown reality,
called in thus to supply the defects of mere intellect, is blindly
identified with the aspect which appears most opposed. But an unknown
Reality, more than intellect, a something which appears in will and all
appearance, and even in intellect itself--such a reality is not will or
any other partial aspect of things. We really have appealed to the
complete and all-inclusive totality, free from one-sidedness and all
defect. And we have called this will, because in will we do not find one
defect of a particular kind. But such a procedure is not rational.

 An attempt may perhaps be made from another side to defend the primacy
of will. It may be urged that all principles and axioms in the end must
be practical, and must accordingly be called the expression of will. But
such an assertion would be mistaken. Axioms and principles are the
expression of diverse sides of our nature, and they most certainly
cannot all be considered as practical. In our various attitudes,
intellectual, ‘sthetic, and practical, there are certain modes of
experience which satisfy. In these modes we can repose, while, again,
their absence brings pain, and unrest, and desire. And we can of course
distinguish these characters and set them up as ideals, and we can also
make them our ends and the objects of will. But such a relation to will
is, except in the moral end, not inherent in their nature. Indeed the
reply that principles are willed because they are, would be truer than
the assertion that principles are just because they are willed. And the
possible objection that after all these things are objects to will, has
been anticipated above (p. 474). The same line of argument obviously
would prove that the intelligence is paramount, since it reflects on
will and on every other aspect of the world.  With this hurried notice,
I must dismiss finally the alleged pre-eminence of will. This must
remain always a muddy refuge for the troubled in philosophy. But its
claims appear plausible so long only as darkness obscures them. They are
plainly absurd where they do not prefer to be merely unintelligible.

 We have found that no one aspect of experience, as such, is real. None
is primary, or can serve to explain the others or the whole. They are
all alike appearances, all one-sided, and passing away beyond
themselves. But I may be asked why, admitting this, we should call them
appearances. For such a term belongs solely of right to the perceptional
side of things, and the perceptional side, we agreed, was but one aspect
among others. To appear, we may be told, is not possible except to a
percipient, and an appearance also implies both judgment and rejection.
I might certainly, on the other side, enquire whether all implied
metaphors are to be pressed, and if so, how many phrases and terms would
be left us. But in the case of appearance I admit at once that the
objection has force. I think the term implies without doubt an aspect of
perceiving and judging, and such an aspect, I quite agree, does not
everywhere exist. For, even if we conclude that all phenomena pass
through psychical centres, yet in those centres most assuredly all is
not perception. And to assume that somehow in the Whole all phenomena
are judged of, would be again indefensible. We must, in short, admit
that some appearances really do not appear, and that hence a license is
involved in our use of the term.

 Our attitude, however, in metaphysics must be theoretical. It is our
business here to measure and to judge the various aspects of things. And
hence for us anything which comes short when compared with Reality, gets
the name of appearance. But we  do not suggest that the thing always
itself is an appearance. We mean its character is such that it becomes
one, as soon as we judge it. And this character, we have seen throughout
our work, is ideality. Appearance consists in the looseness of content
from existence; and, because of this self-estrangement, every finite
aspect is called an appearance. And we have found that everywhere
throughout the world such ideality prevails. Anything less than the
Whole has turned out to be not self-contained. Its being involves in its
very essence a relation to the outside, and it is thus inwardly infected
by externality. Everywhere the finite is self-transcendent, alienated
from itself, and passing away from itself towards another existence.
Hence the finite is appearance because, on the one side, it is an
adjective of Reality, and because, on the other side, it is an adjective
which itself is not real. When the term is thus defined, its employment
seems certainly harmless.

 We have in this Chapter been mainly, so far, concerned with a denial.
All is appearance, and no appearance, or any combination of these, is
the same as Reality. This is half the truth, and by itself it is a
dangerous error. We must turn at once to correct it by adding its
counterpart and supplement. The Absolute is its appearances, it really
is all and every one of them. That is the other half-truth which we have
already insisted on, and which we must urge once more here. And we may
remind ourselves at this point of a fatal mistake. If you take
appearances, singly or all together, and assert barely that the Absolute
is either one of them or all--the position is hopeless. Having first set
these down as appearance, you now proclaim them as the very opposite;
for that which is identified with the Absolute is no appearance but is
utter reality. But we have seen the solution of this puzzle, and we 
know the sense and meaning in which these half- truths come together
into one. The Absolute is each appearance, and is all, but it is not any
one as such. And it is not all equally, but one appearance is more real
than another. In short the doctrine of degrees in reality and truth is
the fundamental answer to our problem. Everything is essential, and yet
one thing is worthless in comparison with others. Nothing is perfect, as
such, and yet everything in some degree contains a vital function of
Perfection. Every attitude of experience, every sphere or level of the
world, is a necessary factor in the Absolute. Each in its own way
satisfies, until compared with that which is more than itself. Hence
appearance is error, if you will, but not every error is illusion. At
each stage is involved the principle of that which is higher, and every
stage (it is therefore true) is already inconsistent. But on the other
hand, taken for itself and measured by its own ideas, every level has
truth. It meets, we may say, its own claims, and it proves false only
when tried by that which is already beyond it. And thus the Absolute is
immanent alike through every region of appearances. There are degrees
and ranks, but, one and all, they are alike indispensable.

 We can find no province of the world so low but the Absolute inhabits
it. Nowhere is there even a single fact so fragmentary and so poor that
to the universe it does not matter. There is truth in every idea however
false, there is reality in every existence however slight; and, where we
can point to reality or truth, there is the one undivided life of the
Absolute. Appearance without reality would be impossible, for what then
could appear? And reality without appearance would be nothing, for there
certainly is nothing outside appearances. But on the other hand Reality
(we must repeat this) is not the  sum of things. It is the unity in
which all things, coming together, are transmuted, in which they are
changed all alike, though not changed equally. And, as we have
perceived, in this unity relations of isolation and hostility are
affirmed and absorbed. These also are harmonious in the Whole, though
not of course harmonious as such, and while severally confined to their
natures as separate. Hence it would show blindness to urge, as an
objection against our view, the opposition found in ugliness and in
conscious evil. The extreme of hostility implies an intenser relation,
and this relation falls within the Whole and enriches its unity. The
apparent discordance and distraction is overruled into harmony, and it
is but the condition of fuller and more individual development. But we
can hardly speak of the Absolute itself as either ugly or evil. The
Absolute is indeed evil in a sense and it is ugly and false, but the
sense, in which these predicates can be applied, is too forced and
unnatural. Used of the Whole each predicate would be the result of an
indefensible division, and each would be a fragment isolated and by
itself without consistent meaning. Ugliness, evil, and error, in their
several spheres, are subordinate aspects. They imply distinctions
falling, in each case, within one subject province of the Absolute's
kingdom; and they involve a relation, in each case, of some struggling
element to its superior, though limited, whole. Within these minor
wholes the opposition draws its life from, and is overpowered by, the
system which supports it. The predicates evil, ugly, and false must
therefore stamp whatever they qualify, as a mere subordinate aspect, an
aspect belonging to the province of beauty or goodness or truth. And to
assign such a position to the sovereign Absolute would be plainly
absurd. You may affirm that the Absolute has ugliness and error and
evil, since it owns the provinces in which these features are partial
elements. But to assert that it is one of its own fragmentary and
dependent details would be inadmissible.

 It is only by a licence that the subject-systems, even when we regard
them as wholes, can be made qualities of Reality. It is always under
correction and on sufferance that we term the universe either beautiful
or moral or true. And to venture further would be both useless and
dangerous at once.

 If you view the Absolute morally at all, then the Absolute is good. It
cannot be one factor contained within and overpowered by goodness. In
the same way, viewed logically or ‘sthetically, the Absolute can only be
true or beautiful. It is merely when you have so termed it, and while
you still continue to insist on these preponderant characters, that you
can introduce at all the ideas of falsehood and ugliness. And, so
introduced, their direct application to the Absolute is impossible. Thus
to identify the supreme universe with a partial system may, for some
end, be admissible. But to take it as a single character within this
system, and as a feature which is already overruled, and which as such
is suppressed there, would, we have seen, be quite unwarranted.
Ugliness, error, and evil, all are owned by, and all essentially
contribute to the wealth of the Absolute. The Absolute, we may say in
general, has no assets beyond appearances; and again, with appearances
alone to its credit, the Absolute would be bankrupt. All of these are
worthless alike apart from transmutation. But, on the other hand once
more, since the amount of change is different in each case, appearances
differ widely in their degrees of truth and reality. There are
predicates which, in comparison with others, are false and unreal.

 To survey the field of appearances, to measure each by the idea of
perfect individuality, and to arrange them in an order and in a system
of reality and merit-- would be the task of metaphysics. This  task (I
may repeat) is not attempted in these pages. I have however endeavoured
here, as above, to explain and to insist on the fundamental principle.
And, passing from that, I will now proceed to remark on some points of
interest. There are certain questions which at this stage we may hope to
dispose of.

 Let us turn our attention once more to Nature or the physical world.
Are we to affirm that ideas are forces, and that ends operate and move
there? And, again, is Nature beautiful and an object of possible
worship? On this latter point, which I will consider first, I find
serious confusion. Nature, as we have seen, can be taken in various
senses (Chapter. xxii.). We may understand by it the whole universe, or
again merely the world in space, or again we may restrict it to a very
much narrower meaning. We may first remove everything which in our
opinion is only psychical, and the abstract residue--the primary
qualities--we may then identify with Nature. These will be the essence,
while all the rest is accessory adjective, and, in the fullest sense, is
immaterial. Now we have found that Nature, so understood, has but little
reality. It is an ideal construction required by science, and it is a
necessary working fiction. And we may add that reduction to a result,
and to a particular instance, of this fiction, is what is meant by a
strictly physical explanation. But in this way there grows up a great
confusion. For the object of natural science is the full world in all
its sensible glory, while the essence of Nature lies in this poor
fiction of primary qualities, a fiction believed not to be idea but
solid fact. Nature then, while unexplained, is still left in its
sensuous splendour, while Nature, if explained, would be reduced to this
paltry abstraction. On one side is set up the essence-- the final
reality--in the shape of a bare skeleton of primary qualities;  on the
other side remains the boundless profusion of life which everywhere
opens endlessly before our view. And these extremes then are confused,
or are conjoined, by sheer obscurity or else by blind mental
oscillation. If explanation reduces facts to be adjectives of something
which they do not qualify at all, the whole connection seems irrational,
and the process robs us of the facts. But if the primary essence after
all is qualified, then its character is transformed. The explanation, in
reducing the concrete, will now also have enriched and have
individualized the abstract, and we shall have started on our way
towards philosophy and truth. But of this latter result in the present
case there can be no question. And therefore we must end in oscillation
with no attempt at an intelligent unity of view. Nature is, on the one
hand, that show whose reality lies barely in primary qualities. It is,
on the other hand, that endless world of sensible life which appeals to
our sympathy and extorts our wonder. It is the object loved and lived in
by the poet and by the observing naturalist. And, when we speak of
Nature, we have often no idea which of these extremes, or indeed what at
all, is to be understood. We in fact pass, as suits the occasion, from
one extreme unconsciously to the other.

 I will briefly apply this result to the question before us. Whether
Nature is beautiful and adorable will depend entirely on the sense in
which Nature is taken. If the genuine reality of Nature is bare primary
qualities then I cannot think that such a question needs serious
discussion. In a word Nature will be dead. It could possess at the most
a kind of symmetry; and again by its extent, or by its practical
relation to our weaknesses or needs, it might excite in us feelings of a
certain kind. But these feelings, in the first place, would fall
absolutely within ourselves. They could not rationally be applied to,
nor in the very least could  they qualify Nature. And, in the second
place, these feelings would in our minds hardly take the form of
worship. Hence when Nature, as the object of natural science, is either
asserted to be beautiful, or is set up before us as divine, we may make
our answer at once. If the reality of the object is to be restricted to
primary qualities, then surely no one would advocate the claims we have
mentioned. If again the whole perceptible world and the glory of it is
to be genuinely real, and if this splendour and this life are of the
very essence of Nature, then a difficulty will arise in two directions.
In the first place this claim has to get itself admitted by physical
science. I The physical has to be adopted as at least co-equal in
reality with matter. The relation to the organism and to the soul has to
be included in the vital being of a physical object. And the first
difficulty will consist in advancing to this point. Then the second
difficulty will appear at once when this point has been reached. For,
having gone so far, we have to justify our refusal to go further. For
why is Nature to be confined to the perceptible world? If the psychical
and the "subjective" is in any degree to make part of its reality, then
upon what principle can you shut out the highest and most spiritual
experience? Why is Nature viewed and created by the painter, the poet,
and the seer, not essentially real? But in this way Nature will tend to
become the total universe of both spirit and matter. And our main
conclusion so far must be this. It is evidently useless to raise such
questions about the object of natural science, when you have not settled
in your mind what that object is, and when you supply no principle on
which we can decide in what its reality consists.

 But turning from this confusion, and once more approaching the question
from, I trust, a more rational ground, I will try to make a brief
answer. Into the special features and limits of the beautiful in  Nature
I cannot enter. And I cannot discuss how far, and in what sense, the
physical world is included in the true object of religion. These are
special enquiries which fall without the scope of my volume. But whether
Nature is beautiful or adorable at all, and whether it possesses such
attributes really and in truth,--to the question, asked thus in general,
we may answer, Yes. We have seen that Nature, regarded as bare matter,
is a mere convenient abstraction (Chapter xxii.). The addition of
secondary qualities, the included relation to a body and to a soul, in
making Nature more concrete makes it thereby more real. The sensible
life, the warmth and colour, the odour and the tones, without these
Nature is a mere intellectual fiction. The primary qualities are a
construction demanded by science, but, while divorced from the
secondary, they have no life as facts. Science has a Hades from which it
returns to interpret the world, but the inhabitants of its Hades are
merely shades. And, when the secondary qualities are added, Nature,
though more real, is still incomplete. The joys and sorrows of her
children, their affections and their thoughts--how are we to say that
these have no part in the reality of Nature? Unless to a mind restricted
by a principle the limitation would be absurd, and our main principle on
the other hand insists that Nature, when more full, is more real. And
this same principle will carry us on to a further conclusion. The
emotions, excited by Nature in the considering soul, must at least in
part be referred to, and must be taken as attributes of, Nature. If
there is no beauty there, and if the sense of that is to fall somewhere
outside, why in the end should there be any qualities in Nature at all?
And, if no emotional tone is to qualify Nature, how and on what
principle are we to  attribute to it anything else whatever? Everything
there without exception is "subjective," if we are to regard the matter
so; and an emotional tone cannot, solely on this account, be excluded
from Nature. And, otherwise, why should it not have reality there as a
genuine quality? For myself I must follow the same principle and can
accept the fresh consequence. The Nature that we have lived in, and that
we love, is really Nature. Its beauty and its terror and its majesty are
no illusion, but qualify it essentially. And hence that in which at our
best moments we all are forced to believe, is the literal truth.

 This result however needs some qualification from another side. It is
certain that everything is determined by the relations in which it
stands. It is certain that, with increase of determinateness, a thing
becomes more and more real. On the other hand anything, fully
determined, would be the Absolute itself. There is a point where
increase of reality implies passage beyond self. A thing by enlargement
becomes a mere factor in the whole next above it; and, in the end, all
provinces and all relative wholes cease to keep their separate
characters. We must not forget this while considering the reality of
Nature. By gradual increase of that reality you reach a stage at which
Nature, as such, is absorbed. Or, as you reflect on Nature, your object
identifies itself gradually with the universe or Absolute. And the
question arises at what point, when we begin to add psychical life or to
attribute spiritual attributes to Nature, we have ceased to deal with
Nature in any proper sense of that term. Where do we pass from Nature,
as an outlying province in the kingdom of things, to Nature as a
suppressed element in a higher unity? These enquiries are demanded by
philosophy, and their result would lead to clearer conclusions about the
qualities of Nature. I can do no more than  allude to them here, and the
conclusion, on which I insist, can in the main be urged independently.
Nothing is lost to the Absolute, and all appearances have reality. The
Nature studied by the observer and by the poet and painter, is in all
its sensible and emotional fulness a very real Nature. It is in most
respects more real than the strict object of physical science. For
Nature, as the world whose real essence lies in primary qualities, has
not a high degree of reality and truth. It is a mere abstraction made
and required for a certain purpose. And the object of natural science
may either mean this skeleton, or it may mean the skeleton made real by
blood and flesh of secondary qualities. Hence, before we dwell on the
feelings Nature calls for from us, it would be better to know in what
sense we are using the term. But the boundary of Nature can hardly be
drawn even at secondary qualities. Or, if we draw it there, we must draw
it arbitrarily, and to suit our convenience. Only on this ground can
psychical life be excluded from Nature, while, regarded otherwise, the
exclusion would not be tenable. And to deny ‘sthetic qualities in
Nature, or to refuse it those which inspire us with fear or devotion,
would once more surely be arbitrary. It would be a division introduced
for a mere working theoretical purpose. Our principle, that the abstract
is the unreal, moves us steadily upward. It forces us first to rejection
of bare primary qualities, and it compels us in the end to credit Nature
with our higher emotions. That process can cease only where Nature is
quite absorbed into spirit, and at every stage of the process we find
increase in reality.

 And this higher interpretation, and this eventual transcendence of
Nature lead us to the discussion of another point which we mentioned
above. Except in finite souls and except in volition may we  suppose
that Ends operate in Nature, and is ideality, in any other sense, a
working force there? How far such a point of view may be permitted in
‘sthetics or in the philosophy of religion, I shall not enquire. But
considering the physical world as a mere system of appearances in space,
are we on metaphysical grounds to urge the insufficiency of the
mechanical view? In what form (if in any) are we to advocate a
philosophy of Nature? On this difficult subject I will very briefly
remark in passing.

 The mechanical view plainly is absurd as a full statement of truth.
Nature so regarded has not ceased at all (we may say) to be ideal, but
its ideality throughout falls some where outside itself (Chapters xxii.
and xxiii.). And that even for working purposes this view can everywhere
be rigidly maintained, I am unable to assert. But upon one subject I
have no doubts. Every special science must be left at liberty to follow
its own methods, and, if the natural sciences reject every way of
explanation which is not mechanical, that is not the affair of
metaphysics. For myself, in other ways ignorant, I venture to assume
that these sciences understand their own business. But where, quite
beyond the scope of any special science, assertions are made, the
metaphysician may protest. He may insist that abstractions are not
realities, and that working fictions are never more than useful
fragments of truth. And on another point also he may claim a hearing. To
adopt one sole principle of valid explanation, and to urge that, if
phenomena are to be explicable, they must be explained by one
method--this is of course competent to any science. But it is another
thing to proclaim phenomena as already explained, or as explicable,
where in certain aspects or in certain provinces they clearly are not
explained, and where, perhaps, not even the first beginning of an
explanation has been made. In these lapses or excursions beyond its own
limits  natural science has no rights. But within its boundaries I think
every wise man will consider it sacred. And this question of the
operation of Ends in Nature is one which, in my judgment, metaphysics
should leave untouched.

 Is there then no positive task which is left to Metaphysics, the
accomplishment of which might be called a philosophy of Nature? I will
briefly point out the field which seems to call for occupation. All
appearances for metaphysics have degrees of reality. We have an idea of
perfection or of individuality; and, as we find that any form of
existence more completely realizes this idea, we assign to it its
position in the scale of being. And in this scale (as we have seen) the
lower, as its defects are made good, passes beyond itself into the
higher. The end, or the absolute individuality, is also the principle.
Present from the first it supplies the test of its inferior stages, and,
as these are included in fuller wholes, the principle grows in reality.
Metaphysics in short can assign a meaning to perfection and progress.
And hence, if it were to accept from the sciences the various kinds of
natural phenomena, if it were to set out these kinds in an order of
merit and rank, if it could point out how within each higher grade the
defects of the lower are made good, and how the principle of the lower
grade is carried out in the higher--metaphysics surely would have
contributed to the interpretation of Nature. And, while myself totally
incapable of even assisting in such a work, I cannot see how or on what
ground it should be considered unscientific. It is doubtless absurd to
wear the airs of systematic omniscience. It is worse than absurd to pour
scorn on the detail and on the narrowness of devoted specialism. But to
try to give system from time to time to the results of the sciences, and
to attempt to arrange these on what seems a true principle of worth, can
be hardly irrational.

  Such a philosophy of Nature, if at least it were true to itself, could
not intrude on the province of physical science. For it would, in short,
abstain wholly and in every form from speculation on genesis. How the
various stages of progress come to happen in time, in what order or
orders they follow, and in each case from what causes, these enquiries
would, as such, be no concern of philosophy. Its idea of evolution and
progress in a word should not be temporal. And hence a conflict with the
sciences upon any question of development or of order could not properly
arise. "Higher" and "lower," terms which imply always a standard and
end, would in philosophy be applied solely to designate rank. Natural
science would still be free, as now, to use, or even to abuse, such
terms at its pleasure, and to allow them any degree of meaning which is
found convenient. Progress for philosophy would never have any temporal
sense, and it could matter nothing if the word elsewhere seemed to bear
little or no other. With these brief remarks I must leave a subject
which deserves serious attention.

 In a complete philosophy the whole world of appearance would be set out
as a progress. It would show a development of principle though not a
succession in time. Every sphere of experience would be measured by the
absolute standard, and would be given a rank answering to its own
relative merits and defects. On this scale pure Spirit would mark the
extreme most removed from lifeless Nature. And, at each rising degree of
this scale, we should find more of the first character with less of the
second. The ideal of spirit, we may say, is directly opposite to
mechanism. Spirit is a unity of the manifold in which the externality of
the manifold has utterly ceased. The universal here is immanent in the
parts, and its system does not lie somewhere outside and in the
relations between them. It is above the relational form and has absorbed
it  in a higher unity, a whole in which there is no division between
elements and laws. And, since this principle shows itself from the first
in the inconsistencies of bare mechanism, we may say that Nature at once
is realized and transmuted by spirit. But each of these extremes, we
must add, has no existence as fact. The sphere of dead mechanism is set
apart by an act of abstraction, and in that abstraction alone it
essentially consists. And, on the other hand, pure spirit is not
realized except in the Absolute. It can never appear as such and with
its full character in the scale of existence. Perfection and
individuality belong only to that Whole in which all degrees alike are
at once present and absorbed. This one Reality of existence can, as
such, nowhere exist among phenomena. And it enters into, but is itself
incapable of, evolution and progress.

 It may repay us to discuss the truth of this last statement. Is there,
in the end and on the whole, any progress in the universe? Is the
Absolute better or worse at one time than at another? It is clear that
we must answer in the negative, since progress and decay are alike
incompatible with perfection. There is of course progress in the world,
and there is also retrogression, but we cannot think that the Whole
either moves on or backwards. The Absolute has no history of its own,
though it contains histories without number. These, with their tale of
progress or decline, are constructions starting from and based on some
one given piece of finitude. They are but partial aspects in the region
of temporal appearance. Their truth and reality may vary much in extent
and in importance, but in the end it can never be more than relative. 
And the question whether the history of a man or a world is going
forwards or back, does not belong to metaphysics. For nothing perfect,
nothing genuinely real, can move. The Absolute has no seasons, but all
at once bears its leaves, fruit, and blossoms. Like our globe it always,
and it never, has summer and winter.

 Such a point of view, if it disheartens us, has been misunderstood. It
is only by our mistake that it collides with practical belief. If into
the world of goodness, possessing its own relative truth, you will
directly thrust in ideas which apply only to the Whole, the fault surely
is yours. The Absolute's character, as such, cannot hold of the
relative, but the relative, unshaken for all that, holds its place in
the Absolute. Or again, shutting yourself up in the region of practice,
will you insist upon applying its standards to the universe? We want for
our practice, of course, both a happening in time and a personal
finitude. We require a capacity for becoming better, and, I suppose too,
for becoming worse. And if these features, as such, are to qualify the
whole of things, and if they are to apply to ultimate reality, then the
main conclusions of this work are naturally erroneous. But I cannot
adopt others until at least I see an attempt made to set them out in a
rational form. And I can not profess respect for views which seem to me
in many cases insincere. If progress is to be more than relative, and is
something beyond a mere partial phenomenon, then the religion professed
most commonly among us has been abandoned. You cannot be a Christian if
you maintain that progress is final and ultimate and the last truth
about things. And I urge this consideration, of course not as an
argument from my mouth, but as a way of bringing home perhaps to some
persons their inconsistency. Make the moral point of view absolute, and
then realize your position.  You have become not merely irrational, but
you have also, I presume, broken with every considerable religion. And
you have been brought to this by following the merest prejudice.

 Philosophy, I agree, has to justify the various sides of our life; but
this is impossible, I would urge, if any side is made absolute. Our
attitudes in life give place ceaselessly the one to the other, and life
is satisfied if each in its own field is allowed supremacy. Now to deny
progress of the universe surely leaves morality where it was. A man has
his self or his world, about to make an advance (he may hope) through
his personal effort, or in any case (he knows well) to be made the best
of. The universe is, so far, worse through his failure; it is better, so
far, through his success. And if, not content with this, he demands to
alter the universe at large, he should at least invoke neither reason
nor religion nor morality. For the improvement or decay of the universe
seems nonsense, unmeaning or blasphemous. While, on the other hand,
faith in the progress or persistence of those who inhabit our planet has
nothing to do with metaphysics. And I may perhaps add that it has little
more to do with morality. Such faith can not alter our duties; and to
the mood in which we approach them, the difference, which it makes, may
not be wholly an advantage. If we can be weakened by despondence, we
can, no less, be hurried away by stupid enthusiasm and by pernicious
cant. But this is no place for the discussion of such matters, and we
may be content here to know that we cannot attribute any progress to the
Absolute.

 I will end this chapter with a few remarks on a subject which lies
near. I refer to that which is commonly called the Immortality of the
Soul. This is a topic on which for several reasons I would rather keep
silence, but I think that silence here  might fairly be misunderstood.
It is not easy, in the first place, to say exactly what a future life
means. The period of personal continuance obviously need not be taken as
endless. And again precisely in what sense, and how far, the survival
must be personal is not easy to lay down. I shall assume here that what
is meant is an existence after death which is conscious of its identity
with our life here and now. And the duration of this must be taken as
sufficient to remove any idea of unwilling extinction or of premature
decease. Now we seem to desire continuance (if we do desire it) for a
variety of reasons, and it might be interesting elsewhere to set these
out and to clear away confusions. I must however pass at once to the
question of possibility.

 There is one sense in which the immortality of souls seems impossible.
We must remember that the universe is incapable of increase. And to
suppose a constant supply of new souls, none of which ever perished,
would clearly land us in the end in an insoluble difficulty. But it is
quite unnecessary, I presume, to hold the doctrine in this sense. And,
if we take the question generally, then to deny the possibility of a
life after death would be quite ridiculous. There is no way of proving,
first, that a body is required for a soul (Chapter xxiii.). And though a
soul, when bodiless, might (for all we know) be even more subject to
mortality, yet obviously here we have passed into a region of ignorance.
And to say that in this region a personal  continuance could not be,
appears simply irrational. And the same result holds, even if we take a
body as essential to every soul, and, even if we insist also (as we
cannot) that this body must be made of our everyday substance. A future
life is possible even on the ground of common crude Materialism. After
an interval, no matter how long, another nervous system sufficiently
like our own might be developed; and in this case memory and a personal
identity must arise. The event may be as improbable as you please, but I
at least can find no reason for calling it impossible. And we may even
go a step further still. It is conceivable that an indefinite number of
such bodies should exist, not in succession merely, but all together and
all at once. But, if so, we might gain a personal continuance not single
but multiform, and might secure a destiny on which it would be idle to
enlarge. In ways like the above it is clear that a future life is
possible, but, on the other hand, such possibilities are not worth much.

 A thing is impossible absolutely when it contradicts the known nature
of Reality. It is impossible relatively when it collides with some idea
which we have found good cause to take as real. A thing is possible,
first, as long as it is not quite meaningless. It must contain some
positive quality belonging to the universe; and it must not at the same
time remove this and itself by some destructive addition. A thing is
possible further, according as its meaning contains without discrepancy
more and more of what is held to be real. We, in other words, consider
anything more possible as it grows in  probability. And "Probability,"
we are rightly told, "is the guide of life." We want to know, in short,
not whether a thing is merely and barely possible, but how much ground
we have for expecting it and not something else.

 In a case like the present, we cannot, of course, hope to set out the
chances, for we have to do with elements the value of which is not
known. And for probability the unknown is of different kinds. There is
first the unknown utterly, which is not possible at all; and this is
discounted and treated as nothing. There is next something possible, the
full nature of which is hidden, but the extent and value of which, as
against some other "events," is clear. And so far all is
straightforward. But we have still to deal with the unknown in two more
troublesome senses. It may stand for a mere possibility about which we
know nothing further, and for entertaining which we can find no further
ground. Or again, the unknown may cover a region where we can specify no
details, but which still we can judge to contain a great diversity of
possible events.

 We shall soon find the importance of these dry distinctions. A bodiless
soul is possible because it is not meaningless, or in any way known to
be impossible. But I fail to find any further and additional reason in
its favour. And, next, would a bodiless soul be immortal? And, again,
why after death should we, in particular, have any bodiless continuance?
The original slight probability of a future life seems not much
increased by these considerations. Again, if we take body to be
essential--a body, that is, consisting of matter either familiar or
strange--what, on this ground, is our chance of personal continuance
after death? You may here appeal to the unknown, and, where our
knowledge seems nothing, you may perhaps urge, "Why not this event, just
as much as its contrary  and opposite?" But the question would rest on a
fallacy, and I must insist on the distinction which above we laid down.
In this unknown field we certainly cannot particularize and set out the
chances, but in another sense the field is not quite unknown.

 We cannot say that, of the combinations possible there, one half is,
for all we know, favourable to a life after death. For, to judge by
actual experience, the combinations seem mostly unfavourable. And,
though the character of what falls outside our experience may be very
different, yet our judgment as to this must be affected by what we do
know. But, if so, while the whole variety of combinations must be taken
as very large, the portion judged favourable to continued life, whether
multiform or simple, must be set down as small. Such will have to be our
conclusion if we deal with this unknown field. But, if we may not deal
with it, the possibility of a future life is, on this ground, quite
unknown; and, if so, we have no right to consider it at all. And the
general result to my mind is briefly this. When you add together the
chances of a life after death --a life taken as bodiless, and again as
diversely embodied--the amount is not great. The balance of hostile
probability seems so large that the fraction on the other side to my
mind is not considerable. And we may repeat, and may sum up our
conclusion thus. If we appeal to blank ignorance, then a future life may
even have no meaning, and may fail wholly to be possible. Or if we avoid
this worst extreme, a future life may be but barely possible.  But a
possibility, in this sense, stands unsupported face to face with an
indefinite universe. And its value, so far, can hardly be called worth
counting. If, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to use what
knowledge we possess, and if we judge fairly of future life by all the
grounds we have for judging, the result is not much modified. Among
those grounds we certainly find a part which favours continuance; but,
taken at its highest, that part appears to be small. Hence a future life
must be taken as decidedly improbable.

 But in this way, it will be objected, the question is not properly
dealt with. "On the grounds you have stated," it will be urged, "future
life may be improbable; but then those grounds really lie outside the
main point. The positive evidence for a future life is what weighs with
our minds; and this is independent of discussions as to what, in the
abstract, is probable." The objection is fair, and my reply to it is
plain and simple. I have ignored the positive evidence because for me it
has really no value. Direct arguments to show that a future life is, not
merely possible, but real, seem to me unavailing. The addition to
general probability, which they make, is to my mind trifling; and,
without examining these arguments in detail, I will add a few remarks.

  Philosophy, I repeat, has to justify all sides of our nature; and this
means, I agree, that our main cravings must find satisfaction. But that
every desire of every kind must, as such, be gratified--this is quite a
different demand, and it is surely irrational. At all events it is
opposed to the results of our preceding discussions. The destiny of the
finite, we saw everywhere, is to reach consummation, but never wholly as
such, never quite in its own way. And as to this desire for a future
life, what is there in it so sacred? How can its attainment be implied
in the very principles of our nature? Nay, is there in it, taken by
itself, anything moral in the least or religious at all? I desire to
have no pain, but always pleasure, and to continue so indefinitely. But
the literal fulfilment of my wish is incompatible with my place in the
universe. It is irreconcileable with my own nature, and I have to be
content therefore with that measure of satisfaction which my nature
permits. And am I, on this account, to proclaim philosophy insolvent,
because it will not listen to demands really based on nothing?

 But the demand for future life, I shall be told, is a genuine
postulate, and its satisfaction is implicated in the very essence of our
nature. Now, if this means that our religion and our morality will not
work without it-- so much the worse, I reply, for our morality and our
religion. The remedy lies in the correction of our mistaken and immoral
notions  about goodness. "But then," it will be exclaimed, "this is too
horrible. There really after all will be self-sacrifice; and virtue and
selfishness after all will not be identical." But I have already
explained, in Chapter xxv., why this moving appeal finds me deaf. "But
then strict justice is not paramount." No, I am sure that it is not so.
There is a great deal in the universe, I am sure, beyond mere morality;
and I have yet to learn that, even in the moral world, the highest law
is justice. "But, if we die, think of the loss of all our hard-won
gains." But is a thing lost, in the first place, because I fail to get
it or retain it? And, in the second place, what seems to us sheer waste
is, to a very large extent, the way of the universe. We need not take on
ourselves to be anxious about that. "But without endless progress, how
reach perfection?" And with endless progress (if that means anything) I
answer, how reach it? Surely perfection and finitude are in principle
not compatible. If you are to be perfect, then you, as such, must be
resolved and cease; and endless progress sounds merely like an attempt
indefinitely to put off perfection. And as a function of the perfect
universe, on the other hand, you are perfect already. "But after all we
must wish that pain and sorrow should be somewhere made good." On the
whole, and in the whole, if our view is right, this is fully the case.
With the individual often I agree it is not the case. And I wish it
otherwise, meaning by this that my inclination and duty as a
fellow-creature impels me that way, and that wishes and actions of this
sort among finite beings fulfil the plan of the Whole. But I cannot
argue, therefore, that all is wrong if individuals suffer. There is in
life always, I admit, a note of sadness; but it ought not to prevail,
nor can we truly assert that it does so. And the universe in its
attitude towards  finite beings must be judged of not piecemeal but as a
system. "But, if hopes and fears are taken away, we shall be less happy
and less moral." Perhaps, and perhaps again both more moral and more
happy. The question is a large one, and I do not intend to discuss it,
but I will say so much as this. Whoever argues that belief in a future
life has, on the whole, brought evil to humanity, has at least a strong
case. But the question here seems irrelevant. If it could indeed be
urged that the essence of a finite being is such, that it can only
regulate its conduct by keeping sight of another world and of another
life--the matter, I agree, would be altered. But if it comes merely to
this, that human beings now are in such a condition that, if they do not
believe what is probably untrue, they must deteriorate--that to the
universe, if it were the case, would be a mere detail. It is the rule
that a race of beings so out of agreement with their environment should
deteriorate, and it is well for them to make way for another race
constituted more rationally and happily. And I must leave the matter so.

  All the above arguments, and there are others, rest on assumptions
negatived by the general results of this volume. It is about the truth
of these assumptions, I would add, that discussion is desirable. It is
idle to repeat, "I want something," unless you can show that the nature
of things demands it also. And to debate this special question, apart
from an enquiry into the ultimate nature of the world, is surely
unprofitable.

 Future life is a subject on which I had no desire to speak. I have kept
silence until the subject seemed forced before me, and until in a manner
I had dealt with the main problems involved in it. The conclusion
arrived at seems the result to which the educated world, on the whole,
is making its way. A personal continuance is possible, and it is but
little more. Still, if any one can believe in it, and finds himself
sustained by that belief,--after all it is possible. On the other hand
it is better to be quit of both hope and fear, than to lapse back into
any form of degrading superstition. And surely there are few greater
responsibilities which a man can take on himself, than to have
proclaimed, or even hinted, that without immortality all religion is a
cheat and all morality a self-deception.
--------------------------------------------------------

  CHAPTER XXVII

ULTIMATE DOUBTS  IT is time, however prematurely, to bring this work to
an end. We may conclude it by asking how far, and in what sense, we are
at liberty to treat its main results as certain. We have found that
Reality is one, that it essentially is experience, and that it owns a
balance of pleasure. There is nothing in the Whole beside appearance,
and every fragment of appearance qualifies the Whole; while on the other
hand, so taken together, appearances, as such, cease. Nothing in the
universe can be lost, nothing fails to contribute to the single Reality,
but every finite diversity is also supplemented and transformed.
Everything in the Absolute still is that which it is for itself. Its
private character remains, and is but neutralized by complement and
addition. And hence, because nothing in the end can be merely itself, in
the end no appearance, as such, can be real. But appearances fail of
reality in varying degrees; and to assert that one on the whole is worth
no more than another, is fundamentally vicious.

 The fact of appearance, and of the diversity of its particular spheres,
we found was inexplicable. Why there are appearances, and why
appearances of such various kinds, are questions not to be answered. But
in all this diversity of existence we saw nothing opposed to a complete
harmony and system in the Whole. The nature of that system in detail
lies beyond our knowledge, but we could discover nowhere the sign of a
recalcitrant element. We could  perceive nothing on which any objection
to our view of Reality could rationally be founded. And so we ventured
to conclude that Reality possesses--how we do not know--the general
nature we have assigned to it.

 "But, after all, your conclusion," I may be told, "is not proved.
Suppose that we can find no objection sufficient to overthrow it, yet
such an absence of disproof does not render it certain. Your result may
be possible, but, with that, it has not become real. For why should
Reality be not just as well something else? How in the unknown world of
possibilities can we be restricted to this one?" The objection seems
serious, and, in order to consider it properly, I must be allowed first
to enter on some abstract considerations. I will try to confine them to
what is essential here.

 1. In theory you cannot indulge with consistency in an ultimate doubt.
You are forced, willingly or not, at a certain point to assume
infallibility. For, otherwise, how could you proceed to judge at all?
The intellect, if you please, is but a miserable fragment of our nature;
but in the intellectual world it, none the less, must remain supreme.
And, if it attempts to abdicate, then its world is forthwith broken up.
Hence we must answer, Outside theory take whatever attitude you may
prefer, only do not sit down to a game unless you are prepared to play.
But every pursuit obviously must involve some kind of governing
principle. Even the extreme of theoretical scepticism is based on some
accepted idea about truth and fact. It is because you are sure as to
some main feature of truth or reality, that you are compelled to doubt
or to reject special truths which are offered you. But, if so, you stand
on an absolute principle, and, with regard to this, you claim, tacitly
or openly, to be infallible. And to start from our general fallibility,
and to argue from  this to the uncertainty of every possible result, is
in the end irrational. For the assertion, "I am sure that I am
everywhere fallible," contradicts itself, and would revive a familiar
Greek dilemma. And if we modify the assertion, and instead of
"everywhere" write "in general," then the desired conclusion will not
follow. For unless, once more falsely, we assume that all truths are
much the same, and that with regard to every point error is equally
probable, fallibility in general need not affect a particular result. In
short within theory we must decline to consider the chance of a
fundamental error. Our assertion of fallibility may serve as the
expression of modest feeling, or again of the low estimate we may have
formed of the intellect's value. But such an estimate or such a feeling
must remain outside of the actual process of theory. For, admitted
within, they would at once be inconsistent and irrational.

 2. An asserted possibility in the next place must have some meaning. A
bare word is not a possibility, nor does any one ever knowingly offer it
as such. A possibility always must present us with some actual idea.

 3. And this idea must not contradict itself, and so be
self-destructive. So far as it is seen to be so, to that extent it must
not be taken as possible. For a possibility qualifies the Real, and must
therefore not conflict with the known character of its subject. And it
is useless to object here that all appearance is self-contradictory.
That is true, but, as self-contradictory and so far as it is so,
appearance is not a real or possible predicate of Reality. A predicate
which contradicts itself is, as such, not possibly real. In order to be
real, its particular nature must be modified and corrected. And this 
process of correction, and of making good, may in addition totally
transform and entirely dissipate its nature (Chapter xxiv.).

 4. It is impossible rationally to doubt where you have but one idea.
You may doubt psychically, given two ideas which seem two but are one.
And, even without this actual illusion, you may feel uneasy in mind and
may hesitate. But doubt implies two ideas, which in their meaning and
truly are two; and, without these ideas, doubt has no rational
existence.

 5. Where you have an idea and cannot doubt, there logically you must
assert. For everything (we have seen throughout) must qualify the Real.
And if an idea does not contradict itself, either as it is or as taken
with other things (Chapter xvi.), it is at once true and real. Now
clearly a sole possibility cannot so contradict itself; and it must
therefore be affirmed. Psychical failure and confusion may here of
course stand in the way. But such confusion and failure can in theory
count for nothing.

 6. "But to reason thus," it may be objected, "is to rest knowledge on
ignorance. It is surely the grounding of an assertion on our bare
impotence." No objection could be more mistaken, since the very essence
of our principle consists in the diametrical opposite. Its essence lies
in the refusal to set blank ignorance in the room of knowledge. He who
wishes to doubt, when he has not before him two genuine ideas, he who
talks of a possible which is not based on actual knowledge about
Reality--it is he who takes his stand upon sheer incapacity. He is the
man who, admitting his emptiness, then pretends to bring forth truth.
And it is against this monstrous pretence, this mad presumption in  the
guise of modesty, that our principle protests. But, if we seriously
consider the matter, our conclusion grows plain. Surely an idea must
have a meaning; surely two ideas are required for any rational doubt;
surely to be called possible is to be affirmed to some extent of the
Real. And surely, where you have no alternative, it is not right or
rational to take the attitude of a man who hesitates between diverse
courses.

 7. I will consider next an argument for general doubt which might be
drawn from reflection on the privative judgment. In such a judgment the
Reality excludes some suggestion, but the basis of the rejection is not
a positive quality in the known subject. The basis on the contrary is an
absence; and a mere absence implies the qualification of the subject by
its psychical setting in us. Or we may say that, while the known subject
is assumed to be complete, its limitations fall outside itself and lie
in our incapacity. And it may be urged here that with Reality this is
always the case. The universe, as we know it, in other words is complete
only through our ignorance; and hence it may be said for our real
knowledge to be incomplete always. And on this ground, it may be added,
we can decline to assert of the universe any one possibility, even when
we are able to find no other.

 I have myself raised this objection because it contains an important
truth. And its principle, if confined to proper limits, is entirely
sound. Nay, throughout this work, I have freely used the right to
postulate everywhere an unknown supplementation of knowledge. And how
then here, it may be urged, are we to throw over this principle? Why
should not Reality be considered always as limited by our impotence, and
as extending, therefore, in every respect beyond the area of our
possibilities?

  But the objection at this point, it is clear, contradicts itself. The
area of what is possible is here extended and limited in a breath, and a
ruinous dilemma might be set up and urged in reply to the question. But
it is better at once to expose the main underlying error. The knowledge
of privation, like all other knowledge, in the end is positive. You
cannot speak of the absent and lacking unless you assume some field and
some presence elsewhere. You cannot suggest your ignorance as a reason
for judging knowledge incomplete, unless you have some knowledge already
of an area which that ignorance hides. Within the known extent of the
Real you have various provinces, and hence what is absent from one may
be sought for in another. And where in certain features the known world
suggests itself as incomplete, that world has extended itself already
beyond these features. Here then, naturally, we have a right to follow
its extended reality with our conclusions and surmises; and in these
discussions we have availed ourselves largely of that privilege. But, on
the other hand, this holds only of subordinate matters, and our right
exists only while we remain within the known area of the universe. It is
senseless to attempt to go beyond, and to assume fields that lie outside
the ultimate nature of Reality. If there were any Reality quite beyond
our knowledge, we could in no sense be aware of it; and, if we were
quite ignorant of it, we could hardly suggest that our ignorance
conceals it. And thus, in the end, what we know and what is real must be
co-extensive, and assuredly outside of this area nothing is possible. A
single possibility here must, therefore, be taken as single and as real.
Within this known region, and not outside, lies all the kingdom hidden
by ignorance; and here is the object of all intelligent doubt, and every
possibility that is not irrational.

 8. With a view to gain clearness on this point, it  may repay us to
consider an ideal state of things. If the known universe were a perfect
system, then it could nowhere suggest its own incompleteness. Every
possible suggestion would then at once take its place in the whole, a
place fore-ordained and assigned to it by the remaining members of the
system. And again, starting from any one element in such a whole, we
could from that proceed to work out completely the total universe. And a
doubt drawn from privation and based upon ignorance would here entirely
disappear. Not only would the system itself have no other possibility
outside, but even within its finite details the same consummation would
be reached. The words "absence" and "failure" would here, in fact, have
lost their proper sense. Since with every idea its full relations to all
else would be visible, there would remain no region of doubt or of
possibility or ignorance.

 9. This intellectual ideal, we know, is not actual fact. It does not
exist in our world, and, unless that world were changed radically, its
existence is not possible. It would require an alteration of the
position in which the intellect stands, and a transformation of its
whole connection with the remaining aspects of experience. We need not
to cast about for arguments to disprove our omniscience, for at every
turn through these pages our weakness has been confessed. The universe
in its diversity has been seen to be inexplicable, and I will not repeat
here the statement made in the preceding Chapter (p. 469). Our system
throughout its detail is incomplete.

 Now in an incomplete system there must be everywhere a region of
ignorance. Since in the end subject and predicate will not coincide,
there remains a margin of that which, except more or less and in its
outline, is unknown. And here is a field for doubt and for possibility
and for theoretical supplement. An incomplete system in every part  is
inconsistent, and so suggests something beyond. But it can nowhere
suggest the precise complement which would make good each detail. And
hence, both in its extent and in its unity, it for some part must remain
a mere collection. We may say that, in the end, it is comprised and
exhausted only through our incompleteness.

 10. But here we must recur to the distinction which we laid down above.
Even in an incomplete world, such as the world which appears in our
knowledge, incompleteness and ignorance after all are partial. They do
not hold good with every feature, but there are points where no
legitimate idea of an Other exists. And in these points a doubt, and an
enquiry into other possibles, would be senseless; for there is no
available area in which possibly our ignorance could fall. And clearly
within these limits (which we cannot fix beforehand) rational doubt
becomes irrational assumption. Outside these, again, there may be
suggestions, which we cannot say are meaningless or inconsistent with
the nature of things; and yet the bare possibility of these may not be
worth considering. But, once more, in other regions of the world the
case will be altered. We shall find a greater or less degree of actual
completeness, and, with this, a series of possibilities differing in
value. I do not think that with advantage we could pursue further these
preliminary discussions; and we must now address ourselves directly to
the doubts which can be raised about our Absolute.

 With regard to the main character of that Absolute our position is
briefly this. We hold that our conclusion is certain, and that to doubt
it logically is impossible. There is no other view, there is no other
idea beyond the view here put forward. It is impossible rationally even
to entertain the question of another possibility. Outside our main
result  there is nothing except the wholly unmeaning, or else something
which on scrutiny is seen really not to fall outside. Thus the supposed
Other will, in short, turn out to be actually the same; or it will
contain elements included within our view of the Absolute, but elements
dislocated and so distorted into erroneous appearance. And the
dislocation itself will find a place within the limits of our system.

 Our result, in brief, cannot be doubted, since it contains all
possibilities. Show us an idea, we can proclaim, which seems hostile to
our scheme, and we will show you an element which really is contained
within it. And we will demonstrate your idea to be a self- contradictory
piece of our system, an internal fragment which only through sheer
blindness can fancy itself outside. We will prove that its independence
and isolation are nothing in the world but a failure to perceive more
than one aspect of its own nature.

 And the shocked appeal to our modesty and our weakness will not trouble
us. It is on this very weakness that, in a sense, we have taken our
stand. We are impotent to divide the universe into the universe and
something outside. We are incapable of finding another field in which to
place our inability and give play to our modesty. This other area for us
is mere pretentious nonsense; and on the ground of our weakness we do
not feel strong enough to assume that nonsense is fact. We, in other
words, protest against the senseless attempt to transcend experience. We
urge that a mere doubt entertained may involve that attempt, and that in
the case of our main conclusion it certainly does so. Hence in its
outline that conclusion for us is certain; and let us endeavour to see
how far the certainty goes.

 Reality is one. It must be single, because plurality, taken as real,
contradicts itself. Plurality  implies relations, and, through its
relations, it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity. To suppose
the universe plural is therefore to contradict oneself and, after all,
to suppose that it is one. Add one world to another, and forthwith both
worlds have become relative, each the finite appearance of a higher and
single Reality. And plurality as appearance (we have seen) must fall
within, must belong to, and must qualify the unity.

 We have an idea of this unity which, to some extent, is positive
(Chapters xiv., xx., xxvi.). It is true that how in detail the plurality
comes together we do not know. And it is true again that unity, in its
more proper sense, is known only as contradistinguished from plurality.
Unity therefore, as an aspect over against and defined by another
aspect, is itself but appearance. And in this sense the Real, it is
clear, cannot be properly called one. It is possible, however, to use
unity with a different meaning.

 In the first place the Real is qualified by all plurality. It owns this
diversity while itself it is not plural. And a reality owning plurality
but above it, not defined as against it but absorbing it together with
the one-sided unity which forms its opposite--such a reality in its
outline is certainly a positive idea.

 And this outline, to some extent, is filled in by direct experience. I
will lay no stress here on that pre-relational stage of existence (p.
459), which we suppose to come first in the development of the soul. I
will refer to what seems plainer and less doubtful. For take any complex
psychical state in which we make distinctions. Here we have a
consciousness of plurality, and then over against this we may attempt to
gain a clear idea of unity. Now this idea of unity, itself the result of
analysis, is determined by opposition to the internal plurality of
distinctions. And hence, as one aspect over against  another aspect,
this will not furnish the positive idea of unity which we seek. But,
apart from and without any such explicit idea, we may be truly said to
feel our whole psychical state as one. Above, or rather below, the
relations which afterwards we may find, it seems to be a totality in
which differences already are combined. Our state seems a felt
background into which we introduce distinctions, and it seems, at the
same time, a whole in which the differences inhere and pre-exist. Now
certainly, in so describing our state, we contradict ourselves. For the
fact of a difference, when we realize and express its strict nature,
implies in its essence both relation and distinction. In other words,
feeling cannot be described, for it cannot without transformation be
translated into thought. Again, in itself this indiscriminate totality
is inconsistent and unstable. Its own tendency and nature is to pass
beyond itself into the relational consciousness, into a higher stage in
which it is broken up. Still, none the less, at every moment this vague
state is experienced actually. And hence we cannot deny that complex
wholes are felt as single experiences. For, on the one side, these
states are not simple, nor again, on the other side, are they plural
merely; nor again is their unity explicit and held in relation with, and
against, their plurality.

 We may find this exemplified most easily in an ordinary emotional
whole. That comes to us as one, yet not as simple; while its diversity,
at least in part, is not yet distinguished and broken up into relations.
Such a state of mind, I may repeat, is, as such, unstable and fleeting.
It is not only changeable otherwise, but, if made an object, it, as
such, disappears. The emotion we attend to is, taken strictly, never
precisely the same thing as the emotion which we feel. For it not only
to some  extent has been transformed by internal distinction, but it has
also now itself become a factor in a new felt totality. The emotion as
an object, and, on the other side, that background to which in
consciousness it is opposed, have both become subordinate elements in a
new psychical whole of feeling (Chapter xix.). Our experience is always
from time to time a unity which, as such, is destroyed in becoming an
object. But one such emotional whole in its destruction gives place
inevitably to another whole. And hence what we feel, while it lasts, is
felt always as one, yet not as simple nor again as broken into terms and
relations.

 From such an experience of unity below relations we can rise to the
idea of a superior unity above them. Thus we can attach a full and
positive meaning to the statement that Reality is one. The stubborn
objector seems condemned, in any case, to affirm the following
propositions. In the first place Reality is positive, negation falling
inside it. In the second place it is qualified positively by all the
plurality which it embraces and subordinates. And yet itself, in the
third place, is certainly not plural. Having gone so far I myself
prefer, as the least misleading course, to assert its unity.

 Beyond all doubt then it is clear that Reality is one. It has unity,
but we must go on to ask, a unity of what? And we have already found
that all we know consists wholly of experience. Reality must be,
therefore, one Experience, and to doubt this conclusion is impossible.

 We can discover nothing that is not either feeling or thought or will
or emotion or something else of the kind (Chapter xiv.). We can find
nothing but this, and to have an idea of anything else is plainly
impossible. For such a supposed idea is either meaningless, and so is
not an idea, or else its meaning will be found tacitly to consist in
experience.  The Other, which it asserts, is found on enquiry to be
really no Other. It implies, against its will and unconsciously, some
mode of experience; it affirms something else, if you please, but still
something else of the same kind. And the form of otherness and of
opposition, again, has no sense save as an internal aspect of that which
it endeavours to oppose. We have, in short, in the end but one idea, and
that idea is positive. And hence to deny this idea is, in effect, to
assert it; and to doubt it, actually and without a delusion, is not
possible.

 If I attempted to labour this point, I should perhaps but obscure it.
Show me your idea of an Other, not a part of experience, and I will show
you at once that it is, throughout and wholly, nothing else at all. But
an effort to anticipate, and to deal in advance with every form of
self-delusion, would, I think, hardly enlighten us. I shall therefore
assume this main principle as clearly established, and shall endeavour
merely to develope it and to free it from certain obscurities.

 I will recur first to the difficult subject of Solipsism. This has been
discussed perhaps sufficiently in Chapter xxi., but a certain amount of
repetition may be useful here. It may be objected that, if Reality is
proved to be one experience, Solipsism follows. Again, if we can
transcend the self at all, then we have made our way, it may be urged,
to something perhaps not experience. Our main conclusion, in short, may
be met not directly but through a dilemma. It may be threatened with
destruction by a self-contradictory development of its own nature.

 Now my answer to this dilemma is a denial of that which it assumes. It
assumes, in the first place, that my self is as wide as my experience.
And it assumes, in the second place, that my self is something hard and
exclusive. Hence, if you are inside you are not outside at all, and, if
you are  outside, you are at once in a different world. But we have
shown that these assumptions are mistaken (Chapters xxi. and xxiii.);
and, with their withdrawal, the dilemma falls of itself.

 Finite centres of feeling, while they last, are (so far as we know) not
directly pervious to one another. But, on the one hand, a self is not
the same as such a centre of experience; and, on the other hand, in
every centre the whole Reality is present. Finite experience never, in
any of its forms, is shut in by a wall. It has in itself, and as an
inseparable aspect of its own nature, the all-penetrating Reality. And
there never is, and there never was, any time when in experience the
world and self were quite identical. For, if we reach a stage where in
feeling the self and world are not yet different, at that stage neither
as yet exists. But in our first immediate experience the whole Reality
is present. This does not mean that every other centre of experience, as
such, is included there. It means that every centre qualifies the Whole,
and that the Whole, as a substantive, is present in each of these its
adjectives. Then from immediate experience the self emerges, and is set
apart by a distinction. The self and the world are elements, each
separated in, and each contained by experience. And perhaps in all cases
the self--and at any rate always the soul--involves and only exists
through an intellectual construction. The self is thus a construction
based on, and itself transcending, immediate experience. Hence to
describe all experience  as the mere adjective of a self, taken in any
sense, is indefensible. And, as for transcendence,--from the very first
the self is transcended by experience. Or we may in another way put this
so. The self is one of the results gained by transcending the first
imperfect form of experience. But experience and Reality are each the
same thing when taken at full, and they cannot be transcended.

 I may be allowed to repeat this. Experience in its early form, as a
centre of immediate feeling, is not yet either self or not-self. It
qualifies the Reality, which of course is present within it; and its own
finite content indissolubly connects it with total universe. But for
itself--if it could be for itself--this finite centre would be the
world. Then through its own imperfection such first experience is broken
up. Its unity gives way before inner unrest and outer impact in one. And
then self and Ego, on one side, are produced by this development, and,
on the other side, appear other selves and the world and God. These all
appear as the contents of one finite experience, and they really are
genuinely and actually contained in it. They are contained in it but
partially, and through a more or less inconsiderable portion of their
area. Still this portion, so far as it goes, is their very being and
reality; and a finite experience already is partially the universe.
Hence there is no question here of stepping over a line from one world
to another. Experience is already in both worlds, and is one thing with
their being; and the question is merely to what extent this common being
can be carried out, whether in practice or in knowledge. In other words
the total universe, present imperfectly in finite experience, would, if
completed, be merely the completion of this experience. And to speak of
transcendence into another world is therefore mistaken.

 For certain purposes what I experience can be  considered as the state
of my self, or, again, of my soul. It can be so considered, because in
one aspect it actually is so. But this one aspect may be an
infinitesimal fragment of its being. And never in any case can what I
experience be the mere adjective of my self. My self is not the
immediate, nor again is it the ultimate, reality. Immediate reality is
an experience either containing both self and not-self, or containing as
yet neither. And ultimate reality, on the other hand, would be the total
universe.

 In a former chapter we noticed the truths contained in Solipsism.
Everything, my self included, is essential to, and is inseparable from,
the Absolute. And, again, it is only in feeling that I can directly
encounter Reality. But there is no need here to dwell on these sides of
the truth. My experience is essential to the world, but the world is
not, except in one aspect, my experience. The world and experience are,
taken at large, the same. And my experience and its states, in a sense,
actually are the whole world; for to this slight extent the one Reality
is actually my self. But it is less misleading to assert, conversely,
that the total world is my experience. For it appears there, and in each
appearance its single being already is imperfectly included.

 Let us turn from an objection based on an irrational prejudice, and let
us go on to consider a point of some interest. Can the Absolute be said
to consist and to be made up of souls? The question is ambiguous, and
must be discussed in several senses. Is there--let us ask first --in the
universe any sort of matter not contained in finite centres of
experience? It seems at first sight natural to point at once to the
relations between these centres. But such relations, we find on
reflection, have been, so far, included in the  perception and thought
of the centres themselves. And what the question comes to is, rather,
this, Can there be matter of experience, in any form, which does not
enter as an element into some finite centre?

 In view of our ignorance this question may seem unanswerable. We do not
know why or how the Absolute divides itself into centres, or the way in
which, so divided, it still remains one. The relation of the many
experiences to the single experience, and so to one another, is, in the
end, beyond us. And, if so, why should there not be elements experienced
in the total, and yet not experienced within any subordinate focus. We
may indeed, from the other side, confront this ignorance and this
question with a doubt. Has such an unattached element, or margin of
elements, any meaning at all? Have we any right to entertain such an
idea as rational? Does not our ignorance in fact forbid us to assume the
possibility of any matter experienced apart from a finite whole of
feeling? But, after consideration, I do not find that this doubt should
prevail. Certainly it is only by an abstraction that I can form the idea
of such unattached elements, and this abstraction, it may seem, is not
legitimate. And, if the elements were taken as quite loose, if they were
not still inseparable factors in a whole of experience, then the
abstraction clearly would lead to an inconsistent idea. And such an
idea, we have agreed, must not be regarded as possible. But, in the
present case, the elements, unattached to any finite centre, are still
subordinate to and integral aspects of the Whole. And, since this Whole
is one experience, the position is altered. The abstraction from a
finite centre does not lead visibly to self-contradiction. And hence I
cannot refuse to regard its result as possible.

 But this possibility, on the other side, seems to have no importance.
If we take it to be fact, we  shall not find that it makes much
difference to the Whole. And, again, for so taking it there appears to
be almost no ground. Let us briefly consider these two points. That
elements of experience should be unattached would (we saw) be a serious
matter, if they were unattached altogether and absolutely. But since in
any case all comes together and is fused in the Whole, and since this
Whole in any case is a single experience, the main result appears to me
to be quite unaffected. The fact that some experience-matter does not
directly qualify any finite centre, is a fact from which I can draw no
further conclusion. But for holding this fact, in the second place,
there is surely no good reason. The number of finite centres and their
diversity is (we know) very great, and we may fairly suppose it to
extend much beyond our knowledge. Nor do the relations, which are
"between" these centres, occasion difficulty. Relations of course cannot
fall somewhere outside of reality; and, if they really were "between"
the centres, we should have to assume some matter of experience external
and additional to these. The conclusion would follow; and we have seen
that, rightly understood, it is possible. But, as things are, it seems
no less gratuitous. There is nothing, so far as I see, to suggest that
any aspect of any relation lies outside the experience-matter contained
in finite centres. The relations, as such, do not and cannot exist in
the Absolute. And the question is whether that higher experience, which
contains and transforms the relations, demands any element not
experienced somehow within the centres. For assuming such an element I
can myself perceive no ground. And since, even if we assume this, the
main result seems to remain unaltered, the best course is, perhaps, to
discard it as unreal. It is better, on the whole, to conclude that no
element of Reality falls outside the experience of finite centres.

  Are we then to assert that the Absolute consists of souls? That, in my
opinion, for two reasons would be incorrect. A centre of experience,
first, is not the same thing as either a soul or, again, a self. It need
not contain the distinction of not-self from self; and, whether it
contains that or not, in neither case is it, properly, a self. It will
be either below, or else wider than and above, the distinction. And a
soul, as we have seen, is always the creature of an intellectual
construction. It cannot be the same thing with a mere centre of
immediate experience. Nor again can we affirm that every centre implies
and entails in some sense a corresponding soul. For the duration of such
centres may perhaps be so momentary that no one, except to save a
theory, could call them souls. Hence we cannot maintain that souls
contain all the matter of experience which fills the world.

 And in any case, secondly, the Absolute would not consist of souls.
Such a phrase implies a mode of union which we can not regard as
ultimate. It suggests that in the Absolute finite centres are maintained
and respected, and that we may consider them, as such, to persist and to
be merely ordered and arranged. But not like this (we have seen) is the
final destiny and last truth of things. We have a re-arrangement not
merely of things but of their internal elements. We have an all-
pervasive transfusion with a re-blending of all material. And we can
hardly say that the Absolute consists of finite things, when the things,
as such, are there transmuted and have lost their individual natures.

  Reality then is one, and it is experience. It is not merely my
experience, nor again can we say that it consists of souls or selves.
And it cannot be a unity of experience and also of something beside; for
the something beside, when we examine it, turns out always to be
experience. We verified this above (Chapters xxii. and xxvi.) in the
case of Nature. Nature, like all else, in a sense remains inexplicable.
It is in the end an arrangement, a way of happening co- existent and
successive, as to which at last we clearly are unable to answer the
question Why. But this inability, like others, does not affect the truth
of our result. Nature is an abstraction from experience, and in
experience it is not co-ordinate with spirit or mind. For mind, we have
seen, has a reality higher than Nature, and the essence of the physical
world already implies that in which it is absorbed and transcended.
Nature by itself is but an indefensible division in the whole of
experience.

 This total unity of experience, I have pointed out, cannot, as such, be
directly verified. We know its nature, but in outline only, and not in
detail. Feeling, as we have seen, supplies us with a positive idea of
non-relational unity. The idea is imperfect, but is sufficient to serve
as a positive basis. And we are compelled further by our principle to
believe in a Whole qualified, and qualified non-relationally, by every
fraction of experience. But this unity of all experiences, if itself not
experience, would be meaningless. The Whole is one experience then, and
such a unity higher than all relations, a unity which contains and
transforms them, has positive meaning. Of the manner of its being in
detail we are utterly ignorant, but of its general nature we  possess a
positive though abstract knowledge. And, in attempting to deny or to
doubt the result we have gained, we find ourselves once more
unconsciously affirming it.

 The Absolute, though known, is higher, in a sense, than our experience
and knowledge; and in this connection I will ask if it has personality.
At the point we have reached such a question can be dealt with rapidly.
We can answer it at once in the affirmative or negative according to its
meaning. Since the Absolute has everything, it of course must possess
personality. And if by personality we are to understand the highest form
of finite spiritual development, then certainly in an eminent degree the
Absolute is personal. For the higher (we may repeat) is always the more
real. And, since in the Absolute the very lowest modes of experience are
not lost, it seems even absurd to raise such a question about
personality.

 And this is not the sense in which the question is usually put.
"Personal" is employed in effect with a restrictive meaning; for it is
used to exclude what is above, as well as below, personality. The super-
personal, in other words, is either openly or tacitly regarded as
impossible. Personality is taken as the highest possible way of
experience, and naturally, if so, the Absolute cannot be super-personal.
This conclusion, with the assumption on which it rests, may be summarily
rejected. It has been, indeed, refuted beforehand by previous
discussions. If the term "personal" is to bear anything like its
ordinary sense, assuredly the Absolute is not merely personal. It is not
personal, because it is personal and more. It is, in a word,
super-personal.

 I intend here not to enquire into the possible meanings of personality.
On the nature of the self and of self-consciousness I have spoken
already, and  I will merely add here that for me a person is finite or
is meaningless. But the question raised as to the Absolute may, I think,
be more briefly disposed of. If by calling it personal you mean only
that it is nothing but experience, that it contains all the highest that
we possibly can know and feel, and is a unity in which the details are
utterly pervaded and embraced-- then in this conclusion I am with you.
But your employment of the term personal I very much regret. I regret
this use mainly not because I consider it incorrect--that between us
would matter little--but because it is misleading and directly serves
the cause of dishonesty.

 For most of those who insist on what they call "the personality of
God," are intellectually dishonest. They desire one conclusion, and, to
reach it, they argue for another. But the second, if proved, is quite
different, and serves their purpose only because they obscure it and
confound it with the first. And it is by their practical purpose that
the result may here be judged. The Deity, which they want, is of course
finite, a person much like themselves, with thoughts and feelings
limited and mutable in the process of time. They desire a person in the
sense of a self, amongst and over against other selves, moved by
personal relations and feelings towards these others--feelings and
relations which are altered by the conduct of the others. And, for their
purpose, what is not this, is really nothing. Now with this desire in
itself I am not here concerned. Of course for us to ask seriously if the
Absolute can be personal in such a way, would be quite absurd. And my
business for the moment is not with truth but with intellectual honesty.

 It would be honest first of all to state openly the conclusion aimed
at, and then to enquire if this conclusion can be maintained. But what
is not honest is to suppress the point really at issue, to desire the
personality of the Deity in one sense, and then to  contend for it in
another, and to do one's best to ignore the chasm which separates the
two. Once give up your finite and mutable person, and you have parted
with everything which, for you, makes personality important. Nor will
you bridge the chasm by the sliding extension of a word. You will only
make a fog, where you can cry out that you are on both sides at once.
And towards increasing this fog I decline to contribute. It would be
useless, in such company and in such an atmosphere, to discuss the
meaning of personality--if indeed the word actually has any one meaning.
For me it is sufficient to know, on one side, that the Absolute is not a
finite person. Whether, on the other side, personality in some
eviscerated remnant of sense can be applied to it, is a question
intellectually unimportant and practically trifling.

 With regard to the personality of the Absolute we must guard against
two one-sided errors. The Absolute is not personal, nor is it moral, nor
is it beautiful or true. And yet in these denials we may be falling into
worse mistakes. For it would be far more incorrect to assert that the
Absolute is either false, or ugly, or bad, or is something even beneath
the application of predicates such as these. And it is better to affirm
personality than to call the Absolute impersonal. But neither mistake
should be necessary. The Absolute stands above, and not below, its
internal distinctions. It does not eject them, but it includes them as
elements in its fulness. To speak in other language, it is not the
indifference but the concrete identity of all extremes. But it is better
in this connection to call it super- personal.

 We have seen that Reality is one, and is a single experience; and we
may pass from this to consider a difficult question. Is the Absolute
happy? This might mean, can pleasure, as such, be predicated of the
Absolute? And, as we have seen in the  preceding chapter, this is not
permissible. We found that there is a balance of pleasure over and above
pain, and we know from experience that in a mixed state such a balance
may be pleasant. And we are sure that the Absolute possesses and enjoys
somehow this balance of pleasure. But to go further seems impossible.
Pleasure may conceivably be so supplemented and modified by addition,
that it does not remain precisely that which we call pleasure. Its
pleasantness certainly could not be lost, but it might be blended past
recognition with other aspects of the Whole. The Absolute then, perhaps,
strictly, does not feel pleasure. But, if so, that is only because it
has something in which pleasure is included.

 But at this point we are met by the doubt, with which already we have
partly dealt (Chapter xiv.). Is our conclusion, after all, the right
one? Is it not possible, after all, that in the Absolute there is a
balance of pain, or, if not of pain, of something else which is at all
events no better? On this difficult point I will state at once the
result which seems true. Such a balance is possible in the lowest sense
of barely possible. It does not seem to me unmeaning, nor can I find
that it is self-contradictory. If we try to deny that the Absolute is
one and is experience, our denial becomes unmeaning, or of itself turns
round into an assertion. But I do not see that this is the case with a
denial of happiness.

 It is true that we can know nothing of pain and pleasure except from
our experience. It is true that in that experience well-nigh everything
points in one direction. There is, so far as I know, not one special
fact which suggests that pain is compatible with unity and concord. And,
if so, why should we not insist, "Such is the nature of pain, and hence
to deny this nature is to fall into self-contradiction"? What, in short,
is the other possibility which has not been included? I will endeavour
to state it.

 The world that we can observe is certainly not  all the universe; and
we do not know how much there may be which we cannot observe. And hence
everywhere an indefinite supplement from the unknown is possible. Now
might there not be conditions, invisible to us, which throughout our
experience modify the action of pleasure and pain? In this way what
seems to be essential to pain may actually not be so. It may really come
from unseen conditions which are but accidental. And so pain, after all,
might be compatible with harmony and system. Against this it may be
contended that pain itself, on such a hypothesis, would be neutralised,
and that its painfulness also would now be gone. Again it may be urged
that what is accidental on a certain scale has become essential,
essential not less effectively because indirectly. But, though these
contentions have force, I do not find them conclusive. The idea of a
painful universe, in the end, seems to be neither quite meaningless nor
yet visibly self-contradictory. And I am compelled to allow that,
speaking strictly, we must call it possible.

 But such a possibility, on the other side, possesses almost no value.
It of course rests, so far as it goes, on positive knowledge. We know
that the world's character, within certain limits, admits of indefinite
supplementation. And the supplementation, here proposed, seems in
accordance with this general nature of known reality. That is all it has
in its favour, an abstract compliance with a general character of
things; and beyond this there seems to be not one shred of particular
evidence. But against it there is everything which in particular we know
about the subject. And the possibility is thus left with a value too
small to be estimated. We can only say that it exists, and that it is
hardly worth considering further.

 But we have, with this, crossed the line which separates absolute from
conditional knowledge.  That Reality is one system which contains in
itself all experience, and, again, that this system itself is
experience--so far we may be said to know absolutely and
unconditionally. Up to this point our judgment is infallible, and its
opposite is quite impossible. The chance of error, in other words, is so
far nothing at all. But outside this boundary every judgment is finite,
and so conditional. And here every truth, because incomplete, is more or
less erroneous. And because the amount of incompleteness remains
unknown, it may conceivably go so far, in any case, as to destroy the
judgment. The opposite no longer is impossible absolutely; but, from
this point downwards, it remains but impossible relatively and subject
to a condition.

 Anything is absolute when all its nature is contained within itself. It
is unconditional when every condition of its being falls inside it. It
is free from chance of error when any opposite is quite inconceivable.
Such characters belong to the statement that Reality is experience and
is one. For these truths are not subordinate, but are general truths
about Reality as a whole. They do not exhaust it, but in outline they
give its essence. The Real, in other words, is more than they, but
always more of the same. There is nothing which in idea you can add to
it, that fails, when understood, to fall under these general truths. And
hence every doubt and all chance of error become unmeaning. Error and
doubt have their place only in the subordinate and finite region, and
within the limits prescribed by the character of the Whole. And the
Other has no meaning where any Other turns out to be none. It is useless
again to urge that an Other, though not yet conceived, may after all
prove conceivable. It is idle to object that the impossible means no
more than what you have not yet found. For we have  seen that privation
and failure imply always an outlying field of reality; and such an
outlying field is here unmeaning. To say "you might find it" sounds
modest, but it assumes positively a sphere in which the thing might be
found. And here the assumption contradicts itself, and with that
contradiction the doubt bodily disappears.

 The criterion of truth may be called inconceivability of the opposite,
but it is essential to know what we mean by such inability. Is this
absolute or relative, and to what extent is it due to privation and mere
failure? We have in fact, once more here, to clear our ideas as to the
meaning of impossibility (Chapters xxiv. and xxvi.). Now the impossible
may either be absolute or relative, but it can never be directly based
on our impotence. For a thing is impossible always because it
contradicts positive knowledge. Where the knowledge is relative, that
knowledge is certainly more or less conditioned by our impotence. And
hence, through that impotence, the impossibility may be more or less
weakened and made conditional. But it never is created by or rests upon
simple failure. In the end one has to say "I must not," not because I am
unable, but because I am prevented.

 The impossible absolutely is what contradicts the known nature of
Reality. And the impossible, in this sense, is self-contradictory. It is
indeed an attempt to deny which, in the very act, unwittingly affirms.
Since here our positive knowledge is all-embracing, it can rest on
nothing external. Outside this knowledge there is not so much as an
empty space in which our impotence could fall. And every inability and
failure already presupposes and belongs to our known world.

 The impossible relatively is what contradicts any subordinate piece of
knowledge. It cannot be, unless something which we hold for true is, as
such, given up. The impossibility here will vary in degree,  according
to the strength of that knowledge with which it conflicts. And, once
more here, it does not consist in our failure and impotence. The
impossible is not rejected, in other words, because we cannot find it.
It is rejected because we find it, and find it in collision with
positive knowledge. But what is true on the other side is that our
knowledge here is finite and fallible. It has to be conditional on
account of our inability and impotence.

 Before I return to this last point, I will repeat the same truth from
another side. A thing is real when, and in so far as, its opposite is
impossible. But in the end its opposite is impossible because, and in so
far as, the thing is real. And, according to the amount of reality which
anything possesses, to that extent its opposite is inconceivable. The
more, in other words, that anything exhausts the field of possibility,
the less possible becomes that which would essentially alter it. Now, in
the case of such truth as we have called absolute, the field of
possibility is exhausted. Reality is there, and the opposite of Reality
is not privation but absolute nothingness. There can be no outside,
because already what is inside is everything. But the case is altered
when we come to subordinate truths. These, being not self-subsistent,
are conditioned by what is partly unknown, and certainly to that extent
they are dependent on our inability. But, on the other hand, our
criterion of their truth and strength is positive. The more they are
coherent and wide--the more fully they realize the idea of system--so
much the more at once are they real and true. And so much the more what
would subvert them becomes impossible. The opposite is inconceivable,
according and in proportion as it conflicts with positive reality.

 We have seen now that some truth is certain  beyond a doubt, and that
the rest--all subordinate truth --is subject to error in various
degrees. Any finite truth, to be made quite true, must more or less be
modified; and it may require modification to such an extent that we must
call it utterly transformed. Now, in Chapter xxiv., we have already
shown that this account holds good, but I will once more insist on our
fallibility in finite matters. And the general consideration which I
would begin by urging, is this. With every finite truth there is an
external world of unknown extent. Where there is such an indefinite
outside, there must be an uncertain world of possible conditions. But
this means that any finite truth may be conditioned so as to be made
really quite otherwise. I will go on briefly to apply this.

 Wherever a truth depends, as we say, upon observation, clearly in this
case you cannot tell how much is left out, and what you have not
observed may be, for all you know, the larger part of the matter. But,
if so, your truth--it makes no difference whether it is called
"particular" or "general"--may be indefinitely mistaken. The accidental
may have been set down as if it were the essence; and this error may be
present to an extent which cannot be limited. You cannot prove that
subject and predicate have not been conjoined by the invisible
interposition of unknown factors. And there is no way in which this
possibility can be excluded.

 But the chance of error vanishes, we may be told, where genuine
abstraction is possible. It is not present at least, for example, in the
world of mathematical truth. Such an objection to our general view
cannot stand. Certainly there are spheres where abstraction in a special
sense is possible, and where we are able, as we may say, to proceed a
priori. And for other purposes this difference, I agree, may be very
important; but I am not concerned here with its importance or generally
with its  nature and limits. For, as regards the point in question, the
difference is wholly irrelevant. No abstraction (whatever its origin) is
in the end defensible. For they are, none of them, quite true, and with
each the amount of possible error must remain unknown. The truth
asserted is not, and cannot be, taken as real by itself. The background
is ignored because it is assumed to make no difference, and the mass of
conditions, abstracted from and left out, is treated as immaterial. The
predicate, in other words, is held to belong to the subject essentially,
and not because of something else which may be withdrawn or modified.
But an assumption of this kind obviously goes beyond our knowledge.
Since Reality here is not exhausted, but is limited only by our failure
to see more, there is a possibility everywhere of unknown conditions on
which our judgment depends. And hence, after all, we may be asserting
anywhere what is but accidental.

 We may put this otherwise by stating that finite truth must be
conditional. No such fact or truth is ever really self-supported and
independent. They are all conditioned, and in the end conditioned all by
the unknown. And the extent to which they are so conditioned, again is
uncertain. But this means that any finite truth or fact may to an
indefinite extent be accidental appearance. In other words, if its
conditions were filled in, it, in its own proper form, might have
disappeared. It might be modified and transformed beyond that point at
which it could be said, to any extent, to retain its own nature. And
however improbable in certain cases this result may be, in no case can
it be called impossible absolutely. Everything finite is because of
something else. And where the extent and nature of this "something else"
cannot be ascertained, the "because" turns out to be no better than
"if." There is nothing finite which is not at the mercy of unknown
conditions.

  Finite truth and fact, we may say, is throughout "hypothetical." But,
either with this term or with "conditional," we have to guard against
misleading implications. There cannot (from our present point of view)
be one finite sphere which is real and actual, or which is even
considered to be so for a certain purpose. There can be here no realm of
existence or fact, outside of which the merely supposed could fall in
unreality. The Reality, on one hand, is no finite existence; and, on the
other hand, every predicate--no matter what--must both fall within and
must qualify Reality. They are applicable, all subject to various
degrees of alteration, and as to these degrees we, in the end, may in
any case be mistaken. In any case, therefore, the alteration may amount
to unlimited transformation. This is why the finite must be called
conditional rather than conditioned. For a thing might be conditioned,
and yet, because of its conditions, might seem to stand unshaken and
secure. But the conditions of the finite, we have seen, are otherwise.
They in any case may be such as indefinitely to dissipate its particular
nature.

 Every finite truth or fact to some extent must be unreal and false, and
it is impossible in the end certainly to know of any how false it may
be. We cannot know this, because the unknown extends illimitably, and
all abstraction is precarious and at the mercy of what is not observed.
If our knowledge were a system, the case would then undoubtedly be
altered. With regard to everything we should then know the place
assigned to it by the Whole, and we could measure the exact degree of
truth and falsehood which anything possessed. With such a system there
would be no outlying region of ignorance; and hence of all its contents
we could have a complete and exhaustive  knowledge. But any system of
this kind seems, most assuredly, by its essence impossible.

 There are certain truths about the Absolute, which, for the present at
least, we can regard as unconditional. In this point they can be taken
to differ in kind from all subordinate truths, for with the latter it is
a question only of more or less fallibility. They are all liable to a
possible intellectual correction, and the amount of this possibility
cannot be certainly known. Our power of abstraction varies widely with
different regions of knowledge, but no finite truth (however reached)
can be considered as secure. Error with all of them is a matter of
probability, and a matter of degree. And those are relatively true and
strong which more nearly approach to perfection.

 It is this perfection which is our measure. Our criterion is
individuality, or the idea of complete system; and above, in Chapter
xxiv., we have already explained its nature. And I venture to think that
about the main principle there is no great difficulty. Difficulty is
felt more when we proceed to apply it in detail. We saw that the
principles of internal harmony and of widest extent in the end are the
same, for they are divergent aspects of the one idea of concrete unity.
But for a discussion of such points the reader must return to our former
chapter.

 A thing is more real as its opposite is more inconceivable. This is
part of the truth. But, on the other hand, the opposite is more
inconceivable, or more impossible, because the thing itself is more real
and more probable and more true. The test (I would repeat it once more
here) in its essence is positive. The stronger, the more systematic and
more fully organised, a body of knowledge becomes, so  much the more
impossible becomes that which in any point conflicts with it. Or, from
the other side, we may resume our doctrine thus. The greater the amount
of knowledge which an idea or fact would, directly or indirectly,
subvert, so much the more probably is it false and impossible and
inconceivable. And there may be finite truths, with which error--and I
mean by error here liability to intellectual correction--is most
improbable. The chance may fairly be treated as too small to be worth
considering. Yet after all it exists.

 Finite truths are all conditional, because they all must depend on the
unknown. But this unknown--the reader must bear in mind--is merely
relative. Itself is subordinate to, and is included in, our absolute
knowledge; and its nature, in general, is certainly not unknown. For, if
it is anything at all, it is experience, and an element in the one
Experience. Our ignorance, at the mercy of which all the finite lies, is
not ignorance absolute. It covers and contains more than we are able to
know, but this "more" is known beforehand to be still of the self-same
sort. And we must now pass from the special consideration of finite
truth.

  It is time to re-examine a distinction which we laid down above. We
found that some knowledge was absolute, and that, in contrast with this,
all finite truth was but conditional. But, when we examine it more
closely, this difference seems hard to maintain. For how can truth be
true absolutely, if there remains a gulf between itself and reality? Now
in any truth about Reality the word "about" is too significant. There
remains always something outside, and other than, the predicate. And,
because of this which is outside, the predicate, in the end, may be
called conditional. In brief, the difference between subject and
predicate, a difference essential to truth, is not accounted for. It
depends on something not included within the judgment itself, an element
outlying and, therefore, in a sense unknown. The type and the essence,
in other words, can never reach the reality. The essence realized, we
may say, is too much to be truth, and, unrealized and abstract, it is
assuredly too little to be real. Even absolute truth in the end seems
thus to turn out erroneous.

 And it must be admitted that, in the end, no possible truth is quite
true. It is a partial and inadequate translation of that which it
professes to give bodily. And this internal discrepancy belongs 
irremoveably to truth's proper character. Still the difference drawn
between absolute and finite truth must none the less be upheld. For the
former, in a word, is not intellectually corrigible. There is no
intellectual alteration which could possibly, as general truth, bring it
nearer to ultimate Reality. We have seen that any suggestion of this
kind is but self-destructive, that any doubt on this point is literally
senseless. Absolute truth is corrected only by passing outside the
intellect. It is modified only by taking in the remaining aspects of
experience. But in this passage the proper nature of truth is, of
course, transformed and perishes.

 Any finite truth, on the other side, remains subject to intellectual
correction. It is incomplete not merely as being confined by its general
nature, as truth, within one partial aspect of the Whole. It is
incomplete as having within its own intellectual world a space falling
outside it. There is truth, actual or possible, which is over against
it, and which can stand outside it as an Other. But with absolute truth
there is no intellectual outside. There is no competing predicate which
could conceivably qualify its subject, and which could come in to
condition and to limit its assertion. Absolute knowledge may be
conditional, if you please; but its condition is not any other truth,
whether actual or possible.

 The doctrine, which I am endeavouring to state, is really simple. Truth
is one aspect of experience, and is therefore made imperfect and limited
by what it fails to include. So far as it is absolute, it does however
give the general type and character of all that possibly can be true or
real. And the universe in this general character is known completely. It
is not known, and it never can be known, in all its details. It is not
known, and it never, as a whole, can be known, in such a sense that
knowledge would be the same as experience or reality.  For knowledge and
truth--if we suppose them to possess that identity--would have been,
therewith, absorbed and transmuted. But on the other hand the universe
does not exist, and it cannot possibly exist, as truth or knowledge, in
such a way as not to be contained and included in the truth we call
absolute. For, to repeat it once more, such a possibility is self-
destructive. We may perhaps say that, if per impossibile this could be
possible, we at least could not possibly entertain the idea of it. For
such an idea, in being entertained, vanishes into its opposite or into
nonsense. Absolute truth is error only if you expect from it more than
mere general knowledge. It is abstract, and fails to supply its own
subordinate details. It is one-sided, and cannot give bodily all sides
of the Whole. But on the other side nothing, so far as it goes, can fall
outside it. It is utterly all-inclusive and contains beforehand all that
could ever be set against it. For nothing can be set against it, which
does not become intellectual, and itself enter as a vassal into the
kingdom of truth. Thus, even when you go beyond it, you can never
advance outside it. When you take in more, you are condemned to take in
more of the self-same sort. The universe, as truth, in other words
preserves one character, and of that character we possess infallible
knowledge.

 And, if we view the matter from another side, there is no opposition
between Reality and truth. Reality, to be complete, must take in and
absorb this partial aspect of itself. And truth itself would  not be
complete, until it took in and included all aspects of the universe.
Thus, in passing beyond itself and in abolishing the difference between
its subject and predicate, it does but carry out the demands of its
proper nature. But I may perhaps hope that this conclusion has been
sufficiently secured (Chapters xv., xxiv., xxvi.). To repeat--in its
general character Reality is present in knowledge and truth, that
absolute truth which is distinguished and brought out by metaphysics.
But this general character of Reality is not Reality itself, and again
it is not more than the general character even of truth and knowledge.
Still, so far as there is any truth and any knowledge at all, this
character is absolute. Truth is conditional, but it cannot be
intellectually transcended. To fill in its conditions would be to pass
into a whole beyond mere intellect.

 The conclusion which we have reached, I trust, the outcome of no mere
compromise, makes a claim to reconcile extremes. Whether it is to be
called Realism or Idealism I do not know, and I have not cared to
enquire. It neither puts ideas and thought first, nor again does it
permit us to assert that anything else by itself is more real. Truth is
the whole world in one aspect, an aspect supreme in philosophy, and yet
even in philosophy conscious of its own incompleteness. So far again as
our conclusion has claimed infallibility, it has come, I think, into no
collision with the better kind of common sense. That metaphysics should
approve itself to common sense is indeed out of the question. For
neither in its processes nor in its results can it expect, or even hope,
to be generally intelligible. But it is no light thing, except for the
thoughtless, to advocate metaphysical results which, if they were
understood by common sense, would at once be rejected. I do not mean
that on subordinate points, such as the personality of the Deity or a 
continuance of the individual after death--points on which there is not
any general consent in the world--philosophy is bound to adopt one
particular view. I mean that to arrange the elements of our nature in
such a way that the system made, when understood, strikes the mind as
one-sided, is enough of itself to inspire hesitation and doubt. On this
head at least, our main result is, I hope, satisfactory. The absolute
knowledge that we have claimed is no more than an outline. It is
knowledge which seems sufficient, on one side, to secure the chief
interests of our nature, and it abstains, on the other side, from
pretensions which all must feel are not human. We insist that all
Reality must keep a certain character. The whole of its contents must be
experience, they must come together into one system, and this unity
itself must be experience. It must include and must harmonize every
possible fragment of appearance. Anything which in any sense can be more
than and beyond what we possess, must still inevitably be more of the
self-same kind. We persist in this conclusion, and we urge that, so far
as it goes, it amounts to absolute knowledge. But this conclusion on the
other side, I have pointed out, does not go very far. It leaves us free
to admit that what we know is, after all, nothing in proportion to the
world of our ignorance. We do not know what other modes of experience
may exist, or, in comparison with ours, how many they may be. We do not
know, except in vague outline, what the Unity is, or, at all, why it
appears in our particular forms of plurality. We can even understand
that such knowledge is impossible, and we have found the reason why it
is so. For truth can know only, we may say, so far as itself is. And the
union of all sides of our nature would not leave them, in any case, as
they are. Truth, when made adequate to Reality, would be so supplemented
as to have become something else--something other  than truth, and
something for us unattainable. We have thus left due space for the
exercise of doubt and wonder. We admit the healthy scepticism for which
all knowledge in a sense is vanity, which feels in its heart that
science is a poor thing if measured by the wealth of the real universe.
We justify the natural wonder which delights to stray beyond our
daylight world, and to follow paths that lead into half-known
half-unknowable regions. Our conclusion, in brief, has explained and has
confirmed the irresistible impression that all is beyond us.

 Everything is error, but everything is not illusion. It is error where,
and in so far as, our ideas are not the same as reality. It is illusion
where, and in so far as, this difference turns to a conflict in our
nature. Where experience, inward or outward, clashes with our views,
where there arises thus disorder confusion and pain, we may speak of
illusion. It is the course of events in collision with the set of our
ideas. Now error, in the sense of one-sided and partial truth, is
necessary to our being. Indeed nothing else, so to speak, could be
relative to our needs, nothing else could answer the purpose of truth.
And, to suit the divergent aspects of our inconsistent finite lives, a
variety of error in the shape of diverse partial truths is required.
And, if things could be otherwise, then, so far as we see, finite life
would be impossible. Therefore we must have error present always, and
this presence entails some amount of illusion. Finite beings, themselves
not self-consistent, have to realize their various aspects in the
chance-world of temporal events. And hence ideas and existence cannot
precisely correspond, while the want of this correspondence must to some
extent mean illusion. There are finite souls, we must admit sadly, to
whom, on the whole, life has proved a disappointment and cheat. There is
perhaps no one to whom, at certain moments and  in some respect, this
conclusion has not come home. But that, in general and in the main, life
is illusory cannot be rationally maintained. And if, in general and in
the rough, our ideas are answered by events, that is all surely which,
as finite beings, we have a right to expect. We must reply then, that,
though illusions exist here and there, the whole is not an illusion. We
are not concerned to gain an absolute experience which for us,
emphatically, could be nothing. We want to know, in effect, whether the
universe is concealed behind appearances, and is making a sport of us.
What we find here truer and more beautiful and better and higher--are
these things really so, or in reality may they be all quite otherwise?
Our standard, in other words,--is it a false appearance not owned by the
universe? And to this, in general, we may make an unhesitating reply.
There is no reality at all anywhere except in appearance, and in our
appearance we can discover the main nature of reality. This nature
cannot be exhausted, but it can be known in abstract. And it is, really
and indeed, this general character of the very universe itself which
distinguishes for us the relative worth of appearances. We make
mistakes, but still we use the essential nature of the world as our own
criterion of value and reality. Higher, truer, more beautiful, better
and more real--these, on the whole, count in the universe as they count
for us. And existence, on the whole, must correspond with our ideas.
For, on the whole, higher means for us a greater amount of that one
Reality, outside of which all appearance is absolutely nothing.

 It costs little to find that in the end Reality is inscrutable. It is
easy to perceive that any appearance, not being the Reality, in a sense
is fallacious. These truths, such as they are, are within the reach of
any and every man. It is a simple matter to  conclude further, perhaps,
that the Real sits apart, that it keeps state by itself and does not
descend into phenomena. Or it is as cheap, again, to take up another
side of the same error. The Reality is viewed perhaps as immanent in all
its appearances, in such a way that it is, alike and equally, present in
all. Everything is so worthless on one hand, so divine on the other,
that nothing can be viler or can be more sublime than anything else. It
is against both sides of this mistake, it is against this empty
transcendence and this shallow Pantheism, that our pages may be called
one sustained polemic. The positive relation of every appearance as an
adjective to Reality, and the presence of Reality among its appearances
in different degrees and with diverse values--this double truth we have
found to be the centre of philosophy. It is because the Absolute is no
sundered abstraction but has a positive character, it is because this
Absolute itself is positively present in all appearance, that
appearances themselves can possess true differences of value. And, apart
from this foundation, in the end we are left without a solid criterion
of worth or of truth or reality. This conclusion--the necessity on one
side for a standard, and the impossibility of reaching it without a
positive knowledge of the Absolute--I would venture to press upon any
intelligent worshipper of the Unknown.

 The Reality itself is nothing at all apart from appearances. It is in
the end nonsense to talk of realities--or of anything else--to which
appearances could appear, or between which they somehow could hang as
relations. Such realities (we have seen) would themselves be appearances
or nothing. For there is no way of qualifying the Real except by
appearances, and outside the Real there remains no space in which
appearances could live. Reality  appears in its appearances, and they
are its revelation; and otherwise they also could be nothing whatever.
The Reality comes into knowledge, and, the more we know of anything, the
more in one way is Reality present within us. The Reality is our
criterion of worse and better, of ugliness and beauty, of true and
false, and of real and unreal. It in brief decides between, and gives a
general meaning to, higher and lower. It is because of this criterion
that appearances differ in worth; and, without it, lowest and highest
would, for all we know, count the same in the universe. And Reality is
one Experience, self-pervading and superior to mere relations. Its
character is the opposite of that fabled extreme which is barely
mechanical, and it is, in the end, the sole perfect realisation of
spirit. We may fairly close this work then by insisting that Reality is
spiritual. There is a great saying of Hegel's, a saying too well known,
and one which without some explanation I should not like to endorse. But
I will end with something not very different, something perhaps more
certainly the essential message of Hegel. Outside of spirit there is
not, and there cannot be, any reality, and, the more that anything is
spiritual, so much the more is it veritably real.
--------------------------------------------------------  APPENDIX

INTRODUCTION  INSTEAD of attempting a formal reply in detail to a number
of criticisms, I have thought it more likely to assist the reader if I
offer first some brief explanations as to the main doctrines of my book,
and then follow these by a more particular notice of certain
difficulties. My selection of the points discussed is, I fear, to some
extent arbitrary, but I will ask my critics not to assume, where they
fail to find a recognition of their objections, that I have treated
these with disrespect.

 I. With regard to the arrangement of my work I offer no defence. It was
not in my power to write a systematic treatise, and, that being so, I
thought the way I took was as good as any other. The order of the book
seemed to myself a matter of no great importance. So far as I can see,
whatever way I had taken the result would have been the same, and I must
doubt if any other way would have been better for most readers. From
whatever point we had begun we should have found ourselves entangled in
the same puzzles, and have been led to attempt the same way of escape.
The arrangement of the book does not correspond to the order of my
thoughts, and the same would have been true of any other arrangement
which it was in my power to adopt. I might very well, for instance, have
started with the self as a given unity, and have asked how far any other
things are real otherwise, and how far again the self satisfies its own
demands on reality. Or I might have begun with the fact of knowledge and
have enquired what in the end that involves, or I could once more
readily have taken my departure from the ground of volition or desire.
None of these ways would to myself have been really inconvenient, and
they would all have led to the same end. But to satisfy at once the
individual preference of each reader was not possible, nor am I sure
that in the end the reader really is helped by starting on the road
which he prefers. The want of system in my book is however another
matter, and this I admit and regret.

 II. The actual starting-point and basis of this work is an assumption
about truth and reality. I have assumed that the  object of metaphysics
is to find a general view which will satisfy the intellect, and I have
assumed that whatever succeeds in doing this is real and true, and that
whatever fails is neither. This is a doctrine which, so far as I see,
can neither be proved nor questioned. The proof or the question, it
seems to me, must imply the truth of the doctrine, and, if that is not
assumed, both vanish. And I see no advantage in dwelling further on this
point.

 III. But with this we come against the great problem of the relation of
Thought to Reality. For if we decline (as I think wrongly) to affirm
that all truth is thought, yet we certainly cannot deny this of a great
deal of truth, and we can hardly deny that truth satisfies the
intellect. But, if so, truth therefore, as we have seen, is real. And to
hold that truth is real, not because it is true but because also it is
something else, seems untenable; for, if so, the something else left
outside would make incomplete and would hence falsify the truth. But
then, on the other hand, can thought, however complete, be the same as
reality, the same altogether, I mean, and with no difference between
them? This is a question to which I could never give an affirmative
reply. It is useless here to seek to prove that the real involves
thought as its sine quƒ non, for that much, when proved, does not carry
the conclusion. And it is useless again to urge that thought is so
inseparable from every mode of experience that in the end it may be said
to cover all the ground. That is, it seems to me, once more merely the
inconclusive argument from the sine quƒ non, or else the conclusion is
vitiated from another side by the undue extension of thought's meaning.
Thought has now been taken, that is, to include so much more than truth
in the narrow sense, that the old question as to how truth in this sense
stands to reality, must break out more or less within thought itself.
Nor again does it seem clear why we must term this whole "thought," and
not "feeling," or "will," unless we can show that these really are modes
of thought while thought cannot fall under them. For otherwise our
conclusion seems but verbal and arbitrary; and again an argument drawn
from the mere hegemony of thought could not prove the required
conclusion.

 But with this we are left, it appears, in a dilemma. There is a
difference between on one side truth or thought (it will be convenient
now to identify these), and on the other side reality. But to assert
this difference seems impossible without somehow transcending thought or
bringing the difference into thought, and these phrases seem
meaningless. Thus reality appears to be an Other different from truth
and yet not able to be truly taken as different; and this dilemma to
myself was long a main cause of perplexity and doubt. We indeed do
something to solve it  by the identification of being or reality with
experience or with sentience in its widest meaning. This step I have
taken without hesitation, and I will not add a further defence of it
here. The most serious objection to it is raised, I think, from the side
of Solipsism, and I have treated that at length. But this step by itself
leaves us far from the desired solution of our dilemma; for between
facts of experience and the thought of them and the truth about them the
difference still remains, and the difficulty which attaches to this
difference.

 The solution of this dilemma offered in Chapter XV is, I believe, the
only solution possible. It contains the main thesis of this work, views
opposed to that thesis remaining, it seems to me, caught in and
destroyed by the dilemma. And we must notice two main features in this
doctrine. It contends on one side that truth or thought essentially does
not satisfy its own claims, that it demands to be, and so far already
is, something which completely it cannot be. Hence if thought carried
out its own nature, it both would and would not have passed beyond
itself and become also an Other. And in the second place this
self-completion of thought, by inclusion of the aspects opposed to, mere
thinking, would be what we mean by reality, and by reality we can mean
no more than this. The criticisms on this doctrine which I have seen, do
not appear to me to rest on any serious enquiry either as to what the
demands of thought really are, or what their satisfaction involves. But
if to satisfy the intellect is to be true and real, such a question must
be fundamental.

 IV. With the solution of this problem about truth comes the whole view
of Reality. Reality is above thought and above every partial aspect of
being, but it includes them all. Each of these completes itself by
uniting with the rest, and so makes the perfection of the whole. And
this whole is experience, for anything other than experience is
meaningless. Now anything that in any sense "is," qualifies the absolute
reality and so is real. But on the other hand, because everything, to
complete itself and to satisfy its own claims, must pass beyond itself,
nothing in the end is real except the Absolute. Everything else is
appearance; it is that the character of which goes beyond its own
existence, is inconsistent with it and transcends it. And viewed
intellectually appearance is error. But the remedy lies in
supplementation by inclusion of that which is both outside and yet
essential, and in the Absolute this remedy is perfected. There is no
mere appearance or utter chance or absolute error, but all is relative.
And the degree of reality is measured by the amount of supplementation
required in each case, and by the extent to which the completion of
anything entails its own destruction as such.

 V. But this Absolute, it has been objected, is a mere blank or else
unintelligible. Certainly it is unintelligible if that means  that you
cannot understand its detail, and that throughout its structure
constantly in particular you are unable to answer the question, Why or
How. And that it is not in this sense intelligible I have clearly laid
down. But as to its main character we must return a different reply. We
start from the diversity in unity which is given in feeling, and we
develope this internally by the principle of self-completion beyond
self, until we reach the idea of an all-inclusive and supra-relational
experience. This idea, it seems to me, is in the abstract intelligible
and positive, and so once more is the principle by which it is reached;
and the criticism which takes these as mere negations rests, I think, on
misunderstanding. The criticism which really desires to be effective
ought, I should say, to show that my view of the starting-point is
untenable, and the principle of development, together with its result,
unsound, and such criticism I have not yet seen. But with regard to what
is unintelligible and inexplicable we must surely distinguish. A theory
may contain what is unintelligible, so long as it really contains it;
and not to know how a thing can be is no disproof of our knowing that it
both must be and is. The whole question is whether we have a general
principle under which the details can and must fall, or whether, on the
other hand, the details fall outside or are negative instances which
serve to upset the principle. Now I have argued in detail that there are
no facts which fall outside the principle or really are negative
instances; and hence, because the principle is undeniable, the facts
both must and can comply with it, and therefore they do so. And given a
knowledge of "how" in general, a mere ignorance of "how" in detail is
permissible and harmless. This argument in its general character is, I
presume, quite familiar even to those critics who seem to have been
surprised by it; and the application of it here is, so far as I see,
legitimate and necessary. And for that application I must refer to the
body of the work.

 VI. With regard to the unity of the Absolute we know that the Absolute
must be one, because anything experienced is experienced in or as a
whole, and because anything like independent plurality or external
relations cannot satisfy the intellect. And it fails to satisfy the
intellect because it is a self- contradiction. Again for the same reason
the Absolute is one system in the very highest sense of that term, any
lower sense being unreal because in the end self- contradictory. The
subjects of contradiction and of external relations are further dealt
with in a later part of this Appendix, Notes A and B.

  VII. I will go on to notice an objection which has been made by
several critics. It is expressed in the following extract from the
Philosophical Review, Vol. iv. p. 235: "All phenomena are regarded as
infected with the same contradiction, in that they all involve a union
of the One and the Many. It is therefore impossible to apply the notion
of Degrees of Truth and Reality. If all appearances are equally
contradictory, all are equally incapable of aiding us to get nearer to
the ultimate nature of Reality." And it is added that on this point
there seems to be a consensus of opinion among my critics.

 Now I think I must have failed to understand the exact nature of this
point, since, as I understand it, it offers no serious difficulty. In
fact this matter, I may say, is for good or for evil so old and so
familiar to my mind that it did not occur to me as a difficulty at all,
and so was not noticed. But suppose that in theology I say that all men
before God, and measured by him, are equally sinful--does that preclude
me from also holding that one is worse or better than another? And if I
accept the fact of degrees in virtue, may I not believe also that virtue
is one and is perfection and that you must attain to it or not? And is
all this really such a hopeless puzzle? Suppose that for a certain
purpose I want a stick exactly one yard long, am I wrong when I condemn
both one inch and thirty-five inches, and any possible sum of inches up
to thirty-six, as equally and alike coming short? Surely if you view
perfection and completeness in one way, it is a case of either Yes or
No, you have either reached it or not, and there either is defect or
there is none. But in the imperfect, viewed otherwise, there is already
more or less of a quality or character, the self-same character which,
if all defect were removed, would attain to and itself would be
perfection. Wherever there is a scale of degrees you may treat the steps
of this as being more or less perfect, or again you may say, No they are
none of them perfect, and so regarded they are equal, and there is no
difference between them. That indeed is what must happen when you ask of
each whether it is perfect or not.

 This question of Yes or No I asked about appearances in connection with
Reality, and I have in my book used language which certainly contradicts
itself, unless the reader perceives that there is more than one point of
view. And I assumed that the reader would perceive this, and I cannot
doubt that very often he has done so, and I think that even always he
might have done so, if he would but carry into metaphysics all the ideas
with which he is acquainted outside, and not an arbitrary selection from
them. And among the ideas to be thus treated not as true but as at least
existing, I would instance specially some leading ideas of the Christian
religion as to freedom, the  worth of mere morality, and the independent
self-sufficiency of finite persons and things. For myself, though I have
not hesitated to point out the falsity and immorality of some Christian
doctrines (where this seemed necessary), I cannot approve of the
widespread practice of treating them as devoid even of existence.

 But if, after all, my critics had in view not the above but something
else, and if the objection means that I do not explain why and how there
is any diversity and anything like degree at all, I am at no loss for a
reply. I answer that I make no pretence to do this. But on the other
side I have urged again and again that a general conclusion is not upset
by a failure to explain in detail, unless that detail can be shown to be
a negative instance.

 If finally the use of the phrase "mere appearance" has caused
difficulty, that has been I think already explained above. This phrase
gets its meaning by contrast with the Absolute. When you ask about any
appearance unconditionally whether it is Reality or not, Yes or No, you
are forced to reply No, and you may express that unconditional No by
using the word "mere." At least one of my critics would, I think, have
done well if, before instructing me as to the impossibility of any mere
appearance, he had consulted my index under the head of Error.

 I must end by saying that, on this question of degrees of appearance
and reality, I have found but little to which my critics can fairly
object, unless their position is this, that of two proper and
indispensable points of view I have unduly emphasized one. Whether I
have done this or not I will not attempt to decide, but, if this is what
my critics have meant, I cannot felicitate them on their method of
saying it.

 But I would once more express my regret that I was not able to deal
systematically with the various forms of appearance. If I had done this,
it would have become clear that, and how, each form is true as well as
untrue, and that there is an evolution of truth. We should have seen
that each really is based on, and is an attempt to realize, the same
principle, a principle which is not wholly satisfied by any, and which
condemns each because each is an inadequate appearance of itself.

 VIII. I must now touch briefly on a point of greater difficulty. Why,
it has been asked, have I not identified the Absolute with the Self?
Now, as I have already remarked, my whole view may be taken as based on
the self; nor again could I doubt that a self, or a system of selves, is
the highest thing that we have. But when it is proposed to term the
Absolute "self," I am compelled to pause. In order to reach the idea of
the Absolute our finite selves must suffer so much addition and so much
subtraction that it becomes a grave question whether the result can be
covered by the name of "self." When you carry out the idea  of a self or
of a system of selves beyond a certain point, when, that is to say, you
have excluded, as such, all finitude and change and chance and
mutability--have you not in fact carried your idea really beyond its
proper application? I am forced to think that this is so, and I also
know no reason why it should not be so. The claim of the individual, as
such, to perfection I wholly reject. And the argument that, if you
scruple to say "self," you are therefore condemned to accept something
lower, seems to me thoroughly unsound. I have contended that starting
from the self one can advance to a positive result beyond it, and my
contention surely is not met by such a bare unreasoned assumption of its
falsity. And if finally I hear, Well, you yourself admit that the
Absolute is unintelligible; why then object to saying that the Absolute
somehow unintelligibly is self and the self is somehow unintelligibly
absolute?--that gives me no trouble. For the Absolute, though in detail
unintelligible, is not so in general, and its general character comes as
a consequence from a necessary principle. And against this consequence
we have to set nothing but privation and ignorance. But to make the
self, as such, absolute is, so far as I see, to postulate in the teeth
of facts, facts which go to show that the self's character is gone when
it ceases to be relative. And this postulate itself, I must insist, is
no principle at all, but is a mere prejudice and misunderstanding. And
the claim of this postulate, if made, should in my opinion be made
openly and explicitly. But as to the use of the word "self," so long
only as we know what we mean and do not mean by it, I am far from being
irreconcilable. I am of course opposed to any attempt to set up the
finite self as in any sense ultimately real, or again as real at all
outside of the temporal series. And I am opposed once more to any kind
of attempt to make the distinction between "experience" and "the
experienced" more than relative. But on these and on other points I do
not think that it would prove useful to enlarge further.

 IX. I will now briefly touch on my attitude towards Scepticism. Most
persons, I think, who have read my book intelligently, will credit me
with a desire to do justice to scepticism; and indeed I might claim,
perhaps, myself to be something of a sceptic. But with all my desire I,
of course, may very well have failed; and it would be to me most
instructive if I could see an examination of my last Chapter by some
educated and intelligent sceptic. Up to the present, however, nothing of
the kind has been brought to my notice; and perhaps the sceptical temper
does not among us often go with addiction to metaphysics. And I venture
to think this a misfortune. Intellectual scepticism certainly is not one
thing with a sceptical temper, and it is (if I may repeat myself) "the
result only of labour and education."

 That, it seems, is not the opinion of the writer in Mind (N.S., No.
11), who has come forward as the true representative of the  sceptics.
He will, perhaps, not be surprised when I question his right to that
position, and when I express my conviction of his ignorance as to what
true scepticism is. His view of scepticism is, in brief, that it
consists in asking, "But what do you mean?" The idea apparently has not
occurred to him that to question or doubt intelligently you must first
understand. If I, for instance, who know no mathematics, were to
reiterate about some treatise on the calculus, "But what does it mean?"
I should hardly in this way have become a sceptic mathematically.
Scepticism of this kind is but a malady of childhood, and is known as
one symptom of imbecility, and it surely has no claim to appear as a
philosophical attitude.

 If about any theory you desire to ask intelligently the question, "What
does it mean?" you must be prepared, I should have thought, to enter
into that theory. And attempting to enter into it you are very liable,
in raising your doubts, to base yourself tacitly on some dogma which the
theory in question has given its reason for rejecting. And to avoid such
crude dogmatism is not given to every man who likes to call himself a
sceptic. And it is given to no man, I would repeat, without labour and
education.

 But in the article which I have cited there is, apart from this absurd
idea about scepticism, nothing we need notice. There are some mistakes
and failures to comprehend of an ordinary type, coupled with some mere
dogmatism of an uninteresting kind. And it is to myself a matter of
regret that generally in this point I have been helped so little by my
critics, and am compelled (if I may use the expression) still to do most
of my scepticism for myself.

 X. The doctrine of this work has been condemned as failing to satisfy
the claims of our nature, and has been charged with being after all no
better than "Agnosticism." Now without discussing the meaning of this
term--a subject in which I am not much at home--I should like to insist
on what to me seems capital. According to the doctrine of this work that
which is highest to us is also in and to the Universe most real, and
there can be no question of its reality being somehow upset. In
common-place materialism, on the other hand, that which in the end is
real is certainly not what we think highest, this latter being a
secondary and, for all we know, a precarious result of the former. And
again, if we embrace mere ignorance, we are in the position that, for
anything we know, our highest beliefs are illusions, or at any moment
may become so, and at any moment  may be brought to nought by
something--we do not know what. And I submit that the difference between
such doctrines and those of this work is really considerable.

 And if I am told that generally the doctrines of this book fail to
satisfy our nature's demands, I would request first a plain answer to a
question which, I think, is plain. Am I to understand that somehow we
are to have all that we want and have it just as we want it? For myself
I should reply that such a satisfaction seems to me impossible. But I do
not feel called on to criticise this demand, until I see it stated
explicitly; and at present I merely press for a plain answer to my
question.

 And if the real question is not this, and if it concerns only the
satisfaction somehow of our nature's main claims, I do not see that, as
compared with other views about the world, the view of this work is
inferior. I am supposing it to be compared of course only with view that
aim at theoretical consistency, and not with mere practical beliefs.
Practical beliefs, we know, are regulated by working efficiency. They
emphasize one point here, and they suppress another point there, without
much care to avoid a theoretical self-contradiction. And working beliefs
of any kind, I imagine, can more or less exist under and together with
any kind of theoretical doctrine. The comparison I have in view here is
of another order, and would be made between doctrines each of which
claimed to be a true and consistent account of the whole of things. Such
a comparison I do not propose to make, since it would require much
space, and, while perhaps serving little purpose otherwise, could not
fail to give great offence. But there are two conditions of any fair
comparison on which I would insist. In a question about the satisfaction
of our nature all the aspects of that nature must first be set forth,
and not a one-sided distortion of these or an arbitrary selection from
them. And in the second place every side of the doctrines compared must
be stated without suppression of any features that may be found
inconvenient. For every view of the world, we must all agree, has its
own special difficulties. Where, for instance, from a theistic or a
Christian point of view a writer condemns, say, a "naturalistic" account
of good and evil--would that writer, if he had a desire for fairness and
truth, fail to recall the fact that his own view also has been morally
condemned? Would he forget that the relation of an omniscient moral
Creator to the things of his hand has given trouble intellectually, and
is morally perhaps not from all sides "comfortable?" His attitude, I
judge, would be otherwise, and this judgment, I submit, is that of every
fair-minded man, whatever doctrines otherwise he may hold. Nothing is
easier than to make a general attack on any doctrine while the
alternative is ignored, and few things, I would add, are, at least in
philosophy, less profitable. With this I will pass to a special
treatment of some difficult problems.
--------------------------------------------------------  NOTE A.
CONTRADICTION, AND THE CONTRARY.  IF we are asked "What is contrary or
contradictory?" (I do not find it necessary here to distinguish between
these), the more we consider the more difficult we find it to answer. "A
thing cannot be or do two opposites at once and in the same
respect"--this reply at first sight may seem clear, but on reflection
may threaten us with an unmeaning circle. For what are "opposites"
except the adjectives which the thing cannot so combine? Hence we have
said no more than that we in fact find predicates which in fact will not
go together, and our further introduction of their "opposite" nature
seems to add nothing. "Opposites will not unite, and their apparent
union is mere appearance." But the mere appearance really perhaps only
lies in their intrinsic opposition. And if one arrangement has made them
opposite, a wider arrangement may perhaps unmake their opposition, and
may include them all at once and harmoniously. Are, in short, opposites
really opposite at all, or are they, after all, merely different? Let us
attempt to take them in this latter character.

 "A thing cannot without an internal distinction be (or do) two
different things, and differences cannot belong to the same thing in the
same point unless in that point there is diversity. The appearance of
such a union may be fact, but is for thought a contradiction." This is
the thesis which to me seems to contain the truth about the contrary,
and I will now try to recommend this thesis to the reader.

 The thesis in the first place does not imply that the end which we seek
is tautology. Thought most certainly does not demand mere sameness which
to it would be nothing. A bare tautology (Hegel has taught us this, and
I wish we could all learn it) is not even so much as a poor truth or a
thin truth. It is not a truth in any way, in any sense, or at all.
Thought involves analysis and synthesis, and if the Law of Contradiction
forbade diversity, it would forbid thinking altogether. And with this
too necessary warning I will turn to the other side of the difficulty.
Thought cannot do without differences, but on the other hand it cannot
make them. And, as it cannot make them, so it cannot receive them merely
from the outside and ready-made. Thought demands to go proprio motu, or,
what is the same thing, with a ground and reason. Now to pass from A to
B, if the ground remains external, is for thought to pass with no ground
 at all. But if, again, the external fact of A's and B's conjunction is
offered as a reason, then that conjunction itself creates the same
difficulty. For thought's analysis can respect nothing, nor is there any
principle by which at a certain point it should arrest itself or be
arrested. Every distinguishable aspect becomes therefore for thought a
diverse element to be brought to unity. Hence thought can no more pass
without a reason from A or from B to its conjunction, than before it
could pass groundlessly from A to B. The transition, being offered as a
mere datum, or effected as a mere fact, is not thought's own
self-movement. Or in other words, because for thought no ground can be
merely external, the passage is groundless. Thus A and B and their
conjunction are, like atoms, pushed in from the outside by chance or
fate; and what is thought to do with them but either make or accept an
arrangement which to it is wanton and without reason,--or, no reason for
anything else, attempt against reason to identify them simply?

 "But not at all," I shall be told, "for the whole case is otherwise.
There are certain ultimate complexes given to us as facts, and these
ultimates, as they are given, thought simply takes up as principles and
employs to explain the detail of the world. And with this process
thought is satisfied." To me such a doctrine is quite erroneous. For
these ultimates (a) cannot make the world intelligible, and again (b)
they are not given, and (c) in themselves they are self-contradictory,
and not truth but appearance.

 Certainly for practice we have to work with appearance and with
relative untruths, and without these things the sciences of course would
not exist. There is, I suppose, here no question about all this, and all
this is irrelevant. The question here is whether with so much as this
the intellect can be satisfied, or whether on the other hand it does not
find in the end defect and self-contradiction. Consider first (a) the
failure of what is called "explanation." The principles taken up are not
merely in themselves not rational, but, being limited, they remain
external to the facts to be explained. The diversities therefore will
only fall, or rather must be brought, under the principle. They do not
come out of it, nor of themselves do they bring themselves under it. The
explanation therefore in the end does but conjoin aliens inexplicably.
The obvious instance is the mechanical interpretation of the world. Even
if here the principles were rational intrinsically, as surely they are
not, they express but one portion of a complex whole. The rest
therefore, even when and where it has been "brought under" the
principles, is but conjoined with them externally and for no known
reason. Hence in the explanation there is in the end neither
self-evidence nor any "because" except that brutally things come so.

 "But in any case," I may hear, "these complexes are given and do not
contradict themselves," and let us take these points in their order. (b)
The transition from A to B, the inherence of b and c as adjectives in A,
the union of discretion and continuity in time and space--"such things
are facts," it is said. "They are given to an intellect which is
satisfied to accept and to employ them." They may be facts, I reply, in
some sense of that word, but to say that, as such and in and by
themselves, they are given is erroneous. What is given is a presented
whole, a sensuous total in which these characters are found; and beyond
and beside these characters there is always given something else. And to
urge "but at any rate these characters are there," is surely futile. For
certainly they are not, when there, as they are when you by an
abstraction have taken them out. Your contention is that certain
ultimate conjunctions of elements are given. And I reply that no such
bare conjunction is or possibly can be given. For the background is
present, and the background and the conjunction are, I submit, alike
integral aspects of the fact. The background therefore must be taken as
a condition of the conjunction's existence, and the intellect must
assert the conjunction subject in this way to a condition. The
conjunction is hence not bare but dependent, and it is really a
connection mediated by something falling outside it. A thing, for
example, with its adjectives can never be simply given. It is given
integrally with a mass of other features, and when it is affirmed of
Reality it is affirmed of Reality qualified by this presented
background. And this Reality (to go further) is and must be qualified
also by what transcends any one presentation. Hence the mere complex,
alleged to be given to the intellect, is really a selection made by or
accepted by that intellect. An abstraction cuts away a mass of
environing particulars, and offers the residue bare, as something given
and to be accepted free from supporting conditions. And for working
purposes such an artifice is natural and necessary, but to offer it as
ultimate fact seems to me to be monstrous. We have an intellectual
product, to be logically justified, if indeed that could be possible,
and most certainly we have not a genuine datum.

 At this point we may lay down an important result. The intellect cannot
be reduced to choose between accepting an irrational conjunction or
rejecting something given. For the intellect can always accept the
conjunction not as bare but as a connection, the bond of which is at
present unknown. It is taken therefore as by itself appearance which is
less or more false in proportion as the unknown conditions, if filled
in, less or more would swamp and transform it. The intellect therefore
while rejecting whatever is alien to itself, if offered as absolute, can
accept the inconsistent if taken as subject to conditions.  Beside
absolute truth there is relative truth, useful opinion, and validity,
and to this latter world belong so-called non- rational facts.

 (c) And any mere conjunction, I go on to urge, is for thought
self-contradictory. Thought, I may perhaps assume, implies analysis and
synthesis and distinction in unity. Further the mere conjunction offered
to thought cannot be set apart itself as something sacred, but may
itself properly and indeed must become thought's object. There will be a
passage therefore from one element in this conjunction to its other
element or elements. And on the other hand, by its own nature, thought
must hold these in unity. But, in a bare conjunction, starting with A
thought will externally be driven to B, and seeking to unite these it
will find no ground of union. Thought can of itself supply no internal
bond by which to hold them together, nor has it any internal diversity
by which to maintain them apart. It must therefore seek barely to
identify them, though they are different, or somehow to unite both
diversities where it has no ground of distinction and union. And this
does not mean that the connection is merely unknown and may be affirmed
as unknown, and also, supposing it were known, as rational. For, if so,
the conjunction would at once not be bare, and it is as bare that it is
offered and not as conditional. But, if on the other hand it remains
bare, then thought to affirm it must unite diversities without any
internal distinction, and the attempt to do this is precisely what
contradiction means.

 "But," I shall be told, "you misrepresent the case. What is offered is
not the elements apart, nor the elements plus an external bond, but the
elements together and in conjunction."  Yes, I reply, but the question
is how thought can think what is offered. If thought in its own nature
possessed a "together," a "between," and an "all at once," then in its
own intrinsic passage, or at least somehow in its own way and manner, it
could re-affirm the external conjunction. But if these sensible bonds of
union fall outside the inner nature of thought, just as much as do the
sensible terms which they outwardly conjoin--the case surely is
different. Then forced to distinguish and unable to conjoin by its own
proper nature, or with a reason, thought is confronted by elements that
strive to come together without a way of union. The sensible
conjunctions remain for thought mere other elements in the congeries,
themselves failing in connection and external to others. And, on the
other hand, driven to unite without internal distinction thought finds
in this attempt a self-contradiction. You may exclaim against thought's
failure, and in this to some degree I am with you; but the fact remains
thus. Thought cannot accept tautology and yet demands unity in
diversity. But your offered conjunctions on the other side are for it no
connections or ways of union. They are themselves merely other external
things to be connected. And so thought, knowing what it wants, refuses
to accept something different, something which for it is appearance, a
self- inconsistent attempt at reality and truth. It is idle from the
outside to say to thought, "Well, unite but do not identify." How can
thought unite except so far as in itself it has a mode of union? To
unite without an internal ground of connection and distinction is to
strive to bring together barely in the same point, and that is
self-contradiction.

 Things are not contrary because they are opposite, for things by
themselves are not opposite. And things are not contrary because they
are diverse, for the world as a fact holds diversity in unity. Things
are self- contrary when, and just so far as, they appear as bare
conjunctions, when in order to think them you would have to predicate
differences without an internal ground of connection and distinction,
when, in other words, you would have to unite diversities simply, and
that means in the same point. This is what contradiction means, or I at
least have been able to find no other meaning. For a mere "together," a
bare conjunction in space or time, is for thought unsatisfactory and in
the end impossible. It depends for its existence on our neglecting to
reflect, or on our purposely abstaining, so far as it is concerned, from
analysis and thought. But any such working arrangement, however valid,
is but provisional. On the other hand, we have found that no intrinsical
opposites exist, but that contraries, in a sense, are made. Hence in the
end nothing is contrary nor is there any insoluble contradiction.
Contradictions exist so far only as internal distinction seems
impossible, only so far as diversities are attached to one unyielding
point assumed, tacitly  or expressly, to be incapable of internal
diversity or external complement. But any such fixture is an
abstraction, useful perhaps, but in the end appearance. And thus, where
we find contradiction, there is something limited and untrue which
invites us to transcend it.

 Standing contradictions appear where the subject is narrowed
artificially, and where diversity in the unity is taken as excluded. A
thing cannot be at once in two places if in the "at once" there is no
lapse, nor can one place have two bodies at once if both claim it in
their character as extended. The soul cannot affirm and deny at a single
time, unless (as some perhaps rightly hold) the self itself may be
divided. And, to speak in general, the more narrowly we take the
subject, and the less internal ground for diversity it contains, the
more it threatens us with standing or insoluble contradictions. But, we
may add, so much the more abstractedness and less truth does such a
subject possess. We may instance the presence of "disparate" qualities,
such as white, hard and hot, in a single thing. The "thing" is presented
as one feature of an indefinite complex, and it is affirmed as predicate
of a reality transcending what is given. It is hence capable in all ways
of indefinite addition to its apparent character. And to deny that in
the "real thing" can be an internal diversity and ground of distinction
seems quite irrational. But so far as for convenience or from
thoughtlessness the denial is made, and the real thing is identified
with our mutilated and abstract view of the thing--so far the disparate
qualities logically clash and become contradictory.

 The Law of Contradiction tells us that we must not simply identify the
diverse, since their union involves a ground of distinction. So far as
this ground is rightly or wrongly excluded, the Law forbids us to
predicate diversities. Where the ground is merely not explicit or
remains unknown, our assertion of any complex is provisional and
contingent. It may be valid and good, but it is an incomplete appearance
of the real, and its truth is relative. Yet, while it offers itself as
but contingent truth and as more or less incomplete appearance, the Law
of Contradiction has nothing against it. But abstracted and irrational
conjunctions taken by themselves as reality and truth, in short "facts"
as they are accepted by too many philosophers, the Law must condemn. And
about the truth of this Law, so far as it applies, there is in my
opinion no question. The question will be rather as to how far the Law
applies and how therefore it is true.

 But before we conclude, there is a matter we may do well to consider.
In this attempt to attribute diversity and to avoid  contradiction what
in the end would satisfy the intellect supposing that it could be got?
This question, I venture to think, is too often ignored. Too often a
writer will criticise and condemn some view as being that which the mind
cannot accept, when he apparently has never asked himself what it is
that would satisfy the intellect, or even whether the intellect could
endure his own implied alternative. What in the end then, let us ask,
would content the intellect?

 While the diversities are external to each other and to their union,
ultimate satisfaction is impossible. There must, as we have seen, be an
identity and in that identity a ground of distinction and connection.
But that ground, if external to the elements into which the conjunction
must be analyzed, becomes for the intellect a fresh element, and it
itself calls for synthesis in a fresh point of unity. But hereon,
because in the intellect no intrinsic connections were found, ensues the
infinite process. Is there a remedy for this evil?

 The remedy might lie here. If the diversities were complementary
aspects of a process of connection and distinction, the process not
being external to the elements or again a foreign compulsion of the
intellect, but itself the intellect's own pro motus, the case would be
altered. Each aspect would of itself be a transition to the other
aspect, a transition intrinsic and natural at once to itself and to the
intellect. And the Whole would be a self-evident analysis and synthesis
of the intellect itself by itself. Synthesis here has ceased to be mere
synthesis and has become self-completion, and analysis, no longer mere
analysis, is self-explication. And the question how or why the many are
one and the one is many here loses its meaning. There is no why or how
beside the self-evident process, and towards its own differences this
whole is at once their how and their why, their being, substance and
system, their reason, ground, and principle of diversity and unity.

 Has the Law of Contradiction anything here to condemn? It seems to me
it has nothing. The identity of which diversities are predicated is in
no case simple. There is no point which is not itself internally the
transition to its complement, and there is no unity which fails in
internal diversity and ground of distinction. In short "the identity of
opposites," far from conflicting with the Law of Contradiction, may
claim to be the one view which satisfies its demands, the only theory
which everywhere refuses to accept a standing contradiction. And if all
that we find were in the end such a self-evident and self-complete
whole, containing in itself as constituent processes the detail of the
Universe, so far as I see the intellect would receive satisfaction in
full. But  for myself, unable to verify a solution of this kind,
connections in the end must remain in part mere syntheses, the putting
together of differences external to one another and to that which
couples them. And against my intellectual world the law of Contradiction
has therefore claims nowhere satisfied in full. And since, on the other
hand, the intellect insists that these demands must be and are met, I am
led to hold that they are met in and by a whole beyond the mere
intellect. And in the intellect itself I seem to find an inner want and
defect and a demand thus to pass itself beyond itself. And against this
conclusion I have not yet seen any tenable objection.

 The view which to me appears to be true is briefly this. That abstract
identity should satisfy the intellect, even in part, is wholly
impossible. On the other hand I cannot say that to me any principle or
principles of diversity in unity are self-evident. The existence of a
single content (I will not call it a quality) which should be simple
experience and being in one is to me not in itself impossible
intrinsically. If I may speak mythologically I am not sure that, if no
diversity were given, the intellect of itself could invent it or would
even demand it. But, since diversity is there as a fact, any such
hypothesis seems illegitimate. As a fact and given we have in feeling
diversity and unity in one whole, a whole implicit and not yet broken up
into terms and relations. This immediate union of the one and many is an
"ultimate fact" from which we start; and to hold that feeling, because
immediate, must be simple and without diversity is, in my view, a
doctrine quite untenable. That I myself should have been taken as
committed to this doctrine is to me, I must be allowed to add, really
surprising. But feeling, if an ultimate fact, is not true ultimately or
real. Even of itself it is self-transcendent and transitory. And, when
we try to think its unity, then, as we have seen, we end in failure. For
thought in its own nature has no "together" and is forced to move by way
of terms and relations, and the unity of these remains in the end
external and, because external, inconsistent. But the conclusion I would
recommend is no vain attempt either to accept bare identity or to
relapse into a stage before thinking begins. Self-existence and
self-identity are to be found, I would urge, in a whole beyond thought,
a whole to which thought points and in which it is included, but which
is known only in abstract character and could not be verified in its
detail.

 And since I have been taken to build on assumptions which I am unable
to recognize, I will here repeat what it is that I have assumed. I have
assumed first that truth has to satisfy the  intellect, and that what
does not do this is neither true nor real. This assumption I can defend
only by showing that any would- be objector assumes it also. And I start
from the root- idea of being or experience, which is at once positive
and ultimate. Then I certainly do not go on to assume about being that
it must be self-contained, simple or what not?--but I proceed in another
manner. I take up certain facts or truths (call them what you please)
that I find are offered me, and I care very little what it is I take up.
These facts or truths, as they are offered, I find my intellect rejects,
and I go on to discover why it rejects them. It is because they
contradict themselves. They offer, that is, a complex of diversities
conjoined in a way which does not satisfy my intellect, a way which it
feels is not its way and which it cannot repeat as its own, a way which
for it results in mere collision. For, to be satisfied, my intellect
must understand, and it cannot understand by taking a congeries, if I
may say so, in the lump. My intellect may for certain purposes, to use
an old figure, swallow mysteries unchewed, but unchewed it is unable in
the end to stomach and digest them. It has not, as some opponents of
Hegel would seem to assume, any such strange faculty of sensuous
intuition. On the contrary my intellect is discursive, and to understand
it must go from one point to another, and in the end also must go by a
movement which it feels satisfies its nature. Thus, to understand a
complex AB, I must begin with A or B. And beginning, say, with A, if I
then merely find B, I have either lost A or I have got beside A
something else, and in neither case have I understood. For my intellect
cannot simply unite a diversity, nor has it in itself any form or way of
togetherness, and you gain nothing if beside A and B you offer me their
conjunction in fact. For to my intellect that is no more than another
external element. And "facts," once for all, are for my intellect not
true unless they satisfy it. And, so far as they are not true, then, as
they are offered, they are not reality.

 From this I conclude that what is real must be self- contained and
self-subsistent and not qualified from the outside. For an external
qualification is a mere conjunction, and that, we have seen, is for the
intellect an attempt of diversities simply to identify themselves, and
such an attempt is what we mean by self- contradiction. Hence whatever
is real must be qualified from itself, and that means that, so far as it
is real, it must be self-contained and self-subsistent. And, since
diversities exist, they must therefore somehow be true and real; and
since, to be understood and to be true and real, they must be united,
hence they must be true and real in such a way that from A or B the
intellect can pass to its further qualification without an external
determination of either. But this means that A and B are united, each
from its  own nature, in a whole which is the nature of both alike. And
hence it follows that in the end there is nothing real but a whole of
this kind.

 From the other side--Why do I hold reality to be a self-contained and
self-consistent individual? It is because otherwise, if I admit an
external determination and a qualification by an other, I am left with a
conjunction, and that for the intellect is a self- contradiction. On the
other hand the real cannot be simple, because, to be understood, it must
somehow be taken with and be qualified by the diversity which is a fact.
The diversity therefore must fall within and be subordinate to a
self-determined whole, an individual system, and any other determination
is incompatible with reality. These ideas may be mistaken, but to my
mind they do not seem to be obscure, nor again are they novel. But if I
may judge from the way in which some critics have taken them, they must
involve some great obscurity or difficulty. But, not apprehending this,
I am unfortunately unable to discuss it.

 We have found that nothing in itself is opposite and refuses to unite.
Everything again is opposite if brought together into a point which owns
no internal diversity. Every bare conjunction is therefore contradictory
when taken up by thought, because thought in its nature is incapable of
conjunction and has no way of mere "together." On the other side no such
conjunction is or possibly could be given. It is itself a mere
abstraction, useful perhaps and so legitimate and so far valid, but
taken otherwise to be condemned as the main root of error.

 Contradiction is appearance, everywhere removable by distinction and by
further supplement, and removed actually, if not in  and by the mere
intellect, by the whole which transcends it. On the other hand
contradiction, or rather what becomes such, as soon as it is thought
out, is everywhere necessary. Facts and views partial and one-sided,
incomplete and so incoherent--things that offer themselves as characters
of a Reality which they cannot express, and which present in them moves
them to jar with and to pass beyond themselves--in a word appearances
are the stuff of which the Universe is made. If we take them in their
proper character we shall be prone neither to over- estimate nor to
slight them.

 We have now seen the nature of incompatibles or contraries. There are
no native contraries, and we have found no reason to entertain such an
idea. Things are contrary when, being diverse, they strive to be united
in one point which in itself does not admit of internal diversity. And
for the intellect any bare conjunction is an attempt of this sort. The
intellect has in its nature no principle of mere togetherness, and the
intellect again can accept nothing which is alien to itself. A foreign
togetherness of elements is for the intellect, therefore, but one
offered external element the more. And, since the intellect demands a
unity, every distinguishable aspect of a "together" must be brought into
one. And if in this unity no internal connection of diversity natural to
the intellect can be found, we are left with a diversity belonging to
and conjoined in one undistinguished point. And this is contradiction,
and contradiction in the end we found was this and nothing but this. On
the other hand we urged that bare irrational conjunctions are not given
as facts. Every perceived complex is a selection from an indefinite
background, and, when judged as real, it is predicated both of this
background and of the Reality which transcends it. Hence in this
background and beyond it lies, we may believe, the reason and the
internal connection of all we take as a mere external "together."
Conjunction and contradiction in short is but our defect, our
one-sidedness, and our abstraction, and it is appearance and not
Reality. But the reason we have to assume may in detail be not
accessible to our intellect.
--------------------------------------------------------  NOTE B:
RELATION AND QUALITY  THERE are some aspects of the general problem of
Relation and Quality on which I will offer some words of explanation.
The subject is large and difficult, and deserves a far more thorough
treatment than I am able at present to bestow on it. There is the
question (i) whether qualities can exist independent of some whole, (ii)
whether they can exist independent of relations, (iii) whether, where
there are fresh relations, new qualities are made and old ones altered,
or whether again one can have a  merely external relation, and, lastly
(iv), whether and in what sense, wherever there is an identity, we have
a right to speak of a relation.

 (i and ii) Within any felt whole--and that term includes here anything
which contains an undistinguished diversity, any totality of aspects
which is not broken up--the diversities qualify that whole, and are felt
as making it what it is. Are these diversities to be called qualities
(p. 27)? It is really perhaps a verbal question. Anything that is
somewhat at all may be said to be or to have a quality. But on the other
hand we may prefer to use quality specially of those diversities which
are developed when wholes are analyzed into terms and relations. And,
when we ask if there can be qualities without relations, this
distinction becomes important. The question must be answered
affirmatively if we call by the name of quality the diverse aspects of
feeling. But on the other hand such diverse aspects cannot exist
independently. They are not given except as contained in and as
qualifying some whole, and their independence consists merely in our
vicious abstraction. Nor when we pass to the relational stage does
diversity cease to be the inseparable adjective of unity. For the
relations themselves cannot exist except within and as the adjectives of
an underlying unity. The whole that is analyzed into relations and terms
can fall into the background and be obscured, but it can never be
dissipated. And, if it were dissipated, then with it both terms and
relations would perish. For there is no absolute "between" or
"together," nor can "between" and "together" be the mere adjectives of
self-existent units. Qualities in the end can have no meaning except as
contained in and as dependent on some whole, and whether that whole is
relational or otherwise makes no difference in this respect.

 And it is not hard, perhaps, at this point to dispose of a fallacy
which seems somewhat common. You may take, it is said, some terms, A, B,
and C, and may place them in various relations, X, Y, and Z, and through
all they remain still A, B, and C. And this, it is urged, proves that A,
B, and C exist, or may exist, free from all relations or at least
independently. My character, for example, may be compared with that of
another man, or, having first lived to the north of him, I may then
change to the south; and to neither of us need it make a difference, and
therefore we both are unaffected and so independent. But an answer to
this fallacy seems even obvious. What is proved is that a certain
character may, as such and in respect of that character, exist
indifferently in various relations. But what is not proved at all is
that this character could exist independent and naked. And since the
argument starts by presupposing without any enquiry the independent
existence of the character and indeed rests throughout on that
presupposed  existence, it could in no case arrive, it seems to me, at
the desired conclusion. The most that it could show would be that some
relations are external and may make no difference to their terms. But to
argue from this that all the relations are or even may be external, and
that some qualities either do or may exist independently, seems quite
illogical. Such an argument obviously could at once be met by a
distinction drawn between different kinds of relations.

 (iii) For myself I neither make nor accept such a distinction except as
relative and subordinate. I do not admit that any relation whatever can
be merely external and make no difference to its terms, and I will now
proceed to discuss this important point. I will begin by first
dismissing a difficult question. Qualities exist, we have seen,
improperly as diverse aspects of felt wholes, and then again properly as
terms which are distinguished and related. But how far are we to say
that such characters as those e.g. of different colours are made by
distinction, and were not of the same quality at all when mere aspects
of the un-analyzed? To this question I will not attempt a reply, because
I am sure that I should not do it justice. I have great sympathy with
the view that such characters are so developed as to be in a sense
constituted by distinction, but I cannot defend this view or identify
myself with it. And for myself, and for argument's sake at least, I
shall admit that a quality in feeling may already have the character, A
or B, which we find when afterwards quality proper is made by
distinction. In no case (to repeat) will there be a quality existing
independently, but while you keep to aspects of a felt whole it will not
be true that every quality depends on relation. And on the other hand
between such aspects and qualities proper there may be an identity in
some character A or B.

 From this we are led to the question, Are qualities and in general are
terms altered necessarily by the relations into which they enter? In
other words are there any relations which are merely extrinsical? And by
this I do not mean to ask if there can be relations outside of and
independent of some whole, for that question I regard as answered in the
negative. I am asking whether, within the whole and subject to that,
terms can enter into further relations and not be affected by them. And
this question again is not, Can A, B, and C become the terms of fresh
relations, and still remain A, B, and C? For clearly a thing may be
altered partly and yet retain a certain character, and one and the same
character may persist unaltered though the terms that possess it are in
some other ways changed. And this is a point on which in the present
connection I shall have later to insist. Further our question does not
ask if terms are in any sense whatever qualified by their relations. For
every one, I presume, admits this in some sense, however hard that 
sense may be to fix. The question I am putting is whether relations can
qualify terms, A, B, and C, from the outside merely and without in any
way affecting and altering them internally. And this question I am
compelled to answer negatively.

 At first sight obviously such external relations seem possible and even
existing. They seem given to us, we saw, in change of spatial position
and again also in comparison. That you do not alter what you compare or
re-arrange in space seems to Common Sense quite obvious, and that on the
other side there are as obvious difficulties does not occur to Common
Sense at all. And I will begin by pointing out these difficulties that
stand in the way of our taking any relations as quite external. In a
mental act, such for instance as comparison, there is a relation in the
result, and this relation, we hear, is to make no difference to the
terms. But, if so, to what does it make a difference, and what is the
meaning and sense of qualifying the terms by it? If in short it is
external to the terms, how can it possibly be true of them? To put the
same thing otherwise, if we merely make the conclusion, is that
conclusion a true one? But if the terms from their inner nature do not
enter into the relation, then, so far as they are concerned, they seem
related for no reason at all, and, so far as they are concerned, the
relation seems arbitrarily made. But otherwise the terms themselves seem
affected by a merely external relation. To find the truth of things by
making relations about them seems indeed a very strange process, and
confronted with this problem Common Sense, I presume, would take refuge
in confused metaphors.

 And alterations of position in space once more give rise to difficulty.
Things are spatially related, first in one way, and then become related
in another way, and yet in no way themselves are altered; for the
relations, it is said, are but external. But I reply that, if so, I
cannot understand the leaving by the terms of one set of relations and
their adoption of another fresh set. The process and its result to the
terms, if they contribute nothing to it, seems really irrational
throughout. But, if they contribute anything, they must surely be
affected internally. And by the introduction of an outer compelling
agency the difficulty is not lessened. The connection of the terms with
this agency, and the difference it seems to make to them, where by the
hypothesis no difference can be made, seem a hopeless puzzle. In short
all we reach by it is the admission that the terms and their relation do
not by themselves include all the facts, and beyond that admission it is
useless. And this leads to a further doubt about the sufficiency of
external relations. Every sort of whole, and certainly every arrangement
in space, has a qualitative aspect. In various respects the whole has a
character--even its figure may here be included--which cannot be shown
to consist barely in mere terms and mere relations  between them. You
may say that this character belongs to them, but it still is more than
what they are by themselves. And if things in space by a new arrangement
produce a fresh aspect of quality, of what, I would ask, are you going
to predicate this quality? If the terms contribute anything whatever,
then the terms are affected by their arrangement. And to predicate the
new result barely of the external relations seems, to me at least,
impossible. This question--as to how far by external relations fresh
quality can be produced--is one which would carry us very far. I notice
it here as a further difficulty which besets the thesis of mere
extrinsical relation. And if in conclusion I am told that, of course,
there are upon any view difficulties, I am ready to assent. But the
question is whether this doctrine, offered as obvious, does not turn
mere difficulties into sheer self- contradictions, and whether once more
except as a relative point of view it is not as uncalled for as it is in
principle false.

 But the facts, it will be said, of spatial arrangement and of
comparison, to mention only these, force you, whether you like it or
not, to accept the view that at least some relations are outward only.
Now that for working purposes we treat, and do well to treat, some
relations as external merely I do not deny, and that, of course, is not
the question at issue here. That question is in short whether this
distinction of internal and external is absolute or is but relative, and
whether in the end and in principle a mere external relation is possible
and forced on us by the facts. And except as a subordinate view I submit
that the latter thesis is untenable. But the discussion of this matter
involves unfortunately a wide and difficult range of questions, and my
treatment of it must be brief and, I fear, otherwise imperfect.

 If we begin by considering the form of spatial arrangement, we seem to
find at first complete real externality. All the points there are terms
which may be taken indifferently in every kind of arrangement, and the
relations seem indifferent and merely outward. But this statement, as
soon as we reflect, must partly be modified. The terms cannot be taken
truly as being that which actually they are not. And the conclusion will
follow that the terms actually and in fact are related amongst
themselves in every possible manner. Every space, if so, would be a
whole in which the parts throughout are interrelated already in every
possible position, and reciprocally so determine one another. And this,
if puzzling, seems at least to follow inevitably from the premises. And
from this the conclusion cannot be drawn that the terms are inwardly
indifferent to their relations; for the whole internal character of the
terms, it seems, goes out, on the contrary, and consists in these. And
how can a being, if absolutely relative, be related merely externally?
And if you object that the  question is not about mere space, but rather
about things in space, this is in fact the point to which I am desiring
to direct your attention. Space by itself and its barely spatial
relations and terms are all alike mere abstractions, useful no doubt
but, if taken as independently real, inconsistent and false. And in a
less degree the same holds, I would now urge, also of bodies in space
and of their relations therein.

 We have seen that a mere space of mere external relations is an
inconsistent abstraction, and that, for space to exist at all, there
must be an arrangement which is more than spatial. Without qualitative
differences (pp. 17, 38) there are no distinctions in space at all,
there is neither position nor change of position, neither shape nor
bodies nor motion. And just as in this sense there are no mere spatial
relations without concrete terms, so in another sense also there is
nothing barely spatial. The terms and the relations between them are
themselves mere abstractions from a more concrete qualitative unity.
Neither the things in space nor their space, nor both together, can be
taken as substantial. They are abstractions depending on a more concrete
whole which they fail to express. And their apparent externality is
itself a sign that we have in them appearance and not ultimate reality.

 As to that apparent externality there can be no doubt. Why this thing
is here and not there, what the connection is in the end between spatial
position and the quality that holds it and is determined by it, remains
unknown. In mechanical explanation generally the connection of the
elements with the laws--even if the laws themselves were
rational--remains unknown and external, and the reason why the results
follow from the premises is admitted at a certain point to be left
outside. Where this point is to be placed, whether at the beginning or
merely when we arrive at secondary qualities, it is not necessary here
to settle. But any such irrationality and externality cannot be the last
truth about things. Somewhere there must be a reason why this and that
appear together. And this reason and reality must reside in the whole
from which terms and relations are abstractions, a whole in which their
internal connection must lie, and out of which from the background
appear those fresh results which never could have come from the
premises. The merely external is, in short, our ignorance set up as
reality, and to find it anywhere, except as an inconsistent aspect of
fact, we have seen is impossible.

 But it will be objected on the part of Common Sense that we must keep
to the facts. The billiard-balls on a table may be in any position you
please, and you and I and another may be changed respectively in place,
and yet none of these things by these changes is altered in itself. And
the apparent fact that by external change in space and time a thing may
be affected, is,  I presume, rejected on the ground that this does not
happen when you come down to the last elements of things. But an
important if obvious distinction seems here overlooked. For a thing may
remain unaltered if you identify it with a certain character, while
taken otherwise the thing is suffering change. If, that is, you take a
billiard-ball and a man in abstraction from place, they will of
course--so far as this is maintained --be indifferent to changes of
place. But on the other hand neither of them, if regarded so, is a thing
which actually exists; each is a more or less valid abstraction. But
take them as existing things and take them without mutilation, and you
must regard them as determined by their places and qualified by the
whole material system into which they enter. And, if you demur to this,
I ask you once more of what you are going to predicate the alterations
and their results. The billiard-ball, to repeat, if taken apart from its
place and its position in the whole, is not an existence but a
character, and that character can remain unchanged, though the existing
thing is altered with its changed existence. Everything other than this
identical character may be called relatively external. It may, or it may
not, be in comparison unimportant, but absolutely external it cannot be.
And if you urge that in any case the relation of the thing's character
to its spatial existence is unintelligible, and that how the nature of
the thing which falls outside our abstraction contributes to the whole
system, and how that nature is different as it contributes differently,
is in the end unknown--I shall not gainsay you. But I prefer to be left
with ignorance and with inconsistencies and with insoluble difficulties,
difficulties essential to a lower and fragmentary point of view and
soluble only by the transcendence of that appearance in a fuller whole,
a transcendence which in detail seems for us impossible --I prefer, I
say, to be left thus rather than to embrace a worse alternative. I
cannot on any terms accept as absolute fact a mere abstraction and a
fixed standing inconsistency. And the case surely is made worse when one
is forced to admit that, starting from this principle, one sooner or
later cannot in the very least explain those results which follow in
fact.

 I will next consider the argument for merely external relations which
has been based on Comparison. Things may be the same, it is said, but
not related until you compare them, and their relations then fall quite
outside and do not qualify them. Two men with red hair for example, it
may be urged, are either not related at all by their sameness, or when
related by it are not altered, and the relation therefore is quite
external. Now if I suggest that possibly all the red-haired men in a
place might be ordered to be collected and destroyed, I shall be
answered, I presume, that their red hair does not affect them directly,
and though I think this answer unsatisfactory, I will pass on. But  with
regard to Comparison I will begin by asking a question. It is commonly
supposed that by Comparison we learn the truth about things; but now, if
the relation established by comparison falls outside of the terms, in
what sense, if at all, can it be said to qualify them? And of what, if
not of the terms, are the truths got by comparison true. And in the end,
I ask, is there any sense, and, if so, what sense, in truth that is only
outside and "about" things? Or, from the other side, if truth is truth
can it be made by us, and can what is only made by us possibly be true?
These are questions which, I venture to repeat, should be met by the
upholders of mere external relations.

 For myself I am convinced that no such relations exist. There is no
identity or likeness possible except in a whole, and every such whole
must qualify and be qualified by its terms. And, where the whole is
different, the terms that qualify it and contribute to it must so far be
different, and so far therefore by becoming elements in a fresh unity
the terms must be altered. They are altered so far only, but still they
are altered. You may take by abstraction a quality A, B, or C, and that
abstract quality may throughout remain unchanged. But the terms related
are more than this quality, and they will be altered. And if you reply
that at any rate the term and its quality are external the one to the
other, I reply, Yes, but not, as you say, external merely and
absolutely. For nothing in the world is external so except for our
ignorance.

 We have two things felt to be the same but not identified. We compare
them, and then they are related by a point of identity. And nothing, we
hear, is changed but mere extrinsical relations. But against this
meaningless thesis I must insist that in each case the terms are
qualified by their whole, and that in the second case there is a whole
which differs both logically and psychologically from the first whole;
and I urge that in contributing to this change the terms are so far
altered. They are altered though in respect of an abstract quality they
remain the same.

 Let us keep to our instance of two red-haired men, first seen with red
hair but not identified in this point, and then these two men related in
the judgment, "They are the same in being red-haired." In each case
there is a whole which is qualified by and qualifies the terms, but in
each case the whole is different. The men are taken first as contained
in and as qualifying a perceived whole, and their redness is given in
immediate unconditional unity with their other qualities and with the
rest of the undivided sensible totality. But, in the second case, this
sensible whole has been broken up, and the men themselves have been
analyzed. They have each been split up into a connection of
red-hairedness with other qualities, while the red-hairedness itself has
become a subject and a point of unity connecting the diversities of each
instance, diversities which are  predicated of it and connected with one
another under it. And the connection of the two men's diversities with
this general quality, and with one another through it, I must insist is
truth and is reality however imperfect and impure. But this logical
synthesis is a unity different from the sensible whole, and in passing
into this unity I cannot see how to deny that the terms have been
altered. And to reply that, if you abstract and keep to the abstract
point of red- hairedness, there is no change, is surely a complete
ignoratio elenchi.

 By being red-haired the two men are related really, and their relation
is not merely external. If it were so wholly it would not be true or
real at all, and, so far as it seems so, to that extent it is but the
appearance of something higher. The correlation of the other
circumstances of and characters in the two men with the quality of
red-hairedness cannot in other words possibly be bare chance. And if you
could have a perfect relational knowledge of the world, you could go
from the nature of red-hairedness to these other characters which
qualify it, and you could from the nature of red- hairedness reconstruct
all the red-haired men. In such perfect knowledge you could start
internally from any one character in the Universe, and you could from
that pass to the rest. You would go in each case more or less directly
or indirectly, and with unimportant characters the amount of
indirectness would be enormous, but no passage would be external. Such
knowledge is out of our reach, and it is perhaps out of the reach of any
mind that has to think relationally. But if in the Absolute knowledge is
perfected, as we conclude it is, then in a higher form the end of such
knowledge is actually realized, and with ignorance and chance the last
show of externality has vanished. And if this seems to you monstrous, I
ask you at least to examine for yourself, and to see whether a merely
external truth is not more monstrous.

 "But I am a red-haired man," I shall hear, "and I know what I am, and I
am not altered in fact when I am compared with another man, and
therefore the relation falls outside." But no finite individual, I
reply, can possibly know what he is, and the idea that all his reality
falls within his knowledge is even ridiculous. His ignorance on the
contrary of his own being, and of what that involves, may be called
enormous. And if by "what he is" he means certain qualities in
abstraction from the rest, then let him say so and admit that his
objection has become irrelevant. If the nature and being of a finite
individual were  complete in itself, then of course he might know
himself perfectly and not know his connection with aught else. But, as
he really is, to know perfectly his own nature would be, with that
nature, to pass in knowledge endlessly beyond himself. For example, a
red-haired man who knew himself utterly would and must, starting from
within, go on to know everyone else who has red hair, and he would not
know himself until he knew them. But, as things are, he does not know
how or why he himself has red hair, nor how or why a different man is
also the same in that point, and therefore, because he does not know the
ground, the how and why, of his relation to the other man, it remains
for him relatively external, contingent, and fortuitous. But there is
really no mere externality except in his ignorance.

 We have seen that, logically and really, all relations imply a whole to
which the terms contribute and by which the terms are qualified. And I
will now briefly point out that psychologically the same thing holds
good. When, in the first place, I merely experience things the same in
one point, or in other words merely experience the sameness of two
things, and when, in the second place, I have come to perceive the point
of sameness and the relation of the two things-- there is in each case
in my mind a psychical whole. But the whole in each case is different,
and the character of the whole must depend on the elements which it
contains, and must also affect them. And an element passing into a fresh
whole will be altered, though it of course may remain the same from one
abstract side. But I will not dwell on a point which seems fairly clear,
and which, except as an illustration, is perhaps not quite relevant.
Still it is well to note the fact that a merely external relation seems
psychologically meaningless.

 Nothing in the whole and in the end can be external, and everything
less than the Universe is an abstraction from the whole, an abstraction
more or less empty, and the more empty the less self-dependent.
Relations and qualities are abstractions, and depend for their being
always on a whole, a whole which they inadequately express, and which
remains always less or more in the background. It is from this point of
view that we should approach the question, How can new qualities be
developed and emerge? It is a question, I would repeat, which, with
regard to secondary qualities, has been made familiar to us. But the
problem as to the "limits of explanation" must for metaphysics arise
long before that point is reached. Into this matter I shall not enter,
but I desire to lay stress on the general principle. Where results
emerge in fact, which do not follow from our premises, there is nothing
here to surprise us. For behind the abstractions we have used is the
concrete qualitative whole on which they depend, and hence what has come
out in the result has but issued from the conditions which (purposely 
or otherwise) we have endeavoured to ignore and to exclude. And this
should prove to us that the premises with which we worked were not true
or real, but were a mutilated fragment of reality.

 (iv) I will deal now with a problem connected with the foregoing. I
have in this book, wherever it was convenient, spoken of identity as
being a relation. And I may be asked whether and how I am able to
justify this. For terms are related, it will be said, for instance when
I compare them, and, it seems, not before. And my past states when
recalled by identity are related to my present, but apparently otherwise
not so. And my state and another man's may be more or less identical,
but they seem not always to connect us. On the other hand of course we
meet with the old difficulty as to my merely making the relations which
I find, and any such position appears to be untenable. Hence on the one
side, it seems, we must, and on the other side, it seems, we cannot say
that all identity is a relation. The solution of the problem is however,
in a few words, this. Identity must be taken as having a development
through several stages. At a certain stage no identity is relational,
while at a higher stage all is so. And because in the Absolute the
highest stage is actually realized, therefore we may, where convenient,
treat identity as being already a relation, when actually for us it is
not one. This statement I will now proceed to explain briefly.

 We have seen that as a fact sameness exists at a stage below relations.
It exists as an aspect both of a diversity felt in my mind and again of
a diversity taken to exist beyond my feeling. Now this aspect is not the
mere adjective of independent things, and any such view I consider to be
refuted. The diversity itself depends on and exists only as the
adjective of a whole; and within this whole the point of sameness is a
unity and an universal realized in the differences which through it are
the same. But so far this unity is, we may say, immediate and not
relational. And the question is why and how we can call it a relation,
when it is not a relation actually for us. It would never do for us
simply and without any explanation to fall back on the "potential," for
that, if unexplained, is a mere attempt at compromise between "is" and
"is not." But if the "potential" is used for that which actually is, and
which under certain conditions is not manifest, the "potential" may
cease to be a phrase and may become the solution of the problem.

 All relations, we have seen, are the inadequate expression of an
underlying unity. The relational stage is an imperfect and incomplete
development of the immediate totality. But, on the other hand, it really
is a development. It is an advance and a necessary step towards that
perfection which is above  relations, supersedes and still includes
them. Hence in the Absolute, where all is complete, we are bound to hold
that every development reaches its end--whatever that end may be, and in
whatever sense we are to say the thing comes to it. The goal of every
progress therefore may be taken as already attained in Reality and as
now present and actual. I do not mean that without exception all
immediate sameness must pass through the relational consciousness. But
without exception no sameness reaches its truth and final reality except
in the Whole which is beyond relations and which carries out what they
attempt. And in the main the way of relations is the necessary mode of
progress from that which is incomplete to its perfection. All sameness
then not only may but must become relational, or at least must be
realized in the same end and on the same principle as would have
perfected it if it had passed through relational identity. And because
in the Absolute what must be is, I think that, wherever there is
identity, we may speak of a relation--so long of course as we are clear
about the sense in which we speak of it.

 And this is how and why, in thinking, I can find the relations that I
make. For what I develope is in the Absolute already complete. But this,
on the other hand, does not mean that my part in the affair is
irrelevant, that it makes no difference to truth and is external. To be
made and to be found is on the contrary essential to the development and
being of the thing, and truth in its processes and results belongs to
the essence of reality. Only, here as everywhere, we must distinguish
between what is internally necessary and what is contingent. It belongs
to the essence of sameness that it should go on to be thought and to be
thought in a certain way. But that it should be thought by you and not
by me, by a man with brown hair or with red, does not belong to its
essence. These features in a sense qualify it, for they are conjoined to
it, and no conjunction can in the end be a mere conjunction and be
barely external. But the connection here is so indirect and so little
individual, it involves so much of other conditions lying in the general
background, so much the introduction of which would by addition tend to
transform and swamp this particular truth and fact as such--that such
features are rightly called external and contingent. But contingency is
of course always a matter of degree.

 This leads to the question whether and how far Resemblance qualifies
the real. Resemblance is the perception or feeling of a more or less
unspecified partial identity; and, so far as the identity is concerned,
we have therefore already dealt with it. But taking resemblance not as
partial identity but as a mode in which identity may appear, how are we
to say that it belongs to reality? Certainly it belongs and must belong,
and about  that there is no question. The question is, in a word, about
the amount and degree of its necessity and contingency. Have I a right,
wherever I find partial sameness, to speak of resemblance, in the proper
sense, as I had a right under the same conditions to speak of a
relation? As a matter of fact not all identity appears under the form of
resemblance, and can I conclude, Somehow in the Absolute it all must,
and therefore does, possess this form, and may therefore everywhere be
spoken of as possessing it? The answer to this question is to be found,
I presume, in an enquiry into the conditions of resemblance. What is it
that is added to the experience of partial sameness in order to make it
into the experience of resemblance? Can this addition be looked on as a
development of sameness from within, and as a necessary step to its
completion, or does it on the other hand depend on conditions which are
relatively external? How direct, in other words, is the connection
between resemblance and identity, and, in order to get the former from
the latter, what amount of other conditions would you have to bring in,
and how far in the end could you say that the resemblance came from the
identity rather than from these other conditions? If you can conclude,
as for myself I certainly cannot, that resemblance (proper) is an
essential development of sameness, then if you will also affirm the
principle that in Reality what must be is actual already--you will have
a right for certain purposes to call the same "similar," even where no
similarity appears. But to do this otherwise, except of course by way of
a working fiction, will surely be indefensible.

 With this I must end these too imperfect remarks on relation and
quality. I will take up some other points with regard to Identity and
Resemblance in the following Note.
--------------------------------------------------------  NOTE C:
IDENTITY  IN the preceding Note we were led to consider a question about
Identity, and I will here go on to deal with some others. It would of
course be far better that such questions should arise and be answered
each in its proper place, but except in a systematic treatise that is
not possible. It may be that identity should be used only in a
restricted sense, but in any case such a restriction would involve and
have to be based on a comprehensive enquiry. And apart from a
restriction the whole question about identity would cover the entire
field of metaphysics. Wherever there is a unity of the manifold, there
is an identity in diversity, and a study of the principal forms of unity
in difference would not leave much outside it. And hence, because I
could not treat properly the different forms of identity, I did not
attempt even to set them out. Certainly I saw no advantage in
cataloguing every-day distinctions, such as those between two men of the
same sort, and two men in the same place or time, and again two periods
of a man's one life. It did not occur to me that such distinctions could
fail to be familiar or that any one could desire to be informed of them.
I presupposed as a matter of course a knowledge of them, and, if I
myself anywhere confused them, I have not found the place. And I cannot
attempt any thorough investigation of their nature or of many other
problems that must arise in any serious effort to deal with identity. I
will however add here some remarks which are offered to the reader for
whatever they may be worth to him.

 I. The first question I will ask is whether all identity is
qualitative. This is closely connected with the discussion of the
preceding Note, which I take here to have been read. Now the answer to
our question must depend on the sense in which we use "quality." Any one
can of course perceive that the sameness of a thing with itself at
different times differs from its possession with another thing of one
and the same character. And, as we have seen, if quality is restricted
to that which is the term of a relation, then at any stage before
distinction obviously you will have no quality. The unity of a felt
whole, for example, which is certainly an identity, will as certainly
not be qualitative, nor will there be qualitative sameness ever between
what is felt and then later perceived. But, as we saw, the whole
question is in part one of words, "quality" being a term which is
ambiguous. In its lowest meaning it applies to anything that in any
sense qualifies and makes anything to be somewhat. It therefore will 
cover everything except the Universe taken as such. And of course to ask
if in this sense relations generally, or again space or time or
quantity, are or are not qualities, would be absurd. The question begins
to have an interest however when we consider any attempt to set up some
form of finite existence, or existence itself, as real in distinction
from character, in its widest sense, or an attempt in other words to
discover a finite something which from some side of its being is not a
"somewhat." And since in any something the distinction of "that" from
"what" is not absolute but only relative, such a pursuit is in the end
illusory. All appearance in the end is but content and character which
qualifies the Absolute, and it is in the end the Absolute alone to which
the term quality cannot be applied. Here first we find a reality which
is beyond a mere "what"; but neither here nor anywhere can we find a
reality which is merely "that." To make reality these two aspects must
be united inseparably, and indeed their separation is appearance itself.
So that if the question "Is all identity qualitative" means "Is every
sameness that of qualities proper," we must answer it in the negative.
But in any other sense our answer to the question must be affirmative.
For we must repel the suggestion of a sameness which is not that of
content and which consists in an identity of mere existence.

 From this I pass to a kindred question, Is all identity ideal? It is so
always, we must reply, in this sense that it involves the
self-transcendence of that which is identical. Where there is no
diversity there is no identity at all, the identity in abstraction from
the diversity having lost its character. But, on the other hand, where
the diversity is not of itself the same, but is only taken so or made so
from the outside, once more identity has vanished. Sameness, in short,
cannot be external merely; but this means that the character and being
of the diverse is carried beyond and is beyond itself, and is the
character of what is so beyond--and this is ideality. Thus the unity of
any felt whole in this sense is ideal, and the same is true emphatically
of the identity in any spatial or temporal continuum. The parts there
exist only so far as they are relative, determined from the outside, and
themselves on the other hand passing each beyond itself and determining
the character of the whole. And within each part again the parts are in
the same way ideal. Nothing in fact can be more absurd than the common
attempt to find the unity and continuity of the discrete in something
outside the series. For if the discretes of themselves were not
continuous,  certainly nothing else could make them so. But if of
themselves they are continuous, their continuity is ideal, and the same
thing holds mutatis mutandis of every kind of identity.

 II. All identity then is qualitative in the sense that it all must
consist in content and character, There is no sameness of mere
existence, for mere existence is a vicious abstraction. And everywhere
identity is ideal and consists in the transcendence of its own being by
that which is identical. And in its main principle and in its essence
identity is everywhere one and the same, though it differs as it appears
in and between different kinds of diversities. And on account of these
diversities to deny the existence of a fundamental underlying principle
appears to me to be irrational. But I would repeat that in my opinion
the variety cannot be shown as internally developed from the principle,
and even to attempt to set it out otherwise systematically is more than
I can undertake. It may however perhaps assist the reader if I add some
remarks on temporal, and spatial, and again on numerical identity,
matters where there reigns, I venture to think, a good deal of
prejudice.

 There is a disposition on the ground of such facts as space and time to
deny the existence of any one fundamental principle of identity. And
this disposition is hard to combat since it usually fails to found
itself upon any distinct principle. A tacit alternative may be assumed
between "existence" and "quality," and on this may rest the assertion
that some sameness belongs to mere existence, and falls therefore under
a wholly alien principle. But because not all identity is between
qualities in one sense of that term, it does not follow that any
identity can fail to be qualitative in a broader sense, and thus the
whole alternative disappears. The question in short whether one can
really have distinction without difference, or difference without
diversity in character, does not seem to have been considered.

 Now we have just seen that space and time exemplify in their characters
the one principle of identity, since all their parts are
self-transcendent and are only themselves by making a whole. And I will
once more point out that, apart from distinctions which, I presume, we
must call qualitative, space and time do not exist. In mere space or
mere time there are no distinctions nor any possibility of finding them.
Without up and down, right and left, incoming and outgoing, space and
time disappear; and it seems to me that these distinctions must be
called qualitative. And surely again time and space are real only in
limited spaces and durations. But what is it which limits and so makes a
space or a time, except that it ends here and not somewhere else, and
what does that mean except that its quality goes to a certain point and
then ceases by becoming another quality? There is absolutely no meaning
in "one time" unless it is the time of one somewhat, and any time that
is the time of one somewhat is so far  present and is one time. And, if
so, space and time are not alien from quality; and we have seen that
their unity and identity is everywhere ideal.

 I may be told, doubtless, that this is irrelevant, and I cannot say
that it is not so, and I will pass rapidly to another point. I think it
likely that the alleged chasm between quality and space and time may
rest on the supposed absolute exclusivity of the two latter. If two
things are the same or different by belonging to the same or different
spaces or times, these samenesses and differences, it will be said, are
something quite apart and unique. They are not attributable to a "what,"
but merely to "existence." In meeting this objection I will permit
myself to repeat some of the substance of Chapter xix.

 Certainly the diversity of space, and again of time, has a character of
its own. Certainly this character, though as we have seen it is nothing
when bare, on the other hand is not merely the same with other
characters and cannot be resolved into them. All this is true, but it
hardly shows that the character of space or time is not a character, or
that this character is not an instance of the one principle of identity
in difference. And hence it is, I presume, the exclusiveness of space
and time on which stress is to be laid. Now utterly exclusive the parts
of space and time are admitted not to be, for, ex hyp., they admit other
characters and serve to differentiate them, and again one space or one
time is taken to be the real identity of the other characters which it
includes. Nor again can space and time be taken truly as barely external
to the other qualities which they further qualify. They may remain so
relatively and for our knowledge, just as in a qualitative whole the
connection of qualities may remain relatively external. But a merely
external qualification, we have seen, is but appearance and in the end
is not rational or real (See Notes A and B).

 The exclusiveness of a space or a time is to hold then, I presume, only
against other times and spaces, and it is only as viewed in this one way
that it is taken as absolute. Each part of space or time as against any
other part is a repellent unit, and this its unity, and internal
identity, is taken to lie merely in its "existence." But apparently here
it is forgotten that the exclusiveness depends on the whole. It is only
because it is in "this" series that the "this" is unique, and, if so,
the "this," as we have seen, is not merely exclusive but has a
self-transcendent character. So that, if there were really but one
series of space or of time, and if in this way uniqueness were absolute,
I cannot perceive how that could found an objection against identity.
For inside the series, even if unique, there is a unity and identity
which is ideal, and  outside the series, if unique, there would be no
exclusiveness in space or time, but simply in quality. And all this
again is but hypothetical, since in space or time it is not true that
there is really but one series, and any such idea is a superstition
which I venture to think is refuted in this work. There are many series
in time and space, and the unity of all these is not temporal and
spatial. And from this it follows that, so far as we know, there might
be counterparts, one or more, of anything existing in space or in time,
and that, considered spatially or temporally, there would be between
these different things absolutely no difference at all or any
possibility of distinction. They would differ of course, and their
respective series would differ, but that difference would not consist in
space or time but merely in quality. And with this I will end what I
have to say here on the chim‘ra of a difference in mere "existence."

 And obviously, as it seems to me, the objector to identity advances
nothing new, when he brings forward the continuity of a thing in space
or in time. The idea I presume is, as before, that in space or time we
have a form of identity in difference which is in no sense an identity
of character, but consists merely of "existence," and that a thing is
qualified by being placed externally in this form. But the mere external
qualification by the form, and the "existence" of a form or of anything
else which is not character, we have seen are alike indefensible; and,
when the principle is refuted, it would seem useless to insist further
on detail. Hence, leaving this, I will go on to consider a subsidiary
mistake.

 For the identity in time of an existing thing (as in this work I have
mentioned) you require both temporal continuity and again sameness in
the thing's proper character. And mutatis mutandis what is true here
about temporal continuity is true also about spatial, and not to
perceive this would be an error. Now whether a wholly unbroken
continuity in time or space is requisite for the singleness of a thing,
is a question I here pass by; but some unbroken duration obviously is
wanted if there is to be duration at all. And the maintenance of its
character by the thing seems to me also to be essential. The character
of course may change, but this change must fall outside of that which we
take to be the thing's essential quality. For otherwise ipso facto we
have a breach in continuity. And, though this matter may seem 
self-evident, I have noticed with regard to it what strikes me as at
least a want of clearness.

 What, let us ask, is a breach in the continuous existence of a thing?
It does not lie in mere "existence," for that is nothing at all; and it
cannot again be spatial or temporal merely, for a breach there is
impossible. A time, for instance, if really broken, would not be a
broken time, but would have become two series with no temporal relation,
and therefore with no breach. A breach therefore is but relative, and it
involves an unbroken whole in which it takes place. For a temporal
breach, that is, you must have first one continuous duration. Now this
duration cannot consist, we have seen, of bare time, but is one duration
because it is characterized throughout by one content--let us call it A.
Then within this you must have also another content--let us call it b;
only b is not to qualify the whole of A, but merely a part or rather
parts of it. The residue of A, qualified not by b but by some other
character which is negative of b, is that part of duration which in
respect of b can constitute a breach. And the point which I would
emphasize is this, that apart from qualification by one and the same
character b, and again partial qualification by another character
hostile to b, there is simply no sense or meaning in speaking of the
duration of b, rather than that of something else, or in speaking of a
temporal end to or of a breach in b's existence. The duration of a
thing, unless the thing's quality is throughout identical, is really
nonsense.

 I do not know how much of the above may to the reader seem irrelevant
and useless. I am doing my best to help him to meet objections to the
fundamental sameness of all identity. These objections, to repeat, seem
to me to rest on the superstition that, because there are diverse
identities, these cannot have one underlying character, and the
superstition again that there is a foreign existence outside character
and with a chasm between the two. Such crude familiar divisions of
common sense are surely in philosophy mere superstitions. And I would
gladly argue against something better if I knew where to find it.

 But, despite my fear of irrelevancy, I will add some words on
"numerical" identity and difference. I venture to think this in one way
a very difficult matter. I do not mean that it is difficult in
principle, and that its difficulty tends to drive one to the sameness
and difference of mere "existence," or to distinction without
difference, or to any other chim‘ra. If indeed we could assume blindly,
as is often assumed, that the character of numerical sameness is at
bottom temporal or spatial, there would be little to say beyond what has
been said already.

 Numerical distinction is not distinction without difference, for that
once more is senseless, but it may be called distinction  that abstracts
from and disregards any special difference. It may be called the
residual aspect of distinctness without regard for its "what" and "how."
Whether the underlying difference is temporal, spatial, or something
else, is wholly ignored so long as it distinguishes. And, wherever I can
so distinguish, I can as a matter of fact count, and am possessed of
units. Units proper doubtless do not exist apart from the experience of
quantity, and I do not mean to say that apart from quantity no
distinction is possible, or again that quantity could be developed
rationally from anything more simple than itself. And I have emphasized
the words "as a matter of fact" in order to leave these questions on one
side, since they can be neglected provisionally. Numerical sameness, in
the same way, is the persistence of any such bare distinction through
diverse contexts, no matter what these contexts are. And of course it
follows that, so long as and so far as sameness and difference are
merely numerical, they are not spatial or temporal, nor again in any
restricted sense are they qualitative.

 But then ensues a problem which to me, rightly or wrongly, seems an
extremely hard one. In fact my difficulty with regard to it has led me
to avoid talking about numerical sameness. I have preferred rather to
appear as one of those persons (I do not think that we can be many) who
are not aware of or who at least practically cannot apply this familiar
distinction. And my difficulty is briefly this. Without difference in
character there can be no distinction, and the opposite would seem to be
nonsense. But then what in the end is that difference of character which
is sufficient to constitute numerical distinction? I do not mean by
this, What in the end is the relation of difference to distinction?,
but, setting that general question here on one side, I ask, In order for
distinction to exist, what kind or kinds of diversity in character must
be presupposed? Or again we may put what is more or less the same
question thus, What and of what sort is the minimum of diversity
required for numerical difference and sameness, these being taken in the
widest sense? And to this question I cannot return a satisfactory
answer.

 It is easy of course to reply that all distinction is at bottom
temporal, or again that all is spatial, or again perhaps that all is
both. And I am very far from suggesting that such views are irrational
and indefensible. As long as they do not make a vicious abstraction of
space and time from quality, or attempt to set up space and time as
forms of "existence" and not of character, there is nothing irrational
in such views. But whether they are right or wrong, in either case to me
they are useless, while they remain assertions which take no account of
my difficulties. And the main difficulty to me is this. In feeling I
find as a fact wholes of diversity in unity, and about some of these
wholes I can discover nothing temporal or spatial. In this I may 
doubtless be wrong, but to me this is how the facts come. And I ask why
it is impossible that a form or forms of non-temporal and non-spatial
identity in difference should serve as the basis of, and should
underlie, some distinction. It may be replied that without at least
succession in time one would never get to have distinction at all. Yet
if in fact this is so--and I do not contest it--I still doubt the
conclusion. I am not sure that it follows, because without succession
comes no distinction, that all distinction, when you have got it, must
be in its character successive. The fact of non-temporal and non-
spatial diversity in unity seems at least to exist. The distinctions
which I can base on this diversity have, to me at least, in some cases
no discoverable character of time or space. And the question is whether
the temporal (or, if you will, the spatial) form, which we will take as
necessary for distinction in its origin, must essentially qualify it. Is
it not possible that, however first got, the form of distinction may
become at least in some cases able to exist through and be based on a
simpler and non-temporal scheme of diversity in unity? This strikes me
as a difficult issue, and I do not pretend here to decide it, and I
think it calls for a more careful enquiry than many persons seem
inclined to bestow on it. And this is all that I think it well to say on
numerical identity.

 But on the main question, to return to that, I do not end in doubt.
There are various forms of identity in diversity, not logically
derivable from one another, and yet all instances and developments of
one underlying principle. The idea that mere "existence" could be
anything, or could make anything the same or different, seems a sheer
superstition. All is not quality in the special sense of quality, but
all is quality in the sense of content and character. The search for a
"that" other than a "what" is the pursuit of a phantasm which recedes
the more the more you approach it. But even this phantasm is the
illusory show of a truth. For in the Absolute there is no "what"
divorced from and re-seeking its "that," but both these aspects are
inseparable.

 III. I think it right to add here some remarks on Resemblance, though
on this point I have little or nothing new to say. Resemblance or
Similarity or Likeness, in the strict sense of the term, I take to be
the perception of the more or less unspecified  identity (sameness) of
two distinct things. It differs from identity in its lowest form--the
identity, that is, where things are taken as the same without specific
awareness of the point of sameness and distinction of that from the
diversity--because it implies the distinct consciousness that the two
things are two and different. It differs again from identity in a more
explicit form, because it is of the essence of Resemblance that the
point or points of sameness should remain at least partly
undistinguished and unspecified. And further there is a special feeling
which belongs to and helps to constitute the experience of similarity, a
feeling which does not belong to the experience of sameness proper. On
the other hand resemblance is based always on partial sameness; and
without this partial sameness, which in its own undistinguishing way it
perceives, there is no experience of resemblance, and without this to
speak of resemblance is meaningless. And it is because of this partial
identity, which is the condition of our experiencing resemblance and
which resemblance asserts, that we are able within certain limits to use
"same" for "like," and to use "like" for "same." But the specific
feeling of resemblance is not itself the partial identity which it
involves, and partial identity need not imply likeness proper at all.
But without partial identity, both as its condition and as its
assertion, similarity is nothing.

 From a logical point of view, therefore, resemblance is secondary, but
this does not mean that its specific experience can be resolved into
identity or explained by it. And it does not mean that, when by analysis
you specify the point of sameness in a resemblance, the resemblance must
vanish. Things are not made so simply as this. So far as you have
analyzed, so far the resemblance (proper) is gone, and is succeeded so
far by a perception of identity--but only so far. By the side of this
new perception, and so far as that does not extend, the same experience
of resemblance may still remain. And from this to argue that resemblance
is not based on sameness is to my mind the strangest want of
understanding. And again it is indifferent whether the experience of
identity or that of resemblance is prior in time and psychologically. I
am myself clear that identity in its lowest sense comes first; but the
whole question is for our present purpose irrelevant. The question here
is whether resemblance is or is not from a logical point of view
secondary, whether it is not always based on identity, while identity
need not in any sense be based on it.

 I will now proceed to consider some objections that seem raised against
this view, and will then go on to ask, supposing we deny it, in what
position we are left. The first part of this task I shall treat very
briefly for two reasons. Some of the  objections I must regard as
disposed of, and others remain to me obscure. The metaphysical objection
against the possibility of any identity in quality may, I think, be left
to itself; and I will pass to two others which seem to rest on
misunderstanding. We are told, "You cannot say that two things, which
are like, are the same, unless in each you are prepared to produce and
to exhibit the point of sameness." I have answered this objection
already, and will merely here repeat the main point. I want to know
whether it is denied that, before analysis takes place, there can be any
diverse aspects of things, and whether it is asserted that analysis
always makes what it brings out, or whether again (for some reason not
given) one must so believe in the power of analysis as to hold that what
it cannot bring out naked is therefore nothing at all, or whether again,
for some unstated reason, one is to accept this not as a general
principle, but only where sameness is concerned. When I know what I have
to meet I will endeavour to meet it, but otherwise I am helpless. And
another objection, which I will now notice, remains also unexplained.
The perception of a series of degrees, it seems to be contended, is a
fact which proves that there may be resemblance without a basis of
identity. I have tried to meet this argument in various forms, so far as
I have been able to understand them, and I will add here that I have
pressed in vain for any explanation on the cardinal point. Can you, I
would repeat, have a series of degrees which are degrees of nothing, and
otherwise have you not admitted an underlying identity? And if I am
asked, Cannot there be degrees in resemblance? I answer that of course
there can be. But, if so, and in this case, the resemblance itself is
the point of identity of and in which there are degrees, and how that is
to show either that there is no identity at all, or again that no
identity underlies the resemblance, I cannot conjecture. I admit, or
rather I urge and insist, that the perception of a series is a point as
difficult as in psychology it is both important and too often neglected.
But on the other side I insist that by denying identity you preclude all
possibility of explaining this fact, and have begun by turning the fact
into inexplicable nonsense. And no one, I would add, can fairly be
expected to answer an objection the meaning of which is not stated.

  Passing from this point let us ask what is the alterative to identity.
If we deny sameness in character and assert mere resemblance, with what
are we left? We are left, it seems to me, in confusion, and end with
sheer nonsense. How mere resemblance without identity is to qualify the
terms that resemble, is a problem which is not faced, and yet unsolved
it threatens ruin. The use of this mere resemblance leads us in
psychology to entertain gross and useless fictions, and in logic it
entails immediate and irretrievable bankruptcy. If the same in character
does not mean the same, our inferences are destroyed and cut in sunder,
and in brief the world of our knowledge is dissolved.

 And how is this bankruptcy veiled? How is it that those who deny
sameness in character can in logic, and wherever they find it
convenient, speak of terms as "the same," and mention "their identity,"
and talk of "one note" and "one colour?" The expedient used is the idea
or the phrase of "exact likeness" or "precise similarity." When
resemblance is carried to such a point that perceptible difference
ceases, then, I understand, you have not really got sameness or
identity, but you can speak as if you had got it. And in this way the
collision with language and logic is avoided or rather hidden.

 What in principle is the objection to this use of "exact likeness"? The
objection is that resemblance, if and so far as you make it "exact" by
removing all internal difference, has so far ceased to be mere
resemblance, and has become identity. Resemblance, we saw, demands two
things that resemble, and it demands also that the exact point of
resemblance shall not be distinguished. This is essential to resemblance
as contradistinguished against identity, and this is why-- because you
do not know what the point of resemblance is and whether it may not be
complex--you cannot in logic use mere resemblance as sameness. You can
indeed, we also saw, while analyzing still retain your perception of
resemblance, but, so far as you analyze, you so far have got something
else, and, when you argue, it is not the resemblance which you use but
the point of resemblance, if at least your argument is logical. But a
point of resemblance is clearly an identity. And it is, we saw,  the
double sense of the word "likeness," which seems to authorize this use
of likeness for sameness. Likeness may mean my specific experience of
resemblance--and that of course itself is not identity--or it may mean
the real partial sameness in character of two things whether to me they
resemble or not. Thus "exact likeness" can be used for the identical
character which makes the point of likeness, and it need not mean the
mere likeness which can be opposed to identity. And where exact likeness
does not mean the identical character, bankruptcy at once is patent.

 We are warned, "You must not say that two notes are the same note, or
that two peas have the same colour, for that is to prove yourself
incompetent to draw an elementary distinction; or rather you may say
this with us, if with us you are clear that you do not mean it, but mean
with us mere resemblance." And when we ask, Are the notes and colours
then really different, we hear that "the likeness is exact." But with
this I myself am not able to be satisfied. I want to know whether within
the character of the sounds and within the character of the colours
there is asserted any difference or none. And here, as I understand it,
the ways divide. If you mean to deny identity, your one consistent
course is surely to reply, "Of course there is a difference. I know what
words mean, and when I said that it was not the same but only alike, I
meant to assert an internal diversity, though I do not know exactly what
that is. Plainly for me to have said in one breath, The character has no
difference and yet it is not the same character, would have been
suicidal." And this position, I admit, is so far self-consistent; but it
ends on all sides in intellectual ruin. But the other way, so far as I
understand it, is to admit and to assert that in exact likeness there is
really no difference, to admit and to assert that it involves a point of
resemblance in which internally no diversity is taken to exist, and
which we use logically on the understanding that divergence of character
is excluded--and then, on the other side, to insist that here we still
have no  sameness but only likeness. And with this, so far as I can see,
there is an end of argument. I can myself understand such an attitude
only as the result of an unconscious determination to deny a doctrine
from fear of its consequences.

 But if we are to look at consequences--and I am ready to look at
them--why should we be blind on one side? To avoid confusion between
what may be called individual sameness and mere identity of character,
we should of course all agree, is most desirable. But the idea that you
will avoid a mistake by making an error, that you will prevent a
confusion between different kinds of identity by altogether denying one
kind, seems to me to be irrational. The identity that you deny will in
practice come back always. It may return in a form genuine but
disguised, obscured and distorted by the deceptive title of exact
likeness. But on the other hand it may steal in as an illusive and
disastrous error. And we need not seek far to find an instructive
illustration of this. J. S. Mill may be called, I presume, the leader of
those who amongst us deny identity of quality, and J. S. Mill on the
other hand taught Association by Similarity. At least we must say this
until it has been proved here--as elsewhere with regard to the argument
from particulars--that we who criticise Mill know no more of his real
meaning than in fact Mill himself did. And Association by Similarity, as
taught by Mill and his school, entails (as I have proved in my
Principles of Logic) and really asserts the coarsest mythology of
individual Resurrection. And I do not think that the history of
philosophy can exhibit a grosser case of this very confusion against
which we who believe in identity are so specially warned. Yes, you may
try to drive out nature, and nature (as the saying goes) will always
come back, but it will not always come back as nature. And you may
strive to banish identity of character, and identity always will return,
and it will not always return in a tolerable form. The cardinal
importance of the subject must be my excuse for the great length of this
Note, and for my once more taking up a controversy which gives me no
pleasure, but which I feel I have no right to decline.
--------------------------------------------------------

EXPLANATORY NOTES  p. 15. The action of one part of the body on another
percipient part may of course be indirect. In this case what is
perceived is not the organ itself but the effect of the organ on another
thing. The eye seen by itself in a mirror is an illustration of this. 
p. 18. Compare here the Note to chapter xxi.  p. 22. For the "contrary"
see Note A, and for "external relations" see Note B.  Chapter iii. In
this chapter I have allowed myself to speak of "relations" where
relations do not actually exist. This and some other points are
explained in Note B. The reader may compare pp. 141-3.  p. 30. The Reals
to which I am alluding here are Herbart's.  p. 36. By a "solid" I of
course here merely mean a unit as opposed to a collection or aggregate. 
p. 48. On the connection between quality and duration, cf. Note C.  p.
51. "Ideas are not what they mean." For some further discussion on this
point see Mind, N.S. IV, p. 21 and pp. 225 foll.  p. 53. A difficulty
which might have been included in this chapter, is the problem of what
may be called the Relativity of Motion. Has motion any meaning whatever
except as the alteration of the spatial relation of bodies? Has it the
smallest meaning apart from a plurality of bodies? Can it be called, to
speak strictly, the state either (a) of one single body or (b) of a
number of bodies? On the other hand can motion be predicated of anything
apart from and other than the bodies, and, if not, can we avoid
predicating it of the bodies, and, if so, is it not their state, and so
in some sense a state of each?

 It would of course be easy to set this out antithetically in the form,
Motion (a) is and (b) is not a state of body. The reader who takes the
trouble to work it out will perhaps be profited.

 The conclusion which would follow is that neither bodies nor their
relations in space and time have, as such, reality. They are on each
side an appearance and an abstraction separated from the whole. But in
that whole, on the other hand, they cannot, as such, be connected
intelligibly, and that whole therefore points beyond itself to a higher
mode of being, in comparison with which it is but appearance.

 The idea of the motion of a single body may perhaps (I am ignorant) be
necessary in physics, and, if that is so, then in physics of course that
idea must be rational and right. But, except as a working fiction of
this kind, it strikes my mind as a typical instance of unnecessary
nonsense. It is to me nonsense, because I use "body" here to cover
anything which occupies and has position in space, and because a bare or
mere space (or time) which in itself has a diversity of distinct
positions, seems to me quite unmeaning. And I call this nonsense
unnecessary, because I have been unable to see either what is got by it,
or how or why in philosophy we are driven to use it. The fact, if it is
a fact, that this idea is necessary for the explanations of physics has,
I would repeat, here no bearing whatever. For such a necessity could not
show that the idea is really intelligible. And if, without it, the laws
of motion are in their essence irrational, that does not prove, I
imagine, that they become rational with it, or indeed can be made
intrinsically rational at all. This, I would add, is in principle my
reply to such arguments as are used by Lotze, Metaphysik, ** 164, 165,
and Liebmann, Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit, pp. 113 foll. The whole
idea, for instance, of a solitary sphere in space, to say nothing of its
rotation and centrifugal force, is, considered metaphysically, I should
say, a mere vicious abstraction and from the first totally inadmissible.
And if without it the facts are self-contradictory, with it they still
more deeply contradict themselves.

 But, however that may be, I must be excused the remark that on such
subjects it is perhaps not surprising that any man should come in the
end to any result whatever, yet that in philosophy any man should use
the idea of a single moving body, as if it were a thing self-evident and
free from difficulty--this really surprises me.  Note to Chapter vi. I
have left this chapter as it stood, though it would be very easy to
enlarge it; but I doubt if any end would be obtained by insistence on
detail. I will however in this Note call attention to one or two points.

 (i) If the cause is taken as complex, there is a problem first as to
the constitution of the cause itself. How are its elements united
internally, and are they united intelligibly? How is it limited
intelligibly so as to be distinct from the universe at large? And, next,
how does it become different in becoming the effect, and does it do so
intelligibly? And if it does not become different, is there any sense in
speaking of cause where there is no change? I will return to this point
lower down.

 (ii) With regard to Continuity (p. 61) the point is simple, and is of
course the old difficulty urged once more. If cause is taken as a
temporal existence and has a being in time, how can it have this unless
it has some duration as itself? But, if it has duration, then after a
period it must either pass into the effect for no reason, or else during
the period it was not yet the cause, or else the temporal existence of
the cause is split up into a series the elements of which, having no
duration, do not temporally exist, or else you must predicate of the one
cause a series of internal changes and call them its state--a course
which, we found all along, could not be rationally justified in the
sense of being made intelligible. It will of course be understood that
these difficulties are merely speculative, and do not necessarily affect
the question of how the cause is to be taken in practice.

 (iii) I have really nothing to add in principle to the remark on
Identity (p. 58) but I will append some detail. It seems to be
suggested, that the mere existence of a temporal thing at one moment can
be taken as the cause of its still continuing to exist at the next
moment, and that such a self-determined Identity is intelligible in
itself. To me on the contrary such an idea is inconsistent and in the
end quite meaningless, and I will try to state the reason briefly.
Identity in the first place (let me not weary of repeating this after
Hegel) apart from and not qualified by diversity is not identity at all.
So that without differences and qualification by differences this
supposed thing would not be even the same) continue or endure at all.
The idea that in time or in space there can be distinctions without any
differences is to my mind quite unmeaning, and the assertion that
anything can be successive in itself and yet merely the same, is to me
an absurdity. Again to seek to place either the identity or the
difference in mere "existence" is, so far as I can see, quite
futile--mere existence being once more a self- contradictory idea which
ends in nonsense. This is all I need say as to the continued identity of
a thing which does not change. But if it changes, then this thing
becomes other than it was, and you have to make, and you cannot make,
its alteration in the end intelligible. While, if you refuse to qualify
the thing by the differences of succession, you once more contradict
yourself by now removing the thing from out of temporal existence.

 In the same way we may briefly dispose of the idea that a process may
be intelligible up to a certain point, and may therefore be taken as the
cause of its own continuance in the same character. Certainly if per
impossibile you possibly could have a self-contained intelligible
process, that would be the cause of its own continuance, though why it
would be so is quite another matter. But then such a process is, so far
as I can see, in principle impossible, and at all events I would ask
where it is found or how it could exist. To adduce as an instance the
motion of a single body in a straight line is to offer that as
self-contained, and in itself intelligible, which I should have ventured
to produce as perhaps the ne plus ultra of external determination and
internal irrationality. And I must on this point refer to the remarks
made in the Note to p. 53.

 Temporal processes certainly, as they advance from this extreme of mere
motion in space and become more concrete, become also more
self-contained and more rational in an increasing degree. But to say of
any temporal process whatever that it is in the end self- intelligible
is, so far as I can perceive, a clear mistake. And if the succession
which up to a certain point it contains, is not intelligible, how could
that, if by some miracle it propagated itself, be used as a way of
making intelligible its own continuance.

 It may perhaps prove instructive if we carry this discussion somewhat
further. There is, we have seen, no such thing as a continuance without
change or as a self- contained and self-intelligible temporal process.
But, it may be said, anyhow the existence of something at a certain
moment, or up to a certain moment, is a rational ground for concluding
to its continued existence at the next moment. Now this I take to be
quite erroneous. I maintain on the contrary that no ground could either
be more irrational in itself or more wanting in support from our
ordinary practice. And first, by way of introduction, let me dispose of
any doubt based on the idea of Possibility. The nature of our world is
such that we see every day the existence of finite things terminated.
The possible termination of any finite temporal existence is therefore
suggested by the known character of things. It is an abstract general
possibility based on and motived by the known positive character of the
world, and it cannot therefore as a possibility be rejected as
meaningless. On the contrary, so far as it goes, it gives some ground
for the conclusion, "This existence will at this point be terminated."
And I will now dismiss the general question as to mere possibility. But
for the actual continuance of a thing, so far as I see, no rational
argument can be drawn from its mere presence or its mere continued
duration in existence. To say, Because a thing is now at one time it
therefore must be at another time, or Because it has been through one
duration it therefore must be through another duration, and to offer
this argument, not as merely for some other reason admissible, but as
expressing a principle--strikes my mind as surprising. It is to me much
as if a man asserted baldly, "Because it is here now, therefore it will
be there then," and declared that no further reason either was or ought
to be wanted. And that mere "existence" should be a reason for anything
seems difficult to conceive, even if we suppose (as we cannot) that mere
existence is itself anything but a false, self-contradictory, and in the
end meaningless abstraction.

 But the true reason why we judge that anything will continue (whenever
and wherever we so judge) is radically different. It is an inference
based not on "existence" but on ideal synthesis of content, and it
concludes to and from an identity not of "existence" but character. It
rests in a word upon the Principle of Ideal Identity. If a thing is
connected with my world now, and if I assume that my world otherwise
goes on, I must apart from other reasons conclude that the thing will be
there. For otherwise the synthesis of content would be both true and
false. And, if in my world are certain truths of succession, then
another mere context cannot make them false, and hence, apart from some
reason to the contrary, the succession A--B--C must infallibly repeat
itself, if there is given at any time either A or A--B. This is how
through ideal identity we rationally judge and conclude to continuance,
and to judge otherwise to my mind is wholly irrational. And I have
ventured to dwell on this point because of the light it seems to throw
on the consequences which may follow, when, rejecting the true principle
of identity, we consciously or unconsciously set up in its place the
chim‘ra of identity of mere existence.

 I will add that, so far as we take the whole state of the world at any
one moment as causally producing the whole state of the world at the
next moment, we do so rationally only so far as we rest the succession
on a connection of content, and because otherwise this connection would
not be a true one, as we have taken it to be. We can only however make
use of the above idea in the end on sufferance. For the state of the
world would not really be self-contained, nor could the connection
really in the end be intelligible. And again to take any temporal
process in the Absolute as the Absolute's own process would be a
fundamental error.

 I will append to this Note a warning about the Principle of Ideal
Identity. This principle does not of course guarantee the original truth
or intelligibility of a synthesis, and it is a very serious
misunderstanding to take it as used in this sense. It merely insists
that any truth, because not existence, is therefore true everywhere in
existence and through all changes of context. For Identity see further
Notes B and C.  Note to Chapters vii and viii. I have left these
chapters unaltered, but I will ask the reader to remember that I am not
urging that the ideas criticised are not perfectly valid and even
objectively necessary. I am condemning them so far as they taken as
ultimate answers to the question, What is Reality?  p. 65. I am not
saying that we may not have a sense and even a rudimentary perception of
passivity without having any perception of activity in the proper sense.
The question, raised on p. 97, as to the possible absence of an outside
not-self in activity, applies with its answer mutatis mutandis to
passivity also.  pp. 72-4. See Note to p. 48.  p. 79. As to what is and
is not individually necessary we are fortunately under the sway of
beneficent illusion. The one necessary individual means usually the
necessity for an individual more or less of the same kind. But there is
no need to enlarge on this point except in answer to some view which
would base a false theoretical conclusion on an attitude, natural and
necessary in practice, but involving some illusion.  p. 83. On Memory
compare the passages referred to in the Index. That Memory, in the
ordinary sense of the word, is a special development of Reproduction I
take to be beyond doubt, and that Reproduction, in its proper sense, is
Redintegration through ideal identity is to my mind certain. The nature
of the psychological difference between the memory of the past on one
side, and on the other side the imagination of the same or the inference
(proper) thereto, is a question, I venture to think, of no more than
average difficulty. It seems to me, in comparison with the problem of
Reproduction in general (including the perception of a series), to be
neither very hard nor very important. It is a matter however which I
cannot enter on here. I have discussed the subject of Memory in Mind,
N.S. Nos. 30 and 66.

 I would add here that to assume the infallibility of Memory as an
ultimate postulate, seems to me wholly superfluous, to say nothing of
its bringing us (as it does) into collision with indubitable facts.
There is of course a general presumption that memory is to be trusted.
But our warrant for this general presumption is in the end our criterion
of a harmonious system. Our world is ordered most harmoniously by taking
what is remembered as being in general remembered truly, whatever that
is to mean. And this secondary character of memory's validity is, I
submit, the only view which can be reconciled with our actual logical
practice.  pp. 96-100. The view as to the perception of activity laid
down in these pages has been criticised by Mr. Stout in his excellent
work on Psychology, Vol. i, pp. 173-7. With regard to Mr. Stout's own
account I shall not venture to comment on it here, partly because I have
not yet been able to give sufficient attention to it, and partly because
I do not take it to be offered as metaphysical doctrine. I shall confine
myself therefore to some remarks in defence of my own position.

 These pages, I must admit, were too short, and yet, if lengthened, I
feared they would be too long; and it might have been better to have
omitted them. But, after they have been censured, I cannot withdraw
them; and I have left them, apart from a few verbal alterations, as they
stood. The symbols that were perhaps misleading have, I hope, been
amended. But I would ask the reader to depend less on them than on what
follows in this Note.

 With regard to the alleged confusion in my mind "between the fact of
activity and the mere experience of being active on the one hand, and
the idea or perception of activity on the other" (p. 174), I think that
this confusion neither existed nor exists. I should have said on the
other hand that, from first to last throughout this controversy, it was
I that kept this distinction clearly in mind and strove in vain to get
it recognized. This, right or wrong, is at least the view which the
facts force me to take. The question, What is the content of activity as
it appears to the soul at first, in distinction from it as it is for an
outside observer, or for the soul later on? is exactly the question to
which I failed throughout to get an intelligible reply. And if I myself
in any place was blind to these distinctions--distinctions familiar even
to the cursory reader of Hegel--that place has not yet been shown to me.
But instead of going back on the past I will try at least to be explicit
here.

 (i) A man may take the view that there is an original experience of
activity the content of which is complex and holds that which, when
analyzed by reflection, becomes our developed idea of activity. Without
of course venturing to say that this view is certainly false, I submit
that we have no reason to believe it to be true.

 (ii) A man may hold that we have an original experience which is not in
itself complex nor has any internal diversity in its content. This
experience, he may further hold, goes with (a) some or (b) all of those
conditions, physical or psychical, which an outside observer would or
might call an active state, and which the soul itself later would or
might call so. And he may go on to maintain that this sensation or
feeling (or call it what you will) is the differential condition,
without the real or supposed presence of which no state, or no psychical
state, would be called active at all.

 Now this second doctrine is to my mind radically different from the
first. Its truth or falsehood to my mind is an affair not of principle
but of detail. Nay, to some extent and up to a certain point, I think it
very probably is true. Why should there not be a sensation going with
e.g. muscular contraction, or even possibly with what we may call the
explosion of a psychical disposition? Why should this sensation not
always colour our perception of activity (when we get it), so that
without this sensation the perception would be something different,
something that would fail, I will not say essentially in being what we
call activity, but fail so far that we might no longer recognize it as
being the same thing? This, so far as I see, may all be true to an
extent which I do not discuss; and the same thing may hold good mutatis
mutandis about passivity.

 But on this comes a distinction--the distinction which Mr. Stout says
that I have overlooked, and which I on the contrary claim to have
preached in vain--the distinction between the psychical fact itself and
what that becomes for reflection. A sensation or feeling or sense of
activity, as we have just described it, is not, looked at in another
way, an experience of activity at all. If you keep to it it tells you
nothing, just as pleasure and pain, I should add, tell you nothing. It
is a mere sensation shut up within which you could by no reflection get
the idea of activity. For that is complex, while within the sensation
there is given no diversity of aspects, such as could by reflection be
developed into terms and relations. And therefore this experience would
differ, I presume, from an original sense of time, which I may in
passing remark is neither asserted nor denied on page 206 of my book. It
would differ because such a sense of time has, I understand, from the
first in its content an internal diversity, while diversity is absent
from the experience of activity, as we now are considering it. In short
whether this experience is or is not later on a character essential to
our perception and our idea of activity, it, as it comes first, is not
in itself an experience of activity at all. It, as it comes first, is
only so for extraneous reasons and only so for an outside observer.

 This is all I think it well to say here on the head of confusion. But,
before proceeding to consider the charge of inconsistency brought
against me, I will venture to ask a question of the reader. Can any one
tell me where I can find an experimental enquiry into the particular
conditions under which in fact we feel ourselves to be active or
passive? I find, for instance, Mr. Stout stating here and there as
experienced facts what I for one am certainly not able to find in my
experience. And if anyone could direct me to an investigation of this
subject, I should be grateful. I am forced at present to remain in doubt
about much of the observed facts. I am led even to wonder whether we
have here a difference only in the observations or in the observers
also, a difference, that is, in the actual facts as they exist diversely
in various subjects.

 I will turn now to the special charge of inconsistency. For activity I
take the presence of an idea to be necessary, and I point out then that
in some cases there is not what would be commonly called an idea. But I
go on to distinguish between an idea which is explicit and one which is
not so. Now certainly, if by this I had meant that an idea was not
actually present but was present merely somehow potentially, I should
have merely covered a failure in thought by a phrase, and Mr. Stout's
censure would have been just. But my meaning was on the contrary that an
idea is always present actually, though an idea which many persons (in
my opinion wrongly) would not call an idea. Many persons would refuse to
speak of an idea unless they had something separated in its existence
from a sensation, and based on an image or something else, the existence
of which is distinguished from the existence of the sensation. And this
separated idea I called (perhaps foolishly) an explicit idea, and I
opposed it to the idea which is a mere qualification of sensation or
perception--a qualification inconsistent with that sensation as
existing, and yet possessed of no other psychical existence, such as
that of an image or (as some perhaps may add) of a mere word. And I
referred to a discussion with regard to the presence of an idea in
Desire, where the same distinction was made. This distinction I would
remark further is in my judgment essentially required for the theory of
reasoning, and indeed for a just view as to any aspect of the mind. And,
not being originated by me at all, much less was it invented specially
for the sake of saving any doctrine of mine about the nature of
activity.

 Let us take the instance, given by Mr. Stout, of a child or other young
animal desiring milk. The perception, visual and otherwise, of the
breast or teat suggests the sucking, but that sucking I take to qualify
the perception and not to be an image apart. The breast becomes by ideal
suggestion the breast sucked, while on the other hand by some failure of
adjustment the breast is not sucked in fact. The perceived breast is
therefore at once qualified doubly and inconsistently with itself, and
the self of the animal also is qualified doubly and inconsistently. That
self is both expanded by ideal success and contracted by actual failure
in respect of one point, i.e. the sucking. And so far as the expansion,
under the whole of the above conditions, becomes actual, we get the
sense of activity. And there actually is an idea present here, though
there is no image nor anything that could properly be called
forethought.

 Or take a dog who, coming to some grassy place, begins to run and feels
himself to be active. Where is here the idea? It might be said that
there is none, because there is no forethought nor any image. But this
in my opinion would be an error, an error fatal to any sound theory of
the mind. And I will briefly point out where the idea lies, without of
course attempting to analyze fully the dog's complex state. The ground
in front of the dog is a perception qualified on the one hand, not by
images, but by an enlargement of its content so as to become "ground run
over." It comes to the dog therefore at once as both "run over" and
"not." And the "run over" is ideal, though it is not an explicit idea or
a forethought or in any sense a separate image. Again the dog comes to
himself as qualified by an actual running, supplemented by an ideal
running over what is seen in front of him. In his soul is a triumphant
process of ideal expansion passing over unbrokenly into actual fruition,
the negative perception of the ground as "not run over" serving only as
the vanishing condition of a sense of activity with no cloud or check of
failure. This is what I meant by an idea which is not explicit, nor,
except that the name is perhaps a bad one, do I see anything in it
deserving censure. I should perhaps have done better to have used no
name at all. But the distinction itself, I must repeat, is throughout
every aspect of mind of vital importance.

 But that I failed to be clear is evident, both from Mr. Stout's
criticism and also from some interesting remarks by Professor Baldwin in
the Psychological Review, Vol. 1, No. 6. The relation of felt activity
to desire, and the possibility of their independence and of the priority
of one to the other, is to my mind a very difficult question, but I
should add that to my mind it is not a very important one. I hope that
both Mr. Stout and Professor Baldwin will see from the above that my
failure was to some extent one merely of expression, and that our
respective divergence is not as great as at first sight it might appear
to be. As to the absence of felt self-activity in certain states of mind
I may add that I am wholly and entirely at one with Professor Baldwin.

 The above remarks are offered mainly as a defence against the charge of
inconsistency, and not as a proof that the view I take of activity and
of passivity is in general true. I must hope, in spite of many
disappointments, to address myself at some time elsewhere to a further
discussion of the perception no less of passivity than of activity. [See
now Mind, Nos. 40, 41 and 46.]  p. 143. I have in this edition
re-written pp. 141-3, since their statement was in some points wanting
in clearness. The objection, indicated in the text, which would refute
the plurality of reals by an argument drawn from the fact of knowledge,
may be stated here briefly and in outline.

 The Many not only are independent but ex hyp. are also known to be so;
and these two characters of the Many seem incompatible. Knowledge must
somehow be a state of one or more of the Many, a state in which they are
known to be plural; for except in the Many where can we suppose that any
knowledge falls? Even if relations are taken to exist somehow outside of
the Many, the attempt to make knowledge fall merely in these relations
leads to insoluble difficulties. And here, since the Many are taken to
be the sole reality, such an attempt at escape is precluded. The
knowledge therefore must fall somehow within the reals.

 Now if the knowledge of each singly fell in each severally, each for
itself would be the world, and there could nowhere be any knowledge of
the many reals. But if, one or more, they know the others, such
knowledge must qualify them necessarily, and it must qualify them
reciprocally by the nature both of the known and of the knower. The
knowledge in each knower--even if we abstract from what is known--seems
an internal change supervening if not superinduced, and it is a change
which cannot well be explained, given complete self- containedness. It
involves certainly an alteration of the knower, and an alteration such
as we cannot account for by any internal cause, and which therefore is
an argument against, though it cannot disprove, mere self- existence.
And in the second place, when we consider knowledge from the side of the
known, this disproof seems complete. Knowledge apart from the known is a
one- sided and inconsistent abstraction, and the assertion of a
knowledge in which the known is not somehow and to some extent present
and concerned, seems no knowledge at all. But such presence implies
alteration and relativity in both knower and known. And it is in the end
idle to strive to divide the being of the known, and to set up there a
being-in-itself which remains outside and is independent of knowledge.
For the being-in-itself of the known, if it were not itself experienced
and known, would for the knower be nothing and could not possibly be
asserted. Any knowledge which (wrongly) seems to fall outside of and to
make no difference to the known, could in any case not be ultimate. It
must rest on and presuppose a known the essence of which consists in
being experienced, and which outside of knowledge is nothing. But, if
so, the nature of the known must depend on the knower, just as the
knower is qualified by the nature of the known. Each is relative and
neither is self-contained, and otherwise knowledge, presupposed as a
fact, is made impossible.

 Suppose, in other words, that each of the Many could possess an
existence merely for itself, that existence could not be known, and for
the others would be nothing. But when one real becomes something for
another, that makes a change in the being of each. For the relation, I
presume, is an alteration of something, and there is by the hypothesis
nothing else but the Many of which it could be the alteration. The
knower is evidently and plainly altered; and, as to the known, if it
remained unchanged, it would itself remain outside of the process, and
it would not be with it that the knower would be concerned. And its
existence asserted by the knower would be a self-contradiction.

 Such is in outline the objection to a plurality of reals which can be
based on the fact of knowledge. It would be idle to seek to anticipate
attempts at a reply, or to criticise efforts made to give existence and
ultimate reality to relations outside the reals. But I will venture to
express my conviction that any such attempt must end in the unmeaning.
And if any one seeks to turn against my own doctrine the argument which
I have stated above, let me at least remind him of one great difference.
For me every kind of process between the Many is a state of the Whole in
and through which the Many subsist. The process of the Many, and the
total being of the Many themselves, are mere aspects of the one Reality
which moves and knows itself within them, and apart from which all
things and their changes and every knower and every known is absolutely
nothing.  pp. 155-8. I will add a few words in explanation of the
position taken up in these pages, though I think the main point is
fairly clear even if the result is unsatisfactory. If there is more pain
than pleasure in the Universe, I at least could not call the Universe
perfect. If on the other hand there is a balance of pleasure, however
small, I find myself able to affirm perfection. I assume, on what I
think sufficient ground, that pleasure and pain may in a mixed total
state counterbalance one another, so that the whole state as a whole may
be painful or pleasurable. And I insist that mere quantity has nothing
whatever to do with perfection. The question therefore about pleasure
and pain, and how far they give a quality to the Whole, may be viewed as
a question about the overplus, whether of pain or pleasure. This I take
to be the principle and the limit, and the criterion by which we decide
against or for Optimism or Pessimism. And this is why we cannot endorse
the charming creed of Dr. Pangloss, "Les malheurs particuliers font le
bien g‚n‚ral, de sorte que plus il y a de malheurs particuliers et plus
tout est bien."

 It is therefore most important to understand (if possible) the ultimate
nature both of pleasure and pain, the conditions of both and also their
effects. For I would add in passing that to suppose that anything could
happen uncaused, or could have no effects at all, seems, at least to me,
most absurd. But unfortunately a perfect knowledge about pain and
pleasure, if attainable, is not yet attained. I am but very incompletely
acquainted with the literature of the subject, but still this result, I
fear, must be admitted as true. Mr. Marshall's interesting book on
Pleasure and Pain, and the admirable chapter in Mr. Stout's Psychology
both seem to me, the former especially, more or less to force their
conclusions. And if, leaving psychology, we betake ourselves to abstract
metaphysics, I do not see how we are able to draw any conclusions at all
about pleasure or pain. Still, in general, though in this matter we have
no proof, up to a certain point we possess, I think, a very strong
probability. The compatibility of a balance of pain with general peace
and rest of mind seems to me so improbable that I am inclined to give it
but very little weight. But, this being granted, the question is whether
it helps us to go forward. For it will be said, "Admit that the Universe
is such as not to be able to contradict itself in and for knowledge, yet
why, none the less, should it not be loaded with a balance of misery and
of practical unrest. Nay Hell itself, when once you have explained Hell,
is for the intellect perfect, and itself is the intellect's Heaven." But
deferring for a moment the question about explanation, I make this
reply. We can directly use the intellect pure, I believe, but indirectly
the intellect I am sure is not pure, nor does any mere intellect exist.
A merely intellectual harmony is an abstraction, and it is a legitimate
abstraction, but if the harmony were merely intellectual it would be
nothing at all. And, by an alteration in conditions which are not
directly intellectual, you may thus indirectly ruin the intellectual
world. Now this I take to be the case with our alleged possible surplus
of pain. That surplus must, I consider, indirectly produce, and appear
in the intellect as, a self-contradiction.

 We can hardly suppose that in the Whole this balance of pain and unrest
could go on quite unperceived, shut off from the intellect in some
by-world of mere feeling or sensation. And, if it were so, the intellect
itself would by this have been made imperfect. For, failing to be
all-inclusive, it would have become limited from the outside and so
defective, and so by consequence also internally discordant. The pain
therefore must be taken to enter into the world of perception and
thought; and, if so, we must assume it to show itself in some form of
dislike, aversion, longing or regret, or in short as a mode of
unsatisfied desire. But unsatisfied desire involves, and it must
involve, an idea which at once qualifies a sensation and is discordant
with it. The reader will find this explained above in the Note to pp.
96-100, as well as in Mind, No. 49. The apple, for instance, which you
want to eat and which you cannot reach, is a presentation together with
an ideal adjective logically contrary thereto; and if you could, by a
distinction in the subject of the inconsistent adjectives, remove this
logical contradiction, the desire so far also would be gone. Now in a
total Universe which owns a balance of pain and of unsatisfied desire, I
do not see that the contradiction inherent in this unsatisfied desire
could possibly be resolved. The possibility of resolution depends (as we
know) on rearrangement within the whole, and it presupposes that in the
end no element of idea contrary to presentation is left outstanding. And
if the Reality were not the complete identity of idea and existence, but
had, with an outstanding element of pain, a necessary overplus of
unsatisfied desire, and had so on the whole an element of outstanding
idea not at one with sensation--the possibility of resolving this
contradiction would seem in principle excluded. The collision could be
shifted at most from point to point within the whole, but for the whole
always it would remain. Hence, because a balance of pain seems to lead
to unsatisfied desire, and that to logical collision, we can argue
indirectly to a state at least free from pain, if not to a balance of
pleasure. And I believe this conclusion to be sound.

 Objections, I am well aware, will be raised from various sides, and I
cannot usefully attempt to anticipate them, but on one or two points I
will add a word of explanation. It will or may be objected that desire
does not essentially involve an idea. Now though I am quite convinced
that this objection is wrong, and though I am ready to discuss it in
detail, I cannot well do so here. I will however point out that, even if
conation without idea at a certain stage exists, yet in the Whole we can
hardly take that to continue unperceived. And, as soon as it is
perceived, I would submit that then it will imply both an idea and a
contradiction. And, without dwelling further on this point, I will pass
on to another. It has been objected that whatever can be explained is
harmonious intellectually, and that a miserable Universe might be
explained by science, and would therefore be intellectually perfect.
But, I reply at once, the intellect is very far from being satisfied by
a "scientific explanation," for that in the end is never consistent. In
the end it connects particulars unintelligibly with an unintelligible
law, and such an external connection is not a real harmony. A real
intellectual harmony involves, I must insist, the perfect identity
throughout of idea with existence. And if ideas of what should be, and
what is not, were in the majority (as in a miserable Universe they must
be), there could not then, I submit, be an intellectual harmony.

 My conclusion, I am fully aware, has not been demonstrated (p. 534).
The unhappiness of the world remains a possibility to be emphasized by
the over- doubtful or gloomy. This possibility, so far as I see, cannot
be removed except through a perfect understanding of, or, to say the
least, about, both pain and pleasure. If we had a complete knowledge
otherwise of the world in system, such that nothing possible fell
outside it, and if that complete system owned a balance of pleasure, the
case would be altered. But since even then, so far as I can comprehend,
this balance of pleasure remains a mere external fact, and is not and
cannot be internally understood to qualify the system, the system would
have to be in the completest sense all-inclusive and exhaustive. Any
unknown conditions, such as I have admitted, on p. 535, would have to be
impossible. But for myself I cannot believe that such knowledge is
within our grasp; and, so far as pleasure is concerned, I have to end
with a result the opposite of which I cannot call completely impossible.
 p. 206. In what I have said here about the sense of Time, I am not
implying that in my view it is there from the first. On the contrary I
think the opposite is more probable; but I saw no use in expressing an
opinion.  Chapter xviii. The main doctrines put forward in this Chapter
and in Chapter iv, have been criticised incidentally by Professor Watson
in the Philosophical Review for July and September 1895. In these
articles I have to my regret often found it impossible to decide where
Professor Watson is criticising myself, or some other writer, and where
again he is developing something which he takes to be more or less our
common property. And where he is plainly criticising myself, I cannot
always discover the point of the criticism. Hence what follows must be
offered as subject to some doubt.

 The main doctrine to which I am committed, and which Professor Watson
certainly condemns, is the regarding Time "as not an ultimate or true
determination of reality but a `mere appearance.'" Professor Watson,
with some other critics, has misunderstood the words "mere appearance."
The point he wishes to make, I presume, is this, that everything
determines Reality in its own place and degree, and therefore everything
has its truth. And I myself have also laid stress on this point. But,
agreeing so far, Professor Watson and myself seem to differ as follows.
Though he agrees that as a determination of Reality time is inadequate
and partial and has to be corrected by something more true, Professor
Watson objects to my calling it not an ultimate or true determination,
and he denies that it is self-contradictory and false. Now here I have
to join issue. I deny that time or anything else could possibly be
inadequate, if it were not self-contradictory. And I would ask, If this
or any other determination is a true and consistent one, how are we to
take on ourselves to correct it? This doctrine of a merely external
correction of what is not false, and this refusal to admit the internal
inconsistency of lower points of view, though we have to attribute it to
Professor Watson, is certainly not explained by him. I venture however
to think that some explanation is required, and in the absence of it I
must insist both that time is inconsistent, and that, if it were not so,
it would also not be inadequate, and again that no idea can be
inadequate if it is not more or less false. This is the main point on
which Professor Watson and myself seem to differ.

 In reply to detail it is hard for me to say anything where I so often
fail to apprehend. As I do not hold "a pure continuous quantity" to be
self-consistent, how, when time is regarded thus, am I affected? How is
it relevant to urge that time "can be thought," when the question is
whether it can be thought consistently, and surely not in the least
whether it can be thought at all? And if it is so easy to understand
that the idea of change is not really inconsistent, cannot Professor
Watson formulate it for us in a way which is true and ultimate, and then
explain what right he has to treat it as calling for correction? The
objection--to turn to another point--raised against the doctrine of
distinct time-series, I am unable to follow. Why and how does this
doctrine rest on the (obviously false) view of time's independent
reality? Why, because time is an aspect of the one reality, must all
series in time have a temporal unity? Why again must there be only one
causal order? Where again and why am I taken as holding that "pure time"
has direction? With regard to these criticisms I can only say that I
find them incomprehensible.

 Nor do I understand what in the end Professor Watson thinks about the
ultimate truth of succession and change. The view of Reality as one
self-consciousness realizing itself in many self-consciousnesses does
not, so far as Professor Watson has stated it, appear to my mind to
contain any answer whatever to this question. The many selves seem (we
know) to themselves to be a succession of events, past, present and
future. By a succession I do not of course mean a mere succession, but
still I mean a succession. Well, all this birth and death, arising and
perishing of individuals, is it ultimately true and real or is it not?
For myself, I reply that it is not so. I reply that these successive
individuals are an appearance, necessary to the Absolute, but still an
appearance, self-inconsistent, mixing truth with falsehood, and--if and
so far as you offer it by itself as the truth--then not the truth but a
mere appearance. And I have answered this question as best I could,
because it seemed to me a question that must be answered by any one who
undertakes seriously to deal with the Absolute and the Time-process. And
I do not say that Professor Watson has not answered this question at
all. But, if he has answered it, I am myself unable to discover what his
answer means.

 On the subject of time the reader may consult with advantage a paper by
Mr. Bosanquet in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. iii,
No. 2.  pp. 253-4. With regard to the window-frame the possible
objection which I had in my mind was the reply, "But a frame surely is
at least as real as a window-pane." That objection, so far as I know,
has not yet been made. I have however seen this urged, that, when
limited transparencies are gone, we are left with empty space. But I
cannot imagine why through my window should come nothing but white
light, and I see nothing but blank space. Why must a transparent window,
when I look through it, be a mere formless translucency?  p. 256. With
regard to Redintegration--without wishing to commit myself to any
decided view--I have assumed that to be fact which is generally taken to
be so, viz., that among the members of a series there is reproduction
only forwards, i.e. from a to b and not also from b to a. The first
member in the series cannot therefore be recalled by any later member
directly. This must be done indirectly and through the common character
and the unity of the series. This character, because associated with the
whole series inclusive of the end, can, given the end, recall the
beginning. But in what this character and unity consists is a most
difficult problem. It is a problem however which calls for treatment by
any one who tries to deal systematically with the principles of
psychology. It will be understood that in this Note I am speaking of
mere serial reproduction, but that on the other hand I am not assuming
that even reproduction forwards, from a to b, can be taken ultimately as
merely direct.  Chapter xxi. In Part III, Chapter iii, of Mr. Hobhouse's
work on the Theory of Knowledge, I find an argument against "subjective
idealism" which it may be well to consider briefly. The same argument
would appear also suited, if not directed, to prove the reality of
primary qualities taken as bare. And though this is very probably not
intended, and though I find the argument in any case difficult to
follow, I will criticise it, so far as I understand it, from both points
of view.

 The process seems to consist, as was natural, in an attempt at removal
by elimination of all the conditions of a relation A--B, until A--B is
left true and real by itself. And A--B in the present case is to be a
relation of naked primary qualities, or again a relation of something
apart from and independent of myself. After some assertions as to the
possibility of eliminating in turn all other psychical facts but my
perceptive consciousness--assertions which seem to me, as I understand
them, to be wholly untenable and quite contrary to fact--the naked
independence of A--B appears to be proved thus. Take a state of things
where one term of the connection is observed, and the other is not
observed. We have still here to infer the existence of the term
unobserved, but an existence, because unobserved, free (let us say
first) from all secondary qualities. But I should have thought myself
that the conclusion which follows is quite otherwise. I should have said
that what was proved from the premises was not that A--B exists naked,
but that A--B, if unconditioned, is false and unreal, and ought never to
have been asserted at all except as a useful working fiction. In other
words the observed absence of one of the terms from its place, i.e. the
field of observation, is not a proof that this term exists elsewhere,
but is rather here a negative instance to disprove the assumed universal
A--B, if that is taken unconditionally. Of course if you started by
supposing A--B to be unconditionally true, you would at the start have
assumed the conclusion to be proved.

 And, taken as directed against Solipsism, the argument once more is
bad, as I think any argument against Solipsism must be, unless it begins
by showing that the premises of Solipsism are in part erroneous. But any
attempt at refutation by way of elimination seems to me even to be
absurd. For in any observation to find in fact the absence of all
C*nesthesia and inner feeling of self is surely quite impossible. Nor
again would the Solipsist lightly admit that his self was co- extensive
merely with what at any one time is present to him. And if further the
Solipsist admits that he cannot explain the course of outward
experience, any more than he can explain the sequence of his inmost
feelings, and that he uses all such abstract universals as your A--B
simply as useful fictions, how can you, by such an argument as the
above, show that he contradicts himself? A failure to explain is
certainly not always an inconsistency, and to prove that a view is
unsatisfactory is not always to demonstrate that it is false. Mr.
Hobhouse's crucial instance to prove the reality of A--B apart from the
self could to the Solipsist at most show a sequence that he was unable
to explain. How in short in this way you are to drive him out of his
circle I do not see--unless of course he is obliging enough to
contradict himself in advance by allowing the possibility of A--B
existing apart, or being real or true independently and unconditionally.

 The Solipsist, while he merely maintains the essential necessity of his
self to the Universe and every part of it, cannot in my opinion be
refuted, and so far certainly he is right. For, except as a relative
point of view, there is no apartness or independence in the Universe. It
is not by crude attempts at elimination that you can deal with the
Solipsist, but rather (as in this chapter I have explained) by showing
that the connection which he maintains, though really essential, has not
the character which he assigns to it. You may hope to convince him that
he himself commits the same fault as is committed by the asserter of
naked primary qualities, or of things existing quite apart from myself
--the fault, that is, of setting up as an independent reality a mere
abstraction from experience. You refute the Solipsist, in short, by
showing how experience, as he has conceived it, has been wrongly divided
and one- sidedly narrowed.  p. 268. On the question whether and how far
psychical states are extended, see an article in Mind, N.S. No. 14.  p.
273. I would here request the reader's attention to the fact that, while
for me "soul" and "finite centre" are not the same (p. 529), I only
distinguish between them where it seems necessary.  p. 313. In the
fourth line from the bottom of this page I have altered "the same. Or"
into "the same, or". The full stop was, I presume, inserted by an error.
In any case I have removed it, since it may lead some reader, if not
careful, to take the words "we should call them the same" absolutely.
This in fact I find has been done, but the meaning was not really, I
think, obscure. I am in the first place not maintaining that no
continuous existence at all is wanted for the individual identity of a
soul or of anything else. On the contrary I have in several places
asserted the opposite. I am speaking here merely of an interval and a
breach in continuous existence. And I certainly am not saying that all
of us would as a fact assert individual identity despite this breach or
interval. I am pointing out that, whether we assert it or deny it, we
are standing in each case, so far as I can see, on no defensible
principle.

 I am far from maintaining that my answer to the question, "What is the
soul, especially during those intervals where there seems to be no
consciousness," is wholly satisfactory. But willing and indeed anxious
as I am to receive instruction on this matter from my critics, I cannot
say that I have been able as yet to gain the smallest fresh light on it.
 p. 333. Without entering here into detail, I will venture to make a
remark which I cannot think quite uncalled-for. You cannot by making use
of a formula, such as "psycho-physical parallelism"--or even a longer
formula--absolve yourself from facing the question as to the causal
succession of events in the body and the mind. When we say, for example,
that the physical prick of a pin causes pain, is this assertion in any
sense true or is it quite false? Is the pain not really to any extent,
directly or indirectly, the effect of the prick? And, if it is not, of
what else is it the effect, or can it again happen quite uncaused and
itself be effectless? Clear answers to these questions are, I should
say, more easily sought than found.  p. 348. On the question whether and
in what sense difference depends on a relation, see Note B, and for a
discussion of Resemblance, see Note C. The controversy, mentioned in the
footnote to p. 348, was continued in Mind, N.S. Nos. 7 and 8, and I
would venture to refer any reader interested in the matter to it.  p.
356. On the topic of Association holding only between universals the
reader should consult Hegel, Encyklop„die, ** 452-6.  pp. 363-4. The
argument in these pages, the reader will observe, depends on the truth
of certain doctrines. (a) A merely external relation has no meaning or
existence, for a relation must (at least to some extent) qualify its
terms. (b) Relations imply a unity in which they subsist, and apart from
which they have no meaning or existence. (c) Every kind of diversity,
both terms and relations alike, are adjectives of one reality, which
exists in them and without which they are nothing. These doctrines are
taken as having been already proved both in the body of this work and in
the Appendix.

 From this basis we can go on to argue as follows. Everything finite,
because somehow together in one whole with everything else, must,
because this whole is one above the level of bare feeling, co-exist with
the rest at the very least relationally. Hence everything must somehow,
at least to some extent, be qualified from the outside. And this
qualification, because only relational (to put it here in this way),
cannot fall wholly inside the thing. Hence the finite is internally
inconsistent with and contradicts itself. And whether the external
qualification is merely conjoined in some unintelligible way to its
inner nature, or is connected with that intrinsically--may for our
present purpose be ignored. For anyhow, however it comes about, the
finite as a fact will contradict itself.

 From the side of the Whole the same result is manifest. For that is
itself at once both any one finite and also what is beyond. And, because
no "together" can in the end be merely external, therefore the Whole
within the finite carries that outside itself.

 By an attempt to fall back upon mere feeling below relations nothing
would be gained. For with the loss of the relations, and with the
persistence of the unity, even the appearance of independence on the
part of the diversity is gone. And again feeling is self- transcendent,
and is perfected mainly by way of relations, and always in a Whole that
both is above them and involves them (p. 583).

 The way to refute the above would be, I presume, to show (a) that
merely external relations have in the end, and as ultimate facts, a
meaning and reality, and to show (b) that it is possible to think the
togetherness of the terms and the external relations--for somehow, I
suppose, they are together--without a self- contradiction, manifest
directly or through an infinite process of seeking relations between
relations and terms.  p. 366, footnote. I may remark here that I am
still persuaded that there is in the end no such thing as the mere
entertainment of an idea, and that I, for example, went wrong when in my
book on Logic I took this to exist. It seems to be, on the contrary, the
abstraction of an aspect which by itself does not exist. See Mind, N.S.,
No. 60.  p. 398, footnote. To the references given here add Mind, N.S.,
iv, pp. 20, 21 and pp. 225, 226.  Chapter xxiv. The doctrine of the
Criterion adopted by me has in various quarters been criticised, but, so
far, I venture to think, mainly without much understanding of its
nature. The objections raised, for example, by Mr. Hobhouse, Theory of
Knowledge, pp. 495-6, I cannot understand in any sense which would
render them applicable. I will however in this connection make some
statements which will be brief, if perhaps irrelevant.

 (i) I have never held that the criterion is to be used apart from,
instead of on, the data furnished by experience. (ii) I do not teach
that, where incompatible suggestions are possible, we must or may affirm
any one of them which we fail to perceive to be internally inconsistent.
I hold on the contrary that we must use and arrange all available
material (and that of course includes every available suggestion) so
that the reality qualified by it all will answer, so far as is possible,
to our criterion of a harmonious system. On this point I refer specially
to Chapters xvi, xxiv, and xxvii, the doctrines of which, I venture to
add, should not be taken as non-existent where my views are in question.
(iii) I do not think that where a further alternative is possible a
disjunction is complete. But I have always held, and do hold, J. S.
Mill's idea of the Unmeaning as a third possibility to be the merest
nonsense. (iv) I do not admit but deny the assumption that, if our
knowledge could be consistent, it could then be made from the outside to
contradict itself. (v) And I reject the idea that, so far as our
knowledge is absolute, we can rationally entertain the notion of its
being or becoming false. Any such idea, I have tried to show, is utterly
unmeaning. And on the other hand, so far as our knowledge is liable to
error, it is so precisely so far as it does not answer to the criterion.
(vi) Finally I would submit that the sense in which this or that writer
uses such principles as those of Identity and Contradiction, and the way
in which he developes them, cannot always safely be assumed a priori by
any critic.

 This is all I think it could be useful for me to say in this
connection, except that I would end this Note with an expression of
regret. The view adopted by Mr. Hobhouse as to the nature of the
criterion has, it seems to me (I dare say quite wrongly), so very much
that is common to myself, as well as also to others, that I am the more
sorry that I have not the advantage of his criticism on something which
I could recognize as in any degree my own.  p. 407, footnote. On the
subject of Hedonism I would add references to the International Journal
of Ethics, Vol. iv, pp. 384-6 and Vol. v, pp. 383-4.  pp. 458-9. We
cannot, if we abstract the aspects of pleasure and pain and confine
ourselves to these abstractions, discover directly within them an
internal discrepancy, any more than we could do this in every abstracted
sensible quality. But since these aspects are as a fact together with,
first, their sensible qualities and, next, the rest of the world, and
since no relation or connection of any kind can be in the end merely
external, it follows that in the end the nature of pleasure or pain must
somehow go beyond itself.

 If we take pleasure and pain, or one of them, to be not aspects of
sensation but themselves special sensations, that will of course make no
real difference to the argument. For in any case such sensations would
be mere aspects and adjectives of their whole psychical states. I would
add that, even in psychology, the above distinction seems, to me at
least, to possess very little importance. The attempt again to draw a
sharp distinction between discomfort and pain would (even if it could be
successful) make no difference to us here.  p. 463, footnote. The
account of Will, given in Mind, No. 49, has been criticised by Mr. Shand
in an interesting article on Attention and Will, Mind, N.S. No. 16. I at
once recognized that my statement in the above account was defective,
but in principle I have not found anything to correct. I still hold Will
always to be the self-realization of an idea, but it is necessary to
provide that this idea shall not in a certain sense conflict with that
which in a higher sense is identified with the self. By "higher" I do
not mean "more moral," and I am prepared to explain what I do mean by
the above. I would on this point refer to an article by Mr. Stout (in
Mind, N.S. No. 19) with which I find myself largely though not wholly in
agreement. I must however hope at some future time to deal with the
matter, and will here state my main result. "It is will where an idea
realizes itself, provided that the idea is not formally contrary to a
present resolve of the subject"-- so much seems certain. But there is
uncertainty about the further proviso, "Provided also that the idea is
not too contrary materially to the substance of the self." Probably, the
meaning of "will" being really unfixed, there is no way of fixing it at
a certain point except arbitrarily.

 Since the above was written an enquiry into the nature of volition,
with a discussion of many questions concerning conation. activity,
agency, and attention, has appeared in Mind. See Nos. 40, 41, 43, 44,
46, 49, and parts of 51.  p. 513. With regard to the "familiar Greek
dilemma," the attentive reader will not have failed to observe that,
when I later on, p. 544, maintain that no possible truth is quite true,
I have explained that this want of truth is not the same thing as
intellectual falsehood or fallibility. The "sceptical" critic therefore
who still desires to show that I myself have fallen into this dilemma,
will, I think, do well still to ignore pp. 544- 7.

 A probability, I may here go on to remark, of many millions to one
against the truth of some statement may be a very good and sufficient
reason for our putting that, for some purpose or purposes, on one side
and so treating it as nothing. But no such probability does or can
justify us in asserting the statement not to be true. That is not
scepticism at all, but on the contrary it is mere dogmatism. Further I
would here repeat that any probability in favour of general scepticism
which rests on psychological grounds, must itself be based on an
assumption of knowledge with regard to those grounds. Hence if you make
your sceptical conclusion universal here, you destroy your own premises.
And, on the other side, if you stop short of an universal conclusion,
perhaps the particular doctrine which you wish to doubt is more certain
by far than even your general psychological premises. I have (p. 137)
remarked on this variety of would-be scepticism, and I find that a
critic in the Psychological Review, Vol. i., No. 3, Mr. A. Hodder, has
actually treated these remarks as an attempted refutation on my part of
scepticism in general. It probably did not occur to him that, in thus
triumphantly proving my incompetence, he was really giving the measure
of his own insight into the subject. With reference to another
"sceptical" criticism by another writer I may perhaps do well to
emphasize the fact that for me that which has no meaning is most
certainly not possible. I had, I even thought, succeeded in laying this
down clearly. See for instance p. 503.  p. 520. The reader will recall
here that, so far as diversity does not imply actual relations, it
involves presence as a mere aspect in a felt totality. See pp. 141-3 and
Note B.  pp. 527-8. With regard to this question of some element of
Reality falling outside of finite centres I find but little to add. The
one total experience, which is the Absolute, has, as such, a character
which, in its specific aspect of qualitative totality, must be taken not
to fall within any finite centre. But the elements, which in their unity
make and are this specific "quality," need not, so far as I see, to the
least extent fall outside of finite centres. Such processes of and
relations between centres, as more or less are not experienced by those
particular centres, may, for all we know, quite well be experienced by
others. And it seems more probable that in some form or other they are
so experienced. This seems more probable because it appears to involve
less departure from given fact, and because we can find no good reason
for the additional departure in the shape of any theoretical advantage
in the end resulting from it. We may conclude then that there is no
element in the process of making all harmonious within the Absolute
which does not fall within finite centres. What falls outside, and is
over and above, is not the result but the last specific character which
makes the result what it is. But even if some of the matter (so to
speak) of the Absolute fell outside of finite centres, I cannot see
myself how this could affect our main result, or indeed what further
conclusion could follow from such a hypothesis. The reader must remember
that in the Absolute we in any case allow perfections beyond anything we
can know, so long as these fall within the Absolute's general character.
And on the above hypothesis, so far as I see, we could not go one single
step further. It could not justify us in predicating of the Absolute any
lower excellence, e.g. self- consciousness or will or personality, as
such, and still less some feature alien to the Absolute's general
nature. But to predicate of the Absolute, on the other hand, the highest
possible perfection, is what in any case and already we are bound to do.
--------------------------------------------------------

INDEX  THE reader who finds this collection of references useless, as
well as faulty and incomplete, is requested to treat it as non-existent.
 Absolute, and pleasure and pain. See Pleasure. --contents of, 144 foll.
--contains and harmonizes all aspects, 172, 182, 195,

  204, 411-12, 487, chap. xxvi. --how far good, 488-9. --knowledge of,
159 foll. --knowledge, 536 foll. --main aspects of, irreducible, 457
foll. Cf.

  Inexplicable. --not itself without me, 260. --not same as God, 448.
--not sum of things, 486 foll. --perfection of. See Perfection. --unity
of, 140 foll., 468 foll., 519 foll., 556. Abstract, Abstraction, 17-18,
67, 145, 249-50, 259, 267,

  283, 304, 334, 336-9, 370, 420, 445, 459, 493, 495-

  6, 527, 539 foll. Activity (Cf. Energy, Force, Resistance, Will),
chap.

  vii., 483. --perception of, 96, 116, 604. Adjective, must make a
difference, 327, 329. Appearance, all must appear in time, 234, 259,
319, 382,

  400. --and illusion, 401, 448, 487, 549, 557. --degrees of reality in,
chap. xxiv., 457, 487. --the highest is incapable of, 376, 382, 499.
--must qualify Reality, 131-2, 204, 456, 486 foll., 551. --nature of,
163, 187, 455 foll., 485-6, 555, 572, 586. --not explained away, 204.
Approval, 403-4, 407-8, 431. Association, 209, 239, 347, 355-6, 479
foll. Atoms, 72, 364, 375. Axioms, 151-2, 484.  Beauty, 437, 463 foll.,
473, 490. Being, mere, 130, 225, 243. Body, an ideal construction, 306.
--and secondary qualities, 268, 341. --and soul, chap. xxiii. --a what,
297. --mere, 337-9. --my, continuity of, 311. --my, perception of,
263-4. --not potentially the soul, 314.  Causation, cannot be
demonstrated, 325-6. --law of, 54, 293, 328. Cause, and Effect, identity
of, 58, 600. --and Effect, reciprocity of, 329, 362. --implies
abstraction from background, 57, 67, 218, 326,

  336, 338, 386. --is inconsistent, chap. vi., 218-20, 599. Chance, 234,
237-40, 294, 387 foll. --self, 101. Change, is ideal, 166. --is
inconsistent, chap. v., 207, 219. --perception of. See Succession.
--permanent in, 45, 207. Comparison, 113, 578. Compatible, 390-1.
Condition, 66, 313-4, 325, 336. Conditions, complete, not Reality, 383,
388, 397. --sum of, 66, 313, 336. Conditional. See Potential. --and
conditioned, 540-1. Consciousness. See Feeling, Self-consciousness.
Content, 162 foll., 225, 230 foll., 233 foll., 305

  foll., 456, 460. Cf. Event, Existence, Ideal,

  Finite. Contingent, 236-7 Continuity, chap. iv., 319. --and existence,
309 foll., 589. --and velocity, 42. Contradiction, how got rid of, 192,
562 foll. Contrary, 22, 562 foll. Criterion (cf. Standard), 2, 136,
188-91, 363 foll.,

  374, 411-12, 537 foll., 551, 618. --theoretical and practical, 147. 
Degrees of a fact, what, 376. --of goodness, chap. xxv. --of truth and
reality, chap. xxiv., 411, 487, 557. Desert, 432-3. Desirable, 408-9.
Desire, 402-10, 478, 606, 610. Development. See Potential. --and
Validity, 137. Difference. See Identity, Quality, Relation. Direction of
time, 214 foll. Discord, and pain. 157 foll., 610. --theoretical and
practical, 155 foll. --unfelt, 365, 375. Discretion. See Continuity.
Dispositions, psychical, 312, 356, 383. Distinction and Thought, 477
foll., 569. Doubt, ultimate, 2, 136, 514, 559, 620, and cf.

  Criterion.  End, The, every aspect may be taken as, 405, 456. Ends,
413. --collision of, 430. --in Nature, 200, 496-7. --failure of, 200-1.
Energy, conservation of, 331. --potential, 63, 332. Error, chapters
xvi., xxiv., xxvi., xxvii. And see

  Truth, Appearance. --sheer, 365, 391 Event, 317. --everything
psychical is, 51-2, 259, 298, 301-2, 317

  foll., 398. --how estimated, 370, 376. Evil. See Good. Evolution. See
Potential, Progress, Development. Existence, 317, 73, 97, 162 foll.,
259, 298-9, 301, 309,

  315, 400, 499, 588, 592. --degree of truth in, 370, 377 foll.
Experience and reality, 144. --appeal to, 113, 206. --as only my states,
chap. xxi. --direct and indirect, ibid. --in a sense all is my, 260, 300
foll., 523 foll., 615. --main aspects of, 458 foll. --outer and inner,
346. Explanation, 184-5, 205, 226, 295, 336, 469 foll., 475,

  482, 491, 496, 563, 611. Extension. See Space. --of Nature, 267. 
Fact, what, 317. See Existence, Event. Facts, 357, 448 foll., 564.
Faith, 443. Fallibility, universal, 512, 620. Feeling, 80, 92-3, 104-7,
160, 223 foll., 231-2, 244,

  249-52, 300-2, 346, 459, 464, 473, 479, 520 foll,

  569, 582. --as criterion, 373-4. Fictions, working, 18, 61, 126, 267,
284-5, 332, 490

  foll., 496. And see Abstraction. Finite centres of Experience, 226,
342-3, 346, 464, 469,

  537. Cf. Souls. --ideality of the, 106, 166 228, 236 foll., 246, 251,

  291-2, 350, 364, 417-18, 448, 456, 460, 486, 525. Force, 282, 284-5,
483. Cf. Activity, Energy,

  Resistance. Form. See Relational. Formal Act, 435-6.  Good, and
desire, 402 foll., 409. --and evil, chapters xvii., xxv. --degrees of,
401, 412, 440-2. --inconsistent, 409 foll. Goodness, and truth, 402-3,
467. --moral, 413 foll.  Habit, what, 355. Hedonism, 374, 405-7, 409,
425, 434. Humanity, 529.  Idea and its own existence, 169, 301, 398.
--is what it means, 51, 398. --not explicit, 98, 606. Ideal, 64, 72, 98,
106, 163, 166, 234, 236-40, 300-3,

  319-23, 350 foll., 364, 472, 479, 490, 586. Ideality. See Finite and
Relativity. Identity, 48-52, 72-4, 124, 281, 310, 313, 319-23, 344-

  5, 347 foll., 353 foll., 582 foll. --and similarity, 348, 583, 592.
--of soul and body, 323, 358. --personal 81-6, 112-13, 256, 313, 319,
616. --principle of, 73, 208, 255, 328, 347 foll., 571, 602. Ignorance.
See Privation, Negation. Illusion. See Appearance. Imaginary and real,
212 foll., 286 foll., 366 foll. Impossible, 391, 503 foll., 537 foll.
Inconceivable. See Impossible. Individual, only one, 246.
Individualistic attitude, 309. Individuality, 149, 177, 225, 243 foll.,
371, 497-9,

  542. Inexplicable, 336, 468-70, 482, 511, 517, 527, 556, 559.
Infinity, of Nature, 176. --of presented subject, 290 foll. Inherence,
19 foll. Inorganic, 270 foll. Intelligible, all is, 171, 174, 176, 231,
482. Introspection, 93, 110, 232.  Judgment, 163 foll., 231-2, 361 foll.
 Knowledge, ambiguous, 159. --absolute and conditional, 535 foll.
--perfect, 517.  Laws, 124, 208, 339, 351, 354-5, 370, 499.  Matter,
285, 288 foll., 338, 493. Cf. Nature. Memory, 83, 113, 213, 256-7, 356,
603, 614. Metaphysics, Introduction, 453-5, 489, 496-8. Mine. See This.
Monads, 30, 86-7, 117, 141, 316, 607, 617. Morality, 150-4, 201-2, 413
foll., 431 foll. --origin of, 431. Motion, is inconsistent. Chap. v.,
349, 354, 598.  Nature, chap. xxii, 490 foll., 530. --an abstraction,
267, 337-8, 490-3, 530. --and laws, 354. --and mechanism, 353, 496
foll., 577. --as force, 282. --ends in, 200, 496-7. --extension of, 267.
--identity of, 281. --infinite, 290 foll. --is it beautiful, etc.? 490
foll. --mere, not original, 261. --order of, 292, 344, 470. --philosophy
of, 496 foll. --uniformity of, 292-3, 344, 470.  --unity of, 286 foll.,
367 foll. --unperceived, 273 foll., 311, 384. Necessity. See Chance,
Possibility, Impossibility. Negation and privation, 97-100, 240. See
Privation. --implies unity, 228. --in a definition, 424, 427. --mere,
138, 243. Now. See Time, Succession, or Appearance, Event, This. 
Occasion, 65, 326. Ontological Proof, 149-50, 394-400. Organism, 270.
Cf. Body. Origin, irrelevant, 35, 62, 206-7, 221, 254. Other to thought,
175 foll.  Pain and Pleasure, and the Absolute, 157, 198-200, 244,

  458 foll., 533-5, 609. --and desire, 405, 610. --and self, 407.
Passivity. See Activity. Perfection, 147, 243, 363, 402, 409, 421, 468,
487, 508,

  542. --and quantity, 200, 245. --only one thing has, 246.
--theoretical and practical, 147 foll., 373 foll. --two aspects of, 363
foll., 411, 414 foll. Personality, 173, 531-3. Cf. Self. Pleasure. See
Pain. Pleasant and good, 403 foll. Possible and Possibility, 142, 145,
157, 196, 312, 325,

  341, 387 foll., 503 foll., 512 foll. --degrees of, 394, 503 foll., 539
foll. Postulate, 150, 484. Potential, 382 foll., 53, 63, 277, 311 foll.,
332, 582-

  3. Prediction, 20 Cf. Judgment. Present. See Time, Succession.
Principles, cannot, as such, exist, 377 foll. --working, 302, 306.
Privation, 191, 240, 390-1, 515 foll., 538. And cf.

  Negation. Probability, 504 foll., 620. Progress, 497, 499 foll., 508.
Psychology, 238, 259, 317 foll., 339, 354-5. --and Metaphysics, 76, 113.
 Quality and extension, 289, chap. iii., 577, 587. --and relation, 17,
142, 344. Cf. Relation. Qualities, primary and secondary, chap. i., 262,
326,

  331, 490-3, 581, 614. --sensible, same for all? 344.  Real. See
Imaginary. Reality and appearances, 486 foll. See Appearance. --and
being, 225, 243, 455-6. --and originality. See Origin. --and thought.
See Thought. -- = experience, 144-7, 455 foll. --is self-consistent, 12,
456. Cf. Criterion. --must appear, 131-2, 234, 382, 400. Relational
form, 33, 47, 170 foll., 180 foll., 193, 499,

  521-2, 583, 617. Relations are all intrinsical, 142, 228, 364, 392,
574. --and qualities, chap. iii., 142, 178 foll., 469, 476,

  521, 572 foll. --and thought, 477-481. --hold only between phenomena,
322, 445 foll. --imply a whole, 21-2, 123, 142, 180, 228, 445 foll.,

  488, 528, 573. Relativity, 107, 350, 353, 364, 420, 422. Cf. Finite.
Religion, 150, 438-454. --origin of, 438. Resistance, 116, 225, 228,
263, 269.  Self, all is state of. See Experience. --and other selves,
254 foll. --and pleasure, 407. --and series, 316 foll. --and soul, 524.
--meanings of, chap. ix. --mere or chance, 100-1, 233 foll. --my past
and future, 256 foll., 524. --new might be made, 85, 503. --reality of,
chap. x., 316, 558. --unity of, 368. Self-consciousness, 90, 107-12,
173-4, 203, 232, 248

  foll., 441, 447, 522. Self-sacrifice and self-assertion, 414 foll.
Self-Will, 229. Sense as criterion, 189-90, 225, chap. xxiv. Series,
229, 235, 316. Solidity, 288-90. Solipsism, chap. xxi., 145, 523 foll.,
615. Cf.

  Experience. Soul and souls, a what, 298 foll. --an ideal construction,
306, 315, 524. --and experience, 300, 304. --and finite centres, 226,
529, 616, 621. --and self, 524. --bare, 340. --connected with body,
chap. xxiii. --continuity of, 313-5, 616. --identity of contents of, 344
foll. --identity of several, 347 foll. --immortality of, 501 foll.
--interaction of, 343 foll. --origin of, 337. --separation of, 343 foll.
--suspension of, 338. Space, chap. iv., 576, 588. --and Nature, 267-9.
--empty, 17, 38, 288 foll. --origin of, 221. --self-contradictory,
chaps. iv., xviii. --unity of, 222, 286 foll. Spiritual, what, 498-9.
Spiritualism, 503, 506. Standard. See Criterion. --is double, 375, 414
foll., 440. Succession, perception of, 49-51, 98-9. --permanent in, 52.
--rule of, 505. Subject and object, 460.  This, 175, chap. xix., 249-50,
398. Thisness, 175, chap. xix. Things, chap. viii. --and properties, 19
foll. Thought and existence, 374, 378 foll., 554. --and ideality, 472.
--and judgment, 366 foll. --and reality, chap. xv., 276, 315, 544 foll.
--and will, 89, 469 foll. --dualistic, 168 foll. --more than its object,
169, 174. --nature of, 152-5, 357, 360 foll., 460 foll. --not primary or
self-evident, 477 foll., 569. Time, chaps. iv., xviii. --disregarded by
Science, 208. --present, 40-2, 208, 587. --unity of, chap. xviii. Truth,
chap. xv., 462, 544 foll. --and existence, 166. --and goodness, 402-3,
467. --conditional, 361 foll., 369, chap. xxvii. --degrees of, chap.
xxiv. --must not exclude its own existence, 122, 129.  Unique, 229,
251-2, 588. Unity, knowledge of, 159-60. --substantial, 140. --ultimate,
468 foll., 519 foll. Unknowable, 128. Unknown, how far possible, 504
foll., 512 foll., 556.  Vacuum. See Space. Validity, 362 foll., 376,
565.  Will, 115, 462 foll., 619. --and resolve, 463. --and thought, 89,
469 foll. --not primary, 477 foll. --supremacy of, 483 foll. World, our
not = universe, 200, 214-6. --our want of unity in, 213 foll., 368.
Worth, 373, 402, 497-8. Cf. Standard, Perfection, Good.  THE END