Appearance and Reality/Appendix/Explanatory Notes

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Appearance and Reality
by F. H. Bradley
Appendix: Explanatory Notes
580922Appearance and Reality — Appendix: Explanatory NotesF. H. Bradley

EXPLANATORY NOTES.


Page 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, e.g., 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 chimaera 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 are 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.

Note to 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 any one 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.[1] 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. i, 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 pre-suppose 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, pre-supposed 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 all absolutely nothing.

Note to 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 général, 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,[2] 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.’”[3] Professor Watson, with some other critics, has misunderstood the words ‘mere appearance.’[4] 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,[5] 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.[6]

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 Cœnesthesia 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.[7] 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 assertor 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 onesidedly 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, Encyklopädie, §§ 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 develops 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,[8] 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.[9]

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, Note. 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 a 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.


Footnote

  1. Mind, No. 49, pp. 22-4. In once more referring the reader to this discussion I will ask him to delete the error “in” on p. 23, line 5.
  2. See Note A.
  3. Phil. Rev. p. 489.
  4. See above pp. 557-8.
  5. Phil. Rev. p. 495.
  6. Cf. Mind, N.S. No. 30, p. 7.
  7. The position of the Solipsist I understand to be this, that no reality or fact has any existence or meaning except the reality of his self. And when he is pressed as to an order of phenomena which he cannot explain, I do not see how on and from his own premises he is to be precluded from appealing to unknown conditions in his self. ‘Surely,’ he might reply, ‘on any view no one can actually explain everything, and merely for the sake of explaining things somewhat better I decline to assert what is demonstrable nonsense.’ And the only proper course is, as I have pointed out, to show that his premises are partly mistaken.
  8. Mr. Hobhouse seems to me (I suppose mistakenly) to adopt somehow in the end, as the criterion of truth and reality, the idea of a consistent all-inclusive system. If and so far as he does this, I naturally think he is right, but I think he would be wrong if and so far as he simply assumed this principle as ultimate. But as to what his view in the end actually is I could not venture an opinion, partly perhaps because I have been able to give but a limited time to his work.
  9. Cf. the Note on p. 363, and Notes A and B of this Appendix.