IX. NOTES AND COKKESPONDENCE. ME. BRADLEY AND SELF-CONTRADICTION. 1 Mr. Bradley's comment in the last number of MIND (p. 439) on my article in the April number must, I suppose, be taken to mean that he conceives himself to have already met the objections I have raised to his doctrine of the Absolute Criterion. I do not find, however and I do not think any one else, Mr. Bradley himself included, will be able to find any passage or passages in the pages he now refers to in which the main objection I have urged has been even so much as recognised. The gravamen of my criticism lay in this, that whereas Mr. Bradley had asserted that the principle of contradiction affords an absolute criterion for distinguishing appearance from reality, I pointed out that self- contradiction is only foreign to reality in so far as it is foreign to appaarance as such. Bat if I have been blind in this matter, Mr. Bradley will, of course, be able to open my eyes by the easy expedient of supplying actual quotations to bear out his present assertion. On the other hand, we may welcome Mr. Bradley's admission that there are " difficulties," and even that the " last word " has not yet been said, in respect of a principle which in his last edition he still proclaimed to be absolute and indisputable. For how can a criterion be indisputable which has to meet objections, or absolute which can only hope to do so by the help of final reservations ? At the same time, I would deprecate the suggestion conveyed in Mr. Bradley's note that a radical objection to his doctrine of the Absolute Criterion must forthwith assume the dignified status of a " final difficulty " in the theory of knowledge. HOWARD V. KNOX. M. POINCARE'S SCIENCE ET HYPOTHESE. MOXSIEUE LE DIRECTEUB, Vous avez bien voulu me demander si j'avais quelques observations a faire au sujet de 1'article que M. B. Russell a consacre" a mon livre, Science et Hypothese, dans le numeio de juillet 1905. J'en aurais beaucoup, evidemment, mais je ne voudrais ni abuser de votre hospitalite', ni revenir sur des discussions anciennes ; je me bornerai done a quelques breves remarques. M. Russell parle d'abord de 1'arithmetique et du r61e du principe d'in- duction complete. Pour lui ce principe n'est que la definition du nombre eutier. Je viens d'ecrire sur ce sujet un article qui va paraitre dans la Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale. Je me contenterai de renvoyer a cet article et d'expliquer en un mot, que le principe d'induction com- 1 We regret that Captain Knox's note was received too late for insertion ia the last number of MIND.
