380 F. C. S. SCHILLER : Humanism, page 199, and which I have now discussed further in the Journal of Philosophy, iii., 9. I had, of course, stripped off the mystical language and the reference to the Absolute in order to get at the scientific meaning of Prof. Taylor's remark, but if he considers these essential, I have nothing more to say to it. I am glad that Prof. Taylor has taken the opportunity of explaining to what extent and in what sense he regards identity as postulatory, even though that sense seems to be nugatory. For his treatment of this point in his book seemed to be so obscure that I did not feel at all sure about it, and I therefore only referred to it lightly in passing. I must still maintain however that, but for Prof. Taylor's assurances as to his actual state of mind, no one could do otherwise than regard the passage I quoted (p. 354) as clearly subordinating the fundamental conception of the intellect called ' identity ' to practical purposes. In the ' physical order ' at all events it asserts that identity is not ' found ' but ' made ' or 'taken,' and it plainly renders the 'purpose' which 'identifies' the condition of the ' identity's ' existence. Elsewhere Prof. Taylor goes further and roundly asserts that "all identity appears in the end to be teleological " (Ele. of Met., p. 335) ; I thought it safer therefore to credit him with more in- sight into the real nature of this ' axiom ' than he now confesses to. I am sorry that Prof. Taylor declines to recognise its com- plexity, but possibly the reason is that he has so completely misunderstood my attempt to analyse its structure as actually to attribute to me the view that all ' identity ' is a matter of postu- lation. 1 What is even more regrettable perhaps is that if he had not disclaimed my interpretation, his philosophy would have been relieved of awkward questions such as these. How, if we only 'recognise an identity which already exists,' can postulation be said to come in at all and in any sense? What are (human) ' purposes ' doing in face of an unalterable order of absolute fact ? How does such fact ' call for recognition ' ? And why does it need to call ? And if it is not true that we run the risk of calling things the same because they look similar, and only call them the same when they look the same, will not our reasoning speedily come to a stop? And has not the logical axiom thereby been reduced to a psychological accident? And can an intellectualist logic consistently regard a psychological incapacity to discriminate as a legitimate basis for an ' axiom ' ? If Prof. Taylor will try to answer these questions for himself, I should not wonder if he came away with a deeper insight into the function of human cognition in apprehending ' independent ' fact and ' absolute ' truth than any which intellectualisrn has as yet vouchsafed us. He may even come to think better of poor ' Ed- win's ' first attempts to construct the ' identities ' he ' recognised '. 1 Contrast Personal Idealism, pp. 95-97.
