the genuine tie that binds both A and B to their now
relatively independent relation C. For C is now supposed to
possess an existence which is not that of A or B, but
something apart from either. This tie which unites A and B, in
the thing, to C, hereupon appears as a new fact of relation,
D, viz., the fact that A and B are so related to C that C
becomes their relation to each other. “But such a make-shift
at once leads 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.” The consequence
is that we are not aided by letting the “qualities and
their relation fall entirely apart.” “There must be a whole
embracing what is related, or there would be no differences,
and no relation.” This remark applies not merely to things,
and to the relations that are to bind into unity their qualities,
but to space, and time, and to every case where varieties are
in any way related. But although Mr. Bradley asserts thus
early the general principle that variety must always find its
basis in unity, he wholly denies that, in the present case, we
have yet found or defined what the unity in question can be.
He denies, namely, that the relational system offered to us so
far by the qualities supposed to be inherent in the one thing,
or to be related to one another, contains, or can be made to
contain, any principle adequate to accomplish the required
task, or to “justify the arrangement” that we try to make in
conceiving the thing and its qualities as in relational unity.
II. The General Problem of “Relational Thought”
The defect in all these accounts of the nature of the thing is not due, according to Mr. Bradley’s view, to any accidental faults of definition. The defect depends upon a dilemma that first fully comes to light when the problem about relations and qualities is considered for itself, and apart from the special issue about the thing. The task of expounding this dilemma
