any internal meaning such that, if you try to express it by means of a succession of acts, the ideal data which begin to express it demand, as a part of their own meaning, new data which, again, are new expressions of the same meaning, equally demanding further like expression. Then, if you endeavor to express this meaning in a series of successive acts, you get a series of results, M, M’, M’’, etc., which can never be finished unless the further expression of the purpose is somewhere abandoned. But such a successive series of attempts quickly gets associated in our minds with a sense of disappointment and fruitlessness, and perhaps this sense more or less blinds us to the true significance of the recurrent thinking processes.[1] Let us try to avoid this mere feeling by dwelling upon the definition of the whole system of facts which, if present at once, would constitute the complete expression and embodiment of this one meaning. The general nature of the system in question is capable of a positive definition. Instead of saying, “The system, if gradually constructed by successive stages, has no last member,” we can say, in terms now wholly positive, (1) The system is such that to every ideal element in it, M, M’, or, in general, M(r), there corresponds one and only one other element of the system,
- ↑ Leere Wiederholung is one of Hegel’s often repeated expressions in regard to such series. There is a certain question-begging involved in condemning a process because of one’s subjective sense of fatigue. Yet Bosanquet, in his Logic (Vol. I, p. 173), begins his subtle discussion of infinite number and series with an instance intended to illustrate the merely wearisome vanity of search that seems to be involved in a case of endless looking beyond for our goal. I wholly agree with Bosanquet when he demands that the “element of totality” (p. 173) must be present in the work of our thought, that is, as the ultimate test of its truth. Wholeness and finality our object must have, before we can properly rest in the contemplation of its real nature. But as we shall soon see, the question is whether a real and objective totality, — a full expression of meaning, — cannot, at the same time, be the explicit expression of such an internal meaning as can permit no last term in any series of successive operations whereby we may try to express this meaning. We tire soon of such “tasks without end.” But does the totum simul of Reality fail to express, in detail, the whole of what such processes mean?
