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Essays on Truth and Reality
By F. H. Bradley
Preface
The present volume consists mainly of articles which have appeared in Mind. I have added a paper first printed in the Philosophical Review, and there are also some essays which have not before been published. With three exceptions the whole belongs to the last five or six years. The parts of this work have been called chapters mainly for convenience in reference, but also because most of them represent more or less the chapters of a book which I once intended to write.
The title indicates, I think, the principal subject and aim of the contents. I am not offering a formal treatise on the nature and criterion of knowledge, truth, and reality, and yet this main problem recurs and in some form is perhaps present throughout. The imperfection and incompleteness, too evident to the reader, may, I hope, be forgiven if these pages serve to emphasize the need and possibly even to stimulate the pursuit of the above inquiry. There has seldom, I imagine, been a time when the general question as to the criterion was more pressing, or when the answer, attained or attempted, promised better results. But I have myself little to contribute here beyond that which I have urged in former years. For the inner connexion which, I hope, unites the various parts of this volume, I would refer to the remarks appended to the closing chapter.
It is a satisfaction to me, when approaching the end of my own career, to note (whatever school or tendency may from time to time be in fashion) the increasing devotion amongst us to metaphysical inquiry. There has been, I think, a rise in the general level of English philosophical thought such as fifty years ago might well have seemed incredible. I am the more resigned to add that the best which I can now myself expect to do is to collect some other scattered writings, as well as perhaps to republish those early volumes which I can no longer hope to re-write.
Chapter I. Introductory
Everything is subordinate to the Good, if that is taken in the widest sense, but no partial aspect of life is good perfectly (1-4). This shown, (a) of pleasure (5), (b) of practical activity (6-7), (c) of beauty, (d) of intelligence (8), (e) of social and other unions of individuals (9-10). On the other hand, every partial aspect has its own sphere of relative supremacy (10). This shown of philosophy with regard to morality and religion (10-15). How philosophy must in a sense rest on faith (15-17).
Every aspect of life may in the end be subordinated to the Good, if, that is, we understand the Good in a very wide sense. Everywhere in life we seem forced, sooner or later, to ask the question Why. And the answer to that inquiry seems everywhere to be found in the fact of contentment and absence or suppression of unrest. We may appeal from one thing to another thing, but it is to this aspect of things, and it is to things as more or less possessing this aspect, that we are brought at last. And we are led to conclude that, so far as anything in the above sense is good, there is nothing else in the world which can pretend to stand above it.
The claim of reason and truth to be an exception here will not hold. For, if you ask what is truth, you are led to answer that it is that which satisfies the intellect. The contradictory and the meaningless fail to be true because in a certain way they do not satisfy. They produce a special kind of uneasiness and unrest; and that on the other side which alters this unrest into an answering contentment, is truth. It is truth, we may say, where the intellect has found its good.
1 This chapter was written in December 1906, as an introduction to a book which I then had in contemplation (see the Preface), and, though with some hesitation, I venture now to publish it. It has been altered by certain additions and by much larger omissions, but on the whole it remains in its original character.
Whatever a man is engaged in, whatever he feels or does or apprehends or pursues, this, so far as it satisfies him, is
All thinking, in brief, rests on the agreement, tacit or expressed, to accept a certain test. It consists, in other words, in the pursuit of one kind of satisfaction, and its arguments appeal to no one except so far as he is engaged in this pursuit. And, as in philosophy, so everywhere throughout life the same principle holds. Whether it is an affair of mere enjoyment and liking, or a matter of moral and religious conviction and preference, or again of aesthetic perception and taste, throughout these differences we find everywhere in one point the same thing. So long and so far as that which occupies you is able to give you rest and contentment, that thing, whatever it is, has goodness. And there is nothing which from the outside has against this thing any claim upon you. So long as remaining there, wherever you are, you find yourself satisfied and at one with your own being, so far, apart from mere violence,
1 Goodness, worth, and value, are of course all the same thing. The definition of the Good given in my Appearance I have now for some time ceased in one point to consider correct. I do not think that desire should be included in the definition. Wherever, and so far as, I feel myself positively affirmed, there, so far, is goodness. Desire, at least in the ordinary course, will necessarily supervene, but it is wrong to take it as being from the first essential; and indeed so much as this was admitted in my volume, pp. 403-4. We can realize this truth perhaps most plainly if we consider the case of beauty. As to the inclusion of pleasure in the Good, I will say nothing here. And the question, how far, and in what sense, an idea is implied there, I wish at some time to reconsider. Perhaps at a future date I may be able to deal more fully with the general nature of Goodness.
2 I do not here enter into the question whether in the end there can be any mere external force. But, so far as the individual is concerned, this, for practical purposes, obviously exists.
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But on the other hand it is an old experience that nowhere is perfect good. Goodness does not really reside where perhaps we tend first to place it. There is nothing, in other words, in life which, taken in and by itself, completely satisfies. Our life has several main aspects, and, even within each aspect, we are led for ever in some point to desire something better and beyond. And we find in the end that no one aspect by itself can have goodness and be unmixed good.
We have been led in the above reflection to a twofold result. On the one hand every side of life, so far as it is good, is justified in itself, while on the other hand the perfect good is found in none of them. We are hence mistaken when we attempt to set up any one aspect of our nature as supreme, and to regard the other aspects merely as conducive and as subject to its rule. And it is worthwhile perhaps to deal at some length with this error.
The Good, we agreed, was satisfaction; and satisfaction, wherever found, we agreed was, so far, the Good. But if any one goes on to urge, ‘Well then, here is satisfaction; I have, for instance, found it here in my practical activity.
1 With regard to anything which claims to be good we may ask these questions, (i) Does this thing possess nothing but goodness? Is its goodness in this sense unqualified? (ii) Does it, so far as it is good, possess goodness simply in its own right, or through a qualification more or less external to itself? Is its possession in this sense unqualified? (iii) Does it possess all goodness? Is anything else good? The above three questions are to my own mind different aspects of the same question, i.e. Is the thing of which we speak identical with the Good.
And therefore this is the supreme good to which all else
I will go on from this to consider briefly the various aspects of life, and to show the imperfection inherent in each.
1 In what follows I am to some extent repeating what has been said in Appearance, pp. 458 ff.
I. (a) If first we take pleasure, we are impressed at once by its claim to be the Good. From whatever source it comes, so long and so far as it is intense and pure, it seems to give us a sense of absolute reality. But on the other side, apart
But to any such consequence the ordinary Hedonist is blind. He has not seen that, in denying value to all other aspects of life, he is from the first in collision with common sense, and he does not understand that to make the whole of life subordinate to pleasure as the Good, results in the end in a position which is incapable of defence.
1 Cf. Appearance, pp. 373-4, and Chapter XI of the present volume. It will, of course, be understood that the remarks in the text do not apply to the Hedonism which contents itself with using pleasure merely as the mark by which to discover goodness, without denying that other things really are good.
There is again inherent in practice a well-known inconsistency. Practice I take to imply and to depend on an unrealized idea. It contains the idea of a ‘to be’ and a ‘not yet’, a something which has to be carried out in fact, but which, as soon as it is carried out, has ceased forthwith to be practical. Practice is the perpetual undoing of the condition which is implied in its own existence, and it cannot therefore offer by itself a satisfaction which is ultimate. The inconsistency is plainly visible from the side of the idea. The idea, since it is taken as a ‘not here’, does not qualify ‘my world’, but on the other hand, since after all an idea qualifies something,
1 For further explanation on this point see Chapter IV of the present volume.
2 This point is discussed hereafter in Chapter III.
Either then there is a world outside practice, and practice does not cover the whole of things, or on the other side practice is somehow a passage and a transportation between two worlds which
(c) And to seek in the beautiful for perfect or unqualified good leads once more to disappointment. A man may feel assured that, in one form or in many, beauty, as he would say, is all the world to him. And yet it is too plain that all the world, if so, is but a part of the reality. The beautiful, even when attained, is not all beauty, and again there is toil and anxiety in the pursuit, and the pursuit may and even must entail more or less of disappointment. And, if beside beauty there is no other end and joy in life—and other ends and other joys there surely must be—there is at least together with beauty more or less of ugliness and of care and pain in existence. In short there undeniably are things which are not beautiful, and life has aspects which are not beautiful and cannot become so. There is perhaps
(d) With regard to intellect and the intelligible world we do not need many words. Science in its widest sense is a pursuit, and it never becomes wholly an attained object. It is but one side of life which is entangled with other sides, and again, as a pursuit, it has a practical aspect, and it therefore itself is burdened with the inconsistency of practice. In any case, its object, even so far as that is attained, is the world of mere truth, and does not include all reality. To understand, as it is given to us, or given to any one, to understand, is not wholly to possess even in apprehension, and still less is it the same as to enjoy and to do.
Knowledge, taken apart from being, has no goodness or reality at all, and, further, a mere knowledge of being cannot satisfy by itself. For, if it is not to pass beyond knowledge, it is forced to leave being more or less outside. It is in short one thing to know and another thing to be; and hence our knowledge cannot satisfy even itself, and much less the whole man.
For faith it is true once again that complete knowledge is realized. What is sought can be found, and it is itself
(e) When we dismiss these abstractions we may be led finally to place our ultimate good in some higher totality of life. In the love and friendship between individuals, and in the social union which we find in the family and in wider wholes, we may claim to have reached at last the concrete and all-inclusive good. But, though in this position there is much truth, it seems impossible to accept it as final. For, if we judge by what we can perceive, the individual members, in whatever higher unity, are more or less the sport of change and accident. And the whole, in which they are united, has itself the defects of finitude. Its existence seems more or less precarious and subject to chance, and on the other side its inward being more or less suffers from narrowness. When you consider even our human aspiration in its breadth and in its intimacy, it is difficult to set this down as owned entirely by any common life that we know. And it is hard to see how its satisfaction could be merely the fulfillment of any known higher unity. And hence our common life and our supreme good escapes once more to take its place in an invisible world. It is in some city of God, in some eternal church, that we find the real goodness which owns and satisfies our most inward desire. But on the other side such a reality exists only for faith. This does not mean that we cannot know at all the supreme good and reality. It means that we are ignorant as to the variety of those forms of finite soul which may make part of its life, and it means that in the end we do not know how they, together with all their inward and outer diversities, reach harmony within it.
1 Later on, p. 15 and elsewhere, I shall return to the above point.
I am therefore forced to deny that the chief good is merely
We have seen that every aspect of life has goodness and realizes the Good, and we have seen, on the other hand, that no one aspect has goodness by itself and that none is supreme. The various sides of our nature appear to be connected, and more or less this connexion everywhere shows itself. But the complete truth as to this connexion seems not to be within our grasp. And hence the main aspects of our being must be allowed, each for itself, to have a relative independence. If I could think that I understood our essence, throughout and from the bottom upwards, I might conceivably follow those who judge otherwise here. But for me, as I am, every aspect within its own realm is in a certain sense supreme, and is justified in resisting dictation from without. I do not, however, propose to develop this main result except in reference to philosophy.
1 Here to my mind is the objection to taking love as ultimate. There is no higher form of unity, I can agree. But we do not know love as the complete union of individuals, such that we can predicate of it the entirety of what belongs to them. And, if we extend the sense of love and make it higher than what we experience, I do not see myself that we are sure of preserving that amount of self-existence in the individuals which seems necessary for love.
2 Cf. here my Ethical Studies, pp. 200-3, and Appearance, p. 415.
The supremacy of philosophy within its own field might be assailed from various sides, but I shall confine myself here to the attack made on behalf of morality and religion. The claim of practice, it may be said, will apply to the whole of life, and must hold good therefore in the case of
It is difficult for morality, and it is still more difficult for religion, to recognize its own limits with regard to art or philosophy.
1 For a further discussion of this matter I must refer the reader to Chapter IV.
2 There is some further discussion of this point in Chapter XV.
Philosophy aims at intellectual satisfaction, in other
In philosophy we must not seek for an absolute satisfaction. Philosophy at its best is but an understanding of its object, and it is not an experience in which that object is contained wholly and possessed. It is the exercise and enjoyment, in other words, of but one side of our nature. I do not forget that philosophy has often been made into a religion. From time to time it has been taken as the one thing needful, as the end and rule of our lives, and as all the world to its worshippers. But the same thing, we must remember, would be true again of art and perhaps of other pursuits. It must be an unhappy world where a man can say that, if he had no philosophy, he would be left destitute of practical belief. And the philosophy that is led to take up such a burden must be weighted in its course, and tempted perpetually to lose sight of its main end.
1 It would be easy to enlarge on this theme. I will note one consequence which may follow where a man turns his philosophy into a religion. A difference in opinion in this case between rival philosophies may more or less drift into the practical antagonism of conflicting creeds. And in the interest of philosophy such a situation is not to be desired.
His pursuit condemns him, he may complain, himself to herd
Certainly from its own nature philosophy must be conversant with the highest things, and, unless it is false in itself, it must recognize these things in their proper character. And such familiarity, it is clear, must have some effect on the mind. But it is hard to anticipate in any given case the amount of this force, nor is it easy to foresee its nature and direction. Familiarity, here as elsewhere, may under some conditions lead to contempt. And it cannot, I think, be denied that even genuine philosophy may be practised in a spirit which is immoral or irreligious. The same thing will be true once again of art and of all study of human nature either from the side of body or mind. If we take such instances as the novelist, the poet, the painter or the anthropologist, it is well known that any of them is liable to immoral inspiration. All that need be said here is that, while on the one hand every pursuit fixes its own limits, on the other hand every pursuit is by the same principle bound to sincerity and single-mindedness. No pursuit can justify a lapse from its own code of honour, or a search or a love for alien ends and effects.
1 I may perhaps illustrate this by transcribing one of those notes in which, some twenty years ago, I used to attempt to fix my passing moods. ‘The shades nowhere speak without blood, and the ghosts of Metaphysic accept no substitute. They reveal themselves only to that victim whose life they have drained, and, to converse with shadows, he himself must become a shade.’
And thus an immoral
What I have been trying to say comes perhaps briefly to this. Philosophy like other things has a business of its own, and like other things it is bound, and it must be allowed, to go about its own business in its own way. Except within its own limits it claims no supremacy, and, unless outside its own limits, it cannot and it must not accept any dictation. Everything to philosophy is a consideration, in the sense that everything has a claim and a right to be considered. But how it is to be considered is the affair of philosophy alone, and here no external consideration can be given even the smallest hearing.
I will go on from this to add another preliminary remark. Philosophy demands, and in the end it rests on, what may fairly be termed faith. It has, we may say, in a sense to presuppose its conclusion in order to prove it. It tacitly assumes something in general to be true in order to carry this general truth out in detail. And its conclusion, further, is not, and never could be, carried out in detail actually and completely. Thus philosophy stops short of a goal which it takes nevertheless to be somehow reached. And, if philosophy has to admit that in the end it fails to see and to understand exactly how this goal is attained, the end of philosophy is realized outside philosophy and, in a sense, only for faith. The meaning and justification of this remark I will not discuss further here, and we may content ourselves with a more evident aspect of the same truth. Philosophy, we saw, was a search, a search for that which in the end is true. And we observed that, so far as a man stands outside of this pursuit, it cannot in the end justify its existence
The want of an object, and, still more, the search for an object, imply in a certain sense the knowledge of that object. If a man supposed that he never could tell when possession is or is not gained, he surely never would pursue. In and by the pursuit he commits himself to the opposite assumption, and that assumption must rest on a possession which to some extent and in some sense is there. Naturally I do not mean that at the start the philosopher has propositions which he lays down in advance.
1 Cf. here Chapter XI.
2 It may be replied here that a rejection need not, in psychology, start from and presuppose any positive basis which is mental. Without offering here to discuss the whole matter, I should answer that, at the stage of reflection which we suppose above to exist, the objection will not hold. When at this stage I reject an untruth, I feel that I am asserting something positively, though I could not say what that is. The suggested idea does not simply disappear after having first perhaps become unpleasant. The idea, on the contrary, is banished, and in its banishment I feel that I gain positive assertion, if only for the moment. My natural expression for the process is not merely ‘That is gone’, or, again, ‘I will not have that’. My natural expression here is something like ‘I know better’.
Passing to another point I would end this chapter by remarking on at least one advantage possessed by philosophy. We should all agree that, except within limits, doubt is an evil; and one remedy against doubt, we know, consists in its extrusion. This is the way in which, in our lives, doubt is banished or controlled, and, while it is a necessary way, in principle it is not satisfactory. The doubt in itself and in its root may remain unattacked, and all that perhaps has happened is that the ground has been invaded and overgrown by something else. Certainly this counter-occupation may in the end destroy the doubt through inanition. On the other hand, being temporary, it itself may die down, and the doubt, undestroyed in its root, may appear as before. But in philosophy, so far as philosophy succeeds, the case is otherwise.
1 On this point Chap. v.
The doubt here is not smothered or expelled but itself is assimilated
1 Though the case is not wholly parallel, we may recall here the difference between attempting to combat a morbid fixed idea from the outside, and its removal through internal modification under hypnotic suggestion.
Chapter II. Faith
Faith, relation of to knowledge and doubt (19-20). It does not always originate in action (21-2), and whether it must always issue in action seems very doubtful (23-4). The above illustrated in detail (24-6). Philosophy and faith (26-7).
The object of these pages is to inquire as to the meaning of faith. They will be concerned, not merely with religious faith, but with faith in general. I will endeavour first to fix loosely and within limits the sense of the term, and will go on next to state and to explain a narrower view which has much to recommend it. I shall have, however, to point out, thirdly, that this view is not in accordance with all the facts. Unless, that is, we take it as a definition more or less arbitrary, it requires modification. From this I shall proceed to adduce by way of illustration a number of instances, and will finally ask how philosophy and faith are connected. I may, however, add that for myself the inquiry as to the meaning of our term possesses no great importance. As long, that is, as some definite sense is attached to the word, I do not for myself much care how it is defined,
I. It is obvious that faith is in some way opposed to knowledge proper, but it is obvious also that faith implies some kind of believing and knowing. If you descend, that is, below a certain intellectual level, the word ‘faith’ becomes inapplicable.
1 This chapter appeared first in the Philosophical Review of March 1911. It was written, so far as I remember, some four years previously. The reader will notice that the scope of the inquiry is limited. Faith is treated here merely from what may be called the formal side. The aim has been simply to define faith so as to enable one to ask, in any particular case. Is this faith or not? What may be called the material aspect of faith—the question as to what truths of various kinds can, and how far they should, come by way of faith—has been throughout ignored.
It is therefore not knowledge but knowledge of a certain kind which is excluded by faith, or which,
On the one side, the object of faith must be ideal. To believe in a person, for instance, is, however vaguely, to believe something about him. In order to have faith I must, that is, entertain an idea. On the other side, not every such entertainment is faith. For faith is limited to that ideal region where, apart from faith, doubt is possible. Its positive essence lies in the overcoming or prevention of doubt, actual or possible, as to an idea. And the doubt further, as we have seen, must be excluded in a way which cannot in the ordinary sense be called logical. The nonlogical overcoming from within of doubt as to an idea, or the similar prevention of such doubt, appears, so far, to be the general essence of faith.
II. I will now proceed to state a meaning in which faith may be more narrowly understood. We have here a view which, except as an arbitrary definition, will not cover all the facts, but which nevertheless is instructive and in great part tenable. There are two questions which are naturally asked as to the nature of faith. How in particular is faith able to prevent or to overcome doubt, and what is the result
Faith according to this view will exist so far as an idea is a principle of action, whether theoretical or practical.
1
The reader is not to identify this view with what is called Pragmatism. Pragmatism, as I understand it, is merely a one-sided perversion of the more complete view. Its essence consists in the attempt to subordinate every aspect of mind to what it calls practice, the meaning of practice not having been first ascertained. But, in reprinting the above, I should like to qualify the statement as to the ‘essence’ by the proviso ‘if it has any essence’. For the distinction between theory and practice see Chap. IV.
Even on such a view, the reader will have noticed, faith is not essentially practical, if that word is taken (as above) in
(a) The origin of faith, it seems to me clear, may be what we call emotional; and, even perhaps apart from emotion, faith can arise through what may be termed a non-active suggestion. The reason why I have come to believe in an idea must in some cases be said to be aesthetic, and in others sympathetic and social; or again it may be found in the magnetic force of a commanding personality. To maintain that in every one of such cases I believe because of something that I do, and that faith arises through action, would surely be contrary to fact. And the objection that in such cases there is no possibility of doubt, and that there is therefore no faith, seems once more untenable. To me it seems clear that I may believe in ideas the opposite of which I am able to conceive, and that my possible doubt is overcome by an influence which is not properly intellectual, and yet which certainly does not consist in action. And I do not see how to deny that such a process is faith. If and so far as I go on to act, the action, I agree, will and must affect the source from which it arises. But we have here a subsequent reaction, and to conclude from this to the nature of the first origin seems illogical.
(b) Hence, even in the widest sense of the term, the origin
And even if we extend that meaning so as to embrace every kind of mental action, a difficulty may still remain. If I believe upon faith that tonight it will rain, my conduct, we saw, may remain uninfluenced. A difference of some kind will, however, have been made in what in the widest sense I may call my mental furniture. And, since I always in some way am acting theoretically, the difference made by any belief, however seemingly irrelevant, in my mental furniture, must affect every subsequent theoretical action, and therefore may be said to consist in activity. So far as I really and actually believe that tonight it will rain, so far any judgement of mine with regard to anything in the universe will be affected, and the result of my faith will thus be action. To this extreme contention I may naturally object that, whether I believe that it will or will not rain, may make apparently no visible difference. Still I may be asked, in reply, why and how the idea of rain is kept before me at all unless it is connected with some subsequent mental action? We should thus be brought to the question, whether, and if so in what sense, I have faith so long as I do not exercise it, and so long as there is no actual idea before my mind.
I do not wish to discuss this here, but must insist on the conclusion that the first origin of my belief must in some
If we pass from faith in general to religious faith, this conclusion must be altered. Religious faith consists, I should say, in the identification of my will with a certain object. It essentially is practical and must necessarily be exercised in conduct. I do not contend that in its origin all religious faith must be practical. On the contrary, it may be generated, I believe, in a variety of manners. But, except so far as the accepted idea is carried out practically, the belief (we should perhaps most of us agree) is not properly religious. And of course the practical exercise of a belief must react on its origin. But, unless we wish to lay down a definition which is more or less arbitrary, I do not see that we are justified in arguing from the nature of religious faith to that of faith in general. For reasons that have been given I could not agree that everywhere faith involves the identification of my will with an idea.
III. It may perhaps help the reader to judge as to the truth of the doctrine we have laid down, if I go on to offer some applications in detail. And a certain amount of repetition may perhaps be excused. It is not, for instance, faith where I draw deductions from a principle accepted on faith. So far as the sequence is visible, faith so far is absent. Further, an unverifiable assumption as to detail—an assumption made because a principle demands it—seems hardly to be faith, unless so far as the principle itself is taken on faith. Wherever a principle is seen and grasped apart from
1 I have discussed this difficult question in an article in Mind, N.S., No. 43.
2 Bain, Alexander. The Emotions and the Will, Ed. III, p. 506.
At the risk of wearying the reader I will add some further illustration. When serving on a jury a man may come to
IV. I will end by asking whether and, if so, in what sense faith is implied in philosophy. The question how far in philosophy we can be said to go to work with our whole nature, and not merely with our intellect, need not here be discussed.
1 See Chapter VIII.
And thus in the end truth is not true
You may indeed object that here there can be no faith since here doubts are impossible, but this objection, I think, will hardly stand. The doubts may be said to be impossible only because of our principle of action. And, if it were not for our faith, we have perhaps a right to say that the other ideas, now meaningless, might at least in some irrational sense be entertained. But how we are to decide on this point, and whether we are to assert or to deny that philosophy in the end rests on faith, is to my mind of no great consequence.
Chapter III. On Floating Ideas and the Imaginary
Object of this Chapter (28). Floating Ideas. An idea, what (28-9). No ideas float absolutely. More worlds than what we call our real world, and to these worlds ideas are referred (30-2). Explicit judgement not necessary (32-4). Imaginary ideas (34-6). Ideas in imperatives and questions (36-7), and in supposition. Hypothetical Judgement, what (37-40). Ideas in Negation. On Contradictory Ideas (40-2). Real and Imaginary, difference between them said not to lie in content (43). This doctrine is untenable (43-6). The Imaginary, what. It involves reference to the real world, and that world depends on content (46-9). No hard and fast line between real and imaginary. Degree of reality is degree of value (49). Play, what, implies sense of earnest. Earnest, what (50-2). But no hard division between the two. This shown in detail (52-7). Play and make-believe no necessary connexion between them (57). The sense of restraint in play need not involve contrast with the real world (58-63). General Result (63-4).
In this chapter
I. I will take first the question as to floating ideas. This should be preceded by a discussion of the nature of ideas in general, but such an inquiry is obviously not possible here. I must content myself here with referring to the conclusion which I have advocated elsewhere.
Every idea
1 This chapter was first published in Mind for April 1908.
2 The first two divisions of this chapter may be taken as a commentary on various parts of my book Appearance and Reality, see especially pp. 366 ff.
3 In Appearance (see the Index: {Appearance, Chap. IX, 250 foll., 272-3, 412-13.}) and in various articles in Mind (O.S., No. 49, p. 23; N.S., No. 40, pp. 5, 6; No. 41, p. 17, and No. 44, pp. 27, 28). Cf. Chapters IX and X of this volume.
4 This holds even of the idea of ‘nothing’. See below, p. 41.
This conclusion is very commonly rejected as false. Its falsehood is at times even silently assumed against those who maintain its truth. And certainly at first sight any such doctrine seems open to grave objection. ‘An idea’, it may be said, ‘always, if you please, refers in some sense to the real world, and always, if you please, neglects or discounts its own private existence, if, that is, it possesses any. But on the other hand there are ideas which plainly do not qualify the real. When an idea is taken as false it may even be repelled and denied. And, apart from this, ideas may be recognized as merely imaginary, and, taken in this character, they float suspended above the real world. The same thing happens wherever we deal with questions, with ideal experiments, and again with those suggestions which we merely entertain without pronouncing on their truth. And how, when you do not know that an idea is true, or when you even know that it is not true, can you say in such a case that the idea qualifies reality? In such cases the idea, it is plain, can do no more than float.’ There is force in this objection, and with myself, I admit, the objection at one time more or less prevailed.
1 Principles of Logic, p. 4. There are, besides, various more or less objectionable expressions used in the account of ideas which is given there. So far as I know, these expressions have not been used by me since, though I hardly understand how a careful reader of the volume could be deceived by them. The term ‘sign’ or ‘symbol’, for instance, implies strictly, I suppose, the recognized individual existence of the sign. And obviously with an idea this aspect may be absent. There are other expressions also which, if you take them literally, are certainly false, and also inconsistent with what may be called the general doctrine of the book. But I hope that the statements as to ideas, which I have made several times since 1883, are less misleading. I should have added that, from the first and throughout, Prof. Bosanquet has consistently advocated the true doctrine. The debt which philosophy owes to him here has not been adequately recognized.VIII.
I do not purpose here to discuss formally the truth and consistency of this view of reality’s limits.
1 In the end in my present waking moment. The point is further discussed later in this chapter. Cf. Chap. XVI.
2 The foundation of this view is exposed in the second part of the present chapter. Cf. Chapter XVI.
1 Cf. Prof. James’s Psychology, chap. xxi.
And, without entering further into detail, I will
On the one side the whole Universe or the Absolute Reality is the subject to which in the end every idea is attached. On the other side (and this is the side on which we have to dwell here) the reality qualified by an idea depends always on a distinction. The subject in a judgement is never Reality in the fullest sense. It is reality taken, or meant to be taken, under certain conditions and limits. It is reality in short understood in a special sense.
I will go on to point this out in a variety of instances, but, before proceeding, I must lay stress on an important distinction. If ‘judgement’ is used in its ordinary sense of explicit judgement, where we have a distinct predicate and subject taken one as applied to the other, then it certainly is true that apart from judgement we have ideas. And if the issue is raised thus, and if not to be so predicated means to float, then inevitably we shall be forced to believe in floating ideas. For in doubt and in denial, to take obvious instances, we should find the evidence that they exist. But the issue, if so raised, I must go on to urge, is raised wrongly.
1 It is not possible for me to attempt here to explain and justify the above. I may perhaps in passing point out that, if the subject were the entire reality, no place would be left for the existence of the idea. Cf. p. 41, note.
We have not to choose everywhere between an idea which is predicated
Thus in negation the idea denied is not in the proper sense predicated of another subject. But this idea in every case qualifies an alternative more or less distinct, and hence nowhere floats absolutely. The idea repelled is, in other words, felt to fall somewhere else. It may qualify another alternative more or less specified before the mind, or it may coalesce with that vague whole which comes to us as the residue of the Universe. But to existence unsupported within a void it never attains.
This qualification apart from explicit judgement can by reflexion everywhere be turned into formal predication. Whether before that we should speak of judgement I need not discuss. The point is that apart from predication ideas can qualify a subject. Hence you cannot conclude that, where predication fails, ideas, if present, must float, since the possibility of informal union between ideas and reality destroys this conclusion. The reader may now have realized
The imaginary in general is defined by exclusion from the real. It is something which positively possesses the character of this or that real world and hence suggests its inclusion there, but on the other hand is shut out from the limits of the world in question. And the world which excludes is primarily the world of actual fact. This world, we saw above, is made by construction from my real body. It is the region, in short, which is taken as continuous with that basis.
1 In the second part of this chapter I will further discuss the nature of the basis mentioned above.
It is in the
Consider for example the world inhabited by the characters in some novel. Things not only here are so or otherwise in actual literary fact, but beyond this fact we recognize a world of reality. And this world does not consist in or depend on the mere event that Balzac or Thackeray chose to write down this or that detail.
In the end and taken absolutely (to repeat this) there can be no mere idea. Reality is always before us, and every idea in some sense qualifies the real. So far as excluded it is excluded only from some limited region, and beyond that region has its world. To float in the absolute sense is impossible.
1 See on this point Prof. Bosanquet’s Knowledge and Reality, pp. 144 ff., followed by Prof. James in his Psychology, ii. 292.
Flotation means attachment to another soil, a
We may deal rapidly with the position of the idea in imperatives and questions. The nature of an imperative has been discussed by me elsewhere (in Mind, N.S., No. 49, pp. 4 and 5), and we have no need to enter on that general topic. But with regard to reality it is with the idea here as in the practical relation generally. The idea, ordered to exist in our world, qualifies already the world of ideas and has reality there. The same thing holds again in interrogatives. In a question we have some known aspect of reality before us, which we regard, at least here, as actual fact. We have next the suggestion of an idea, more or less specified or again undefined, which we assume to be somehow connected with our known fact. We have finally a demand for further knowledge in this direction. The demand is addressed to another mind, or even secondarily to our own, or again to material nature. The further knowledge (of which we have the idea) is absent from our known fact. But on the other hand this knowledge, the answer to our question, is not fetched from nowhere. We take it to be truth which already is there and which in some sense exists.
1 The idea again may be excluded from the subject taken simply and in itself, or again from the subject taken merely as so far known. The negation in the latter sense may, if we please, be called privative.
2 The reader possibly may object that, in the case of the future which I am to make, the above account will not hold. I reply that it holds here unquestionably as it holds elsewhere, and that otherwise the attempt at prevision would be meaningless. The difficulty is caused by the nature of a real fact which is future, a construction which is full of radical inconsistency. But in any case, if the idea of the future cannot qualify the world of fact and truth, it still does not float but is attached to the imaginary world.
I may perhaps be allowed to dwell somewhat longer on the problem raised by hypothetical judgement. It is obviously impossible for me here to discuss this fully in regard either to its psychological origin or logical value, and I must content myself with calling attention to a point which is essential. In a hypothetical judgement we have an assertion, and it is really idle to dispute this. If you suppose something then something follows, and, unless you know that this is so, you cannot say it. There is an assertion, but this assertion (properly) is not of actual fact. On the other side you have before you a datum which in some sense you take to be fact and actually real. And there is some connexion, you assume, between this fact and your ideal truth. But in spite of this connexion the fact is not the subject of your judgement, or rather it never is so except improperly and through mere implication.
In order to understand the hypothetical judgement we must keep in mind the following essential aspects, (1) The
(1) In every hypothetical judgement there is actual fact to which the subject is opposed. This actual fact may be a perceived existence, or again it may belong to some ideal or imaginary world. But in every case the use of ‘if’ marks a distinction between what we think and what is otherwise real. If a square could be round then something follows, which does not follow from an actual square. And ‘if you attacked that man he would defend himself’ does not make its assertion about that man. The man is not attacked, the square is not round, and you do not even suggest that either is so. And in ‘if he goes there he will succeed’ you do not say that he will go there. From him, as you know him, that predicate is absent, and your ‘if’ means that you are not speaking of the known actual man. In every case you are speaking of that which you suppose, and whatever you suppose you ipso facto oppose to what you take to be real. Otherwise there would be no sense in supposing and no meaning in ‘if’.
(2) On the other side your assertion clearly in some sense refers to the actual fact. For otherwise, and if there were no connexion, who could think of supposing? If your assertion had positively or negatively nothing to do with your actual reality, it would be meaningless or at least must lose its hypothetical form. Thus on the one side you are dealing in some sense with actual fact. The subject of your judgement on the other hand is not an actual fact. But the actual fact is referred to and to some extent it enters into the subject of the judgement. We have first the actual man who is not attacked and who is not the subject, and we have
(3) So much as the above belongs to the essence of hypothetical judgement. Many cases, however, present an additional aspect, which has given rise to difficulty and to error. We have often a further implication as to the amount of identity between the ideal subject and the fact, and, owing to this implication, the judgement, while hypothetical in form, may assert or deny of the actual. In si vales bene est {if you are well} there is an implied identity, between the supposed and the actual, sufficient to justify the use of est. On the other hand in si tacuisses philosophus esses {if you remained silent, you would be a philosopher} we assume a known difference, between the two cases of yourself, sufficient to warrant a denial of the conclusion in fact. This implied identity or difference can exist in a variety of degrees, and the actual meaning conveyed by the judgement may depend upon this implication. But this implication, we must not forget, falls outside the hypothetical form. It is often absent from it, and when present it may even be said to contradict it, since it involves knowledge on a point where the use of ‘if’ assumes ignorance.
1 A hypothetical judgement (to state this otherwise) is itself always universal, hut it implies that there is a question of bringing a designated case under this universal judgement. It implies that this question is worth considering, and (taken strictly) it implies that the answer is unknown.
I should remind the reader that in the above discussion I assume throughout the correctness of the account of existential judgements which I have given elsewhere. See my Principles of Logic.
Hence this accidental meaning conveyed by some hypothetical judgements
With these brief but, I fear, too lengthy remarks, I must pass from the hypothetical judgement. Assuming everywhere, as that does, various realms of reality and truth, the consideration of it has tended to confirm our main conclusion. The ideas which float have in every case another world in which they are based and secured.
When we pass to the alleged existence of floating ideas in the case of negation, we find a subject too intricate and too difficult for discussion here. I must content myself with a summary statement of the conclusion which I adopt.
I do not mean that in all negation the alternative is distinct. The alternative on the contrary may be unspecified in various degrees. Our other world may amount to no more than that vague residue which remains after the subject has been selected. But, however undefined this other may be, it is the region into which the banished idea is sent. The idea never floats, like Mahomet’s coffin, between both worlds, or somehow hangs nowhere. And the idea once more belongs to and qualifies that world which it inhabits. I do not mean that the idea, when repelled from one subject, must be predicated of another subject.
1 On the subject of negation I would refer the reader to Prof. Bosanquet’s admirable Logic.
Predication, we
1 I will deal briefly and in passing with several difficulties, (i) Where the subject, from which the idea is repelled, is the Universe at large, it may be objected that we have no longer here a distinction taken within reality. The answer is that here the Universe as a whole is distinguished from its own partial contents. What we deny is that the idea, which qualifies a finite sphere within the Whole, is in the same sense true of the Whole. (Cf. Chap. XI.) But obviously I cannot here discuss the difficulties which in the end beset the general doctrine of truth and the ultimate distinction of subject and predicate, (ii) It may be asked how the idea of ‘nothing’ can qualify reality. I answer, as before, in general that exclusion from the Universe admits presence in a field of distinction falling within the Universe. And I answer further that ‘nothing’, being always relative, can always qualify such a field. If there were a genuine idea of sheer nothing, the case would be altered. But without entering into further difficulties and into refinements for which there is no space, I may state broadly that this is impossible. We cannot have a consistent idea of nothingness if that is made absolute, (iii) But I may be asked further how an idea, if self-contradictory, can qualify the real, and whether therefore, in asserting that all ideas qualify reality, I am not in conflict with the Law of Contradiction. The question is interesting, and to myself it is even more interesting when followed by another. How, when self-contradictory ideas in some sense exist (as is allowed to be the case), is it possible that such ideas should not in some sense qualify the real? Such questions cannot, however, be properly discussed apart from an inquiry into the ultimate meaning of contradiction. I have undertaken this inquiry elsewhere (Appearance, pp. 562-72, and Mind, No. 20, p. 482), and must here be allowed to take the result reached by it as true. And resting on this basis I reply as follows to the objection just raised (cf. Chapters IX and X). The self-contradictory, as it anywhere qualifies the real, is taken so far not to contradict itself. Incompatibles, such as round and square, if you connect them in another world are not taken as simply united in one subject. And, apart from such a union, they are no longer incompatible. You may suppose a distinction more or less specified in the imaginary subject to which they belong. Or again, without any such positive supposition, you have at least by your repulsion from the ‘real’ world removed the point of identity through which they collide there. The incompatibles hence fall into and coalesce with the residual mass of unspecified conjunction. As qualifying this somehow they are compatible, and you can, if you please, go on to predicate both as true. On the other hand, if even in an imaginary world you seek to unite round and square simply in one subject, they once more cease to qualify this ‘real’ world. They are once more exiled to a further outlying world of mere imagination, in which, being again merely somehow conjoined, they can both together be real. The references given above will, I hope, furnish the explanation of this brief answer. I would, however, once more remind the reader that in any case, by even speaking of contradictories, we tacitly assume them to be somehow conjoined, and I would add that any view of contradiction which fails to deal with this aspect of the case is at best incomplete and is probably defective. The difficulty raised in connexion with the Law of Contradiction will I think, when fully considered, tend to confirm on every side the truth of the main conclusions which I defend.
Every possible idea therefore may be said to be used existentially, for every possible idea qualifies and is true of a real world. And the number of real worlds, in a word, is indefinite. Every idea therefore in a sense is true, and is true of reality. The question with every idea is how far and in what sense is it true. The question is always whether, qualifying reality in one sense, the idea qualifies reality in another sense also. For, true in one world, an idea may be false in another world, and still more false if you seek to make it true of the Universe.
II. It may serve to throw light upon the whole subject if I go on to discuss briefly a well-known doctrine. We often hear that between an object as imaginary and the same
About its plausibility there is no question. What is the difference, we are asked, between a real and an imaginary shilling, and, if they differ as shillings, how do they differ? Suppose that they differ, then take this point of difference, whatever it is, and in imagination remove it. There will now no longer be any diversity in content between the two shillings, which still remain two. This contention obviously is plausible, and, though there are difficulties—to my mind insoluble—which result from its acceptance, the prevalence it has acquired is not surprising.
On the other hand, when we reflect, the counter-doctrine seems no less plausible. The real shilling, it has been remarked, does things, where the imaginary shilling has no power. The former is an active and in some sense a permanent constituent of the real world. And this difference appears to be essential and to affect the internal content of the shilling. You may perhaps deny this, and may attempt to argue that any such difference falls outside the two shillings. They are to differ, that is, barely in and through their external relations and not at all in themselves; and of course continuance will be a mere matter of external context. But this is to assume that a thing’s relations, which make all the difference to other things, or at least all the difference beyond itself, make no difference whatever to itself. And this assumption, if it is tenable, seems at least not free from difficulty. For in the end the doubt is suggested whether in the end, when you have removed the relations, there is any shilling at all left.
Now this diversity of worlds, and the presence of the same object in various worlds, seems to bear on our problem. If on the one side you agree that these worlds are diverse, each through a different content, it seems natural to think that the object’s quality may be affected in each case by this difference. But if on the other side all these worlds are to be diverse without differing in content, such a doctrine, if tenable, has surely at least ceased to be plausible. It seems to commit us to the view that there is an indefinite number of distinctions without any difference, or that there are differences between things which do not really differ.
If now leaving general considerations we test our doctrine by applying it to special cases, we discover that at least it has limits. The whole distinction in short between the imaginary and the real tends, as we apply it, to become invalid. The first instance I will take is the case of the Universe or Reality, for it is better, I think, here not to use the instance of God. Can we speak of the Universe as being merely real or as being merely imaginary?
1 In a work of fiction, for instance, we have the imaginary worlds of the characters over against their real world, and so on indefinitely.
2 On this point and on ‘external’ relations compare Chapters VIII, IX, and X.
Is it not on the other hand plain that such a distinction falls within the
Again, let me take the case of my real self. My real self, as I am now aware of it, appears to be unique, and in contrast with it I have a variety of imaginary selves. Now, if the doctrine in hand is correct, the difference between my imaginary selves and my real self does not rest on content. It must on the other hand somehow consist in mere external relations. But this conclusion, if in the end it is not senseless, seems contrary to what experience here suggests. The distinction between imaginary and real seems, at least here, to rest on a felt difference, and, where there is a felt difference, it is natural to assume a diversity in content. To suppose that my real and imaginary selves are in themselves interchangeable, and that there is no diversity here except in that which falls outside each, seems, in the presence of the actual fact, to be untenable if not unmeaning. Thus, as applied to the Universe, we found that the doctrine which we examine proved invalid, while now in the case of my real and my imaginary self it seems even vicious.
But the doctrine without doubt possesses truth, truth not unlimited but partial. So far as you can abstract from the diversity of your different worlds, whether real or imaginary, you can take their contents as merely the same. And to a certain extent and in many cases it is legitimate and useful so to abstract. But, while the doctrine taken in this sense is true, in any other sense it seems not true. It is, first, not
What is the imaginary?
My ‘real world’, we saw, is a construction from my felt self. It is an inconsistent construction, and it also in the last resort depends on my present feeling. You may protest that its basis is really my normal waking self, but in the end you have no way of distinguishing such a self from the self which is abnormal. In the end my foundation is and must be my present self, whatever that happens at the moment to be. In madness or drunkenness we have the distinction of imaginary from real, and the distinction seems here to be as good as elsewhere. Nay even in dream I may construct another world which is the environment of my dream-body, and may oppose to this reality a mere imaginary world.
1 There are some further remarks in Chapter XII.
The basis of the opposition everywhere is, in a word, present feeling, and one present feeling, if you take reality so, stands
But, however arbitrary my procedure, my real world is taken as that which is continuous with my normal waking felt self. And it is by exclusion from this real world that the imaginary is made. Thus if I and a hundred other men were to dream the same dream, and in somnambulism were to act from our dreamt world, this world would remain unreal because not continuous with the world of my self as normal and waking. By virtue of exclusion from this world the realm of the imaginary is defined. And it is only at a stage of mind which is comparatively late that such a division is made. Thus the gulf fixed between imaginary and real existence, however necessary and useful it may be, is at once arbitrary and novel.
And the points to which I would direct the reader’s attention are these, (i) The existence of the imaginary depends upon my real world, and (ii) the existence of my real world depends on a felt quality.
(i) A content is not made imaginary by mere privation and through simple failure. If you abstract from all relation to what is called my real world, you have so far not got the imaginary. Abstract truths, for instance, do not express ‘real’ matters of fact, but they fall elsewhere than in the realm of mere imagination. This realm is made by positive exclusion from the special world which I call real. And in a word if you desire to turn ‘imaginary’ into ‘real’, you cannot effect this by mere addition. You require also to subtract the above exclusion, though, this subtraction being unimportant practically, has been generally ignored.
(ii) And my real world, difference from which and exclusion by which, we have seen, is the essence—on what does that rest? It rests on a quality, on a felt content, on that of which I am aware when I say ‘this myself which is now’.
1 It is useless to insist that my real world is real because it is the world where we all meet really through the real connexions of our real bodies. For, as was remarked above, in my dreams my own dream-body possesses its world of things and of other persons; and this order of things, while I dream, is real to myself. Nay an indefinite number of persons might, for all we know, dream a world of identical content, in which each with a difference occupied his proper place. And if you ask for the criterion by which to decide between my dreamt and my waking worlds, something more is required than a mere arbitrary choice. You are led in the end to find that the superiority of my waking world lies in its character, in the greater order and system which it possesses and effects. But, with this, the hard division has turned into a question of degree, and this question once raised will tend to carry us still further.
I may remark in passing that the real world is by some writers defined so exclusively, that whatever is perceptible but to one person becomes unreal. But obviously any man might under individual conditions have an experience which would not be shared by others, and which would yet belong to the order of events in the real world of fact.
The imaginary then is made by exclusion from my real world. It rests in the last resort on a felt difference from a felt unique quality, and this, I apprehend, is a difference
The difference between the real and imaginary thus rests in the end upon content. So far as you abstract from the difference, the content of both worlds is obviously the same. For many purposes the abstraction is permissible and useful, but it is not everywhere valid. And so the doctrine of the identity in content between real and imaginary has but partial truth. When you take the instance of the Universe or again of my real self, the doctrine proves inapplicable or vicious.
We have hence been led once more to the main theme of this chapter. The difference between my world of fact and my other worlds is important and necessary, but the exaggerated value we often tend to attach to it is really illusory. Its pretensions are in practice refuted incessantly by experience of other kinds. And, when we examine its theoretical claim to possess ultimate truth, we find that this is founded on arbitrariness, is built up in inconsistency, and ends in obscurity. The difference for us between real and unreal is vital. This can hardly consist in a division founded on felt quality condemned for ever to be latent, and, while seeking for another foundation, we found none which is intelligible. Hence this difference, vital for us, must be sought and be discovered elsewhere. It must depend on the internal character of those various worlds which claim our allegiance. And our impassable gulf and our hard and fast division will have to give way to degree and to differences in value.
1 On the nature of the imaginary compare Chapter XII, and on the ‘real world’ see further in Chapters XIV and XVI.
What is play? It is activity, we may say, so far as that is felt to be unconstrained.
1 The reader will observe that I am not attempting to deal with the subject of play generally. Neither its origin, nor its varieties, nor its position in the whole of animal and human life can be touched on here. And again from the point of view of education I am not offering to say a word. Even if space allowed it, I am not competent to speak on the whole subject, and the reader must be referred to works such as those of Prof. Groos. I am concerned here with the sense of play, and with play as we experience it in contrast with earnest.
For, wherever I am in earnest, my activity is
It may be asked if this contrast is really inherent in the sense of play. The opposition to earnest, it may be objected, need exist nowhere except in the spectator’s mind. There is natural activity which bursts forth apart from any sense of limit and restraint. Such activity we can find everywhere in the young, and we may even imagine it, if we please, as existing in a perfect mind. And here, it will be said, there is a sense of freedom and of self-assertion and of play, uncoloured by any feeling of contrast or restraint. But the above objection turns, I think, upon a question of words. I fully agree that there is such a sense of spontaneous activity, but, apart from a felt contrast, I could not myself call it an experience of play. And at any rate I propose here to use the word otherwise. Where there is play, felt as play, I shall suppose the more or less remote contrast with a more or less withdrawn earnest. I shall assume the presence of a more or less specified sense of something, more or less prominent or in the background, which is felt as control or limit. Restraint, whether as what is forced on me or as what matters, I shall take therefore as a necessary element implied in play. But in what follows I shall confine myself to the consideration of play as limited not by force but by earnest.
If you ask what is earnest and what matters, then in the end it is life as a whole which matters. Every pleasant activity therefore is so far good, and all matters because and so far as it realizes the main end. But on the other hand within the contents of this whole there are degrees of
But there is no hard division in life between play and earnest, and there is in short no genuine human end which in principle excludes play. The absolute separation in life of optional and necessary, of play and work, leads essentially to error. And the error is palpable where everything except maintenance of life is identified with play. Certainly my bare subsistence is an end which may be said to come first, because everything in life is lost if there is no more living. But on the other hand a mere living which is not good itself or for the sake of something good, is neither necessary nor desirable. Work for the sake of work and practice for practice’ sake are, in fact, ends which no one apart from illusion could accept.
1 What Prof. Taylor has well called ‘the Gospel of Drudgery’ is still too much with us. But labour without joy in labour is no moral end. It is a necessity, tolerable, if at all, only for the sake of something else. And, preached as in itself a duty, it is nothing short of inhuman nonsense and cant.
And generally the sundering of life into spheres of work and spheres of play is indefensible. It is true that in life there are things which are everywhere necessary. There is a certain amount of physical well-being and a certain degree of mental and moral development which are fundamental. Human life is impossible except on this basis of individual and social virtue. But beyond this common basis are those special stations in social life the occupation of which is more or less a matter of choice. And further there are non-social
Play may be called necessary in the sense that without play human life is not fully realized, and hence we may speak of a general duty and obligation to play. But on the other hand the obligation stops short of prescribing the details, which in the main are left to our pleasure. Hence we may find here the merely optional, which we may oppose to the merely necessary, and may forget that neither of these in abstraction and by itself is a human end. In short to identify the barely necessary with that which matters and is to be taken in earnest, is in principle indefensible. You cannot in life make a hard division into separate spheres of work and play, for play in a word exists everywhere so far as I am able to play there.
I will point out briefly first how in principle every human activity admits of play, and in the next place how more or less all plays
1 In connecting fine art with the play-impulse it is easy, I may remark in passing, to fall into serious error.
2 This use of the plural is adopted solely for the reader’s convenience and I hope on that ground may be excused.
(i) It is possible first to take a serious pursuit and to amuse myself with it. I may, that is, occupy myself with this activity just so far as it amuses me, and I may treat it as something which, for me, falls outside of what really matters.
1 In other words, to make game of it.
(ii) There is no serious pursuit, we have seen, which in principle excludes play. And on the other hand play hardly can maintain complete severance from earnest. Mere amusements, it appeared, as general amusement are necessary for our welfare, and in most cases perhaps they are more than mere amusements. Plays may advance some social
Plays contain usually a large element of chance and caprice, but apart from that, as plays, they keep essentially the following character. They have no individual worth, their detail in itself does not matter, and one of them has, in itself as against the others, no value at all. You are therefore, so far, free to choose amongst them at your caprice. If one of them is your best way of playing, that one has special value for you. But, on the other side, its value is generic merely, and it has worth only as a means to an end. In this point plays differ from accomplishments, which have value so far as they each contribute individually to human perfection. Plays on the other hand, so far as mere plays, have no end but a general end which falls outside of all taken individually. And where this principle is ignored, and where the rule of the game perhaps gains more than a conventional value, we are too familiar with the result. Plays are perverted into the serious pursuits of life, the moral perspective is distorted or destroyed, and the effect on life is, according to circumstances, more or less injurious or even ruinous. The above distinction, however, between mere plays and accomplishments, though clear in principle, is often in practice not easy to maintain.
Play is any activity in life so far as that is agreeable, is
1 If I play because I am compelled to play, that, so far, and while the sense of compulsion lasts, is not playing. And we must even say the same thing where I play because of a want to play. My playing, that is, to the extent to which, in general or in particular detail, it is felt to be necessary to the satisfaction of a want, so far is not mere playing. But of course the detail of play is seldom felt to be thus necessary, and obviously the feeling tends, if the activity lasts, to disappear.
The division of human existence into spheres of necessary work and of optional play leads therefore, when developed, to confusion and absurdity. The world of play turns out to be the only world which a man could seriously desire, and the world of earnest, when you examine it, proves to be that which by itself has no importance or value. Everything which possesses human interest becomes mere play, while the residue could be an end only for irrational caprice. Any such view breaks down at once when confronted with the facts of actual life. Thus a stage-play, to take that instance, is even to the spectator not mere playing, while to the actor it is the serious business of life. It is not merely the work by which he lives, but it is the main end of his being, the special function by which he at once contributes to humanity and realizes himself. On the other side the necessity of living is no real necessity, unless the life, which in oneself or others it subserves, is really desirable. A mere
Play, we have thus seen, is one aspect of life. It is, or in principle it may be, everywhere present. The division of life into spheres of work and play may be most important and even necessary, but any such division after all is not absolute but relative. If you take it otherwise it becomes an error which even practically may have bad results, and which theoretically cannot fail to be more or less injurious. It is parallel to the separation of the world into real and imaginary, matter of fact and mere ideas. And it proves, when we consider it, to be another offshoot of the same fundamental error. It will, I think, tend further to illustrate the same theme if I add some words on the supposed connexion of make-believe with play.
Play has been held to contain essentially the presence of make-believe and illusion. It has been alleged in short to depend upon a sense of the imaginary in its contrast with the real. This doctrine to my mind is in such obvious collision with plain fact, that I think it better to begin by asking how it can come to be adopted. And there is (i) the undoubted presence of make-believe in some playing. This feature, having been wrongly generalized and taken as essential, is then postulated in spite of appearance as existing everywhere. We have again (ii) the so-called imitative actions in young animals. These, or many of these, it is natural to call playing. And our minds are thus insensibly led to regard such actions as performed in imitation and with a consciousness of unreality. And (iii) there is finally the more or less specified sense of limitation and restraint, which, we have seen, is essentially involved in playing. Hence, where the erroneous division of the world into imaginary and real is accepted, the former of these tends to be
But it is better first to illustrate briefly the collision of the above doctrine with fact. When two young dogs are chasing one another or biting, when boys let out of school behave in much the same manner, when a man aimlessly strikes at this or that with his stick, or falls into some other trifling activity where, as we say, he has nothing to do—it seems obvious that make-believe here has no concern in the matter. And when we take part in the athletic pastimes of boyhood or manhood, and play at hockey, football or cricket, or again at such games as cards or chess—how can it be seriously maintained that illusion is present always and essentially? The opposite conclusion, to my mind at least, seems too clear for argument. When for example I play at cricket, what am I pretending to do other than the thing which I do? An outsider doubtless can insist that everywhere we have a mimic battle of this or that kind, but the mimicry surely exists only in the mind of the outsider, and for my mind, as I play, has no existence at all. And if it is objected that in play we have a sense of limit, and that the restraint must come from a sense of the real as against the imaginary, that brings me to the point which I wish to discuss. On the one hand I agree that in play we have some sense of limit, but on the other hand I urge the absence in many cases of anything like make-believe. And I will proceed to show the real nature of that restraint which seems everywhere present in play.
In many cases of play the restraint, we may say in a word, is not theoretical but moral. Consider the natural sporting of a young dog or a child. There are certain natural activities
1 It is surely only through a course of actual experiment that an animal, such as a young dog, learns how hard he may bite in play. And I should have added that, in the case of a dog, part of the course consists in his biting himself. Dr. McDougall (Social Psychology, p. 111) objects to the account in the text that it is impossible because it implies ‘deliberate self-restraint’—which in a young animal does not exist. I venture to hope that to the reader it will be even obvious that nothing of the kind really is implied, and that the objection rests on the merest misunderstanding.
What Dr. McDougall’s own view is, and whence according to him comes the difference of a dog’s behavior when he plays with another dog and then again with a stick, I have not been able to understand. His whole account here seems to myself to have fallen to such a low level that I feel bound in justice to him to suppose that on this subject I have failed to follow him. Whether some such supposition on his side also, where I am concerned, would not have been prudent, I will leave to the reader to decide.
It may be objected that so far we have not the distinction between play and earnest. But so far, I reply, I am endeavouring merely to establish the presence of restraint
‘But’ I shall be told, ‘you are ignoring the play in which make-believe is obvious. A girl with her doll, a boy with a wooden sword, are plain instances which confute you. And the actor in stage-plays, you seem to forget, is called a player. And to deny here the presence of every kind of make-believe and illusion is. surely irrational.’ To this I reply that such a denial is no part of my case. All that I have been urging so far is that illusion does not belong essentially or everywhere to play. Playing, on the contrary, we may now go on to see, is of various kinds. And playing of one kind undoubtedly involves make-believe. It implies within limits the treatment of the imaginary as if it were real. If you take make-believe as the playing at practical belief, as our acting within limits as if the facts here and now were qualified, as we know that in fact they are not qualified—then make-believe, it is obvious, belongs to some play. But to argue from this that, where I do not play at believing,
We have seen that in some play there is no pretense or illusion. The exercise of the activity involves no excursion into the imaginary world. But, as can easily be seen with children, this imaginary element soon appears, and in playing it occupies a great space, how great I need not discuss. The perceived facts here do not suffice for the required activity. They are therefore extended by imaginary qualifications, and the activity becomes possible. And at this point a new kind of restraint and limit can be observed.
All playing involves a limit, but in some plays this limit, we saw, was simply what we called moral. Beyond a certain point, that is, I must not. But where make-believe comes in, we find a new sort of control. The child that pretends in play knows that morally it must not cross a certain line. But it knows now also that it has an imaginary world, which is limited by real fact, and again in some cases by conventional suppositions. A schoolboy playing at soldiers knows first (a) that he must hurt no one too much, but he knows also (b) that he is a schoolboy as well as a soldier. And he knows (c) that, so long as certain conventions are observed, no consistency is required even in his imaginary character.
1 So of course mutatis mutandis with the girl and her doll. On the above point the reader may be referred to Prof. Sully’s Human Mind, i. 384.
The control, in a word, has become theoretical as well as moral. The playing dog knows, we may say, that beyond a certain point he must not. The playing boy knows this in all his playing, and in some cases he knows no more. But in other cases he knows also that beyond a certain point the thing is not. He has here a world of imagination, qualifying
These two controls, the moral and theoretical, are in much play so joined and blended that to separate their several effects would be hard or impossible. In ‘playing a part,’ on the stage or again in real life, this intimate mingling may be observed. We have first of all the letting go of certain activities subject to a certain moral restraint. But we have in addition the entrance, for ourselves or for others or for both, into the sphere of pretense, make-believe and illusion. This entrance is limited by our consciousness of the real fact, and again by conventional rules, wherever and so far as these exist. And to what extent the control is before the mind, and how far illusion actually is present, depends in every case upon the conditions and the individual.
1 I do not mean that in playing the moral or theoretical control must be kept always before my mind. As we saw before, it is enough that this control should be ready at any moment to come in, and that any suggestion of excess should at once bring it before me, or at least bring it into action.
2 The amount of actual illusion is said, for instance, to differ widely with different actors. See Mr. Archer’s well-known collection of facts in his Masks or Faces. Again flirting, the amatory game, is an instance where it is not easy to distinguish between the two kinds of control, theoretical and moral. The amount of illusion or pretense varies widely in various cases, and in many cases probably amounts to nothing. You may have simply the letting loose of certain sexual feelings and actions without pretense or illusion but within a certain moral limit. The beginning of this is easy to observe, for example, among dogs.
The main essence of the affair is in short not illusion but limit. That is why (as Prof. Groos rightly observes in The Play of Man, p. 253) we do not in the same way play at eating, for there short of the satisfaction of appetite the means are not by themselves sufficiently agreeable. But to a certain extent, I should say, we may play at eating, for instance at dessert. And children play thus habitually, I suppose because the real satisfaction is out of their power. But here of course the imaginary element comes in and is important.
Thus pretense and make-believe do not belong to the general essence of play. They are obviously present often where there is no playing and where they are used consciously as means to a serious end. On the other side there
We have found once more that the ready-made division of our world into matter of fact and ideas, into imaginary and real, has conducted us to error. And we saw that to sunder life into separate spheres of play and earnest is indefensible. Life and the world do not admit those compartments which are blindly fixed by hasty theories. Life and the world offer us an indefinite number of aspects and distinctions, and the worth and reality of these is in every case relative, though, because relative, it may in a given case become absolute.
This is the general conclusion which, I trust, throughout this chapter has been suggested as true. That world of fact which we so confidently contrast with the imaginary, and which we set up as real, has turned out, when we take it absolutely, to be false appearance. And in our practice, where we do not sink into convention or worse, we assume our right to deal freely with such reality, to treat it as of secondary moment, or even, it may be, as illusory. But in theory this illusion tends to cling to us, to hamper us and to blind us, when we endeavor to do justice to the various aspects of life. To be or do anything, we assuredly must maintain and control our bodies, and we depend on the world which is immediately continuous with these. Apart from this foundation we cannot have reality, and with this foundation we must therefore be in earnest. This is truth, and it is a truth, I agree, which must not be ignored. But on the other hand this basis and condition, if you try to take it by itself, is worthless and in the end it proves unreal. In
1 I should be willing here to add ‘of human values’, so long as ‘human’ is not understood as ‘merely human’. To use the term ‘humanity’ loosely as covering at once ‘all finite mind’ and again ‘merely some of the inhabitants of a certain planet’, may, as a support to certain views, be found convenient or perhaps necessary. But whether such ambiguity is permissible is of course another question. In this note I find myself repeating that which in another connexion I had to urge now many years ago (Ethical Studies, pp. 305-7), and even then, in 1876, the matter was far from new.
Chapter IV. On Truth and Practice
Occasion of the following Chapter. Personal Idealism and Pragmatism (65). Claim made for the latter (66). What Pragmatism might have meant (66-7). Pragmatism and Humanity (67-8). Pragmatism and Instrumentalism (68-9). On Will and Knowledge. On idle truths and verification (69-70). Bain’s doctrine recalled. Professors James and Dewey repeat Bain’s mistake (70-1). Pragmatism and the Individual. Apparently it has no principle here, and on the question of Instrumentalism Pragmatists appear to differ radically (71-2). Pragmatism and the genetic or historical view (72-3). General character of Pragmatism (73).
Introductory Note
The following chapter contains the greater part of an article published in Mind, N.S., No. 51 (July 1904). I have removed the beginning, and later on have made omissions which are noted each in its own place. Otherwise the article is reprinted unaltered. What has been left out has been omitted for two reasons. Its interest in the first place seems to myself to have been ephemeral. And in the second place, if now republished, it might be taken as an attack upon writers who at the time were either not in my mind or who were there more or less incidentally.
The occasion of this paper in Mind was the appearance of a volume, supposed to represent a movement called Personal Idealism, together with some periodical writing which I took to be connected with the same movement. I do not suggest that all the writers in that volume knew beforehand of any movement, or had at any rate much of an idea as to its meaning. And Personal Idealism, I imagine, if it ever lived, is today dead. In its place we have now on one side, I presume, the acceptance, partial or complete, of Realism and Pluralism, and, on the other side, we have the tendency to what may be called Irrationalism. The doctrines which group themselves under the name of Pragmatism will fall more or less under each of these heads. Their best exposition is, perhaps, to be found in the works of Prof. Dewey and his followers. These writers, as well as Prof. James, I have never hesitated to criticize; but I should be sorry indeed to give the idea that I associate any of them in my mind with anything that is not wholly creditable.
Both in the present chapter and in later pages of this volume the reader will find some criticisms on Pragmatism. My difficulty with regard to this doctrine has remained insuperable. And the difficulty arises, I cannot but think, at least in part from real
A point where all Pragmatists appear to be agreed is this, that at least their doctrine is new; for, whatever else it is, it certainly is preached as revolutionary.
1. Pragmatism might have meant something which, if carried out systematically, would, so far as I am aware, be new. It might have taken truth to be mere working ideas, and human interests in their entirety it might have taken as the one end, and as the criterion of knowledge and reality.
1 I am of course aware that Prof. James stated that there was nothing new about the Pragmatic method. But all I would add is this, that, if the statement in the text is not true, the whole attitude of Prof. James, and still more that of some of his followers, seems to have become inexplicable. But see Chapter V (Appendix I).
2 Such a position would, however, not entail downright Instrumentalism, so long as the pursuit and possession of truth is itself allowed to be an intrinsic human interest. All that such a position is called on to deny, is the existence of a criterion of truth which is intrinsic and supreme. The criterion of truth, that is, would lie in its contribution to the aggregate of human interests, and, as so contributing, truth might be allowed a value beyond that of an external means or instrument. I am not, however, suggesting that by taking the aggregate of human interests as our end it is possible to reach a consistent view. So far as we keep to a mere collection we are without any principle of order. There are some further remarks on Instrumentalism below, see p. 68. Cf. also Appendix I to Chapter V.
It might have set these
From this point, on which misunderstanding is only too prevalent, I will pass on to deal with some questions of detail.
2. We find in Pragmatism the conception of Society as an organism, a living body in which and of which the individual is a member and a function—an organism which of course develops in time. And I have been led to suppose that there are Pragmatists who believe that we really owe the above idea to Pragmatism. But such a writer as Prof. Dewey would, I cannot doubt, inform such persons (if they exist) that any notion of the kind is baseless. And he would tell them again that there is nothing new in the same idea of organic development as applied to Humanity.
But, this being admitted, it may be said that the real point is the position which Pragmatism gives to Humanity. The novelty achieved by Pragmatism perhaps resides in the way in which it takes the relation between Humanity and the Universe. This is, however, a claim which the outsider is hardly in a position to examine. The question as to exactly how far Humanity is and is not to be identified with Reality, seems certainly vital. To discuss, for instance, the nature of truth when you are ignorant as to your answer to such a question, appears, to me at least, to be futile. But the Pragmatist to myself has seemed content to meet challenges on this point by an attitude of prudent obscurity.
1 Chapter V (Appendix I). So far as I know Prof. James never even raised the question whether, and how far, truth is compelled to forgo self-consistency. He appears to have simply assumed that truth must be consistent. But here surely is a problem that should have met him, and should have been even obvious, from the first.
And I must be allowed to conclude that he is obscure here because he is insolvent, but that, if he were forced to speak, whatever
3. But the organic evolution of Humanity, it may be said, as previously understood was teleological, and the banishment of all idea of End is the novelty brought in by Pragmatism. But surely, after all these years of Darwinism—not to mention the earlier preaching of the ‘mechanical’ view—such a claim, if made, would be monstrous. It would be different if, after having removed from organic development the aspect of Good or End, Pragmatism could point to what it offers to set in the place of that idea. But it can offer nothing, so far as I see, that is not old and familiar. The doctrine that there is no end except what happens, that whatever happens is true and right and good, or at least that there is no sense in asking, about anything else that might have happened, if it really would have been better—such a doctrine surely, whatever else it is, would not be new. And to take the old idea of the organic development of Humanity, and merely to couple this with the old denial of any Human End, would hardly pass, I should imagine, as an original achievement.
4. Nor, once again, can I find anything new in the idea of Instrumentalism. The degradation of philosophy, science and fine art, to the rank of mere means, subserving an end falling outside themselves, is surely nothing novel. And we do not even gain a new attitude if, while denying intrinsic value to these things, we forget to ask what it is that, lying outside them, has itself intrinsic worth.
There is, indeed, a sense in which Instrumentalism, though not novel, would, as I think, be tenable. Everything in the world or in our life can, that is, be regarded as a means. No element apart from all the rest will retain its value, and each therefore, we may say, has worth only in so far as it conduces to the welfare of the Whole. But on the other hand the value of the Whole is not separable from that of its diverse aspects, and in the end, apart from any one of them, it is reduced to nothing. In the above sense Instrumentalism, I should say, is true, so long as you emphasize the fact that everything alike (though not to the same degree) is an instrument, and so long as you insist that there is nothing in life which, viewed otherwise, has value. The instrument in other words is such, only because it is not taken as a means
5. I do not know if any Pragmatist seriously takes his school to have originated the Primacy of Will. Any such claim would of course ignore the existence both of Fichte and Schelling,
6. My attitude remains the same in presence of the denial of idle or useless truths, and the assertion that a truth apart from its working is not true. If this is Pragmatism, then surely Hegel was long ago the Pragmatist par excellence, and I doubt if any one who knows the facts would venture to deny this. The general view, which others and myself may be said to have inherited, is this—that the criterion lies in the idea of system. An idea is true theoretically because, and so far as, it takes its place in, and contributes to, the organism of knowledge. And, on the other hand, an idea is false of which the opposite holds good. How can there be any question here of separating an idea from its consequences? How could a true idea possibly make no difference to anything else? Of course, if, and so far as, consequences are identified with the consequences which are practical, the case is altered. But as long as we do not know what words like ‘practical’, ‘action’, and ‘working’ are to mean, any claim to novelty here must remain ambiguous.
1 I refer specially to the latter’s treatise on Human Freedom.
With regard to what is called verification the same remark holds good. The necessity for, and again the ambiguity of, verification, were topics for discussion long before any Pragmatist began to utter his boasts. What is to verify? Is it to find the object of an idea as a sensible event? Is it to envisage an
It may perhaps be instructive if we allow ourselves here to digress and go back to a writer whose work on certain topics it is too much the fashion to ignore. More than half a century ago Prof. Bain made belief consist in practice. The difference between having a mere idea and holding it for true, lay, according to him, in our practical action on and from the idea. Now if, starting from Bain’s view, we go on (as he did not) to write truth for belief, we have what I took to be the essence of Pragmatism. Judgment and truth are the practical working out of an idea by me, and they are nothing else at all. Whether in this interpretation I was mistaken or was right, is a point to which I will return, but with regard to Bain I argued long ago that his doctrine cannot stand.
1 For evidence of this the reader is referred to Chapter V (Appendix I).
2 Principles of Logic (1883), pp. 18 ff.
In maintaining that belief consisted in practical action Bain had to face the fact that we sometimes believe in an idea on which we do not act. He answered that here, if we do not act, we at least, if called on, should do so. This he called ‘preparedness to act’, and he considered that by this distinction his theory was saved. To the obvious objection that one cannot at discretion identify the possible with the actual, he, so far as I am aware, did not attempt to reply. The truth is that unless permitted,
And, apparently unaware of this open pitfall. Prof. James and Dr. Dewey seek to escape from a like difficulty by the same misleading road. In presence of ideas which do not actually issue in practice, they take refuge in some prospective or potential action, assisting themselves with what I must venture to call mythology or verbiage. The evidence for this fact is given later
To pass from this inconsistency, I shall be told that Pragmatism does not identify truth with the idea which works best for the individual, and that hence the following chapter, or much of it, does not bear on Pragmatism. I fully accept the statement of fact made on this point by Prof. James,
1 I had to make the same criticism on the same fallacy in connexion with the doctrine of pleasure taught by Bain, Mind, O.S., No. 47, p. 18. I have had to return to this same point again later.
2 Chapter V (Appendix I).
3 Ibid.
What on the other hand I find is an apparent difference between these two leaders, which, if developed, would lead, so far as I can judge, to open schism. Dr. Dewey, I understand, stoutly holds to Instrumentalism, to the denial of intrinsic worth to theory, and he still maintains the principle that the idea which works practically is the truth. Prof. James on the contrary ended
7. Further, Pragmatism, it may be urged, lays an emphasis on the genetic, on the historical, side of things. The intellectual aspect of human nature is, it insists, to be understood, like every other aspect, apart from abstraction. Knowledge is to be viewed as it arises inseparably intertwined with every other factor in human development.
1 The reader is referred specially to The Meaning of Truth, pp. 206-11. The strength of the language used there by Prof. James suggests to my mind some awareness on his part of the weakness of his case. Cf. Chapter V (Appendix I).
2 ‘Il y aura,’ Balzac has said, ‘toujours de l’homme dans la science humaine.’
And again, whatever else it is, Pragmatism claims to be the denial in principle and the supersession in practice of the mass of previous philosophy. The real essence
1 For a discussion on Genetic Theory in Logic the reader may be referred to Prof. Bosanquet’s Logic (Ed. II), vol. ii, chap. vii.
I would end by repeating that which I remarked at the beginning. Pragmatism seems a collection’ of various tendencies, in part inconsistent one with the other, and to a large extent left undefined. In the minds of some of its exponents it seems identified with blind reaction against other views, themselves imperfectly understood. Pragmatism, so far as it is positive, seems to be not so much a doctrine as the expression of a desire, or rather of two separate desires or half-conscious drifts. The one of these seeks perhaps to find a consistent philosophy of Darwinism, while the other aims perhaps to reach a view which will be just to every side of man’s nature and will satisfy the entirety of human interest. But whether these two ends conflict or are in harmony, Pragmatism does not know, and does not inquire.
There is an opportunity here, I think a great opportunity, for the Pragmatist who is willing, and who is able, to go to work radically and systematically. Such a man will have in the first place to be in earnest with scepticism, and he must know enough to be able to understand what a thorough scepticism means. And he will have learnt to distrust his own prejudices, even when directed against that which he is pleased to call Intellectualism and Absolutism. But whatever else he may discover, such a man will most assuredly find that he himself is face to face with the old question, the unavoidable problem. What is Reality?
The following article, I have already intimated, if taken as a criticism on what is called Pragmatism, is in some points not defensible. In it Pragmatism is too much identified with Personal
This paper was written in the early summer of 1903, and has been left much as it was. I have, however; since that date made acquaintance with the interesting volume called Studies in Logical Theory. There is much in the position taken here by Prof. Dewey and the other writers which seems to me to be suggestive and valuable. On the other hand that position as a whole has not become clear to me. I agree that there is no such existing thing as pure thought. On the other side, if in the end there is to be no such thing as independent thought, thought, that is, which in its actual exercise takes no account of the psychological situation, I am myself in the end led inevitably to scepticism. And on this point I have so far failed to gain any assistance from Prof. Dewey. The doctrine that every judgement essentially depends on the entire psychical state of the individual and derives from this its falsehood or truth, is, I presume, usually taken to amount to complete scepticism. This is a matter which doubtless Prof. Dewey has considered, and a discussion of it by him would I am sure be welcomed.
Chapter IV. On Truth and Practice
Truth is not in any case the mere practical working of an idea (75-82). Practice, what. Truth cannot consist in mere alteration of existence (82-5). What practice for practice sake really means (85-6). Relation of practice to life. Truth and Beauty, how far practical. Though in one sense subject to practice, they are in another sense free (86-92). Attempts to subordinate truth to practice are of various kinds. These stated and discussed in detail. Primacy of Will untenable (92-9). General Result (99-101). Note. On practical and non-practical activity (101-6).
I. In maintaining that truth essentially does not consist in the mere practical working of an idea, I would first of all remove a probable misunderstanding. For myself I have always held that at the beginning of its course the intellect directly subserves practice, and that between practice and theory there is as yet no possible division. I have expressed this belief long ago,
1 Principles of Logic, pp. 459-60. On the position of practice in life see further the note at the end of this chapter.
2 The reader is now referred to other parts of this volume.
Everywhere in conation {‘the mental faculty of purpose, desire, or will to perform an action; volition’} and will there is an idea which is opposed to existence. And this existence nowhere is characterless, but it is a determinate being. And the character of this being again is not something inert. On the contrary it is an element in the whole situation, and it dictates to my idea as well as submits to dictation. If my idea is the right one, and if it works, this, we may say, is because the nature of the whole situation selected it. My idea, I agree, then reacts, and I agree that it then makes the situation to be different. But to speak as if the entire nature of the situation were first made by the idea seems really extravagant. If my idea is to work it must correspond to a determinate being which it cannot be said to make. And in this correspondence, I must hold, consists from the very first the essence of truth. I will proceed to show this first on the positive side, and then again where in failure and in falsehood we meet the opposite of truth. But I shall take our experience now at a level more removed from its lowest point, and shall consider it at a stage where reflection is possible.
(a) The fact which first offers itself is the case of finding means to a positive end. I desire, let us say, to cross a stream in order to gather fruit. The stream is swollen, and there is hence a gap between my idea and its reality. On this let us suppose that I retain my general idea of crossing, and that other ideas as to the particular manner of crossing are suggested. This is in the main what we understand by
(b) I shall be charged, I do not doubt, with idle insistence on the obvious. But where I understand little more than that there is a denial of what to me are plain facts, no course is possible to me except thus to insist on the obvious. And so I proceed to view the facts from their negative side. When, at a certain mental stage, I fail, I do not at this stage merely try again and again, but I retain my failures and use them to determine my conduct. My being carried away by the stream if I attempt to cross here, my falling amongst the rocks if I try to cross there, my being captured by my enemies if I remain where I am—these ideas remove possibilities and they qualify the situation by narrowing it. They are practical ideas, and in the end they may subserve another idea which actually works. But, taken in and by themselves, you can hardly say that they work directly. On the other hand, however indirectly, they do seem to make an assertion about things which are other than my will. And taken as ideas of my ‘doing’ they have to fall under the head of ‘avoiding’. But that avoidance is based, I submit, on what things do to me. It depends on a character in things which hinders me or even actively makes me suffer. For we are not to say, I presume, that I avoid evils merely because of my desire to do something in the way of avoidance. We may see this more evidently where I am not
And there are moments when nothing works and where every idea fails. I am starving, but I am helpless for I cannot climb to reach the fruit. I am dying of thirst, but my legs are broken and I cannot move to reach the water. I am tortured by an internal pain which I can do nothing to assuage. And here I need not idly repeat my futile efforts until exhaustion and stupor supervene. I may realize my fate and I may become aware that this now is my doom. The nature of that which is opposed to my will has triumphed. Or I may see my companion in the jaws of some inevitable danger where I am impotent. This to me is true, it has whatever truth belongs to death, pain and evil, but I hardly know in what sense it is an idea which works. You may possibly reply that suffering and death are undeniably practical, and that my idea at any rate exactly meets the practical situation. But to me there is more sense in the old view that my idea meets the situation theoretically and not practically. The idea of a failure in another or of failure in myself surely here does not itself produce the failure, and, if it did so, surely that would be the worst failure of all. And to make here the agreement of my idea with facts into a practical success, would be the mark of insanity rather than of philosophy or common sense. The
1 It may be said that every idea, even of failure, works successfully in producing a corresponding attitude or other change in my body or some part of it. I agree that, to speak in general, an idea tends thus to express itself emotionally. This in brief is one aspect of an idea’s general tendency to realize itself. But this way of realization in emotional expression is not to be confounded with the other specific ways which we call thought and will. Everyone, we may say, in practice would distinguish a gesture or a blush from a volition or a judgement. The mere emotional expression of an idea is in short not my act, and you cannot attribute it to my will. Again this emotional expression of the idea, if for the sake of argument we assume it everywhere to exist, cannot possibly, I presume, be more than generic. It must therefore fail to correspond to the individuality of the idea. And again it depends so much upon the psychical liveliness of the idea, that an idea counted false may possibly express itself more forcibly than an idea which is taken to be true. We should in short here have a doctrine in principle the same with Hume’s theory of belief, and open to the objections which seem fatal to that theory. The emotional expression of an idea or of one aspect of an idea is, we may say, a mere incidental result from the strength and dominance of that idea or its aspect. Any attempt to find in it the specific essence of truth and falsehood in the end must break down. But in any case, so far as what is called Pragmatism is concerned, to fall back on such a doctrine would be suicidal. For this emotional expression is plainly not will. It is the working of an idea on me, and it is not my working. We have here a psychical effect and not properly an act of mine. It would (to pass to another point) be interesting to know how our new gospel conceives its relation to Dr. Bain’s theory of belief. It might seem to have taken that theory, and, without considering the objections to which it is liable, to have gone beyond it by simply writing ‘truth’ for ‘belief’.
Every idea of course works by inhibiting so far the action of other ideas. And, since these other ideas may be practical, every idea, if you please, is practical negatively. But on the other hand surely it is clear that the meaning of truth is something positive. Truth surely can never be barely negative, nor can you find its essence in its mere prevention of the happening of something else. In fact here, as everywhere, it is in the end nonsense to take anything as consisting merely in inhibition.
There is indeed an ancient doctrine for which no power in the end is mere force, and which finds no evil in the world except for self-will. And the self that can apprehend all force and all suffering as in the end will and love, does
But at this point our new gospel, it seems to me, begins to falter, and it seems evasively to point to an ambiguous way of escape. If the world and its power which confront me are the funded accumulations made by striving beings (Mind, N.S., No. 45, p. 94), then after all the world can be no force which is alien to my will. But such a plea to my mind sounds like trifling or like mockery. For to view ourselves as insects on a coral reef is hardly a solution which works. If the world in fact is hostile to my will, then it does not cease to be hostile because others like myself have had the same or a different experience before me. They have altered the world, I know, and they have improved it, if you will, but they have not altered it so that it does not oppose me.
1 I shall deal lower down with the apparent claim that my world has thus been actually made and not merely altered.
No gratitude of mine for past efforts will transform the living fact, and no belief in some happier
II. I will pass on to consider another aspect of the case. We often hear a cry which seems to set forth the virtues of practice. But, when before all things I seek to understand in what this practice consists, then I scarce can apprehend a word which to me is intelligible. And, since my ignorance and perhaps my bias is not peculiar to myself, I will venture without apology once more to lay bare the nakedness of my mind.
1 Instead of ‘a God’ I should perhaps have written ‘a God or a set of gods’. Our new gospel seems not to have decided at present whether monotheism or polytheism is to be the creed of the future. I should be inclined to agree that from a religious point of view the difference in this case has no importance.
A young man frequently hears it said, why cannot you take up something practical? Why cannot you, in other words, place your first end in what is called a comfortable life, and seek to eat and to drink and to reproduce your
These familiar doubts, idle to those minds which have risen far above doubt, to other minds have suggested serious questionings. And I will go on briefly to state that which has served as perhaps a sufficient answer. My practice may be called in general the alteration by me of existence, inward and outward, and ‘existence’ we may understand as what happens or as the series of events.
1 Cf. Prof. A. E. Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics, p. 317.
2 Cf. Principles of Logic, p. 18. The objection that will does not always aim at alteration, but sometimes at prevention of change, was long ago made by Lotze. In Mind for October 1892, pp. 339, 440, I noticed and discussed this objection. It has been urged against me since, I believe, and without any reference to Lotze or myself.
And since, whatever else it is, my whole life certainly is a process in time, certainly everything which I am or do has, or may have, this practical
1 The word ‘practice’ lays stress on the alteration of existence, I do not mean merely outward existence. Now obviously every purpose carried out must alter the series of events, and every purpose therefore is obviously from one side practical. But this does not mean that the interest and the object aimed at are always practical, except incidentally. This plain distinction the Pragmatist has failed to see, and hence is led at one time to inveigh against the theoretical interest, and at another time to admit it, and in each case blindly. Even in the year 1909 Prof. James was still evidently confused as to what ‘practical’ means (Meaning of Truth, p. 209). Prof. James appears to me to be attempting here under the stress of criticism to carry out an inquiry which obviously should have come first, and should have been made independently.
2 There is an admirable passage on this subject in Balzac’s Cousine Bette, which is, I hope, well known to the reader. The only reference I can give is to pp. 179-81 of vol. xvii of the edition of 1865.
Alteration of existence is implied inseparably in the being of truth, but truth, to confine ourselves here
1 [‘does not,’ that is, ‘as such.’ See Chapter XI.]
The gospel of practice for the sake of practice, and everything else for the sake of practice, makes, I doubt not, a good cry. But it will satisfy in the end only those who have not asked what practice is. Practice we have found to consist in my alteration of existence. Now, if we take this as our end, we seem to place the end in mere quantity of being and change. Our end must be being and doing, maintained and reproduced, without regard to any quality possessed by it, except of course so far as difference in quality goes to subserve quantity. But such an end is hardly what in general men seek or can desire, and it will, I think, be obvious to any one that in his own case he would not care for mere
And, if I may be allowed to put on one side things which I am unable to comprehend, I would venture to state in a few words how I understand the relation of practice to life. The end I take to be the fullest and most harmonious development of our being, and, though I will not deny that this coincides with the largest amount of mere doing,
1 Cf. Appearance, p. 374, and Chapter XI of this volume.
2 I wish here neither to deny nor to assert this. The question is a difficult one.
3 I have further enlarged on this point below, pp. 101-6.
Some of them, that is, do not involve the alteration of existence except
1 See further in Chapter XI.
The same thing holds again of what is beautiful in nature
If we take things from another side, then all, as we saw, can fall under the practical end. For everything in life is subject to life as a whole, and the end of morality is to develop, to order and to harmonize, our human existence. There is no element therefore to which the moral end is unable to dictate, and even truth and beauty, however independent, fall under its sway. Beauty and truth therefore are at once dependent and free. The moral end dictates to us their pursuit and it sets limits to that pursuit. The space which these objects are to occupy in my life, how far and how long it is right for me to follow them, nay even to some extent the kind of truth and beauty which I should ignore or should follow, all this, it is obvious, is or may be the affair of morality. But the nature of that which is to be
1 We may put it thus, that in the end the practical end must be the Good, but that the Good, when you examine it, is plainly more than mere practice. Or from the other side we may say that in the end there is no criterion which is not practical, and that the true and the real will in the end fall under the Good. But, when we have shown this, we find ourselves forced on the other hand to make distinctions within the Good, and to recognize, as before, that the Good consists in more than practice. And practice itself, when we examine it, will be found even in itself (I cannot deal with this here) to involve and to depend upon judgement and truth.
Any such creed is perhaps as obsolete as it is old and familiar, and, if we believe the advocate of ‘pragmatism’, it is but foolishness and falsehood. And yet in philosophy, if error is to be removed, it possibly after all should be removed by discussion. It is hardly mere darkness to be dispelled by the rising of some luminary however refulgent. And yet, since neither of us seems to understand what the other can be meaning, a rational discussion between the ‘personal idealist’ and any adherent of the old doctrine seems unattainable. There is a view that the independent use of the intellect is impossible, that the intellect has neither freedom nor any being of its own, and that, except so far as it consists in practice or again indirectly squints at practice, the intellect is nothing. This view, to me at least, seems contrary to the plain facts of human nature, and to me at least this view seems to end in nonsense. There is again a view that the independent use of the intellect is possible but is undesirable, and this view again, though less obviously absurd, seems to me indefensible. Certainly on my side I should insist that any one-sided development is not desirable. I should insist that the realization of any aspect of human
1 Personal Idealism, p. 85. I shall briefly notice lower down the difficulty which arises with regard to a knowledge that truth ought not to be independent. Clearly this truth also is dependent, but it is hard to say on what. [In reprinting this paper I should perhaps add that the particular example of perversion, given in the text, does not itself appear in the passage referred to. It is, however, fully justified by its general statement, and on this point I should be glad if the reader would satisfy himself.
The following of science for the sake of science and of art for the sake of art is, if I may repeat what I have accepted, to be kept within limits. Like every other side of human nature it is thus subordinate to the welfare of the whole, but on the other hand within its own limits it should be perfectly free. This relative freedom is even dictated by the interest of the spiritual commonwealth; and hence this freedom is in the end the most practical course, if we take ‘practice’ in anything but a limited sense. And it will be a mistake in practice after all, when you take our world as a whole, to seek to banish from it the pursuit of unworldly objects and ends. But you do in effect condemn these pursuits, you vitiate their nature and you destroy them, when you sentence them to keep throughout at least one eye upon the world. On the one hand obviously our
1 I have of course not forgotten that there are ‘developments’ of human nature which are undesirable and vicious. Why these are undesirable is a question which I cannot discuss here. The answer in general is that such things not only are contrary to the interest of our whole nature, but also are hostile to the realization of that very side of it to which they belong. They therefore are not in the best sense developments but are perversions of our nature.
But I shall doubtless be told that the intelligence springs from and depends upon need and desire. There is no understanding, it will be urged, and no truth, except where there is an interest; and since interest and want must be admitted to be practical, we have here a clear proof that all in the end is subordinate to practice. To myself, however, this proof adduced by the logic of Pragmatism seems hardly to require any serious discussion. To me it seems obvious that, if some function belongs to our nature, there will be a need and desire which corresponds to that function. Hence, if the free use of the intellect is really one aspect of our being, we shall in consequence have a need and a desire for that use. And how this can prove that no interest is in the end intellectual, I fail wholly to perceive. There is an attempt
III. I will now attempt briefly to point out the various senses in which we may try to subordinate truth to practice. We have already learnt the ambiguity of any assertion that truth is practical, but it may repay us to realize this ambiguity more in detail, even if that detail is far from exhausting the subject.
(1) We may affirm that ‘reason is the slave of the passions’. We may hold that, except to find means to a foreign end, truth is (a) idle and useless or (b) even impossible, (a) The first of these statements does not deny the possibility of a truth which is merely theoretical. It denies it only so far as to insist that such a truth is worthless, and that it therefore does not deserve to be called truth. (b) The second statement on the other hand appears to make an unqualified denial. But it seems inconsistent with itself so far as it assumes an independent knowledge of means; for any such knowledge would appear to contain truth which so far is theoretical. Further the doctrine that the
(2) We may from this proceed to a position with which we all are more or less familiar. Truth, we may hear, is after all nothing but working hypothesis. We have truth when we can say of an idea that it will ‘do’, and an idea will ‘do’ only when, and so far as, it will work. There is, in short, no meaning in truth other than the idea which works best. This general statement, however, admits of more than one interpretation, (a) It might mean that truth is the idea which works best theoretically. There is in other words here no truth in the sense of something which is given as absolute. There are no data which we may assume and on which we may build as certain each by itself. All is material, in short, with which we experiment ideally, and the ideal experiment which in the end best satisfies itself and us is what we mean by truth. It is, however, obvious that, with so much, truth has not become merely practical. Indeed such a position would be consistent with an extreme intellectualism. And on the other hand the doctrine that truth is what works, usually means to make truth the mere servant of something else. We may therefore pass on to consider another meaning. (b) The order and series of my sensations may be taken for granted, and truth may be regarded as a construction which is formed out of these. The end for which the construction is made may remain unspecified, and at present at least this point may be ignored, for in any case the doctrine has failed to make truth merely practical. Truth is our construction, but truth is forced to start with an order of sensations. This order is in the main independent of my choice and my will, and is a given fact which dictates to me and to my choice of means. It is hence hard to see how such a fact can be excluded and left outside of truth, or how again such a fact is merely practical. ‘Reality
1 The Good is here taken once more in its highest sense, a sense in which it has ceased to be merely practical and has ceased to be merely good.
This is a doctrine which to my mind commends itself as true, though it naturally would call for a great deal of explanation. But, with this, evidently truth is not subordinate to practice. It has a practical aspect, no doubt, but its whole essence is not practical. Its end is an element in the general end, and is in this sense subordinate; but its end is not subordinate to any other partial aspect of the whole. And practice on its side will be no more than such a partial aspect. Hence, if truth is to be practical, this whole view must be given up or else must be modified. And it must,
1 The question how far anywhere we are to use working ideas the nature of which is to be dictated in some sense by a practical end, is a question I do not discuss. The point, I agree, is both interesting and important, and it deserves a discussion which would be impossible within the limits of this paper. I am concerned here simply with the assertion that all truth is in the last resort merely practical.
(3) A more radical view is the doctrine that reality in the end is will, and that intelligence has somehow a secondary position. A view of this kind was upheld in the first quarter of the last century by more than one well-known philosopher, and it has naturally been subjected to a good deal of criticism. This is a point which our new gospel seems to think calls for little attention, and I could not myself be expected here to enter into it at length, even were I able to do so. I may, however, be permitted to state briefly the
(a) Will in my judgement must imply something in the self or beyond the self which is other than will, and, apart from this ‘other’, I cannot find any sense or meaning in the ‘will’ either of man or of God. There is to me no thinking without something which thinks and again something which is thought of—something in either case which is other than mere thought. And in the same way there is no willing except that which both proceeds from something and changes something—something again in either case which is other than will. And I may add that to me will involves not only perception but also idea, and that I find this hard to reconcile with a secondary position of intelligence.
(b) The necessity for an ‘other’ may lead to an admitted plurality of wills, and in any case without such a plurality the whole doctrine tends in effect to negate itself. But on the other hand the plurality, if admitted, raises difficulties which to my mind are insuperable. If will demands a perceived ‘other’ which it alters, how is this to consist merely in another will? To me it seems that each will must presuppose in the other will something which is more than bare willing. My volition, to me, is a process of passage from idea into existence. Hence, as soon as and as far as that passage is realized, my volition in the proper sense has ceased to exist. The outer existence which is the expression of my will is in a sense certainly my will, but in the strict sense it is not my will. Thus I do not understand how the inner side of another will is to serve as that perceived ‘other’ which my will demands, while again, if the other will is taken as a perceived existence for me, I must understand it to be something which is more than and is other than mere volition.
1 The fundamental difficulty I take to be this, that will must imply and must presuppose what is other than itself. Thus on the one hand bare will is no will, while on the other hand, as soon as will has ceased to be bare, it has become something more than will. This main difficulty is, to me, at once radical and insuperable, and it shows itself in the relation between will as inward and as carried out. If you do not here admit an existence which in some sense is more than mere will, you, so far as I see, make ‘will’ an unmeaning word. Thus with a plurality of wills, if each will is to have any known world outside itself, you are on the above ground forced to admit some existence beyond it which is more than any mere will. For I cannot see how, if each will has no outside of its own, each is going to serve as the outside for another. This idea may seem plausible, but I at least cannot carry it out. And if, leaving this, you assert that will itself is a whole which possesses in itself both an inward and an outward side, then I do not understand what you are to reply when some one else chooses to assert that this same whole is intelligence or feeling.
To find the solution of the world’s problem in a number of wills, which serve amongst themselves, each to the others, as outward existence, is, I agree, at first sight a very promising adventure. For myself I have never been able to surmount the obstacles which I have mentioned. But it would be a pleasure to me to learn that they can be surmounted.
And we have already seen that, if you
Will in fact implies all reality, and in this it is like thought, for in thinking once more you can find all reality. You can, that is, identify a complex whole with one of its aspects, and then naturally in that aspect you can go on to find everything contained or implied. But for myself I see no advantage in such a procedure. And I see no advantage in rushing blindly from the rejection of one extreme to the acceptance of the other, especially since I have now been acquainted with both extremes for more years than I care to recall.
(4) I must pass from this attempt to identify reality in the end with will. For the Will, which is reality, is not for such a view my mere individual will. And it is my individual will with which, so far as I understand the matter, we have to do when we come to Prof. James and his followers. At least, if it is not my will which makes reality and truth to be what they are, I hardly see what can be left of the gospel which they preach.
1 [And, so far as I can now judge, really nothing in principle is left. Prof. James (the evidence is given in Chapter V and its Appendix I) ended apparently by abandoning every doctrine which can be taken as distinctive of Pragmatism. When once a Pragmatist allows intrinsic value to theory, surely the whole bottom of his gospel may be said to have fallen out. This remark has no application to Dr. Dewey, who, I understand, still remains consistent.]
2 The self-elected leader of our Personal Idealists seems at times to fall back on the old and well-known view, that truth is merely what happens to prevail, merely those sensations and ideas which happen to enforce themselves among a particular set of men, and that truth has no meaning which is other than this. He even appears to be under the impression that this doctrine is new as well as salutary. But, for myself, I could never see that whatever is the result of a crude interpretation of Darwinism must therefore be novel. And when the same writer preaches that Man (with a capital) is to be the measure, I should not infer that he has asked himself what in the end this capital is to mean.
1 [About a page of the original article has, after this, been omitted.]
I will recall some beliefs which our new gospel seems called on to meet. Practice is a necessary aspect of human nature and of the whole of things, but practice is not the whole of things nor is it the entirety of human nature. It is a pernicious error to set up one aspect of our being (I do not care what that aspect is) as an end by itself to which everything else is subordinate. Our nature is complex, and on the other hand our nature has and ought to have a unity, but its unity is not to be found by setting up one element as absolute, and by turning all the rest into mere external means. Further it is true that any one-sided expenditure of our limited energy is so far hurtful. And it is true that
1 Personal Idealism, it seems to me, supplies us with two striking illustrations of the tendency to avoid Scylla and to find a haven in Charybdis. [An omission has been made here.] The omnipotent and omniscient infinite God of Christian theology has of course given rise to well-known difficulties. And an exit from these difficulties may naturally be sought by the removal of one or more troublesome attributes. If God is made finite, and, I presume, in part ignorant and in part impotent, and in short is reduced in principle to the level of one creature among others, certain objections, it is clear, will at once lose their force. Thus, if you want to treat God as one person over against others, your readiest course is to deny that he is infinite. And, if you wish to relieve any person of moral responsibility, it is a well-known expedient to seek to deprive him either of knowledge or of power. But there are unfortunately obvious objections and difficulties on the other side. And these obvious difficulties, I presume, were present to and moved the minds of the more orthodox theologians. In any case surely they exist, and surely there can be no excuse for ignoring them. (Cf. p. 124 and Chapter XV.)
The contention that truth and falsehood depend on my will is to the last degree ambiguous, and it may end in what is unmeaning or is plainly false. To make the whole essence of truth consist in a choice made by this or that person subverts the very nature of truth. On the other hand to treat the will of others, or to treat the result of any past volitions as being my will and choice, seems really a thoughtless attempt at compromise. Finally the essence of will requires an ‘other’ which is not will, and without this ‘other’ bare will, like bare intellect, ceases to be itself. Itself is reduced in either case to vacancy and to nothingness. And the question of this ‘other’ cannot be disposed of by unexplained phrases, and still less can it be met by any
It is well to protest against one-sided intellectualism and to insist on the reality and on the worth of practice. It is well to lay stress on the defects of Monism and on the positive claims of Individualism and Pluralism. Such protests against one-sidedness are perhaps never out of place. Such criticisms, even where they are not deserved, can perhaps do no harm; and they can never perhaps fail to be more or less deserved. But these protests and these criticisms, it seems to me, are one thing, and the setting up and the preaching of some counter-onesidedness is surely another thing. And before anything, no matter what it is, is proclaimed as a new gospel, it will be better, I think, to ask if account has been taken of objections, objections which at least exist, even if they are not old and obvious.
Note:—It may be useful, even at the cost of some repetition, to add a few words on the difference between practical and non-practical activity. The doctrine which I have advocated is briefly this, that the above difference exists and that on the other hand it is not absolute.
There is in the first place no activity which in the end is merely practical, and the merely practical would in the end be nothing real. It would, so far as I see, be the maintenance and alteration of existence in complete abstraction from the quality of the existence and the change. Its end would be to produce the greatest quantity of bare doing. How far such an ideal is in principle self-consistent, I will not inquire, for certainly it is an ideal which no one would accept, no one at least who understood clearly what it means. And the assumption that such a practical activity exists anywhere must be rejected. You will find no creature out of whose life you can strike quality as irrelevant. However low you descend you will reach no stage where the ‘what’,
And that at least not everything in life is thus practical or a mere means to practice seems manifest when we glance at the facts of life. We need not appeal here to that which in the narrower sense is intellectual or aesthetic. The pleasure of rest after accomplished labour, the song that gives vent to the joy in being, the heightened self-feeling from the perceived presence of one’s kind—it seems strange to insist that these things are barely practical. For myself I prefer to think that each creature has its own quality and its especial delight, and that in the quality of that which fills its self it finds and it seeks its own fulfillment.
This is a view which, I admit, I did not learn from philosophy, and, even if it were refuted by philosophy, I could not forget what I imbibed in my youth. I learnt that Jehovah found his work good, and took pleasure in it because it was so, and not merely because his own activity had been something extreme, or because (as a Personal Idealist might say) he had been ‘young strong and virile’.
1 The reference is to a passage from Humanism (p. viii) which was quoted in an omitted part of the foregoing. It runs thus: ‘The ancient shibboleths encounter open yawns and unconcealed derision. The rattling of dry bones no longer fascinates respect nor plunges a self-suggested horde of fakirs in hypnotic stupor. The agnostic maunderings of impotent despair are flung aside with a contemptuous smile by the young, the strong, the virile.’
Any such doctrine is divided by a chasm from the creed of the Personal Idealist, the Personal Idealist, that is, who
1 The passage referred to, which deals with Identity, is obviously full of intellectual confusion, whatever we may think of it otherwise as a sample of academical literature. [The reader will, of course, bear in mind that the text speaks of a view, not as it is in fact, while confusedly and inconsistently entertained, but as it really in principle is, and as it would be if it understood itself.
On the one hand no activity is barely practical. There is in the end no activity which exists for its own sake as a process, without any regard for its own nature and quality, and in abstraction from all that can be regarded as a product. On the other hand we may say that in the end all activity is practical. For there is nothing which is apart from process and change in existence. And in one of its aspects it is possible to view the whole Universe as a will which everywhere asserts itself practically. Between that which is practical and that which is not practical we thus seem in the end unable to maintain any difference.
As against a non-practical activity my activity is practical when and so far as its product directly qualifies the existence which is altered. When I am active it is plain that I make a change in my existence. Now can the product of my activity be taken as the adjective of my changed existence? So far as this can be done my activity is practical, and otherwise not so. When I dig the ground I make a change in my world, and it is my world which so far is altered. When I morally order myself, the moral arrangement becomes the adjective of my own existence. When I eat and drink, the result is that food and drink have been consumed, and that on the other side I am changed by having eaten and drunk. When I unite with other men in supporting and developing a social community, the result of what we do is, at least in the first instance, an adjective of our organized existence. Thus and so far the above activities are practical distinctively. On the other side when I perceive a horse that is present, or think of one that is absent, certainly by my so perceiving or thinking my existence is changed, but the alteration cannot be said to consist in the horse. For my perception or thought has not, on any sane theory, brought the horse into being. My activity therefore is so far not practical. And when after digging the ground I contemplate it, and when I say ‘My work is good’, my activity here has ceased to be practical. For I can hardly so far be taken to have altered the ground or myself, and to have given to either of them a new quality not owned before. And, in short, all apprehension, whether theoretical or in the widest sense aesthetic, will fail to be practical except
In any case the abstraction of mere doing is not a rational end. The good, in other words, so far as it is good in itself, is so far not merely practical. And as good in itself, we may believe, it is revealed in some measure even to the humblest. And as good in itself, which in different senses and in various degrees is more than the mere adjective of passing events and of finite existence, it is apprehended by and becomes clear to the human intellect. On the other hand I must repeat that no such distinction is absolute. Thus to the
Chapter V. On Truth and Copying
Truth as copying. This idea is suggested necessarily, but is untenable (107-9). You cannot separate truth, knowledge, and reality (no). Truth as mere external means (110-12). The identity of truth, knowledge, and reality. This is a necessary claim made by truth, but cannot be fully satisfied (113-15). Still, if truth made good its claim, truth would be reality (115-18). Partial truth contained in the copy-theory of truth. The more complete view (118-22). On the subjective (119). Note. On truth and working ideas. On Consistency (122-4). On some questions as to Pragmatism and Humanism (124-6).
Mr. Joachim in his interesting work on The Nature of Truth did, I think, well to discuss once more that view for which truth consists in copying reality. It is a view which, for myself, I have been accustomed to treat as exploded, but it is a natural way of taking things, and, I suppose, can never cease to be popular. And, since from time to time a discussion of this topic is likely to be useful, I will venture to offer some remarks on it here.
The idea that truth consists in mere copying is suggested from many sides. A man through language and ideas has to convey fact to other men, and how can he do this unless his ideas copy fact so far as the purpose requires? And, in dealing practically with the present or the future situation, unless I have mirrored in my mind the main features of that situation, how can I hope to succeed? And in recalling the past we are bound above all things not to alter it, and how can we avoid this unless in some way, however indirect, we produce a copy? Finally truth implies agreement amongst the ideas of separate individuals. And, since this agreement is not made by one or another individual, and so not by all of them, it therefore seems due to all of them following one original fact. But unless they mentally repeat this fact, how, it will be asked, can they follow it?
1 This chapter appeared in Mind for April 1907. On the whole subject of it, compare Chapter XI.
The above view is natural, but, even as it stands, seems hardly consistent with itself, for how the past or future can be copied is at least not evident. And it is soon in trouble, as is
If the above objection cannot be met (and I do not know how it can be met) the theory in principle is ruined. In the end truth is not copying; but it is possible, while admitting this, to attempt to save the theory in a modified form. We may draw a distinction between perceptional and reflective thinking. As to what is perceived we may allow that we cannot argue that this is copied, but in any case, we may go on to urge, our ideas must copy our perceptions. And thus, after all, our secondary and reflective truth must seek to mirror reality. But the position taken here, though founded on a distinction, which in itself is important, for the purpose in hand seems wholly ineffectual.
1 I am not assuming here that we have no feelings so elementary as to be unmodified by apperception. But any assumption on the other side seems hazardous and could at any rate not extend far; compare p. 204.
And, apart from such difficulties as might once more be raised as to
Disjunctive, negative, and hypothetical judgements cannot be taken as all false, and yet cannot fairly be made to conform to our one type of truth. And in general the moment we leave perceived facts and seek explanation—which after all is implied in the desire for truth—we find that we are moving away from the given. Universal and abstract truths are not given facts, nor do they merely reproduce the given, nor are they even confined to the limits of actual perception. And in the end, when we come to general truth about the Universe, it seems impossible to regard this as transcribed from the given Universe. Our truths in short can all of them in some sense be verified in fact, but, if you ask if they all are copied from fact, the answer must be different. And we are driven to admit that, at least when we pass from individual truths, our truth no longer represents fact but merely ‘holds’ or ‘is valid’. And, asking what these phrases mean, we are forced to perceive that both truth and reality go beyond the perceived facts. The given facts in other words are not the whole of reality, while truth cannot be understood except in reference to this whole.
We saw in the first place that given facts are even themselves not merely given, but already even in themselves contain truth. And secondly we have seen that, even if the perceived facts were given, truth cannot merely transcribe them. And, since truth goes beyond the given, it is impossible to understand how truth can copy reality. For, before the reality has been reached, there is no original to copy, and, when the reality has been attained, that attainment already is truth, and you cannot gain truth by transcribing it.
1 This is the main conclusion which was urged in my Principles of Logic. It did not occur to me that I should be taken there or anywhere else to be advocating the copy-theory of truth.
I will now break off the consideration of that view for which truth consists in copying fact, and will endeavor
This defect in principle has been illustrated by the view we have been examining, and it may repay us to notice in a different case the result of the self-same error. An attempt is sometimes made to escape from difficulty by insisting that truth is merely what ‘holds’, or is what merely ‘serves’ or merely ‘work’. But since these phrases are relative and, I presume, relative to something which is known, we have at once a division of truth from knowledge. On the one side is known reality, and on the other side is mere truth, and in short we have repeated the error of that view which took truth as a copy. And the fatal result of our proceeding soon becomes manifest.
Let us consider this more in detail. We are, it seems, to take an end, such say as the abstraction of practical success or of felt pleasure, and we are to understand truth as a means, an external means, to this end. And what, we may hear, can be more plain and intelligible than this?
1 Cf. the note at the end of the article.
It is, I agree, almost as clear as the former view for which truth
1 One is, I presume, naturally led to avoid this difficulty by maintaining that our knowledge in the end is intuitive. We have, that is to say, an experience in which reality, truth, and knowledge are one. But, with this, there is an end at once and in principle of the view that truth is an external means to something else. And on our new ground the problem of Error, the question how we can hold for true what is false, obviously threatens to become pressing.
1 For some further discussion on this point the reader is referred to Chapter XI.
It would be easy, passing on, to point out how the same main error, appearing in other forms, works itself out from other sides into conflicting dilemmas. But the limits of this chapter compel me to proceed. The division of reality from knowledge and of knowledge from truth must in any form
Any such conclusion, I know, will on many sides be rejected as monstrous. The last thing to which truth pretends, I shall hear, is actually to be, or even bodily to possess, the real. But though this question, I know, might well be argued at length, the issue in my judgement can be raised and can be settled briefly. Truth, it is contended, is not to be the same as reality. Well, if so, I presume that there is a difference between them. And this difference, I understand, s not to be contained in the truth. But, if this is so, then clearly to my mind the truth must so far be defective. How, I ask, is the truth about reality to be less or more than reality without so far ceasing to be the truth? The only answer, so far as I see, is this, that reality has something which is rot a possible content of truth. But here arises forthwith :he dilemma which ruined us before. If such an outstanding element is known, then so far we have knowledge and truth, while, if it is not known, then I do not know of it, and to me it is nothing. On the one hand to divide truth from knowledge seems impossible, and on the other hand to go beyond knowledge seems meaningless.
And, if we are to advance, we must accept once for all the identification of truth with reality. I do not say that we re to conclude that there is to be in no sense any difference between them. But we must, without raising doubts and without looking backwards, follow the guidance of our new principle. We must, that is, accept the claim of truth not be judged from the outside. We must unhesitatingly assert that truth, if it were satisfied itself, and if for itself it
I will endeavor first to point out briefly in what this standard consists. The end of truth is to be and to possess reality in an ideal form. This means first that truth must include without residue the entirety of what is in any sense given, and it means next that truth is bound to include this intelligibly. Truth is not satisfied until we have all the facts, and until we understand perfectly what we have. And we do not understand perfectly the given material until we have it all together harmoniously, in such a way, that is, that we are not impelled to strive for another and a better way of holding it together. Truth is not satisfied, in other words, until it is all-containing and one. We are not obliged here, I think, to inquire further how these aspects of the idea of system are related, and whether, and in what sense, they have their root in a single principle. It is sufficient here to insist that both aspects
But, when we judge truth by its own standard, truth evidently fails. And it fails in two ways, the connexion between which I will not here discuss.
1 We may use a variety of phrases here. We may speak, for instance, of homogeneity and specification, or again of integration and differentiation. The main point is this, that truth must leave nothing outside, and, with regard to what it contains, must not have to ask for further explanation as to how one part stands to another part.
2 The reader is referred on this and other points to later chapters.
You have perpetually to repeat that things are so, though you do not fully understand how or why, and
1 You want in other words to answer the question ‘What’ by and from the object itself, and not by and from something else.
With this at first sight we have ended in bankruptcy, but perhaps we may find that the case is otherwise and that our failure has carried us to success. For we were looking for the connexion between truth and reality, and we discovered first that no external connexion is possible. We then resolved to take truth as being the same with reality, and we found that, taken so, truth came short of its end. But in this very point of failure, after all, lies the way to success. Truth came short because, and so far as, it could not become
1 On the whole question see my Appearance. From this basis we can deal with the difficulty as to truth’s being able consistently to pronounce itself imperfect. The dilemma that arises here was noticed by me (p. 513) and solved by a distinction (pp. 544-7). On this a sceptical critic (in Mind, No. 11, p. 336), seizing his opportunity, urged against me this dilemma which I had noticed, forgetting to mention that I had noticed it, and omitting the fact that, having noticed it, I had offered a solution. This opportunity for criticism I confess that I had not observed, but in the second edition of my book, desiring always, so far as I can, to be of use to all the world, I called attention to this opening, more or less by way, if I may say so, of invitation (p. 620). And this standing invitation, I was going to add, has been accepted by Captain Knox, in Mind, No. 54, p. 212. But in view of this writer’s extensive ignorance of the work which he came forward to criticize (see Mind, No. 55), I can hardly suppose that such an assertion would be justified. Still, if I cannot credit myself here with a successful invitation, I think that at least I may lay claim to a true prophecy.
Truth, we thus can say, at once is and is not reality, and we have found that the difference is not external to truth. For truth would be satisfied in its own self-sought completion, and that completion would be reality. And if you ask how truth after all stands to reality, and whether after all truth is not a copy, the answer is obvious. Apart from its aspect of truth the reality would not be the reality, and there surely is no meaning in a copy which makes its original. In truth and in other aspects of the Universe we find one-sidedness and defect, and we may go on to see that everywhere the remedy for defect lies in the inclusion of other aspects more or less left out. But as for comparing the Universe, as it is apart from one aspect, with the Universe as complete, such a comparison is out of our power. And it is even, when we reflect, ridiculous to seek to discover by thinking what the Universe would be like without thought. You cannot take reality to pieces and then see how once more it can be combined to make reality. And thus, if we are asked for the relation of truth to reality, we must reply that in the end there is no relation, since in the end there are no separate terms. All that we can say is that, in order for truth complete itself into reality, such and such defects in truth itself would have to be rectified.
That there are difficulties in the way of this solution I readily admit,
1 On this whole matter see my Appearance. One difficulty, on which stress has been rightly laid, is that we have no direct experience of any total experience which comprises in itself finite centers (compare Chapter XV). I do not however myself see that this is more than a difficulty.
1 By scepticism I of course do not mean any positive view as to knowledge in general, and still less any kind of conclusion supported by proof. I mean by it denial or doubt with regard to the existence de facto for me of that which satisfies intellectually. This denial or doubt rests certainly on a positive basis, but, so long as the basis is not made explicit and the denial remains particular, the basis itself is not denied, and the position remains consistent. On the other hand the scepticism which itself poses as a doctrine, which deals in general truth, and in a word claims to be de jure, to my mind does not understand itself. No consistent scepticism can, in my opinion, offer a reasoned proof of itself, nor can a consistent scepticism maintain any general positive doctrine, or indeed any universal thesis of any kind whatever.
If we now return to that view for which truth is a mere copy of things, we have seen that in the end no such doctrine is admissible. But from a lower point of view it may be convenient to speak of truth as corresponding with reality and as even reproducing facts. In the first place the individual in truth-seeking must subject himself. He must (I cannot attempt to explain this here) suppress ideas, wishes and fancies, and anything else in his nature which is irrelevant to and interferes with the process of truth-seeking. And hence in a sense the individuals can have something in common, correspondence to which is essential for truth. Secondly, in truth-seeking the individual (once again I
1 So far as concerns ‘the suppression of the subjective’, as it is sometimes called, that of course belongs alike to everything serious in life. In this general respect there is no difference between the pursuits of truth beauty and moral goodness. When, in order to create a work of art, a man has to keep down (so far as is necessary) what is merely particular to himself, that does not mean either that the work of art makes itself without him, or that it is not different because he in particular has made it. So also in the process of the will for good. When that is called ‘objective’, the meaning is not that the individual’s will makes no difference. The meaning is that whatever in him is irrelevant to the issue, is suppressed as merely ‘subjective’. So again in truth-seeking. The ideal development of the object itself, which I follow, does not make itself. In the first place apart from individual minds there is no object anywhere. In the second place, so far as I in particular am concerned, the process of truth demands my personal self-realization. If you took that away, the objective process would not exist in me at all, and, more than that, its nature would to some extent be modified by my personal failure. On the other side the ‘objective’ development cannot possibly take up into itself then and there everything that is at the moment psychically present in myself when I seek truth. It calls therefore for the suppression, so far as is required, of whatever in me falls outside of and is irrelevant to this special development.
Any reader who wishes not to criticize but to understand, must try to bear in mind two things, (i) The suppression of ‘the subjective’ takes place in regard to truth beauty and goodness alike, and not more in regard to one than the others. (ii) The merely ‘subjective’ does not mean what is personal. It means that which for the special purpose in hand is irrelevant and in this sense is merely personal (see Appearance, p. 237). On the other hand the reader who wishes simply to criticize will, I think, find no difficulty so long as the above points are ignored.
In the
I will ask, in conclusion, how what we may call the copy-theory of truth is affected by the connexion between thought and volition. That in some sense thought depends on desire and will is even obvious, and it is a doctrine in which most of us perhaps have, we may say, been brought up. But it is a doctrine on the other hand which can be interpreted in various ways. If in the first place truth is made wholly to depend in its essence on the individual’s desire, then in this case, naturally, since truth itself goes, the copy-theory of truth goes also, together with every other sane theory of truth. But otherwise, if you simply take truth to be copying, the desire for truth will be a desire for copying, and by laying emphasis on the aspect of desire I do not see that you add anything.
Further, if you adopt a one-sided intellectual view, and maintain that reality is an original system of thought which you try to rethink, or a world of ideal essences whose presence you desire—it seems useless in such a case to speak about copying, since copying is excluded. There may be an original here, but, whatever else you are doing, you do not copy that original, since obviously you have no original before you to copy. The realization in detail of a general end is clearly in itself not repetition, and on the other side, as clearly, repetition and reproduction cannot all be called copying. Hence to ask here why we should desire to copy, is obviously irrelevant.
1 This I myself did in Mind, N.S., No. 51. I did not refer here to the fact that I had written elsewhere on the nature of truth, but I took care to warn the reader (p. 311, now p. 75 of the present volume) that I could not in that article attempt to point out the meaning of truth and falsehood. Notwithstanding this my article has literally been taken as a statement of my view as to the ultimate nature of truth.
The rational question to ask is
But, if we adopt a more concrete view, all such questions become idle. On such a view my desire and my will to have truth is the will and the desire of the world to become truth in me. Truth is a mode of the self-realization of myself and of the Universe in one. And if you ask why the full reality cares to spill itself into gratuitous vessels, or whence and why to me comes this mania for turning myself into a superfluous receptacle or instance—the answer is ready. Such inquiries are based on and betray a most stupendous misconception. The Universe is nowhere apart from the lives of the individuals, and, whether as truth or otherwise, the Universe realizes itself not at all except through their differences. On the other side the individuals, if they are to realize themselves personally, must specialize this common life of which truth is one aspect. And to suppose that the individuals can seek their end and their reality somehow apart (say in the abstraction of mere practice or of private pleasure) is in the end really meaningless. Thus truth, the same in all, is from the other side not wholly the same, since difference to it is vital and it gains difference in each. The personal diversity of the individuals is hence not superfluous but essential.
The process of knowledge is, on any view like this, not something apart and by itself. It is one aspect of the life of the undivided Universe, outside of which life there is no truth or reality.
1 See further in Chapter XI.
And to speak here of copying as in a mirror,
Note to page 110—Cf. here Mind, N.S., No. 51, p. 323,
1 Chapter IV, pp. 92 following, of the present volume.
2 But on this and other points see the Appendices to this chapter.
Next as to ‘working’, I of course agree that in proportion as a truth is idle it is less true, and I again agree that in the end no truth can be wholly idle. A truth that makes no difference to truth is to my mind an impossibility. But I cannot agree that, wherever we fail to see this further difference, it is nonexistent, and the alleged truth therefore not true at all. It is one thing to say that, so far as we perceive, such or such a truth
Further I have no objection to identifying reality with goodness or satisfaction, so long as it is clear that this does not mean mere practical or any other one-sided satisfaction. Again
To come now to that which Prof. James would call ‘humanism’, I am reminded forthwith that an accusation of mere humanism was one of the charges long ago brought against German Idealism. And since (if I may speak for myself) I do not believe in any reality outside of and apart from the totality of finite mind,
1 This statement (with others) is liable to be misunderstood, and perhaps as it stands, is one-sided. The reader is referred to the footnote on pp. 350-1, in which a question as to Nature is discussed.
The philosophic world, ostensibly
1 The reference is to Mind for April 1902, N.S., No. 42.
(1) In the first place as to ‘pragmatism’, we want to hear definitely from Prof. James whether the practical side of our nature is to be made supreme, or whether there is anything else which has value and rights of its own. Even now I ask myself in what sense, or whether at all, mutilation is advocated. I still do not know if I am called on to enter into life halt and maimed, to say nothing of being blind of one eye. And a reassuring statement in general terms is, I think, not sufficient. But if Prof. James would explain to us how in the end he understands the human Good, and how its elements are related to one another, this point perhaps would become clear. We might at last know whether we all should or should not call ourselves Pragmatists. (2) Next as to ‘humanism’, surely we should be informed, first, whether ‘finite mind’ is to stand merely for some of the inhabitants of a single planet, or is to have a far wider meaning, and, if the latter, we should be told what that meaning is. This is not a new question (it might even be called an old and familiar one), and in some aspects the difference here between various views may be really enormous. It seems, to myself at least, imperative that such a point should not be left in darkness. And (3) in the process of Humanity (however Humanity is understood) we have to inquire how the individuals stand to the whole. Have both sides of the process equal reality, or, if this is not so, what is the alternative? If the individuals are the final realities, what in the end are we to say of the ‘together’ and of the whole process? These are well-known problems, and they surely call for systematic treatment. (4) Then, to say nothing of questions about knowledge—a subject with which Prof. James has in some degree dealt—what in the end is the meaning of and the truth about Progress? Endless progress as an ideal is itself hardly above
The above questions, and others, can hardly be answered satisfactorily unless they are dealt with all together and as connected parts of one inquiry. Prof. James’s answer to them, when it comes, will not altogether, I imagine, meet all our difficulties, but most assuredly it will be welcome. Even at Oxford we have not yet been so deafened by periodical manifestos and by prophetic outcries as to be incapable of hearing. And there, as indeed everywhere else. Prof. James may count upon willing and respectful attention.
Appendix I. On the Ambiguity of Pragmatism
I. Professor James. Pragmatism and practice most ambiguous (127). Does Pragmatism degrade truth and beauty to mere means? Professor James now seems to say, No (128-9). And success as the test of truth does not now seem to mean more than success on the whole. But the meaning of this with Professor James is doubtful (129-30). And he appears also to teach an opposite doctrine. A more consistent Pragmatism, what (132-4). II. Professor Dewey. Instrumentalism, what (134). Practical, ambiguity of (135-6). Truth may be practical in various senses. Ambiguity of Professor Deweys position (136-42).
Like other readers of Mind I have been occupying myself lately with Prof. James’s lectures on Pragmatism, and with these I have been reading the defense of Pragmatism offered by Prof. Dewey in a late number of Mind (No. 63). Their account of the matter strikes me as in certain points calling for further explanation, and I am venturing to offer some remarks on this head. If Profs. James and Dewey do not yet know what Pragmatism means, there is no one, I imagine, who is likely to be in a better case. For this reason I have felt justified in confining my attention here to these acknowledged leaders, and in ignoring other Pragmatists. In what follows I am concerned solely with Profs. Dewey and James, and I will begin with the latter.
I. While reading the lectures on Pragmatism, I, doubtless like others, am led to ask myself, ‘Am I and have I been always myself a Pragmatist?’ This question I still find myself unable to answer.
1 This paper appeared first in Mind for April 1908.
2 Cf. Mind, No. 62 (Chapter V of this volume). For the ambiguity of Pragmatism I would refer the reader to Mr. McTaggart’s admirable review in Mind, No. 65. I saw this only after the whole of what follows had been written.
(i) One of the objections raised against Pragmatism has been its alleged degradation of truth. All value except of a borrowed kind has apparently been denied to theory. What it is which in
In the ordinary sense of the word ‘practice’ therefore, according to Prof. James, truth need not be directly concerned with practice. Truth indeed must not become transcendent. It must not turn itself to some other world out of relation with the world of our perceptions and actions. But, so long as truth maintains its connexion, however indirect, with the sphere of our doing and suffering, the Pragmatist is satisfied. ‘Any idea that helps us to deal, whether practically or intellectually, with either the reality or its belongings…will hold true of that reality’ (p. 213).
1 I have endeavored to define these limits elsewhere. See Mind, N.S., No. 51 (pp. 86-91 of this volume).
This denial of transcendence, this insistence that all ideas, and more especially such ideas as those of God or again the Absolute, are
And there is a further point on which Prof. James seems once more to endorse our ideas. I had been, I confess, led to think that, where the Pragmatist took successful practice as the test of truth, he meant this to hold of the individual agent. The idea that worked best in the furthering of my individual existence, I thought, was truth for me. I understood in short that good for the individual and true for the individual were much the same thing, and that further the individual could apply this criterion. And naturally I found that this led to difficulty. We speak, for instance, of a man’s life being ruined by the useless discovery of some truth, say of his deceased wife’s infidelity, and we hardly see our way to set down a truth of this kind as error. But the whole difficulty, we now learn from Prof. James, was manufactured by ourselves. It is a living witness to our blindness, our incompetence and injustice, not to use terms still more abusive (p. 233). For Pragmatism, I now understand Prof. James to say, does not pretend to hold of the individual. The idea that in a man’s case does not work, or that works to his ruin, may for all that be true. For the true is ‘the expedient in the long run and on the whole’ (p. 222). And, this being understood, the whole difficulty so far disappears.
It is succeeded, however, I would urge, by fresh troubles. For what is ‘the long run’ and ‘the whole’, and how does the individual get to know about things like these, which seem really beyond him? On this vital matter Prof. James, it seems to me, leaves us without much assistance. We may conjecture that ‘the long run’ is the process that leads (if it really does lead) to the final victory of Good. We are reminded perhaps of that
One far-off divine event.
To which the whole creation moves.
But I am very far from sure that we are reminded rightly. And what ‘the whole’ is to mean seems, to my mind, beyond probable conjecture. Is it this or that set of beings inhabiting our planet, or is humanity but a small, a microscopical and an inconsiderable
And possibly Prof. James holds that the individual must walk here by faith (p. 296). The individual does not know and he cannot see that truth and goodness now are one, or how they ever will become one. But he must do what seems to him to be best, and again accept what seems to him to be true, and he must trust and believe that truth and goodness in the end will not be divergent. But, with this, the relative independence for us of truth, beauty and practical goodness, seems fully justified, and, so far as the practice of the individual is concerned. Pragmatism seems in short admitted not to work.
And with such a result I, in the main, naturally find myself in accord. To me, as to many others, it seems that in the end truth, fact and goodness are one, though I am forced to admit that we cannot perceive and verify this unity in detail, and that therefore in and for the individual a relative divergence must be recognized. Hence between Prof. James and myself the difference in the end would be practically trifling. But, on the other hand, theoretically, as soon as Prof. James attempts to deal with first principles, the case, I think, will be altered. For, as against our principle of immanent Reality, he seems to have adopted a transcendent Ideal. And that, I imagine the history of philosophy has tended to show, is a thing which, as an ultimate principle, will not work.
(ii) If the above interpretation of Prof. James is correct, Pragmatism is no militant creed. It is in harmony with views against which it is commonly understood to protest, and to imagine that it portends a new dawn of philosophy (p. 6) would be obviously ridiculous. And I hasten to add that I have not imagined that Prof. James would accept his doctrine as it is above interpreted. I think it at least possible that he takes the whole theoretical side of mind to be an instrument worthless in itself, used to gain
1 In his Meaning of Truth (1909), pp. 206 ff., Prof. James not only seems to recognize the validity of the theoretic interest, but also to condemn in unmeasured terms the critics of Pragmatism for having failed to see that this recognition was taught from the first as the doctrine of Pragmatism. I submit that Prof. James here did these critics a serious injustice.
What are the facts? Is it true that from the first Pragmatism stated clearly that theory has an intrinsic value of its own, and that Instrumentalism—if you take that in the sense of making theory a mere means to practice—is a false doctrine? Is it true that from the first ‘practical’ was not opposed to ‘theoretical’, and that, in making the test of truth practical, it was never said or meant that the appeal was to be to practice as distinct from theory? Is it the case that all that in fact was insisted on was that the test is to be empirical? Of course, if all this is so, the critics of Pragmatism have been greatly to blame. But I submit that any such account of the matter would be quite untenable.
Not only was the fact otherwise, but, further, if it had not been otherwise, I suggest that Pragmatism could hardly have preached itself as a new gospel, have talked about a new dawn of philosophy and a turning-point in the history of philosophy (Pref. vii, viii). And I must doubt whether even now Prof. Dewey would accept the position apparently taken by Prof. James.
The real fact, I presume, is this, that Prof. James and some of his followers (for we have not to do merely with Prof. James) believed themselves to have in Pragmatism a new and revolutionary doctrine, but, on the other hand, had never realized exactly what ‘Pragmatism’ and ‘practical’ were to mean. Then, under the pressure of criticism, being forced to discuss the sense of their battle-cry, that sense, in becoming more or less realized by them, became, I submit, seriously altered, though of course without their knowledge. And then the critics are abused for their failure to understand and accept a statement, supposed now, in the teeth of facts, to have been put clearly before them. But I have little doubt as to the judgement which will be passed on all this by the reader who is acquainted with what really has taken place.
2 I remarked on this point some years ago in Mind, No. 43, pp. 296-8.
But the pragmatic
The conclusion then which I would submit to the reader is that Prof. James’s Pragmatism is essentially ambiguous, and that he throughout is unconsciously led to take advantage of its ambiguity. It can at discretion be preached as a new Gospel which is to bring light into the world, or recommended as that old teaching of common sense which few but fools have rejected. The reader may, I think, be helped to appreciate this attempt to make the most of both worlds, if I sketch briefly for him another and, as I think, a better working creed.
I perhaps may here recall the fact that I have advocated elsewhere certain views on first principles. But on the other hand I have seen, if I may say so, far too much of metaphysics to think of staking vital issues on the result of speculative inquiry. And for practical purposes I hold in reserve a belief, in common, I imagine, with an increasing number of persons, a belief, the advantages of which Pragmatism would, it seems, like to appropriate surreptitiously. According to this practical creed there is in the end no truth for us save that of working ideas. Whatever idea is wanted to satisfy a genuine human need is true, and truth in the end has no other meaning. Our sense of value, and in the end for every man his own sense of value, is ultimate and final. And, since there is no court of appeal, it is idle even to inquire if this sense is fallible. It is this which in the end decides as to human interests, and whatever ideas are needed to serve those interests are true, however much these ideas are in contradiction with one another or even with themselves. The one question in the end is whether the ideas work. But there are degrees of truth, because ideas may work better or worse, and because again the interests which ideas subserve are more or less valuable. The above is scepticism, if you please, but it is not the stupid scepticism which offers itself as positive theoretical doctrine. It is the intelligent refusal to accept as final any theoretical criterion which actually so far exists. And there is here no mutilation of human nature, since every side of life, practical, aesthetic and intellectual,
1 Cf. with Chapter IV.
When a man, holding to this less one-sided Pragmatism, says that he for instance believes in God, not a God but a God through whom perfect goodness in spite of appearance is real—how futile in the case of such a man are Prof. James’s findings! Prof. James will tell this man that he is a quietist, that he wants to ‘give up’ and to ‘lie back’, and to avoid paying the just price of salvation through individual sacrifice and effort (pp. 276, 289, 292, 295). But the man will answer that, while he believes in the reality of perfect goodness, he believes also that nothing is more intensely real than individual action for good, and that he believes in these two things not one in spite of the other, but one even because of the other. And he will regret that Prof. James should be so wanting in experience as to be unable to perceive obvious facts, and should be in such bondage to the traditional worship of theoretical consistency. And as against such a position, which I do not suppose Prof. James will call novel, what has he to offer and to object in the name of Pragmatism? He has offered at present nothing, so far as I see, beyond one-sided prejudices, and a blind appeal to theoretical consistency, and an uncritical faith in the ultimate validity of some undiscussed Law of Contradiction.
But that Prof. James could accept the position I have sketched above to myself seems impossible. I do. not suggest that the result is too sceptical for a Professor to endorse, but beyond this there are other obstacles which seem insurmountable. For, if the above is accepted, there is at once apparently an end of the new Gospel, with all its promises and all its boasts about a new dawn of philosophy, together with its anticipatory outbreak of dithyrambic ecstasy (p. 257). And something perhaps even worse than this would follow. For Prof. James would forfeit all right to emphasize as ultimate truth the absolute mutability and incoherence of the world, and the absolute value of this or that individual success or disaster. In short all those prejudices on which he rides to the attack on Absolutism would have to be forgone. These ideas could, none of them, claim more than a relative worth, and their opposites would also and at the same time possess truth.
But if Prof. James cannot be content with so broad a
III. I pass on now to consider the account of Pragmatism given by Prof. Dewey in Mind, No. 63, and here, as with Prof. James, I find much which to myself seems ambiguous. I am again left uncertain whether in the end I also am a Pragmatist, or where and how on the other hand I fail to deserve that title. But I have to begin by putting on one side what to my mind are sheer irrelevancies. I myself long ago (1883) pointed out that theory takes its origin from practical collision, and again for myself theory implies a theoretical want and its satisfaction. And it is obvious that, if Pragmatism means no more than this, I, as I presume Prof. Dewey is aware, have been for many years a Pragmatist, and, however well he preaches, he is preaching here to one long ago converted.
Certainly I must suppose therefore that for Prof. Dewey more than this is wanted for Pragmatism, and I must go on to inquire how much more is wanted. In the first place Prof. Dewey, I understand, insists that theory is only an instrument.
1 On Instrumentalism see the references in the Index. {Search.}
In philosophy surely one has no right
Passing on then unsatisfied from this point let us ask what is meant by the practical nature of thinking and truth. Let me say here at once that I have failed, I am sure, to understand what practical means for Prof. Dewey.
1 Prof. Dewey (p. 328) certainly denies that the end is the abstraction of ‘mere practice’, but such a denial is obviously no positive answer. And when he adds that he cannot believe that ‘any empiricist has ever entertained’ ‘such a thoroughly intellectualistic construction’, I confess that he amazes me. The ‘empiricist’ in my own experience is precisely the man who more than others takes mere abstractions for realities. In any case if the Pragmatist cannot even attempt to state his own doctrine of ultimate value, that, it seems to me, is something like an admission of bankruptcy.
2 ‘By practical’, he says, ‘I mean only regulated change in experienced values’ (p. 328). But, if Prof. Dewey means no more than this, his whole article is surely one long ignoratio elenchi. How does such a definition exclude the existence of pure theoretical activity and practice? And, if it does not, what becomes of Prof. Dewey’s polemic? Pragmatism on this understanding is in agreement with even an extreme one-sided intellectualism, so long as that asserts an intellectual need and activity. The reason, I venture to think, why Prof. Dewey fails to realize this, is that he uses ‘practical’ in a further sense and passes unconsciously from one sense to another. In this further sense there is the usual opposition between practice and mere theory, and it is, I presume, with this sense in his mind that Prof. Dewey asserts (p. 335) that the truth of a mechanical idea is inseparable from the construction of a working model. In short, Prof. Dewey seems to define practice in one sense and then to slide, wherever it is convenient, into another sense. Either this, or he fails wholly to realize the nature of the position which he believes himself to be attacking.
Another point which I may notice is the connexion, according to Prof. Dewey, between having an idea and holding it for true. There are statements as to ‘assumption’ (p. 328) and ‘hypothetic’ (p. 341) which I probably have failed to understand. They look to myself, however, as if Prof. Dewey was assuming the reality of ‘floating ideas’ when in controversy with persons some of whom at least regard these ideas as a delusion untenable both in psychology and logic. And it seems to me further that the rejection of floating ideas tends to raise difficulties, the existence of which Prof. Dewey fails to recognize. I cannot but think that here, as elsewhere, a reference to Bain’s views would have been useful. But in any case the existence and possibility of mere ideas. Prof. Dewey should remember, is denied, and cannot in controversy be assumed (see Chapter III).
Now, as applied to the early
1 I do not discuss here the doubt which might be raised with regard to the ideas of suffering as apart from doing. If you go back far enough I should not suppose that such ideas exist.
I would repeat that I have failed to understand Prof. Dewey’s real position. And I have remarked above on the fatal ambiguity that attaches to the word practical. But if we take practical in the sense in which it is opposed to theoretical—and if we do not take it so the whole controversy seems to vanish—objections to such a position present themselves at once, (1) Suggested ideas—some of them apparently remote from anything which I am to do or could do—are accepted as true. And not only this, but in many cases these ideas appear to coalesce with and to qualify my world, without any experienced collision and apart from anything which I myself seem to do. This account holds good of a large amount of actual present beliefs. And, though Prof. Dewey fails to recognize the extent to which this takes place, he appears to admit that in the case of ‘tested’ ideas (p. 341) we have judgements not issuing in actual behavior. Further, even where ideas do concern my conduct, I would submit that even here they need not be entertained practically and need not in this sense be practical. But in any case, as we have seen, a large number of ideas appear in no sense to relate to my behavior either in themselves or in their results. (2) I have so far dealt with cases where no actual preceding want or desire for the result can be shown to exist. But, even where the attained truth is the satisfaction
Prof. Dewey to some extent seems to be aware of these objections, but how he considers himself to meet them I am unable except in part to understand. I can therefore do little more than set down what seems to me to be possible ways of reply. The reader will understand that in what follows, except where this is stated, I am not pretending to criticize Prof. Dewey’s account. I am detailing some points on which it seems to me that clearness is essential and has not been secured, (i) The first answer to the above objections would consist in urging that truth is the behavior of an idea rather than that of a man. When an idea acts and works in me in a certain manner, that is truth, and therefore truth in this sense is practical. I mention this view though I do not suppose that Prof. Dewey would accept it. (ii) Another way of showing that an idea is practical, although I really do not act on it, is to urge that I should act on it if the conditions were otherwise, or shall act on it perhaps in the future (p. 339). This is the position taken long ago by Bain, who, for some reason that I do not understand, is here ignored. It is of course open to the obvious reply that the question is about the actual and not about the possible or future, and that to identify these is not permitted.
1 This point was dealt with by me many years ago. I have ventured to remark that the uncritical identification of the real and the possible is a leading characteristic of English empiricism. On this subject the reader is referred to the Index, s.v. Possible: {Possible, 274-5, 284, 289, 291. —wrongly identified with actual, 23, 70-1, 137-8, 147, 150, 156, 334.}
To answer for instance that with an idea there is a more or less tentative struggle to act, and that therefore there is an act
1 Cf. Prof. James’s ‘cold storage’. Why not ‘hibernation’ or ‘slumber’ or ‘on half-pay’ or any other mythological metaphor, whichever for the moment seems to bring most conviction?
And I have already dealt above with the apparent
1 The above, of course, justifies the distinction in practice between the idea which is really true and the idea which works best practically; p. 337, note.
Against the preceding it may be urged, though I do not say by Prof. Dewey, that the question is about the main and general tendency of things. That general tendency is that the true idea is the idea which works best even externally. And it may be added that this general tendency justifies the ultimate definition, although we cannot verify this definition in detail and in the case of all ideas. But such a position, if occupied by Prof. Dewey, would to my mind be wholly untenable, if at least he is committed to the doctrine that nowhere for us in our experience can truth be other than that which works practically. For such a denial is not only (as we have seen) out of harmony with fact, but in the end it would itself destroy the general conclusion and the ultimate definition.
For how, I ask, are we to arrive at ultimate knowledge of the main tendency of things? Take this very question which seems to be at issue between Prof. Dewey and myself. We each of us are face to face here with a colliding situation, and as to this and so far we are agreed. Now what are we trying to do with this situation? I on my side say that we seek primarily a theoretical solution. We are each of us attempting to find an idea which will
If however in this ultimate appeal to fact we are forced to recognize theoretical truth, then to go on from this basis to deny such truth would be suicidal. To upset by knowledge about the main tendency of the world something for us more ultimate than such knowledge, seems to destroy knowledge altogether. To build further upon the foundation on which we stand is of course legitimate. To insist that truth, to reach perfection, must also in every case somehow issue in act, does not deny that truth for us, at least to some extent, must be sought and found otherwise.
1 On p. 330 Prof. Dewey appears to traverse this statement directly.
2 In the same way when a too ardent Darwinian teaches that the true idea is the idea which prevails, his position so far is consistent. But, when he goes on perhaps to insist that truth is nothing but prevalence, he falls into inconsistency if he now offers at least this truth as more.
On the other hand to insist on the practical result of the idea everywhere as the criterion of truth, and wholly to deny truth as existing otherwise, is, I submit, to ensure disaster. But I must end as I began, both in the case of Prof. Dewey and of Prof. James, by deploring their ambiguity or my blindness, which in the end
So much indeed of what Prof. Dewey urges seems to me so true and so admirably stated, that I can only applaud and regret that it should seem to be directed against views which I hold. I agree that practical collision is the origin of truth, and I agree that for truth to pass into a new practical result may be called (if we speak at large) truth’s natural and normal end. But that by us men theoretical truth, as well as fine art, must be cultivated, at least to some extent, independently, I am no less assured. The denial of this appears to me to violate facts and to threaten us with the mutilation of our human ideal. And if theory and fine art, or either of these, is to have no worth of its own, let us at least be informed what in the end it is which really possesses value. On such a point to state no positive doctrine, and to leave it to opponents to lose themselves in more or less mistaken conjectures, is a course, I would submit, unworthy of such writers as Profs. Dewey and James.
Prof. Dewey’s article raises a number of interesting questions which would well repay discussion. Among these the apparent contention (p. 334) that truth is nothing but that which I do with an idea, and that truth therefore is made by me, could hardly be dealt with except at length.
1 See Chapter XI
I propose again to say nothing here in reply to Prof. Dewey’s discussion of certain views held by me. It is not that I do not value his criticism, or again that in most cases I should find it difficult to make an explanation or a reply which, to myself
Appendix II. On Professor James’s ‘Meaning of Truth’
Was Professor James a relativist, and in what sense? His doctrine is too ambiguous to warrant any answer (142-5). Some critical remarks on his Meaning of Truth (145-9).
I had written, some months before Prof. James’s lamented death, a criticism of some of the views set forth in his Meaning of Truth. My purpose in writing this was to invite Prof. James to furnish certain explanations. And now, especially as the following remarks are not a general estimate of his work, and as they give no expression to my feeling of admiration and genuine respect, I have hesitated to publish them. But for the reader who will take them merely for what they are, I think it better to do so. And I will begin with the question of Relativism.
We must here understand relativism in two senses, (a) In the first of these, truth and reality are simply for this or that finite individual, while (b), in the second meaning of the term, it is some set of individuals on which everything depends, (a) In the first sense Prof. James certainly did not advocate relativism. What he calls Pragmatism and Humanism are obviously compatible even with an undue disregard of the individual person, and with an exaggerated emphasis laid on the universal side.
1 See Chapter IX.
2 These pages appeared originally in Mind for July 1911. A few slight alterations have been made.
With regard to Humanism, the tendency of what may be called
(b) In the second meaning of relativism truth and reality are something merely for this or that set or collection of persons. And, in inquiring how far Prof. James was in this sense a relativist, we are brought up short by the ambiguity, which (though invited to do so) he, so far as I know, made no attempt to remove. The only thing, I would submit, which lends plausibility to Prof. James’s doctrine of Humanism, is the equivocation by which Humanity stands, at discretion, either for the inhabitants of a certain planet or for the whole of finite mind, however and wherever and whenever finite mind appears. If we take Humanity in the first sense, as being merely one set of creatures, then relativism seems to follow. How am I to deny that our truth, our goodness and beauty, may be utterly false and bad and ugly to another race of beings, and that this other race is, notwithstanding this, as good as ourselves—if indeed there were any sense in such a comparison? And, if I cannot deny this, am I not really a relativist? What is the ground (I ask once more) on which the human race is to dictate to the Universe? (Cf. Chapter VIII, p. 243.) What is the value of our inference to the nature of reality at large simply from what we happen to know of the history of one set of creatures? Prof. James’s doctrine, I would repeat, to myself seems plausible merely so far as he succeeded (I do not of course mean intentionally) in keeping it ambiguous.
1 The words quoted by Prof. James from myself (Meaning of Truth, p. 71) as applying to the ‘humanist’, were used by myself of Personal Idealism. See Mind, No. 51, p. 322; p. 90 of the present volume.
2 Prof. James, in Pragmatism, p. 30, inveighs against the monstrousness of holding that, given certain hideous crimes, good on the whole is realized. He insists, that is, on taking the crime in its abstraction as absolutely real. And then he goes on (Hegel would have smiled) to denounce ‘abstractionism’. But, apart from that, on what ground could Prof. James have denied that a crime, however hideous, is no crime at all except for certain persons, while for other persons (for anything that he really knew) it might be a virtue? And what other aspect is there in his doctrine to save it from relativism in the extremest sense?
I am not saying that Prof. James’s doctrine really consisted in a blind oscillation between two meanings of the word ‘human’. He had, I must imagine, a view with two aspects, the connexion between which he did not, and perhaps could not, work out. On the one side this view seems much the same as that made popular by J. S. Mill. It differs, so far as against J. S. Mill Prof. James insisted on continuity. The difference, certainly, is real, but a question remains as to how far it will carry you? Continuity takes you, in some sense doubtless, beyond the present, but can it take you, and on what ground can it take you, to a real past and a real future? I will return to this point, and will merely say at present that Prof. James seems to myself to follow here J. S. Mill to a common bankruptcy.
But Prof. James’s teaching presents another and a very diverse aspect. It suggests to my mind that in a great measure he really shared that view of the world which in the main I, for instance, inherited from Hegel. Prof. James desired to insist that there is much more in human society and in its history, and, I presume, in the Universe at large, than the changing accidents of a mere collection. And he held, I think, that in our own experience we touch intimately, and to a certain extent know, the real character of the whole Universe which there is immanent. Naturally I do not suggest that the difference between asserting and denying the ultimate reality of change, is a trifling difference. But the necessary consequences, as regards the value of the individual person and his place in the Universe, are surely far from being evident. And in short the radical opposition which Prof. James
1 Prof. James’s idea as to Absolutism, that it is a way of getting what you want without paying anything for it, is surely (to any one who knows) a striking revelation of the limits of his knowledge (cf. Chapter V, p. 133).
I will proceed now to offer a few critical remarks on some of the doctrines contained in Prof. James’s Meaning of Truth. The misunderstandings which these remarks are likely or certain to involve, may even themselves, I hope, lead to the removal of what, I submit, is real obscurity.
(1) Prof. James calls his own view the ‘pragmatic’ view. If by this he means (as he sometimes seems to mean) merely that view which works best, we have here an attempt to beg the question at issue. The objection taken to Prof. James’s account of truth is taken precisely on the ground that this account fails to work theoretically. And practically (compare pp. 67 and 133) Prof. James seems never really to have faced the problem of a genuine working creed. He never, I think, saw what is involved in treating all ideas, without exception, as merely useful. He, so far as I know, never even inquired whether truth in the end has to be consistent with itself. With regard to the practical character of all truth I will say no more here, as Prof. James himself seems willing (pp. 206 foll.) to treat the matter as of no moment. If this is really so, he would be at issue, I presume, with Prof. Dewey, and little or nothing of Pragmatism would, I imagine, be really left but the name.
(2) To pass to another point—judgement really, on my view, involves mediation. This aspect of the matter has not escaped Prof. James, but he has, in my opinion, turned truth here into ruinous error. For he has taken intermediation to consist in a temporal process from the idea to a perceived object. To this conclusion, in spite of much obscurity, he seems committed. Where an idea merely leads to an object, we, according to Prof. James, have knowledge. Whether there is a relation of identity in difference between the idea and the object, a relation which is also for the knower, I am unable to say. The importance of both these questions is obvious, but the answer, if there is an answer, remains to me obscure. Apparently we have truth wherever an idea leads to an object.
Any such doctrine is liable to objections which, I think, can never be fairly met. I recognize that I have now my chronic pain for which nothing can be done. I notice that a tree is about to fall upon the head of a distant person. The suggested idea of some action leads in me to its performance. In the third of these cases we have the definition without truth, while in the two former cases we have truth without the definition.
1 I am of course prepared to give references throughout, but since I admit that I do not understand, I think it useless to trouble the reader with them. And I confine myself here to the teaching of the volume mentioned. I can now, in republishing these pages, refer the reader to what follows in this volume.
2 In the second case, it may be said, there is a continuous process of fulfillment from the idea to the object, and this is truth. The doctrine here stated will be examined later, pp. 154-6. For the present I would reply that the judgement, ‘this tree is about to fall there,’ may be complete before the ‘object’ exists in fact.
The doctrine that there is no truth apart from the action of some person here and now, if
If what Prof. James meant was merely this, that truth, to be true, must be in vital connexion with the world of particular feelings and perceptions, and in some sense is verifiable in this world, I am of course fully in accord with him. But to offer such a doctrine as something new, and as something which is to make a revolution in philosophy, would be to my mind ridiculous.
(3) I will notice now one method by which Prof. James appears to have thought that at least some troubles could be met. This is the old device by which at discretion the potential or virtual is substituted for the actual. As a good ‘empiricist’ Prof. James here kept to the tradition of his school. I could not say that he has here done nothing more than blindly follow his blind leaders, but I at least have not been able to discover what more on this point he has done. What has to be proved is, for instance, the existence of actual intermediaries in time. The possibility of such intermediaries does not assert their existence. It asserts something else, and what it really asserts is not a lapse of events.
1 Cf. here, p. 129. I cannot venture to attribute to Prof. James the doctrine that the earthquake is a social event to which my idea leads by a human process.
2 ‘A fact virtually preexists when every condition of its realization save one is already there’ (Meaning of Truth, p. 93). An explosion therefore has preexisted whether I have, or have not, gone on to apply the match or pull the trigger. But the real question surely is as to what in every such case it is which does actually exist and preexist. And here the reader is of course put off with mere phrases. And I ask myself whether this really is to be taken as a great advance in philosophy?
(4) I will return now to a point of extreme importance. Prof. James is of course against transcendence, but in this very matter he (so far as I can perceive) is threatened with ruin. The question is whether the object-reality, which he has to know, is not often in a world which should be beyond his knowledge. Take once more the instance of a past or future event. What are we to say with regard to the existence of such a fact? Does it transcend, is it outside of and beyond, the present Reality now immanent in my knowledge? To this question, as I have already
1 The question of truth about the past has been discussed by Prof. Dewey in his interesting volume, Influence of Darwin, pp. 159 ff. The result to my mind is failure. If Prof. Dewey would remember that the person whom he calls the ‘intellectualist’ has been long ago refuted, and that the real question is as to the nature and truth of his own view, the issue, I think, would become clearer. But nothing, I am sure, can fully clear the issue except a definite statement by Prof. Dewey as to what he means by reality. Why we cannot have this I do not understand.
We obviously are here concerned with the relation of truth to knowledge and of both to reality. Have they any essential connexion at all? Can reality be a something outside which makes no difference? Can truth have no relation to it, or again a relation which is merely external? On the other hand, are we ready to bring reality within truth and knowledge, and both within ourselves, and to do this in earnest? After the criticism of now a century back one might expect that questions such as these could not be ignored. And it certainly would not be true to say of Prof. James that he ignored them. But, if any one can understand his answer, I cannot.
In a succession of volumes, perhaps too hastily composed and too hurriedly published, Prof. James wrote, I must believe, from a central point of view from which these essays were thrown out. But for a reader to discover this center by following the opposite direction is far from easy, more especially when the reader stands outside and is perhaps not sympathetic. And if
Appendix III. On Professor James’s ‘Radical Empiricism’
Professor James identifies Reality and Experience, but what Experience? If actual experience then how as to past and future? The dilemma which arises is not met by Professor James (149-50). Then as to what is Experience are terms and conjunctive relations immediately experienced, as such, or are they abstractions? Professor James seems committed to both these views at once (151). A difficulty as to Change is not noticed by him (152). He probably preferred the view that immediate experience is non-relational, but is mistaken as to its history (152-3). It does not follow, if immediate experience is the beginning, that it is also the end, and is all reality (153). What according to Professor James is knowledge? View of knowledge which he had ready to hand. Why he could not accept this view (153-4). His own theory, what. Its inconsistency and failure (154-6). Professor James’s view of Reality. The whole fact of the ideal world is left outside his reality, or is included in it by something which will not bear scrutiny. And in any case he cannot meet the dilemma as to past and future experiences (156-8).
Having read once more Prof. James’s article, ‘A World of Pure Experience,’ as republished in the Essays on Radical Empiricism, I am tempted to add here some remarks on his ultimate metaphysical views. These remarks, though made by one who does not profess to understand, may perhaps be useful. For I am in agreement with so much of Prof. James’s premisses that my criticism, however wrong, can hardly be quite external.
With Prof. James (so much seems plain) there is no reality but experience, and that which falls outside of what is experienced is not real. But is experience the same as that which we should call actual experience, or are there regions of the possible and
1 See pp. 148, 156 and Index, s.v. Time: {Time:—and relations, 309.—and truth, 336, 340. 406-7. Cf. Identity, Truth.—fixed order of, 356-8.—past and future, 146-8, 150, 153, 332. 354, 360 foll., 426.—present, 150, 153, 303, 332, 356, 382, 386, 410, 416.—reality of, 148, 150, 250.}.
2 You do not, it seems to me, touch the above difficulty by making consciousness separable from experience. The dilemma, I should say, can be met only by denying, or else by subordinating, the fact of change and succession as it appears in immediate experience. The latter way (that of subordination) is the course which I myself adopt. But neither way, so far as I see, is open to Prof. James. He, apparently, has both (a) to identify the experienced present with all reality, and (b) to keep past and future experiences ultimately real in their character of events.
Did Prof. James hold, or suppose, that there is, or perhaps some day will be, an actual experience in which the whole time-sequence is given as the content of one immediate ‘now’, a present in which the succession of our lives and events is at once a passage and yet is all there? If possibly this was his thought, he never, so far as I know, faced the danger or the ruin with which it threatens the ultimate reality of time. For, if the whole temporal series is nothing but one aspect of the actual ‘now’, we are far on our way to deny that this aspect is, as such, ultimately real, or more than a relative appearance. But the reader will, I think, seek help here from Prof. James in vain, unless he can find it in what to me is some obvious conjuring with delusive terms such as ‘possible’ and ‘virtual’.
Leaving for the present this unsolved dilemma, I will notice next an ambiguity with regard to the nature of what is experienced. Have we terms and relations given as such, and therefore, as such, ultimately real? Or is what we actually
In arguing for Pluralism and against Monism he urges habitually that terms and mere conjunctive relations, are, as such, immediately experienced; and indeed any contention short of this would leave his arguments baseless. But while he identifies himself thus with the first view, the second view, that immediate experience is non-relational, seems essential to his doctrine. And yet how to combine these contrary views we are, I think, nowhere informed.
The doctrine of Pluralism and of external relations may of course be advocated otherwise. It may be offered as an inference, as a true construction from what is given, and as the one rational account of the world. But this is a different thing from a direct appeal to immediate experience, and a claim to find there terms and conjunctive relations as given facts. Still this is the claim and the appeal which, whenever it suits his purpose, seems made by Prof. James.
1 In arguing against myself for the ultimate reality of external relations (Radical Empiricism, Essay III, or Pluralistic Universe, Appendix A), Prof. James assumed me to hold that terms are, as such, ultimately real, while relations are not so. He at that time apparently had no idea that the view to which he opposed himself was that both terms and relations are alike, as such, mere abstractions, and neither ultimately real, though of course for certain purposes we use these ideas as true. How could I reply to such an argument? And what can I say now when I read (Radical Empiricism, p. 52), ‘Throughout the history of philosophy the subject and its object have been treated as absolutely discontinuous entities’?
2 The reader will not, I hope, take me to suggest that, in order to establish such Monism as I accept, no more is wanted than the rejection of Pluralism (I use this word of course in the proper sense). With the rejection of Pluralism I understand that forthwith Monism follows; but, as to the further character of this Monism, nothing follows forthwith. The One may, so far, be irrational and in a sense incoherent and even discordant. We are, so far, only at the beginning, and, to advance, must make use (as I have shown elsewhere) of a further argument.
There is a point here which it is instructive to notice in passing. Not only is Prof. James concerned to advocate Pluralism and external relations as directly given, but he is concerned no less
The doctrine which Prof. James would, I think, have preferred is the view that given experience is non-relational, that it is an unbroken fluid totality containing in one ‘now’ an undivided lapse, and is in itself foreign to any terms or relations as such. This I also have taken to be the true account of the matter; and what I would notice here is the fact, that, while urging this view as a fatal objection ignored by Absolutism and Idealism, Prof. James might, like others, have himself learnt it at the very source where according to him it is most unknown. The doctrine in question, Prof. James stated very candidly, has been advocated by myself since 1883.
1 See The Journal of Philosophy, etc., for January 1910.
He seems even to give me the credit of having broken away here from the tradition of my school, and of having, conjointly with M. Bergson though at perhaps an earlier date, originated in modern times the true view ignored by and fatal to idealistic Monism. Now for myself (I am of course not concerned with M. Bergson’s attitude) I at once, in the same journal, disclaimed, and I now again emphatically disclaim any such originality. When it was that the view in question was first advocated in modern philosophy, I cannot, I regret to
What is the true issue between Prof. James and those who here follow Hegel? There is agreement on both sides that immediate experience is the beginning, and the vital question is whether this experience is also the end. Is immediate experience real in the sense that it is all there is which is real? To this question I will return, but I will first ask as to Prof. James’s view of knowledge. For knowledge itself is a fact.
We have had, so far, the reader will recall, reality taken as immediate experience. We saw indeed that the fatal dilemma as to past and future experience was left unmet. But, leaving this, we have to take reality as being a succession of immediate experiences, and, if so, where in such a world can ideas and knowledge fall?
It is better, I think, to begin by asking what, in dealing with this problem, Prof. James had supplied by others and ready to his hand. He had, in the first place, the identity of reality and experience. He had, next, the doctrine that ideas are what may be called ‘symbolical’. While on the one side they are psychical events, on the other side they are self-transcendent and refer to a reality other than themselves. This reality is, on one view, viewed as being, at least in some cases, beyond experience, but on another view, also lying before Prof. James, any such transcendence is denied. The actual experience, on this view, is transcended, but transcended only as immediate. The reality, referred to by the content of the idea, is the Universe itself, which Universe is immanent in the immediate experience, and always itself is actually experienced. A past event, for instance, is on one side present, while on the other side its content ideally qualifies Reality taken in the character of a temporal series
Now why could Prof. James not adopt a conclusion worked out from premisses so near akin to those which he took up? The reason is that, if so, reality could hardly be no more than one immediate experience or a succession of such experiences; and this, on the other hand. Prof. James is bound to maintain. But, then, what according to Prof. James is to become of the fact of knowledge and truth, a fact apparently not included in mere immediate experience? His answer, however unsatisfactory, will, I think, up to a certain point be found to be instructive and interesting.
Since only particular events are real. Prof. James denies that an idea can be more, and can be self-transcendent (Radical Empiricism, p. 57). The psychical fact must know, without itself referring beyond itself. And what is it to know? The answer obviously is ‘other events’, for there is nothing else to know. And, in order for these events to be real, they (the logic is not mine) must be future. If now, following the same logic, we ask what knowledge is and where it falls, the answer is that knowledge is essentially a temporal process of facts. It falls in, and it is, the mere series of experienced events, beginning with the idea and ending with the object.
1 I may remind the reader that the view, that explanation consists merely in showing intermediate sensible detail, is not new. See my Principles of Logic, pp. 490-1. How far in Prof. James’s mind his doctrine of knowledge was connected with, and due to, such a view as that held by Bain with regard to the practical character of all belief, I am unable to say.
This conclusion at first sight seems no more than a paradox, but, as advocated by Prof. James, it became more or less plausible. But the plausibility is gained by two expedients, neither of which will bear the light. The first of these (i) is the covert reinstatement in the idea of that symbolical character, that very self-transcendence, which the doctrine denies. And (ii) the second means to making plausible the view that in knowledge the object is nothing but an experienced future event, is to bury the true issue under a cloud of misleading ambiguities.
(i) Suppose that I know that somewhere near there is a spring of water. Does my present knowledge consist in my actually
Let us suppose first, for the sake of argument, that the water happens to be found. The finding of course must be taken, not as one sensibly present experience, but as a series of such experiences. And at the start we have, according to Prof. James, nothing which refers beyond itself. But, if so, for ‘leading’ you are, I submit, bound to write ‘mere priority in succession’, and, as to any experience of progress developing to an end, so far as I see, it is excluded. If the starting-place really leads, it is because that place points, and, if it really points, then, at once and now, it refers beyond itself. From the very first it plainly is self-transcendent and qualifies an object beyond itself, and it needs no process of waiting for something else to happen to it in the future. Knowledge of what is now is not, we may say, what it is, just because something comes later to make the fact that it was.
It would be useless for me to labor a point which, as I understand it, is obvious. But take the experience of a pain decreasing gradually over a space of some minutes. Even this experience is, on Prof. James’s view, I should say, impossible. But, in any case, could we say here even plausibly that the beginning knows the end, and that the end, when it comes, makes the knowledge? Or think of a desire, say for water, which later is satisfied. Here we have, first, an idea qualifying an object beyond itself, which, according to Prof. James, is impossible. And next, when the end is fulfilled in fact—is it not monstrous to contend that our
(ii) But suppose that, in looking for the spring which I know to exist, I do not happen to find the water. How, again, if the object is, not merely no future event, but no particular event at all? What in all such cases (we ask) has become of that intermediate series of actual events in which alone knowledge can consist? Clearly the series is not there; and, if so, apparently in the whole of these cases there can be no such thing as knowledge. From this inevitable conclusion, and from the open bankruptcy which follows, Prof. James seeks to escape. But the means which he adopts are (so far as I see) merely the old inherited devices now long ago exposed. Attempts to conjure by the substitution at discretion of ‘virtual’ and ‘possible’ for ‘actual’, are neither profitable, nor, when once the trick is known, are they even interesting. And in the ingenious discussions, by which Prof. James seeks to recommend his view, I have failed really to find anything more than such attempts. Hence we must conclude that the greater part of our knowledge obviously falls outside of what Prof. James takes to be the essence of all knowledge, while even the residue can be included only by covertly importing that self-transcendent idea which we have been ordered to exclude. It would be difficult, I submit, for any account of the fact of knowledge to break down more completely.
Passing from this we come to the final question about the nature of reality. Reality, according to Prof. James, appears to be one stream of immediate experiences, and nothing beyond this is real. And Prof. James seems even to wonder how any one like myself can in the main agree with him at the start, and yet leave him in the end (Journal of Philosophy, January 1910). The explanation is, however, very simple. In the first place, if this stream is to be one, there is the doubt about its real unity. Is the whole of Reality, with its past and future, a single actual immediate experience, or not? We have seen above that in this dilemma Prof. James does not help us, and this one difficulty, to go no further, to my mind is enough.
But we are here only at the beginning. We have on our hands the whole intellectual sphere of terms and relations, the world of abstractions and ideal constructions, and the wide region of
In one sense I agree that we never can break out and pass beyond feeling. Everything that is real must be felt (compare Chapter VI). But, on the other side, I urge that our felt content is developed in such a way that it goes beyond and conflicts with the form of feeling or mere immediacy. And it is in the character also of this ideal content that we must, I submit, seek to find the full nature of the Real. We must conclude to a higher Reality which at once transcends, and yet re-includes, the sphere of mere feeling.
The above result, if we start from the ground accepted by Prof. James, can, so far as I see, be avoided only in one way. The sole remedy is flatly and utterly to deny what I should call the entire fact of the ideal world. Urge that the reality at first is a mere flux diversified by sensible emphases,
1 In Mind, for July 1887, I myself wrote, ‘In the beginning there is nothing beyond what is…felt simply.…There are in short no relations and no feelings, only feeling. It is all one blur with differences, that work and that are felt, but are not discriminated.’ But of course, following Hegel, I was always clear that this beginning is not the whole of our actual world, and cannot possibly be the end.
2 As long, that is, as you succeed in maintaining that your own assertion also is no more than a mere sensible emphasis.
But, even so, against the dilemma of the flux itself, which you know to exist beyond the actual flux felt now—you have still to seek a further medicine, or else to admit that the disease is not curable. And to say that Prof. James would have seriously accepted even the first partial remedy, is more than I myself could affirm. I can imagine no task more interesting to, and more incumbent
Judging so far as I can judge, I must doubt that claim, to take high rank as a metaphysician, which has been made not by, but on behalf of, Prof. James. I cannot find in his metaphysical views (as I understand them) much real originality, and what I miss, perhaps even more, in his metaphysics is the necessary gift of patient labor and persistent self-criticism. With all his merits as a philosopher, and assuredly they are great, I cannot think it is as a metaphysician that Prof. James’s name will hold its place in the history of thought.
Chapter VI. On Our Knowledge of Immediate Experience
Immediate Experience, the fact of. But how can I make it an object? (159-60). The answer in general given (161). Difficulty as to Attention. How, when I attend to a change, can I ever know that the change was not made by my attention? This problem is insoluble, unless you assume that apart from attention I can feel change, and that this feeling can be reproduced (161-6). Introspection, problem of (166). Introspection is not mere remembering, but is making an object of the actually felt. And the felt agreement or jar of the object with what is actually felt is here the main criterion (166-8). And the unity of the object and the merely felt explains how the former can be further enlarged from the latter (169). On the other side, if actual feeling cannot be used as a criterion of the object, no sufficient account can be given of the fact of Introspection, or further of the fact of knowledge in general (169-71).
But how can immediate experience make an object of itself? Immediate experience in what sense unconscious or subconscious (171-3). Was and is experience or feeling ever merely immediate? (173-4). In any case immediate experience is no mere stage which can be passed. However much transcended, it remains as fundamental (174-8). (1) Immediate experience can serve as a criterion, because that which is felt about an object tefids itself to be objectified in the object. And the object itself now can be felt to correspond, or not, to immediate experience (178-81). (2) How can immediate experience know about itself? That it does so is obvious, but how? (181-2). (i) We can form the idea of an object which is the all-inclusive Reality (182-3). (ii) We can perceive in actual experience how incomplete objects change, and are increased and that the sources of the added element differ. And in some cases, by exclusion of other possible sources, we are led to derive the addition made to the object from what was previously only felt in me (183-8). Illustration from Volition (188-9). The recognition of immediate experience, or feeling, is all-important for metaphysics (189-91).
In this chapter, I am to treat of a difficulty which arises in connexion with immediate experience. The scope of the discussion must however be limited. Problems will be raised on all sides with which here I shall be unable to deal. And even on the main point I must be satisfied, if I have shown how the question presses for an answer.
I have had occasion often
1 First published in Mind, January 1909.
2 See, for instance, Mind, N.S., Nos. 6 and 33. The reader is also referred to Appearance, to search under Feeling. The article in Mind, No. 6, is now reprinted as an Appendix to this chapter. Cf. Chapter V, pp. 152, 157.
There is an immediate feeling, a knowing and being in one, with which knowledge begins; and, though this in a manner is transcended, it
The recognition of the fact of immediate experience opens the one road, I submit, to the solution of ultimate problems. But, though opening the road, it does not of itself supply an answer to our questions. And on the other side in itself it gives rise to difficulties. With regard to these there are some points which I have dealt with elsewhere, and other points which perhaps I have failed wholly to see. There are again questions which have come before my mind, but have been passed over, or at most have been touched on by the way. It is one of the latter which in these pages I shall attempt to discuss. The problem was noticed by me years ago, and Prof. Stout in my opinion did well to insist on its urgency.
1 In the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1902-3. I had called attention to the problem and the general mode of its solution in Appearance, p. 93, footnote.
The solution, if I may anticipate, is in general supplied
This may be stated in general as the solution of our problem, and we might proceed forthwith to work out this solution in detail. I have however thought it better to begin by examining two difficulties well known to psychologists. My object in thus digressing is to show that our problem is not merely metaphysical, recondite and negligible, but that the principles applied in treating it cannot elsewhere be ignored. The reader can, however, if he pleases, omit this whole digression as irrelevant. Of the two difficulties just mentioned the first concerns Attention and the second Introspection.
I. With regard to the effects of attention there is a familiar puzzle. I am going here to take attention in the sense of noticing, without entering into any inquiry as to its nature.
1 On this I have written elsewhere, Mind, N.S., No. 41, and O.S., No. 43.
And with
I will state briefly what I take to be the real way of escape, (a) We must first assume that anything remains the same except so far as I have reason to take it as altered. This assumption is everywhere necessary, and may be called fundamental.
1 I do not mean by this that it is ultimate and self-evident (compare Appearance, pp. 601-2), for, if a thing remains, there must ex hyp. be some change about it. We therefore have to abstract from this change. We find a certain connexion of content in the thing, or between the thing and its context, and we take this connexion as true, and as hence not to be made false by any mere circumstance. Such a truth, like all truth, is an abstraction, and a doubt may be raised as to its ultimate legitimacy. But this is the principle which underlies and justifies our practical assumption and procedure whenever we assume that something remains the same amid change.
(b) Next we must hold that apart from any attention we may be aware of a change in our condition. Without anything which could in any ordinary sense be called attending, we can experience a difference when a change takes place in our general or special felt state, (c) There is again an experienced change when attention (say to a feeling B) supervenes, and this particular experience is felt otherwise than as a mere change, say from A to B. Hence from the absence of this special feeling, as well as from the presence of the ordinary feeling of change to B, we infer that our sensation B does not depend on attention, but was previously there. We have, that is, on one side a mode of feeling when one sensation. A, merely changes to another sensation, B, while on the other side, when I attend to B, though that attention brings a change of feeling, it does not bring the same mode as goes with such a mere transition as from A to B. I therefore assume that the change made by my attending is not a change to B itself. And we may
I will now fill out this general sketch with further detail, which the reader who does not require it may omit. I feel a change, and that something has happened, say, to my finger. On attending I find that it is bitten by an insect. Of the previous sensation I have possibly enough remaining or reproducible to enable me to know that before the change my finger felt much like the others, and to enable me to repeat the change in idea.
1 There is, we must remember, an identical basis of feeling in all my fingers.
I now attend to my other fingers, but they do not, on this, become bitten. There has hence been, I can argue, a felt change of my finger and an ensuing attention, the latter being felt as a different change. And by attending to my other fingers I cannot get the same result. I have neither the recalled felt change nor the present effect. My attention always gives me a felt change, but it will not give me these other special feelings, which therefore, I infer, have come to me otherwise. My present attention is in my power, but there are certain things, I find, that will not follow from my present attention. And, generalizing this, I conclude that, prima facie and apart from special evidence, attention does not alter its object. On the
II. We may pass now to a kindred difficulty attaching to what is called Introspection. Can I observe my own present state, and, if not that, what in the end can I observe? And, putting on one side all reference to attention, let us attempt to deal briefly with this puzzle. To say that my present state is not observed and that I depend wholly on memory, leads us (as in part we have already seen) into a position which is not tenable. Let us agree, rightly in my opinion, that I can reproduce that which at the time of its occurrence was not an object, yet where is the warrant that my reproduction is accurate? I can hardly postulate that here there are no errors, and how are the errors to be corrected? And on the other side, if I can thus remember my past state, it seems strange that I am unable to make it an object while present. The appeal to memory seems therefore in any case inadmissible; and further for myself I am unable to verify in introspection this constant presence of memory. To myself, when I try to observe exhaustively, say, some internal sensations, the idea that I am struggling to remember them seems even ridiculous. To myself I appear to be observing something which is, and, apart from certain unsound views, I have found no reason to discredit this appearance. What I feel, that surely I may still feel, though I also and at the same time make it into an object before me. And any view for which this is impossible begins, I think, by conflict with fact, and ends, I am sure, in inability to explain facts. That I cannot make an object of the whole of my felt self all at once, so much is certain in fact, and the principle seems clear.
1 The principle involved is this, that, in order to have an object at all, you must have a felt self before which the object comes.
But that I can observe nothing of what I now feel, seems the false inference of a perverse theory.
With regard to the second of these points we must recall some results already reached. We have to assume that a change in feeling is felt, not in general merely, but as a change of this or that character. When my mood alters I feel, not a mere difference, but my mood to be different. And, on the other side, observation of my mood is felt as a difference but not as an alteration of my mood. We may take it in general to be the case that observation does not alter.
1 This is a mere application of the general postulate which we noticed before. It is unnecessary to discuss here our various special grounds for supposing the presence or absence of change.
2 On the other side it is true that observation of my feelings may, according to the conditions, go on to increase or to suppress them. But I think that this point may be ignored here.
Thus, when for instance in despondency I observe my visceral sensations, these feelings are translated into objects, into perceptions and ideas, but none the less, though translated, the original feelings remain. Hence (and this is the point) the persisting
1 I am in a certain felt state which I go on to observe. The description which results from the observation is an object added to my former felt state, and is now itself an element in a new felt state. This object gives me (a) a feeling of change, but (b) not a change of my special felt mood, say, anger. The description further, if correct, brings (c) a sense of harmonious addition without change, and if incorrect, (d) a feeling of incongruity. If the incongruity is positive (a), I feel a jarring new element. If it is negative (β), there is still a sense of discord, since defect has a positive quality. And there is, in this latter case especially, an instability in the object induced by ideal supplementation. This instability is largely the work of that which is merely felt.
Apart from theory we should all agree that, when despondent or angry, a man can feel that a description of such states is right or wrong, though he may be unable to compare this description with another object. Again we should agree that, when not despondent, a man may assent to a description of despondency, because he feels himself, as we say, into it, or may dissent because he cannot do so—and this though in neither case he could assign a special ground. And what happens here, I presume, is that the description excites feelings which tend to fill themselves out to the content of the usual felt state. And between this content and the description offered there is then experienced, as above, the sense of agreement or jar. I have not forgotten that, in order to test the truth of a description, a man may appeal to the usages of language, or again possibly may recall some definite action or other
I will now in passing touch briefly on the question of means. By what means and how am I able in, say, despondency to make an object of that which I feel? I am not inquiring how we come to have an object at all, nor am I even asking as yet how feeling in general can come to be an object. The question is limited at present to the above case of an emotion, but it has a more general bearing which will show itself later. And the point of importance is this. In any emotion one part of that emotion consists already of objects, of perceptions and ideas before my mind. And, the whole emotion being one, the special group of feeling is united with these objects before my mind, united with them integrally and directly though not objectively.
1 Again even on the object-side of the emotion there will of course be a greater or less extent of non-analyzed content.
Finally, if we reject the idea that what is felt can serve to judge of what is before us, let us consider the position in which we are left. The attempt to fall back on memory, we have seen, resulted in failure, and what else remains to us? You may say, ‘The object satisfies me or not, and that is the
We have now considered the problem offered both by Introspection and by Attention, and we have been led in each case to the same main result. These puzzles are insoluble unless that which I feel, and which is not an object before me, is present and active. This felt element is used, and it must be used, in the constitution of that object which satisfies me, and apart from this influence and criterion there is no accounting for the actual fact of our knowledge. We must go on now to deal more directly with the main question of this chapter. We must ask how immediate experience is able to make a special object of itself. The principles which we have laid down and have hitherto applied will furnish us, I trust, with a satisfactory answer.
I must however, before proceeding further, try to explain what I mean by immediate experience. And I will begin by pointing out a possible sense of this term which I desire to exclude. The Unconscious or the Subconscious may stand merely for that which I do not notice or notice specially, and it may stand again merely for that which, though I am aware of it, is no object before me. But these words on the other hand may bear a more extreme meaning. The Unconscious may signify something which is more than anything which at any moment I actually feel or in any sense actually am aware of. The Unconscious, in this sense, is still psychical, and it is continuous with my psychical contents, but it is outside all that at any moment I experience as mine. The matter contained in these two compartments, of the Unconscious and Conscious, may itself be to any extent one and indivisible, and may itself thus constitute a single world. But across this matter a line of demarcation is drawn, and while on one side of this line I feel and am aware, on the other side I have no actual experience at all.
1 Any one who can suppose that Mr. Myers’s Subliminal Self was any discovery of his own, must, I think, either be ill informed or else unable to recognize the identity of ideas where the language is modified and the ultimate intention not the same. The term ‘Subliminal’ is, I presume, the translation of a Herbartian phrase which has long been current, and with regard to the matter of Mr. Myers’s book, while his industry and literary power are both unquestionable and admirable, it would be difficult, I imagine, to produce from it a single new idea. His capacity for philosophical thought can, I think, be easily estimated. Mr. Myers by his own showing was acquainted with von Hartmann’s work. And yet he failed to perceive that, with regard to my subliminal self, the vital question is whether it is really my self at all, and, if so, then how far. He could not see that the problem which most pressed on him was not as to the existence of my self after death, but as to the existence and reality of my self at any time and at all. The conclusion to which I at least am forced is that in Mr. Myers’s work there is a collection of everything and anything which seemed to him usable prima facie as evidence for his foregone result, and that of inquiry in any other sense there is as good as nothing.
Against any interpretation here of immediate experience in the above sense I would desire specially to warn the reader. Outside that of which a man is aware there is, I agree, a larger world of experience. The content of this world, I again agree, is in a sense continuous with that
1 The part split off may still be united in feeling with the rest (see Prof. James, Psychology), and, if so, is not split off wholly. But I do not suggest that an absolute division is impossible.
Questions at once arise on some of which we may first touch in passing, (a) Was there and is there in the development of the race and the individual a stage at which experience is merely immediate? And, further, do we all perhaps
(b) I have thought it better to deal so far with the stage,
(c) Whether there is a stage where experience is merely immediate I have agreed to leave doubtful. Feeling is transcended always, if you please, in the sense, that we have always contents which are more than merely felt. But on the other side at no moment can feeling ever be transcended, if this means that we are to have contents which are not felt. In a sense, therefore, we never can at any time pass beyond immediate experience. The object not-self, and again the object and subject related before my mind, all this is more than mere feeling. But again the whole of it would be nothing for me unless it came to me as felt; and that any actual experience should fall somewhere outside of feeling seems impossible. At every moment my state, whatever else it is, is a whole of which I am immediately aware. It is an experienced non-relational unity of many in one.
1 We may, as was noticed above, speak of this stage as ‘consciousness’ in contrast with mere feeling.
2 I need not ask here if it is possible for my experience to consist of one single feeling.
At any moment my actual experience, however relational its contents, is in the end non-relational. No analysis into relations and terms can ever exhaust its nature or fail in the end to belie its essence.
1 Cf. Chapter X.
Everything therefore, no matter how objective and how relational, is experienced only in feeling, and, so far as it is experienced, still depends upon feeling. On the other side the objective and the relational transcend the state of mere feeling and in a sense are opposed to it. But we must beware here of an error. We cannot speak of a relation, between immediate experience and that which transcends it except by a license. It is a mode of expression found convenient in our reflective thinking, but it is in the end not defensible. A relation exists only between terms, and those terms, to be known as such, must be objects. And hence immediate
The relation (so to express ourselves) of immediate experience to its felt contents, and specially here to those contents which transcend it, must be taken simply as a fact. It can neither be explained nor even (to speak properly) described, since description necessarily means translation into objective terms and relations. We possess on the one side a fact directly felt and experienced. On the other side we attempt a description imperfect and half-negative. And our attempt is justified so far as the description seems true, so far, that is, as though inadequate, it does not positively jar, and again is felt positively to agree with our felt experience.
(d) There are several points which I cannot discuss here, but may notice in passing. (Cf. Appearance, chapters ix and x.) The felt background, against which the object comes, remains always immediate. But, on the other hand, its content may to some extent show mediation. Parts of this content may have at some time been elements included in the object, and may have been internally distinguished into relations and terms. However, none the less now, this relational content forms part of the felt background. Again in the object not-self, on the other side, we may find tracts the contents of which have never been analyzed. They are, so to speak, nebulae in which the non-relational form still persists internally, and in which the complexity does not go beyond simple sensuous coinherence. And, as we saw in the case of an emotion, the matter contained in these nebulae, and in the not-self generally, is continuous as to its content with that matter which remains merely felt. It is impossible, however, here to enlarge on these questions. And I cannot ask here how far the not-self both in its origin and its essence is
I will, however, before proceeding, venture to repeat and to insist upon this main conclusion. Immediate experience is not a stage, which may or may not at some time have been there and has now ceased to exist. It is not in any case removed by the presence of a not-self and of a relational consciousness. All that is thus removed is at most, we may say, the mereness of immediacy. Every distinction and relation still rests on an immediate background of which we are aware, and every distinction and relation (so far as experienced) is also felt, and felt in a sense to belong to an immediate totality. Thus in all experience we still have feeling which is not an object, and at all our moments the entirety of what comes to us, however much distinguished and relational, is felt as comprised within a unity which itself is not relational.
We may now approach the two main questions of this chapter, (i) How can immediate experience ever serve as a criterion? and (ii) How can immediate experience itself become an object and a not-self, since ex hyp. it essentially is no object? The first of these questions, after what has gone before, may be dealt with briefly.
(1) I am not discussing here the general problem of the ultimate criterion. We may perhaps agree that the criterion consists in that which satisfies our wants, and is to be found where we have felt uneasiness and its positive opposite. That in which I feel myself affirmed, and which contents me, will be the general head under which falls reality, together with truth, goodness, and beauty. But I cannot enter further on this here, or inquire as to the special
1 I assume here that goodness is not to be used for the general term which is equivalent to satisfaction in general. But whether goodness is to be used in a wider or a narrower sense, is to myself a question merely of nomenclature.
We have already in the main anticipated the answer. I can feel uneasiness, we found, both general and special apart from any object or at least without regard to any object in particular. Again I can have a sense of uneasiness or its opposite in regard to a particular object before me. I do not, so far, make an object of my uneasiness and hold it before me in one with the object; but so far, without actually doing anything of this kind, I feel the jarring or unison specially together and in one with the object. And we have now to ask how this disagreement can become a contradiction before me in the object, so that I am not merely dissatisfied with that but can go on to reject it as unreal.
What is required is that the object should itself become qualified by the same content which was merely felt within me. As soon as this qualification has appeared, I have actually before me in the object that which previously was felt within me to be harmonious or to jar in regard to the
I will now notice briefly the various ways in which the object can gain its fresh qualification. The object naturally is unstable and in constant change. Apart from what we may call external alteration, there are reactions from the subject. Even where these are non-acquired, they often tend to make the requisite change in the object. And then, as we have seen before, there is redintegration from the object both physical and psychical This redintegration again is all-pervasive, and holds good beyond the object-world and within the region of mere feeling. Hence the object, having been continuous with what is felt in me, both generally and in special groups, becomes an ideal center and bond. It has a tendency both to restore and to qualify itself by associated content whether foregone or present. And further, as soon as this qualification from whatever cause has taken place, the identity of the content before me and within me is felt. Thus I am no longer merely satisfied or in unrest with regard to the object, but the object contains for me and itself is that which I feel must be accepted or rejected.
We are attempting here to deal briefly with a difficult point which tends on all sides to lose itself in complications. I am endeavouring, therefore, so far as I can, to narrow and simplify the issue. We may feel satisfied or otherwise when we have contents felt to be harmonious or jarring, and further a perceived object may also in feeling be an element and an important element in a special felt group. Then, when the object (as may happen from various causes) itself acquires the content which before in feeling gave satisfaction or
We may recur to our former instance of an emotional state. If I shrink from or am attracted by some person, and do not know how this happens, I may endeavor accurately to realize the detail of my feelings, and perhaps to discover the real nature of the conduct which the object suggests. We have here an object, perceived and thought of, and on the other side we have dim uneasy feelings in myself which are not objective and before me. Let, however, the object from any cause—an instinctive action, a chance sensation or an oscillation of emphasis—develop its content in a certain direction, and the situation may at once be changed. That which formerly was but felt in regard to the object has become now, also and as well, a quality of the object. And it may satisfy us because it is that qualification which answers to what we felt and still feel. I know now what my feelings actually were, and whether and how far they were that for which I took them. And I understand now how the person himself has perhaps a character which suggests this or that behavior towards him. In either case an object has been judged of in accordance with and from the content of immediate experience, and that experience has acted as a criterion of the object.
(2) From this hurried treatment of a difficult problem I pass on to deal at last directly with the special subject of this chapter. We must ask how immediate experience is able to know itself and to become for us an object. That such knowledge exists in fact seems to me incontestable.
(i) We can in the first place have before us as an object the idea of a complete reality. Our actual object, as we saw, is unstable, and its advance (so far as it advances) in a certain main direction tends generally to remove uneasiness and to bring satisfaction.
1 I am not saying that every satisfactory addition to the object is preceded by uneasiness and fulfills a felt need or want. That in my opinion would be going at least beyond the facts.
Hence we can form (I need not ask how) the idea of an object with all uneasiness removed entirely, an object which utterly satisfies. But this means an object with nothing that is really outside it in the form of an ‘elsewhere’ or a ‘not-yet’. The ‘elsewhere’ or the ‘not-yet’ that falls really outside the object, precludes (this seems obvious) entire satisfaction. We hence are led to think of an object without any external ‘elsewhere’ or ‘not-yet’, an object which in some sense contains within itself, and already is qualified by, every real possibility. We form in other words the idea of an all-inclusive Reality. And this idea, being set before us, may so far satisfy us as true and real. The Reality with anything outside of it will now not merely be felt as defective, but will in addition be discrepant with
1 The reader will bear in mind that I am not asking here if the above idea is true. That is a question which here may be ignored. There are two points which I may notice in passing, (a) It may possibly be suggested that, instead of taking everything as of the object, I may take it as merely together with the object, and that this exception is fatal. But in this case I reply that the ‘together’ has now itself become the object an object in my judgement most unsatisfactory but still answering the purpose of the text. (b) Again it may be said with regard to the ‘not-yet’ that, given a recurrence of a certain character, the ‘not-yet’ may be harmless. To this I answer that in such a case the ‘not-yet’ qualifies this character which recurs, and in some sense is included within this character, and that taken as really external it still means incompleteness. But, obviously, innumerable difficulties attaching to what is said in the text may occur to the reader, and must here be passed by.
(ii) I have thus the idea of an object which is complete and all-inclusive, while on the other hand the object actually before me is incomplete. But this perceived object is changed and, let us here say, is changed by addition. And, with this, the source of the added elements goes on to become for me a problem, (a) These elements, I proceed to judge, come to me in part from the unknown not-self. This is an inevitable inference, the nature and validity of which it is perhaps not necessary here to discuss. We have hence, in this unknown province, a reality which has the form of an object not-self, but which on the other side is not present actually before me in perception. And this reality must be set down as included within my complete object. (b) Again within that object which I actually perceive there are contained (as we saw) tracts more or less undistinguished internally. These tracts are nebulae the contents of which have on the one hand manifoldness, but on the other hand are more or less without the relational form. They have within them adjectives which sensuously inhere and cohere, though these adjectives have not yet been ordered. But, as our knowledge increases, these sensuous wholes go on more or less to be broken up and
Now in the above two cases (we must go on to observe) there is a difference, a difference which is felt. When an addition is made to our object from the outside we feel this addition as new. I do not mean that in this respect it does not matter how the alteration of the object is made, and that, however the addition comes, we have precisely the same feeling. I admit the diversity, but I must insist that, in spite of this diversity, we have, when the object is added to from outside itself, a specific feeling of newness, and that this feeling differs from that which comes when the object develops itself from within itself. In the latter case (the case of what we called nebulae) the content was actually there though it was not yet distinguished, and the content was already felt as being there; while in the former case (the case of addition from without) the content was not felt at all. The added features in both cases are felt as new, but in the one case these features arrive from a world which is unfelt, while in the other case the features already were
1 I am of course not supposing that the consciousness which we are considering, knows at the present stage about these feelings all that we from the outside and at a later stage perceive.
(c) But beyond these two cases we have also a third. An addition may be made to our object, but neither from the unknown not-self without it nor from the undistinguished tracts within itself. We saw that, when a felt emotion is described, a man may feel that the description agrees or does not agree with an actual fact of which he is aware. And yet we found that this experienced fact, by which the description is measured, has contents not objectively before the man even in an undistinguished form. The object in its wavering, and in its movement to complete itself through redintegration and otherwise, changes in directions which cause on one side satisfaction and on the other side uneasiness. And it is, largely or mainly, because these suggestions are felt to be in unison or discord with something already felt as present, that they are accepted or rejected. In something of the same way (we need not trouble ourselves here with the difference) the beautiful reality may seem to give you what you wanted, though what you wanted you did not know, or may seem to say for you what you always meant and could never express. This experience may doubtless in part be illusory. The want in part may not actually have been there before it was merged in satisfaction, and the meaning may in part never have gone before its expression. But upon the other side the experience certainly conveys
But, the fact being as above, how is the self ever to become aware of this fact or even to suspect its existence? How is the merely felt to become in that character an object? In the main, I think, this question has by now been answered. When my object is increased and the addition comes from that which was and is felt, there is, in such a case, first, a positive sense of expansion and of accord. And there is, next, an absence of the feeling of complete otherness and newness. We have not here quite the same experience as when the object is increased from the undistinguished not-self, but we have an experience more or less similar. This felt absence of disturbance, and this positive sense of something the same although new, prevent my attributing the change to that actual object-world which extends beyond my object. Can I then take the change as arising from the undistinguished tracts present within my actual object? Once more here, we find, the path is closed. For the feeling here, though similar, is not the same as that of which in the present case I am aware. Again, however much I develop the object in idea, I seem always to be left with a sense of defect. Further in some cases (through a persisting after-perception or otherwise) I can reproduce the special object as it was experienced before the addition. And here I find that the new feature does not in fact fall even within the undiscriminated parts of that object.
Generally then my object is added to, and the new matter cannot be taken as without a source. But in the first place the matter is not felt as wholly new but as something already there and mine. And, in the second place, what is new cannot come from the object-world. It goes beyond my actual object, and yet I cannot attribute it to the non-perceived object-world, or again to any non-relational nebula contained within my object. The origin of my experience therefore is non-objective and it is also non-relational; but, on the other side, positively, it comes to me as something which already was present to me. The idea, therefore, is suggested of an experience neither objective nor relational but, in a word, immediate. And this idea, being suggested (no matter how it is suggested), satisfies me so far, and is accepted as true and real. The process outlined above may, if you please, contain logical flaws. Whether that is or is not the case, I am not concerned to discuss. And the true history and the real genetic origin of the idea reached, you may contend, has escaped me. That would be an objection which once more I am not called on to answer. I claim to have shown how the idea of immediate experience can be brought before the mind, however otherwise normally it
The whole process which I have sketched may be briefly resumed thus. Our actual object fails to satisfy us, and we get the idea that it is incomplete and that a complete object would satisfy. We attempt to complete our object by relational addition from without and by relational distinction from within. And the result in each case is failure and a sense of defect. We feel that any result gained thus, no matter how all-inclusive so far, would yet be less than what we actually experience. Then we try the idea of a positive non-distinguished non-relational whole, which contains more than the object and in the end contains all that we experience. And that idea, as I have endeavored in these pages to show, seems to meet our demand. It is not free from difficulty, but it appears to be the one ground on which satisfaction is possible.
The reader who accepts such an account of volition as I, for instance, have offered elsewhere,
1 Mind, N.S., Nos. 44, 46, 49. Cf. Nos. 40, 41, 43.
You perceive forthwith that in your analysis there is something left out, and that this something is a content
In some such manner it, however, seems possible to reach the idea of immediate experience. That experience we have seen is a positive non-relational non-objective whole of feeling. Within my immediate experience falls everything of which in any sense I am aware, so far at least as I am aware of it. But on the other side it contains distinctions which transcend its immediacy. This my world, of feeling and felt in one, is not to be called ‘subjective’, nor is it to be identified with my self. That would be a mistake at once fundamental and disastrous. Nor is immediate experience to be taken as simply one with any ‘subliminal’ world or any universe of the Unconscious. However continuous it may be with a larger world, my immediate experience falls, as such, strictly within the limits of my finite center. But again to conclude from this that what falls within these limits is merely myself, would be an error entailing in the end theoretical ruin. The above idea of immediate experience is not intelligible, I would add, in the sense of being explicable; but it is necessary, I would insist, both for psychology and for metaphysics.
1 The genesis of the idea, I should agree, in the main may be called practical. I should presume it to arise when the self is identified with the body, and when we become aware of something experienced within the body which is not the body nor yet things within it or outside it. To set down this experience as being further, like pleasure and pain, non-relational, is of course a step taken only by a later reflection.
1 We never in one sense do, or can, go beyond immediate experience. Apart from the immediacy of ‘this’ and ‘now’ we never have, or can have, reality. The real, to be real, must be felt. This is one side of the matter. But on the other side the felt content takes on a form which more and more goes beyond the essential character of feeling, i.e. direct and nonrelational qualification. Distinction and separation into sustantives and adjectives, terms and relations, alienate the content of immediate experience from the form of immediacy which still on its side persists. In other words the ideality, present from the first, is developed, and to follow this ideality is our way to the true Reality which is there in feeling.
2 Given, that is, adequately and as required. I am not forgetting the claim of, e.g., our aesthetic experience.
But, however that may be, I trust that the humbler
Appendix to Chapter VI. Consciousness and Experience
Consciousness is not co-extensive with experience (192). Consciousness is inconsistent with itself (192-4). And it is based on Feeling (194). Feeling is not a stage of mind which passes, but it remains throughout as a necessary foundation and background. Importance of this doctrine, and necessity of recognizing and discussing it (194-8).
The idea of writing a few remarks on this head was suggested to me by Mr. Ward’s article on Modern Psychology. These remarks are not intended as a contribution to the subject, and certainly not as a hostile criticism. We must all feel grateful to Mr. Ward for his interesting discussion, and for myself I feel sympathy with its general drift. And, as Mr. Ward has not yet worked out his positive view as to the Subject, it would be absurd in me to offer to criticize that view beforehand. But what has struck me is that in the discussion assumptions are used which, if true, are very far from appearing self-evident. And, though in his own mind doubtless Mr. Ward is prepared with a defence of them, I do not find that he has done anything to prepare the reader. Hence I thought it might be well to call attention to some points which seem ignored, but which to my mind appear to be fundamental.
The main assumption seems to be the identification of experience with consciousness. Now, if by consciousness we understand the being of an object for a subject, this assumption, I should say, is at least disputable. To my mind consciousness is not coextensive with experience. It is not original, nor at any stage is it ever all-inclusive, and it is inconsistent with itself in such a way as to point to something higher.
(1) On the inconsistency of consciousness I can partly refer to Mr. Ward, but I must also state the case briefly in my own way. We have an object, a something given, and it is given to the subject. Is the subject given? No, for, if so, it would itself be an object. We seem, then, to have one term and a relation without a second term.
1 These pages were first published in Mind for April 1893. It is with some hesitation that I have resolved to reprint them, but it seemed to me clear that, if republished, they should be left unaltered. Whether Prof. Ward has anywhere, since the above date, discussed the points raised in this paper, I regret to be unable to inform the reader. In his interesting and valuable work The Realm of Ends, lately published, he appears to myself still to ignore a view which, if it stands, tends to unsettle the foundation of his main theories. For his article see Mind, N.S., No. 5.
But can there be a relation with one
And now, leaving the terms, consider the relation. Is there, in the end, such a thing as a relation which is merely between terms? Or, on the other hand, does not a relation imply an underlying unity and an inclusive whole? And then, once again, must not this whole be experienced or be nothing? Here are points surely which at least require some discussion. But consciousness must lead to self-consciousness, where possibly these difficulties are lessened. If the object is given to me, then I also must be given, and on reflection I so find myself. I find myself given not in the abstract but as concrete experienced matter. Both terms are now objects, experienced with their relation, and the question is whether the difficulties are now less. We must reply in the negative. The correlated terms are for a subject which itself is not given. The correlation falls in the experience of this new subject, which itself remains outside that object. And of the relation to this new subject the old puzzles are true. This relation must have two terms, terms more than their relation; and the ‘more’ again must be experienced, or else be nothing.
(2) The form of consciousness thus seems in hopeless contradiction with itself. But is it necessary to identify experience and consciousness? Here is a question which seems worth some consideration. Now consciousness, to my mind, is not original. What comes first in each of us is rather feeling, a state as yet without either an object or subject. Feeling here naturally does not mean mere pleasure and pain; and indeed the idea that these aspects are our fundamental substance has never seemed, to me at least, worth discussing. I have ventured to consider it an absurd perversion of the older view. Feeling is immediate experience without distinction or relation in itself. It is a unity, complex but without relations. And there is here no difference between the state and its content, since, in a word, the experienced and the experience are one. And a distinction between cognition and other aspects of our nature is not yet developed. Feeling is not one differentiated aspect, but it holds all aspects in one. And, though a view of this kind naturally calls for explanation and is open to objection, I am forced to doubt the wisdom of ignoring it wholly. For, if it is difficult, it seems hardly so difficult as to take, for instance, our inward Coenesthesia as throughout our object. And a reference to Volkmann’s book would show that it owns, more or less, the endorsement of well-known names. But, if it is not false, then the identification of consciousness and experience is a wrong assumption.
(3) But consciousness at all events, it may be urged, at a certain stage exists. Doubtless, but feeling on this account does not wholly cease to exist, and the experienced is therefore always more than objects together with pain and pleasure. Everything experienced is on one side felt, and the experienced is, also in part, still no more than felt. I fully admit the need here for explanation and defence,
1 One point to be noticed is that the products of relation and distinction apparently come to be experienced without their process. In this way relational complexes may be experienced immediately, and, in a secondary sense, felt. Such felt masses can be attached to the object of consciousness, but to a far larger extent they qualify the background [p. 177].
For, in dealing with the puzzles of consciousness and self-consciousness, the difference brings important consequences. Those puzzles consisted in the internal difficulties of the relation and its terms, and then again in the fact of the relation itself. An experienced relation seems to involve an experienced whole, but this whole is at once supplied by feeling. For consciousness is superinduced on, and is still supported by, feeling; and feeling is itself an experienced whole. And the difficulty of the relation and its terms might from the same basis be dealt with, though naturally I cannot attempt to work this out here. I will however try briefly to point out where the solution lies. There is a doubt, first, whether consciousness must imply self-consciousness. Can there, in other words, be an object, unless that object bears the character of a not-myself? In this latter case the ‘object’ itself will be but part of the whole object, for it will be given as one term in relation with another given term. This question to some slight extent, perhaps, is one of language, but for our present purpose it may be left unanswered wholly. The solution of the problem in any case remains the same. And that solution lies in the fact that between the felt subject and the object there is no relation at all. Whether the object contains, or does not contain, a self and not-self in connexion, on either view there is still a real felt subject. And the object qualifies this subject, but there is emphatically no experience of a relation between them. And when by reflection a relation seems given, the experience has been changed. That relation is now part of a new ‘object’; and with that new object we have a felt subject, with which it is experienced, but to which it is not related.
The above statement, I am well aware, calls for much
The object in self-consciousness (for it is better to take that stage at once) is two concrete terms in relation with each other. The whole of it consists in content, in presented elements more or less qualified and extended by thought. What the content is on each side is not here my concern. My concern is to deny that this whole ‘object’ is related to the subject, and yet to assert that it is there for the subject and present in it and to it, and that the subject itself is also experienced.
The object-content is no longer in unbroken unity with the felt whole, but this breach itself is not, and cannot be, an object. It can become an object for reflection; but, in becoming one, it generates a new experience and a fresh felt subject. The subject always is felt, and neither itself, nor its actual distinction from the object, can be got out and placed before it as an object. And there is no distinction here between the experience and what is experienced.
1 For the outside observer, I may be asked, is there no distinction of this kind? Unquestionably there is, but what it is, is a matter for discussion. If the observer takes the experiencing subject to be more than what is at one time experienced, taken together and in connexion with its experienced past he may possibly be right. But I must remind him that, if he assumes this, he is not arguing against any one. He is merely assuming without argument that he is unquestionably right and we are certainly wrong.
And my purpose in writing is not at present to explain and justify this view, but to emphasize the fact that it exists. And I would venture on a respectful remonstrance against approaching these questions with undiscussed alternatives. I do not suggest that Mr. Ward is not familiar with all that I have set down, or that in his own mind he is not fully prepared to deal with and dispose of it. But his readers, I think, are left without information. And the consequences, if so, must be injurious to the study of philosophy. When, for example, Mr. Ward assumes, or appears to assume, of unity and continuity, that, because they are not in separate presentations, they are in, or come from, a subject outside the experienced—he can hardly realize the nature of the shock he administers. For unity and continuity, many of us have learnt, are always ideal. They consist wholly in content, or else they are nothing. And they come from content, or else they do not come at all. And any assertion of the opposite, we are ready to contend, is inconsistent with itself. We may be
As for the Associationist, if he is not confuted, he surely never will be; and I am sure that, however much confuted, he will never be convinced. Our business is, I suppose, not to be troubled about that, but to try to gain a positive result which on all sides will bear criticism. And is it not almost time to say, Let the dead bury their dead? But, whether in metaphysics or in psychology, perhaps I hold the Associationist far cheaper, and differ from him more radically than Mr. Ward would think justifiable. For in principle Mr. Ward, I should say, has not broken with Associationism. The question of principle, to my mind, is about the nature of the universal in being and knowledge. But with that question Mr. Ward, as soon as he makes a serious attempt to work out his view of the identical (?) subject, will have to deal. Then I may find that these well-meant remarks have been superfluous, since any truth they may contain has been included and provided for. I offer them, notwithstanding, in the meantime, not as hostile criticism nor yet as positive doctrine. For I admit that there are difficulties attaching to the problem, which I cannot at present, to my mind, altogether remove. But I offer the above as some considerations, which ought not, in any case and by any view, to be quite ignored.
Supplementary Note to Chapter VI.
On the importance of the above for metaphysics (199-201).
In republishing the two foregoing articles I would call attention to the metaphysical importance of their doctrine. Most of us, no doubt, agree that in metaphysics we start, in some sense, from what is given, and that hence the question as to what is given at the start is fundamental and vital. And the divergence of the answers, stated or implied, is a point which we are bound to recognize and deal with. There is, for instance, a well-known view that, whatever is given at first, it is not the One Reality; and that hence the One must be reached, if at all, by some supervening process. Our beginning, it is asserted, is with the mere Many. Or we may hear that we have to start with the correlation of subject and object, which correlation, we find later, we cannot transcend.
Disagreeing otherwise, I would emphatically endorse this last result.
But what is more important to discuss is, I should say, the truth of the premisses. The doctrine that what is given at the start is a mere Many or a mere correlation, is, we contend, a fatal error. This, we maintain, is no genuine fact, but is a fundamental perversion of the fact. And while we are ready to inquire as to what would follow from any premisses alleged, we insist that the truth of the premisses is first in question, and we submit
Anyone who has read the foregoing papers (not to speak of what I have written elsewhere),
1 I would refer the reader to an article in Mind, July 1887, as well as to my published volumes.
Everywhere, and not only here, a mere relation is in my view an abstraction, which never is given and could never be real. The experienced fact is not the mere terms and the relation. Over and above these it involves another aspect of given totality, and without this aspect the experienced fact is not given. And the same remark, of course, applies to the contention that what is first given is a bare Many.
I regret to repeat here once more what I have urged through so many years and so often. But, as long as what I hold to be fundamental fact is so much ignored, I have no choice but from time to time to repeat what to me seems indubitable.
As to what would follow if I am here in error, and if a mere Many or a bare correlation were actually given, I will add a few words. Relations (this, I presume, must follow) would be at least as real as their terms and would have ultimate reality. What, however, is to be said about the experienced ‘togetherness’ of terms and relations, I do not know. Not only does the ‘together’ seem to me, on this ground, to fall outside of knowledge and reality, but the whole fact of experience and knowledge has to my mind become non-existent and even impossible. Whether, if we start from the above basis, any subject could ever become aware of any other subject, I will not offer to discuss. But that the God of Theism could have his place in such a world, unless that world were radically changed, to myself seems inconceivable.
Chapter VII. On Truth and Coherence
Judgements of perception and memory are all fallible. The test is system. What this means (202-4). (1) Ultimate facts of perception and memory cannot be shown to exist. You cannot put, as such, into your judgement the deliverance of feeling (204-7). (2) Nor is their existence to be assumed (207). My real world, what (208). For this I depend on the world of sense, but still no datum there is fundamental in sense of absolute. The test is relative contribution to system (209-12). So with historical facts (212-14). A possible objection answered (214-16). Certainly some judgement or judgements might be infallible for me in the sense that otherwise my personal identity would be destroyed, but this infallibility is not absolute (216-17). Conclusion (217-8).
The welcome article by the Editor in Mind, No. 65, contains, we shall all agree, much food for reflection. Profiting, I hope, by all of it, there is nevertheless much from which I am forced to dissent. And in what follows here I shall try to deal with one point of disagreement. We can, I trust, isolate this point, at least sufficiently for a separate discussion.
Prof. Stout denies, I understand, that coherence will work as a test of truth in the case of facts due to sensible perception and memory. Mr. Russell again has taken the same line in his interesting article on Truth in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for 1907. This is the issue to which here I confine myself, neglecting the question as to other truths whose warrant also is taken as immediate. What I maintain is that in the case of facts of perception and memory the test which we do apply, and which we must apply, is that of system. I contend that this test works satisfactorily, and that no other test will work. And I argue in consequence that there are no judgements of sense which are in principle infallible.
There is a misunderstanding against which the reader must be warned most emphatically. The test which I advocate is the idea of a whole of knowledge as wide and as consistent as may be. In speaking of system I mean always the union of these two aspects, and this is the sense and the only sense in which I am defending coherence.
1 This chapter appeared first as an article in Mind for July 1909.
If we separate coherence from what Prof. Stout calls comprehensiveness,
So much being premised, I will proceed not to argue in detail against Prof. Stout and Mr. Russell, but to endeavor to explain the real nature of that view which I advocate.
But, if I do not believe all this, does it follow that I have to accept independent facts? Does it follow that perception and memory give me truths which I must take up and keep as they are given me, truths which in principle cannot be erroneous? This surely would be to pass from one false extreme to another. Our intelligence cannot construct the world of perceptions and feelings, and it depends on what is given—to so much I assent.
1 See Chapter VIII.
2 In speaking of this common view as mine, I merely wish to indicate to the reader that I have no right to commit others to every detail of my case.
But that there are given facts, of perception which are independent and ultimate and above
The reason for maintaining independent facts and infallible judgements, as I understand it, is twofold, (1) Such data, it may be said, can be actually shown. And (2) in any case they must exist, since without them the intelligence cannot work. Prof. Stout is identified,
(1) I doubt my ability to do justice to the position of the man who claims to show ultimate given facts exempt from all possible error. In the case of any datum of sensation or feeling, to prove that we have this wholly unmodified by what is called ‘apperception’ seems a hopeless undertaking. And how far it is supposed that such a negative can be proved I do not know. What, however, is meant must be this, that we somehow and somewhere have verifiable facts of perception and memory, and also judgements, free from all chance of error.
I will begin here by recalling a truth familiar but often forgotten, a truth of which Prof. Stout does not fail to remind us. In your search for independent facts and for infallible truths you may go so low that, when you have descended beyond the level of error, you find yourself below the level of any fact or of any truth which you can use.
1 Mind, No. 65, p. 28.
2 Cf. Chapter V, p. 108.
What you seek is particular facts of perception or memory,
(a) If we take the instance of simple unrelated sensations or feelings, a, b, c—supposing that there are such things—what judgement would such a fact enable us to deny? We could on the strength of this fact deny the denial that a, b and c exist in any way, manner or sense. But surely this is not the kind of independent fact of which we are in search.
(b) From this let us pass to the case of a complex feeling containing, at once and together, both a and b. On the ground of this we can deny the statement that a and b cannot or do not ever anyhow coexist in feeling. This is an advance, but it surely leaves us far short of our goal.
(c) What we want, I presume, is something that at once is infallible and that also can be called a particular fact of perception or memory. And we want, in the case of perception, something that would be called a fact for observation. We do not seem to reach this fact until we arrive somewhere about the level of ‘I am here and now having a sensation or complex of sensations of such or such a kind’. The goal is reached; but at this point, unfortunately, the judgement has become fallible, so far at least as it really states particular truth.
(α) In such a judgement it is in the first place hard to say what is meant by the ‘I’. If, however, we go beyond feeling far enough to mean a self with such or such a real existence in time, then memory is involved, and the judgement at once, I should urge, becomes fallible (compare Mind, N.S., No. 30, p. 16, and No. 66, p. 156).
1 See Chapters XII and XIII, pp. 371-2. 384, of the present volume.
Everywhere such fact depends on construction. And we have here to face not only the possibility of what would commonly be called mistaken interpretation. We have in addition the chance of actual sense-hallucination. And, worse than this, we have the far-reaching influence of abnormal suggestion and morbid fixed idea. This influence may stop short of hallucination, and yet may vitiate the memory and the judgement to such an extent that there remains no practical difference between idea and perceived fact. And, in the face of these possibilities, it seems idle to speak of perceptions and memories secure from all chance of error. Or on the other side banish the chance of error, and with what are you left? You then have something which (as we have seen) goes no further than to warrant the assertion that such and such elements can and do coexist—somehow and somewhere, or again that such or such a judgement happens—without any regard to its truth and without any specification of its psychical context. And no one surely will contend that with this we have particular fact.
The doctrine that perception gives us infallible truth rests on a foundation which in part is sound and in part fatally defective. That what is felt is felt, and cannot, so far as felt, be mistaken—so much as this must be accepted. But the view that, when I say ‘this’, ‘now’, ‘here’, or ‘my’, what I feel, when so speaking, is carried over intact into my judgement, and that my judgement in consequence is exempt
1 I am of course referring here to Hegel. This is a matter to which I shall return (see Chapters VIII and IX). I am naturally not attempting to deal here with the whole subject of Error (see Chapter IX).
That which I designate, is not and cannot be carried over into my judgement. The judgement may in a sense answer to that which I feel, but none the less it fails to contain and to convey my feeling. And on the other hand, so far as it succeeds in expressing my meaning, the judgement does this in a way which makes it liable to error. Or, to put it otherwise, the perceived truth, to be of any use, must be particularized. So far as it is stated in a general form, it contains not only that which you meant to say but also, and just as much, the opposite of that which you meant. And to contend for the infallibility of such a truth seems futile. On the other side so far as your truth really is individualized, so far as it is placed in a special construction and vitally related to its context, to the same extent the element of interpretation or implication is added. And, with this element, obviously comes the possibility of mistake. And we have seen above that, viewed psychologically, particular judgements of perception immune from all chance of error seem hardly tenable.
(2) I pass now to the second reason for accepting infallible data of perception. Even if we cannot show these (it is urged) we are bound to assume them. For in their absence our knowledge has nothing on which to stand, and this want of support results in total scepticism.
It is possible of course here to embrace both premisses and conclusion, and to argue that scepticism is to be preferred to an untrue assumption. And such a position I would press on the notice of those who uphold infallible judgements of sense and memory. But personally I am hardly concerned in this issue, for I reject both the conclusion and the
In maintaining that all sense-judgements are liable to error it would be better no doubt first to discuss the nature of error. But, since this is impossible here, let me state how much I take to be admitted or agreed on. I understand it to be admitted that some judgements of perception are fallible, and that the question is simply whether this description applies to all such judgements without exception. But, if some at least of these judgements are to be called fallible, what are we to understand by that word? We each of us have a world which we call our ‘real’ world in space and time. This is an order, how made and based on what, it is impossible here to inquire. red>1 But facts of sense are called imaginary or erroneous, when in their offered character they do not belong to this ‘real’ order in space or time. They all belong to it of course as facts in some one’s mental history, but otherwise they do not qualify the ‘real’ order as they claim to qualify it. We therefore relegate them to the sphere of the erroneous or the imaginary, unless we are able to modify and correct their claim so that it becomes admissible. So much as this I must take here to be admitted on both sides, though it is more than possible, I fear, that I may have thus unknowingly perverted the issue. Still, unless the question by some means is cleared, I see no way of proceeding. And the issue, as I understand it, will now be as follows. Are there any judgements of perception or memory, purporting to qualify the ‘real’ world, which must necessarily qualify that world as they purport to qualify it? Or on the other hand are all such ‘facts’ capable in principle of being relegated to the world of error, unless and until they are corrected?
1 See Chapters III and XVI.
This I take to be the issue, but there is a distinction
I agree that we depend vitally on the sense-world, that our material comes from it, and that apart from it knowledge could not begin. To this world, I agree, we have for ever to return, not only to gain new matter but to confirm and maintain the old. I agree that to impose order from without on sheer disorder would be wholly impracticable, and that, if my sense-world were disorderly beyond a certain point, my intelligence would not exist. And further I agree that we cannot suppose it possible that all the judgements of perception and memory which for me come first, could in fact for me be corrected. I cannot, that is, imagine the world of my experience to be so modified that in the end none of these accepted facts should be left standing. But so far, I hasten to add, we have not yet come to the real issue. There is still a chasm between such admissions and the conclusion that there are judgements of sense which possess truth absolute and infallible.
We meet here a false doctrine largely due to a misleading metaphor. My known world is taken to be a construction built upon such and such foundations. It is argued, therefore, to be in principle a superstructure which rests upon these supports. You can go on adding to it no doubt, but only so long as the supports remain; and, unless they remain, the whole building comes down. But the doctrine, I have to contend, is untenable, and the metaphor ruinously
My experience is solid, not so far as it is a superstructure but so far as in short it is a system. red>1 My object is to have a world as comprehensive and coherent as possible, and, in order to attain this object, I have not only to reflect but perpetually to have recourse to the materials of sense. I must go to this source both to verify the matter which is old and also to increase it by what is new. And in this way I must depend upon the judgements of perception. Now it is agreed that, if I am to have an orderly world, I cannot possibly accept all ‘facts’. Some of these must be relegated, as they are, to the world of error, whether we succeed or fail in modifying and correcting them. And the view which I advocate takes them all as in principle fallible. On the other hand, that view denies that there is any necessity for absolute facts of sense. Facts for it are true, we may say, just so far as they work, just so far as they contribute to the order of experience. If by taking certain judgements of perception as true, I can get more system into my world, then these ‘facts’ are so far true, and if by taking certain ‘facts’ as errors I can order my experience better, then so far these ‘facts’ are errors. And there is no ‘fact’ which possesses an absolute right.
1 I would venture here in passing to question in principle the truth of a thesis advanced by Prof. Stout (pp. 34-5). Prof. Stout maintains that a proposition may be guaranteed by other propositions, and yet itself lend these no support. But if any proposition has a consequence which is not discordant with what we already know, this consequence is surely, so far as it goes, a support, however small, to the proposition from which it follows. I however agree that the amount of such support may be trifling.
Certainly there are
‘Then no judgement of perception will be more than probable?’ Certainly that is my contention. ‘facts’ are justified because and as far as, while taking them as real, I am better able to deal with the incoming new ‘facts’ and in general to make my world wider and more harmonious. The higher and wider my structure, and the more that any particular fact or set of facts is implied in that structure, the more certain are the structure and the facts. And, if we could reach an all-embracing ordered whole, then our certainty would be absolute. But, since we cannot do this, we have to remain content with relative probability. Why is this or that fact of observation taken as practically certain?
1 A possible attempt to do this will be discussed towards the close of the chapter, p. 216.
Why again to me is a remembered fact certain, supposing that it is so? Assuredly not because it is infallibly delivered by the faculty of Memory, but because I do not see how to reconcile the fact of its error with my accepted world. Unless I go on the principle of trusting my memory, apart from any special reason to the contrary, I cannot order my world so well, if indeed I can order it at all. The principle here again is system (compare Chapters XII and XIII).
The same account holds with regard to the facts of history. For instance, the guillotining of Louis XVI is practically certain, because, to take this as error, would entail too much disturbance of my world. Error is possible here of course. Fresh facts conceivably might come before me such as would compel me to modify in part my knowledge as so far arranged. And in this modified arrangement the execution of Louis would find its place as an error. But the reason for such a modification would have to be considerable, while, as things are, no reason exists.
1 Cf. Appearance, p. 543, note.
And take again the case of an historical fact which is called more or
1 On the Nature of Truth, pp. 33, 35.
For to accept all
‘But,’ it may still be objected, ‘my fancy is unlimited. I can therefore invent an imaginary world even more orderly than my known world. And further this fanciful arrangement might possibly be made so wide that the world of perception would become for me in comparison small and inconsiderable. Hence, my perceived world, so far as not supporting my fancied arrangement, might be included within it as error. Such a consequence would or might lead to confusion in theory and to disaster in practice. And yet the result follows from your view inevitably, unless after all you fall back upon the certainty of perception.’
To this possible objection, I should reply first, that it has probably failed to understand rightly the criterion which I defend. The aspect of comprehensiveness has not received ‘here its due emphasis. The idea of system demands the inclusion of all possible material. Not only must you include everything to be gained from immediate experience and perception, but you must also be ready to act on the same principle with regard to fancy. But this means that you cannot confine yourself within the limits of this or that fancied world, as suits your pleasure or private convenience. You are bound also, so far as is possible, to recognize and to include the opposite fancy.
1 To the question if the above principle is merely ‘practical’, I reply, ‘Certainly, if you take "practice" so widely as to remove the distinction between practice and theory.’ But, since such a widening of sense seems to serve no useful purpose, I cannot regard that course as being itself very ‘practical’. I answer therefore that the above principle is certainly not merely practical.
This consideration to my mind ruins the above hypothesis on which the objection was based. The fancied arrangement
And, with regard to the world as perceived, we must remember that my power is very limited. I cannot add to this world at discretion and at my pleasure create new and opposite material. Hence, to speak broadly, the material here is given and compulsory, and the production of what is contrary is out of my power. After all due reservations have been made, the contrast in this respect between the worlds of ‘fact’ and of fancy will hold good. You cannot, as with fancies, make facts one to balance another at your pleasure. And (if we are to go still further) the riches of imagination even as regards quantity are deceptive. What we call our real world is so superior in wealth of detail that to include it, as outweighed in quantity, within some arrangement which we merely fancy, is to my mind not feasible. The whole hypothesis which we have considered seems to have been shown on more than one ground to be untenable.
But if I am asked, ‘Were it otherwise, what becomes of your criterion?’ though I think the question unfair, I will answer it conditionally. In that supposed case I would modify my criterion. I would say, ‘The truth is that which enables us to order most coherently and comprehensively the data supplied by immediate experience and the intuitive judgements of perception’.
But there is an objection which perhaps for some time has been troubling the reader. ‘After all’ (he may say) ‘my experience has got to be mine. If you went beyond a certain point in modifying my known world, it might possibly be a superior world but it would be no world for me. And from this it follows that something, and something given, is in my world fundamental, and that, while my world remains mine, this something is indispensable and infallible. And the fact, if it is fact, that I cannot produce this element fails to show that it is not there.’ Now it is one thing, I reply, to allow the existence of a fundamental element, and it is another thing to admit this in the form of an infallible judgement. I wish to emphasize this distinction and to insist that, if there is to be an infallible judgement, that judgement must be produced. On the other hand, I do not seek to deny in every sense the fact of the fundamental element. We are here in a region which so far is perhaps little understood, but for our purpose fortunately the whole question is irrelevant.
1 As I am not committed to this answer, I can hardly be called on to explain it further. But I may remind the reader that immediate experience and perceptional judgement is not all of one kind. Aesthetic perceptions, for instance, will not fall under the head of mere fancies. Where the fancy represents some human interest, it ceases, in proportion to the importance of the interest, to be mere fancy or, properly, fancy at all. Cf. Chap. XII, p. 365.
Again, to pass from this to another point, I may be asked whether the instance of a man in collision with a new environment to which he can not adapt himself presents no difficulty to our general criterion. In our case none, I reply, since we hold all such knowledge for relative. A difficulty arises only in the case of those who take judgements as absolute. We must, however, remember that, in the above instance of collision between inner and outer worlds, it would be wrong to assume that the man who prefers his inner world goes always against the weight of his immediate and intuitive experience.
We must remind ourselves of the distinction which we laid down above. Conceivably a judgement might be fundamental and infallible for me, in the sense that to modify it or
The repugnance excited by this conclusion seems due to several grounds. Our immediate experience is not fallible, and this character (we have seen) is mistakenly transferred to those judgements which claim to deliver that experience. And further we had the false identification of knowledge with a mechanical superstructure supported by an external foundation. But behind this we have the demand for absolute reality in the shape of self-existent facts and of independent truths. Unless reality takes this form it seems to be nowhere, and so we go on to postulate absolute knowledge where no more than probability is attainable. Again, if the conclusion and the principle advocated here are accepted, the whole Universe seems too subject to the individual knower. What is given counts for so little and the arrangement counts for so much, while in fact the arranger, if we
The conclusion advocated in these pages is, however, but limited. With regard to the two aspects of coherence and comprehensiveness I have in these pages not asked if they are connected in principle. I have merely urged that it is necessary to use them in one, and that here and here alone we have the criterion of perceived and remembered truth. And I have argued that in principle any judgement of perception or memory is liable to error, and I have urged that, if this is not so, the right conclusion is to chaos. But to some of the points here left unsettled I shall return.
1 I believe these to be Hegel’s words, but I cannot give any reference for them. Almost the same words will, however, be found in Phanomenologie (second edition), p. 126. This is the last page of the division marked A. III.
Chapter VIII. Coherence and Contradiction
The criterion is the satisfaction of a want, but of a special want. Philosophy is not a mere collection of useful ideas (219-20). In what sense I can philosophize with my whole nature (220-2). Two characters of the criterion—are they aspects of one principle of non-contradiction? A possible answer not accepted, but the answer is still, Yes. (1) Any object short of the whole can be experienced as a defective appearance of a wider whole (223-6). (2) How qualification of Reality by any predicate implies diversity and contradiction, and a process aiming at harmonious and complete comprehension (226-9). No remedy for this to be found in ‘And’. Judgement starts with and in a sense rests on the immediate unity and totality of feeling, but cannot completely reconstitute this whole ideally. There is no completely conditioned, and therefore no absolutely true judgement (230-3). No theoretical remedy for the above is to be found in Designation (233-6). Nor in Pluralism and external relations. This doctrine seems based on a false alternative (237-40). Imperfection of our ultimate ideas, such as subject and predicate, and again identity (240-1). Result System has two aspects. In what sense we can say that what satisfies us is real (241-4).
In the preceding chapter I pointed out how coherence and comprehensiveness are the two aspects of system, and I attempted to justify the claim of system as an arbiter of fact. In the chapter which follows I am to endeavor to show how system stands to contradiction. The question is difficult and could in any case here be dealt with but imperfectly, and the reader again must excuse me if I approach it by a circuitous route.
What in the end is the criterion? The criterion of truth, I should say, as of everything else, is in the end the satisfaction of a want of our nature. To get away from this test, or to pass beyond it, in the end, I should say, is impossible. But, if so (the suggestion is a natural one), why should we not set forth, or try to set forth, the satisfaction of our nature from all sides, and then accept and affirm this statement as truth and reality? That in practical life we should do this, at least in some sense, I am fully agreed.
1 The present chapter appeared first in Mind for October 1909. I would take this opportunity to say that, with regard to the principle of non-contradiction as a test of truth, I agree in the main with what Prof. Bosanquet has urged in his Individuality and Value, pp. 49 foll, and 265 foll. One contradicts oneself in principle in asserting that there is no beauty or virtue, as much as in asserting that there is no truth. Certainly, as Prof. Bosanquet points out, if a man chooses to deny the fact of beauty or virtue, you cannot, with that denial, formally convict him out of his own mouth, as you can if he asserts that there is no truth. And in this latter case there is a superiority in what may perhaps be called theoretical elegance. Still in philosophy our real object is not the dialectical confutation of an opponent. Our real object is the understanding of facts which cannot reasonably be denied.
But I cannot on the other hand endorse generally such an answer in philosophy,
Truth to my mind is a satisfaction of a special kind, and, again, it is a satisfaction which, at least at first sight, is able to oppose itself to others. But, however that may be, truth seems to differentiate itself clearly from other satisfactions. And philosophy, I at least understand, has to meet specially this special need and want of truth. To say that philosophy’s mission is to find ideas which satisfy all sides of my being, and that the truth of these ideas does not otherwise matter, remains to my mind untenable. Ideas which are inconsistent, chaotic and discordant must, I think, by philosophy in the end be rejected as false. The doctrine that there is no truth in the last resort but the general working of ideas, whatever is otherwise the character of these ideas, is, or may be, acceptable, I once more agree, as a practical creed. But on the other side, with such a doctrine, it seems to me, there is an end of philosophy (cf. pp. 66, 132).
To philosophize at once with all sides of my nature is, if you will, what I desire. But I at least do not perceive how I am to go about to accomplish this feat. If you agree with me that truth is special, then I am at a loss to see how to aim at it, or to find it, or to verify its presence, by some general movement of my being. On the other hand, to produce ideas at the dictation of all my particular wants is a thing which certainly I understand. But to maintain that, whatever the intellect may say or feel about these ideas, they are all none the less true, is to me ruinous theoretically. It seems the sheer denial, ultimately, of intellectual satisfaction and truth. There is to be, in other words, no more philosophy except in the sense of a collection of useful ideas. The value of such a collection I do not seek to disparage, though the value disappears, I would insist, so far as the collection is one-sided. Still, if philosophy has to end here,
Hence I have to remain so far in my old position.
In the above I am of course not assuming that the intellect is something apart, working by itself, and, so to speak, shut up in a separate room. On the contrary those who teach the implication of all sides of our being with and in what we call thought, deny no doctrine held by me. All that I maintain is that we have a specific function, as such verifiable in fact, and claiming to possess special rights of its own. I insist that, unless we take that claim seriously, speculation is impossible. And, if any one differs from me here, I would go on to urge that he is in conflict with fact, and rests on inconsistency. And the result, I think, is confusion or total obscurity.
1 Appearance, chapter xiv.
1 Appearance, chap, xix, and pp. 609-12.
1 Appearance; compare Chapter V and elsewhere.
If we can adopt a well-known view, the answer is plain. The whole reality is so immanent and so active in every partial element, that you have only to make an object of anything short of the whole, in order to see this object pass beyond itself. The object visibly contradicts itself and goes on to include its complementary opposite in a wider unity. And this process repeats itself as long as and wherever the whole fails to express itself entirely in the object. Hence the two principles of coherence and comprehensiveness are one. And not only are they one but they include also the principle of non-contradiction. The order to express yourself in such a way as to avoid visible contradiction, may be said in the end to contain the whole criterion.
No one who has not seen this view at work, and seen it applied to a wide area of fact, can realize its practical efficiency. But, for myself, if this solution of our puzzle ever satisfied me entirely, there came a time when it ceased to satisfy. And when attempting to discuss first principles this
To a large extent partial objects are seen (I at least cannot doubt this) to develop themselves beyond themselves indefinitely by internal discrepancy. Everything, so far as it is temporal or spatial, does, I should say, thus visibly transcend itself, though, if there are many orders of time and space, the same self-transcendence will not hold between them. But I will not seek here to urge a principle as far as it will go, when I admit that, so far as I can see, it will not go to the end. The visible internal self-transcendence of every object is a thing which, as I have said, I cannot everywhere verify.
And the principle which in my book I used and stated was the following. Everything which appears must be predicated of Reality, but it must not be predicated in such a way as to make Reality contradict itself.
1 Appearance, 1893. I have perhaps fallen in places into inconsistency, but there was, I think, no doubt in my mind as to which of the two answers was the right one. There is, however, a natural tendency to pass from really to visibly, and this tendency may perhaps at times have asserted itself unconsciously.
2 This is of course not the same thing as taking up a suggestion, whatever it may be, and then, if you fail to see that it is visibly inconsistent, forthwith calling it real (p. 213).
I adhere to this principle, and I will go on briefly to justify it with special reference to what we have called comprehensiveness and coherence. There are two main questions, I think, to which answers here are wanted, (1) If my object is really defective, and if it cannot develop itself for me beyond itself by internal
(1) The object before me is not the whole of Reality, nor is it the whole of what I experience. The Universe (I must assume this here) is one with my mind, and not only is this so, but the Universe is actually now experienced by me as beyond the object. For, beside being an object, the world is actually felt, not merely in its general character but more or less also in special detail.
1 The reader is referred here specially to Chapter VI.
2 See further Principles of Logic, pp. 381-2, as well as the chapter just referred to. The reader should bear in mind that we may have (a) a detail or (b) a general character which is wanting in the object and which is actually felt by me. Beyond this there is the question whether content, not actually now felt by me, can be suggested by a reaction of the whole reality which is one with me. I am myself ready to accept even this further possibility, but I would urge on the reader the importance here of maintaining in any case the above distinctions. Cf. Chapters VI and XI.
On a view such as this the essential union of comprehensiveness with coherence seems once more tenable. We have not only connexions in the object-world, temporal, spatial
(2) For, the reader may object, ‘Suppose for the sake of argument that I admit the above, I still do not see how Contradiction comes in. Why am I to add with you that the test of truth is its ability to qualify Reality without self-contradiction?’ In replying to this I will first dispose of a point which possibly is obvious. If, in speaking of Reality, you say ‘R is mere a’, and if then, while you say that, another qualification, b, appears and is accepted, you contradict yourself plainly. To this your answer, I presume, will be, ‘Yes, but I was careful not to say “mere a”. I merely said “a”, and between these two assertions there is a vital difference.’ The question as to this vital difference may perhaps be called here the real issue. It is contended against me that I may first say ‘Ra’ and then later ‘Rb’ and then later ‘Rc’ without any contradiction. For a, b and c may be separate, or, if related, they may be conjoined externally. Hence ‘a with b’ (it is urged) is quite consistent with ‘a’, since ‘a’ remains unaffected. It will
My object here is to explain the sense of the doctrine which I advocate far more than to make this doctrine good against all possible competitors. And hence, if in what follows I seem to the reader to be assuming all that has to be proved, I must ask him to bear this warning in mind. Certainly I must assume here that the view of judgement which I hold is correct, and it is on this view that what follows is really founded. I have at least seen no other view of judgement which to myself seems tenable, but this is a point on which I cannot attempt to enter here. I assume then that in judgement ideas qualify Reality, and further that in judgement we have passed beyond the stage of mere perception or feeling. The form of qualification present in these cannot, as such, be utilized in judgement. And the question is whether in judgement we have any mode of qualification which is in the end consistent and tenable. I do not think that we have any.
1 What follows in the text may perhaps be summed up thus. In feeling (with which we start) we have an immediate union of one and many, where the whole immediately qualifies the parts, and the parts the whole and one another. In judgement this immediate unity is broken up, and there is a demand for qualification otherwise. This ‘otherwise’ involves distinction and a relational plurality; and that, because simple qualification is now impossible, entails mediation and conditions. And, because in judgement we cannot completely state the conditions, we are forced into an indefinite process of bringing in new material and new conditions. The end sought by judgement is a higher form of immediacy, which end however cannot be reached within judgement.
It may perhaps assist the reader if I put the whole matter as follows. Take any object, and you find that, as it is, that object does not satisfy your mind. You cannot think it as real while you leave it just as it comes. You are forced to go outside and beyond that first character, and to ask, What, Why, and How. You must hence take your first object as included with something else in some wider reality. There is thus a demand so far, we may say, for comprehension.
On the other hand you want to know the object itself and not some thing else. Therefore, while going beyond the object, you must not leave it but must still follow it. If you merely conjoin it with something outside that is different and not itself, this in principle is contradiction. Hence what you want is connexion and implication, where the object is its own self as contributing to a reality beyond itself. That now is coherence and comprehensiveness in one.
Of course the critic who ignores what Prof. Bosanquet and myself have urged as to the real meaning of contradiction, must expect to miss the sense of the doctrine which we advocate, each in his own way. Take a diversity (here is the point), a diversity used simply to qualify the same subject, and with that you have contradiction, and that is what contradiction means. The ‘And’ (see p. 231), if you take it simply as mere ‘And’, is itself contradiction. The reader should consult further the early part of Chap. XI.
1 For a discussion of the nature of contradiction the reader is referred to Mind, N.S., No. 20, reprinted (with omissions) in Appearance since 1897, and may now be directed especially to Prof. Bosanquet’s Individuality and Value, pp. 223 foll.
A natural answer is to deny that the judgements, Ra and Rb, are unconditional. That, it will be urged, was never meant. But, if it is not meant, I ask, ought it to be said, except of course for convenience and by a licence? Let it
If, in other words, you admit that the assertion ‘Ra’ is not true unless made under a condition, you admit that no knowledge in the form Ra can be perfect. Perfect knowledge requires that the condition of the predicate be got within the subject; and, seeking to attain this end (which, I assume, can never be completely realized), we are driven to fill in conditions indefinitely. The attempt to deny this, so far as we have seen, seems to force you to the conclusion that a makes no difference to R and that b makes no difference to either. And, if so, upon our view of judgement you have said nothing, or else have fallen into self-contradiction.
1 I will remind the reader once more that the above argument assumes that in judgement what is asserted is taken to qualify Reality, and that there is no other way of asserting. To those who believe in another way the above argument is not addressed. The same thing may again be put thus. The assertion of any object a is Ra. Here, if R is not different from a, you have really no assertion. But, if R is different, you either deny this difference and so have a false assertion, or else you qualify R (that is, a higher R) both by a and this difference. Hence you have now asserted a manifold. But, as soon as you assert of R a manifold (however you have got it), there arises at once a question as to the ‘how’. You cannot fall back on mere sense, because in judgement you are already beyond that; and on the other hand again you cannot simply identify. Hence you have to seek ideal conditions, and this search has to go on indefinitely. The above statement of course does not claim to show how these special conditions which you want are supplied. The process, that is, so far does not point to the particular complement which is required. Again, the reader must not understand me to suggest that, given a single feeling or sensation, we could by any logical process pass beyond it. I am on the contrary assuming that at the stage of judgement we are beyond any single feeling or sensation, if ever we were confined to one. In the foregoing the word logical has been used (perhaps improperly) in a narrow sense, to mean simply a visible process of intrinsic implication. See above, p. 227, note.
1 How the ‘and’ is to stand to the external relations seems doubtful. If ‘and’ itself is an external relation, then obviously, to unite it to its terms, you seem to want a further ‘and’, and so on indefinitely.
That on which my view rests is the immediate unity
1 Cf. Appearance, p. 569, and Chap. VI of this volume. In my view (I am here of course in the main following Hegel) the ‘and’ is a developed and yet degraded form of the immediate unity, and throughout implies that. Make the contents of the felt totality both objective and relational, and then abstract from any special character of the relations and any special character of the totality and you have got what you mean by ‘and’. But the point to be emphasized here is that, if you abstract altogether from the totality, you have destroyed your ‘and’. The ‘and’ depends essentially upon the felt totality, and of course cannot generate its own foundation.
Judgment, on our view, transcends and must transcend that immediate unity of feeling upon which it cannot cease to depend. Judgment has to qualify the Real ideally. And the word ‘idea’ means that the original unity has so far been broken. This is the fundamental inconsistency of judgement which remains to the end unremoved, and which in principle vitiates more or less all ideas and truth. For ideas cannot qualify reality as reality is qualified immediately in feeling, and yet judgement seeks in vain to escape from this foregone method. And thus, aiming to reconstitute with its ideas the concrete whole of one and many, it fails,
Every partial truth therefore is but partly true, and its opposite also has truth. This of course does not mean that any given truth is merely false, and, of course also, it does not mean that the opposite of any given truth is more true than itself. These are obvious, if natural, misunderstandings of our view. But surely it should be clear that you can both affirm and deny ‘R(x)a’ so long as x remains unspecified. And the truth on one of these two sides surely becomes greater in comparison, according as on that side, whether of affirmation or denial, you are able to make the conditions more complete. But, as long as and so far as the conditions remain incomplete, the truth is nowhere absolute. ‘It is possible to produce sparks by striking flint’ is, I understand, offered as an instance of unconditional truth.
1 Prof. Stout in Mind, N.S., 65, p. 42.
But
I cannot attempt to deal here with the alleged absolute judgements to be found, for instance, in arithmetic,
1 For a discussion of the nature of Error see Chapter IX.
2 The question as to mathematical truth appears to be as follows: (i) Are there really independent, self-consistent, self-contained principles from which the conclusions are developed, and (ii) can these conclusions be developed without inconsistency? The second of these questions I am through ignorance of the subject unable to discuss. With regard to the first all I can do here is to remind the reader that there is an emphasis on ‘self-contained’. Unless the whole process is completely intelligible per se, it depends on an unknown condition (however apparently constant) in my mind or elsewhere. A is such that b is c may (we have seen) be perfectly compatible with the statement that ‘A is such that b is not c’. The question is whether the such is completely specified and got within the judgement itself.
3 What Prof. Stout calls ‘implicit cognition’ I take to fall under the head of designation. Otherwise the instance which he gives (on p. 44) is far from helping his case. For if the ‘I give you, etc.’ is true, surely it is obvious that I do not give you also is true, so far at least as our knowledge goes. I understand Prof. Stout really here to rely on the ‘this’, in other words on designation.
I mean by designation the essential qualification of our meaning by pointing, or by the equivalent use of such terms as ‘this’, ‘now’, ‘here’, or ‘my’. That in fact we
At the entrance of philosophy there appears to be a point where the roads divide. By the one way you set out to seek truth in ideas, to find such an ideal expression of reality as satisfies in itself. And on this road you not only endeavor to say what you mean, but you are once for all and for ever condemned to mean what you say. Your judgements as to reality are here no less or more than what you have expressed in them, and no appeal to something else which you fail to make explicit is allowed. When, for example, you say ‘this’, the question is not as to what you are sure is your meaning if only you could utter it. The question is as to what you have got, or can get, in an ideal form into your actual judgement. And, when you revolt against the conclusion that ‘this’ appears to be a mere unspecified universal, when you insist that you know very well what ‘this’ meant, and protest that your object was something other than such illogical trifling and child’s play—our answer is obvious. What are you doing, we ask, with us here on this road? You were told plainly that on this road what is sought is ideas, and that nothing else here is current. You were warned that, if you enter here, you are committed to this principle. If you did not understand, whose is the fault? And as to your protests and ‘refutations’, they may count elsewhere but they count for nothing with us. If you cannot show that on our own principle our conclusion is wrong, then for us you have said nothing. Our whole way doubtless may be a delusion, but, if you choose to take this way, your judgement means what ideally it contains;
This I take to be the way of philosophy, of any philosophy which seeks to be consistent. It is not the way of life or oi common knowledge, and to commit oneself to such a principle may be said to depend upon choice. The way of life starts from, and in the end it rests on, dependence upon feeling, upon that which in the end cannot be stated intelligibly. And the way of any understanding of the world short o: philosophy still rests on this basis. Such understanding may despise feeling, and may claim to have risen into a higher region, but in the end it will be inconsistent and be found to stand on that which, taken as truth, does not satisfy. Outside of philosophy there is no consistent course but to accept the unintelligible, and to use in its service whatever ideas seem, however inconsistently, to work best. And against this position, while it is true to itself, I have nothing to say; though I regret that to be true to itself is a thing so seldom within its power. For worse or for better the man who stands on particular feeling must remain outside of philosophy. If you are willing to be inconsistent (this is now an old story) you can never be refuted, and that is why philosophy can be said to depend upon choice. On the other hand the impulse to truth is strong, and this abnegation often too difficult, and the reason for this abnegation often, if not always, invisible without some training in philosophy. And hence the way of life, and ordinary knowledge, obscurely conscious of its own imperfection, for ever seeks to complete itself by that which, if it aimed to be consistent, would be philosophy.
1 Such a work we may, I hope, expect from Mr. Russell. I do not understand that at present he has offered any view which could fairly be taken as an account of first principles. In such an account obviously it would not be permissible to introduce ideas, ultimate or otherwise, without in each case discussing whether the ideas are consistent with all the rest which is accepted. In a subordinate subject one can of course start with a ‘save as hereinafter provided’, and in this way preclude objections as to inconsistency. But in dealing with first principles such a course is clearly inadmissible. I am not, however, proposing here to criticize a doctrine which, I confess, I do not understand. And I trust I shall not be taken as disparaging the remarkable contribution which Mr. Russell, I am sure, has made to philosophy. The general tendency which he so ably represents has long been as good as unadvocated among us, and there has thus been, I agree, a very serious defect in the main body of our speculation. Whatever the result, Mr. Russell’s inquiries should do a service to philosophy which, I imagine, it would not be easy to over-estimate. On the inconsistency of some of the ideas used by him I hope to touch later in this volume (Chapters IX and X). For ‘external relations’ see the references in the Index. {Relations: external (cf. And), 43-4, 151-2, 230 foll., 237, 241, 259, 290-1, 312, 326-7, 337.} And cf. Prof. Bosanquet’s Logic, vol. ii, chap. ix.
And the external relations themselves, if they are
Philosophy perhaps may be called an attempt, possibly in the end an unsuccessful attempt, to escape from the fallacy of false alternative. To assume, if external relations are unthinkable, the possibility of a scheme of relations founded on and based in their terms, or again to pass from the rejection of internal relations as illusory to the acceptance of sheer externality, seem counterpart fallacies. The alternative in i each case, if it is to stand, must justify itself independently. And in neither case to my mind is the justification likely to succeed. To myself it seems that ultimate reality is supra-relational. We find it first below relations, and again relations
Criticism therefore which assumes me committed to the ultimate truth of internal relations, all or any of them, is based on a mistake. I cannot accept, for instance, the relation of subject and predicate as an adequate expression of reality. It evidently fails to carry over consistently into a higher region the felt sensible unity of the one and many. And there is no possible relational scheme which in my view in the end will be truth. The apprehended fact of terms in relation cannot itself, I am sure, be reconstituted ideally. In any mere relational synthesis there will be something left out, or else imported surreptitiously from elsewhere, and there will be ensuing inconsistencies which are rooted in and which point to incompleteness. I had long ago made it clear (so I thought) that for me no truth in the end was quite true, and I had myself (as I fancied) pointed out and dealt with the consequent dilemma. But it is in the nature of things, I presume, that there should always be some critics who know better.
The ideas which we are compelled to use are all in varying degrees imperfect, and certainly this is the case with internal relations. They seek to hold on to the initial felt
Amongst ideas which, though imperfect, must necessarily be used, I may mention here the ideas of identity and difference. Identity must not on the one side be confused with resemblance, nor again on the other side can it be taken as abstract. There is, for instance, in the end no such positive idea, at least to my mind, as mere numerical sameness or diversity. On either of the above alternatives (I do not offer to argue the point here) identity is destroyed. On the other hand, when you take it otherwise as one aspect of the concrete union of sameness and difference, identity, when you think it out, becomes inconsistent. It leads at either end to an infinite process, and the same again is the case with diversity. These ideas therefore cannot be ultimate, and we naturally desire to get beyond them to something wholly consistent. Yet, if we find we cannot do this, the ideas still must be accepted. They will remain the best means we
1 The above was written in June 1908, and since then Prof. James’s Pluralistic Universe has appeared, containing some controversial references on the subject of identity. I have, however, left the text as it stood, and will merely add that I cannot accept Prof. James s account of the difference on this point between himself and me. My difficulty with Prof. James has been that from time to time I am led to suppose that he is advocating a view opposed radically to mine, and then later discover that he holds the very view which I have defended against him. And hence I am inclined to suspect that this may be the case elsewhere. Prof. James asserts, for instance, ‘external relations’ as absolute; but I am forced to doubt whether he, any more than myself, believes in such things except as relative (see above, p. 151). And, while professing Pluralism, to myself Prof. James appears really to be a Monist, or, at most, a Dualist. Again, if there is any difference between the ‘pragmatic’ doctrine of free will and that which I, for instance, have advocated since 1876, I cannot find in what it consists. And other examples could be given. Hence, things being thus between Prof. James and myself (though I admit that this may arise from my own failure to understand), it seems to me that explanation is wanted far more than controversy. Our differences may perhaps on the whole be small when compared with the extent of our agreement. But apart from further information it would be hardly in my power to form an opinion on this point.
Coherence and comprehensiveness then we have found to be each an integral aspect of system. In practice they may diverge, but they remain united in principle. And system is connected essentially with contradiction and its absence. For what is inconsistent is so far unreal, and a diversity, judged unconditionally to be real, we found was inconsistent, and such internal discrepancy tends to involve an indefinite passage beyond self. Further, apart from this, an object which is short of the whole tends naturally, we may say, to suggest its complement. And, since that suggested complement is absent in fact, reality thus contradicts itself. How the suggestion is made we have inquired. The object itself may through its own internal content pass for us visibly beyond its own limits, or, on the other hand, the addition may come to us from that whole which we feel.
With the various questions which arise there is obviously here no space to deal. There is however one point on which I will venture to add a few words. The reader naturally may ask what on the whole the above conclusion is to mean. Does it mean that I am forthwith to set down everything that I want as real? The answer is. Not so, if by ‘everything’ you understand ‘all that you want and exactly as you want it’. We have been compelled to conclude to the actual satisfaction of all sides of our being, and hence doubtless everything that we need must be included in reality. But, this being agreed on, the question remains as to the sense of such inclusion. Now to say that such or such a detail cannot be left entirely outside is one thing, and it is another thing to insist that, when included, this detail maintains untransformed its special character. The burden of proof in my opinion lies here with the assertor, and that burden is likely too often to strain or to overpass his power.
It is after all an enormous assumption that what satisfies us is real, and that the reality has got to satisfy us. It is an assumption tolerable, I think, only when we hold that the Universe is substantially one with each of us, and actually, as a whole, feels and wills and knows itself within us. For thus in our effort and our satisfaction it is the one Reality which is asserting itself, is coming to its own rights and pronouncing its own dissent or approval. And our confidence rests on the hope and the faith, that except as an expression,
‘One or more of us men’—between these two things, so far as I see, there is little difference. We have heard, at least in this connexion, surely too much about the social nature of mankind and about the accumulated funds of humanity. Offered as an explanation of our confidence, wise or stupid, as an account, that is, of how it comes to exist, these considerations of course have their value. But offered as a justification, how can they be anything but worthless? We know how joint action with its fellows, and even that reduplicated sense of self which comes from the perception of its kind, gives assurance to the humblest. But we know again how this assurance can prove to be illusory. The gardener’s spade and the unheeding footstep have long ago pointed the moral which at least to my mind has not somehow grown obsolete. Its force to my mind is not lessened by that vaporing, new or old, about Humanity, which, if it
The spirit of the worm beneath the sod
In love and worship blends itself with God.
– Percy Bysshe Shelley, Epipsychidon
And not only in love and worship does such union hold, but in will also and in the knowledge and enjoyment of beauty and truth. And, if we believe this, the result should be at once both confidence and humility. Our truth, such as it is, has its indispensable part in the one transcendent Experience, and is so far secure. But that any particular truths of ours, as we conceive them, should be unconditioned and absolute, seems hardly probable.
Chapter IX. On Appearance, Error and Contradiction
Introductory, on the Absolute and the finite self (245-50). Appearance, idea, and truth (250-2). Two main views of Error, the absolute and relative view. The absolute view is to be rejected (252). The difference between error and truth is in the end one of degree (252-8). The absolute view involves Pluralism and is indefensible, both with regard to abstract truths and to matters of fact. The latter imply but cannot reach uniqueness (258-65). The absolute view of error has relative truth, and must be used in life and in the special sciences (266-7). On Common Sense and consistency (268). On the self-contradictory, how, being unreal, it can exist (269-72). In what sense the Absolute really appears and has degree (272-3).
In the following pages I am to offer some remarks on the subject of Appearance, Contradiction and Error. I have probably nothing to say here which I have not said before, and there is nothing, I imagine, in what I have said which could be called original. I, however, offer these remarks because they seem to me to be wanted, because, that is, the general view which I have adopted seems still partly misunderstood. I am not seeking here to argue with any one who wishes to criticize rather than to understand. I address myself to those whose interest in these topics is impersonal, to those who desire to make their own every way, however imperfect, in which these matters are apprehended.
I propose here first to say something as to the general foundation on which I stand. I shall next deal briefly with the relation of Error to Appearance. From this I shall go on to discuss at length what may be called the relative and absolute views of Error. I shall then examine a difficulty with regard to Contradiction, and shall finally remark on the general reality of Appearance and Degree. The reader who finds here too much repetition of what to him is familiar, will, I hope, accept the explanation which has been offered above.
1 First published in Mind for April 1910, and, with the exception of some small additions and of the Supplementary Notes, written rather more than a year previously. There are some further questions as to the nature of Truth which will be dealt with in the chapter which follows.
The way of taking the world which I have found most
No one, I think, will understand such a view if he makes a mistake as to the given fact from which in a sense it starts. There are those for whom the outer world is one given fact, and again the world of my self another fact; and there are others for whom only one of these two facts is ultimate. It is in philosophy a common doctrine that there is immediate certainty only on the side of my self, a basis from which I should have thought that Solipsism must demonstrably follow. If you start from the absolute reality of your self, you need not puzzle yourself as to how you are to leave this ground and leap to a transcendent Reality.
1 But on this difficult point see Chapter XI, pp. 350-1.
You may,
1 See Chapter VI.
From the first, if we are to speak of transcendence, my finite center is transcended. From the first and throughout it is one thing directly with the all-embracing Universe, and
1 I cannot accept the view that my self in relation with other selves is a fact immediately given. For this point and for what follows see further in Chapter XIV.
Certainly I speak of my finite center, and with this an emphasis may be laid on the ‘my’, and, with this, the road that leads to Solipsism once more seems opened. But it is forgotten here that my self, the self that I take as a thing which endures in time and which I go on to oppose to the world, is an ideal construction. It is a construction which is made on and from the present feeling of a finite center. The work of construction is performed by that center and by the Universe in one, and the result depends for its origin and existence wholly on this active unity. From the other side we naturally speak of the feeling center from which my self is developed, and with which it remains throughout continuous, as ‘its’. And this expression is true so far as it means that this center is not directly one with others, and that the material and the agency out of and by which my self is made, is to that extent private. But we turn our truth into sheer error when we maintain that my self is an independent substantive, to which the rest of the world belongs somehow as an adjective, or to which other self-sufficient Reals are externally related. Such a position, we have seen, cannot be defended. That foundation and agency from and by which my self is generated, and through which alone it persists, is one thing with the whole Universe. My self may
It would not, I think, be well for me to enlarge further on points where I could do little but repeat what I have said elsewhere. My object here is not so much to argue that the above views are correct, as to urge that any criticism of such views merely from the outside will touch no one who has understood them. I fully agree that difficulties are left which, if you like to say so, must be swallowed. The fact of an all-embracing, supra-relational, absolute experience you may call, if you please, ‘unverifiable’. I do not know what this word means, and, so long as its meaning is unknown, I do not care to object to it.
1 I should myself suppose that no philosopher ever did hold a doctrine which he did not take to be in some sense verifiable. And no one, I should have thought, ever honestly advocated ideas, unless he thought that these ideas served some purpose, and so were useful and worked, and naturally possessed the character required for such working. I do not know why certain critics, in order to grapple more effectively with the Absolute, should apparently think it well to begin by divesting themselves of everything like ordinary Common Sense. On the other hand I gratefully welcome the existence of various criticisms, which, whether they seem to me to be justified or not, are at least thoughtful and sane.
But I hold to the above fact because to me it is the necessary conclusion from what is certainly given. And I hold to it because on this ground it seems to me possible, far better than on other grounds, to do justice to the various aspects of life. And when I hear, for instance, that in the Absolute all personal interests are destroyed, I think I understand on the contrary how this is the only way and the only power in and by which such interests are really safe. For after all, whether we wish it or not, we have got somehow to believe in something, and, at least in philosophy, I suppose we wish to believe in something self-consistent. And when, rejecting the Absolute, I consider the alternatives that are offered me, my mind is affected as follows. I not only find these alternatives to be untenable and self-inconsistent, but I at least
I. In dealing with Error we are at once led to ask how it stands to Appearance. Is all appearance to be called error? I will venture here to repeat briefly what I have stated elsewhere.
1 One hears, for instance, that our spiritual interests require the absolute reality of time; and there seems often to be literally no idea that such a doctrine is contrary to that which we most care for.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a word of it.
— Omar Khayyám
Surely, as an ultimate truth, this is as abhorrent to our hearts as it should be false in our philosophy. And, if on the other side you emphasize the ultimate truth of chance and change, and urge that lapse and instability invade even the past, I do not see that you have gained anything. If there is to be no supreme spiritual Power which is above chance and change, our own spiritual interests surely are not safeguarded. But, with any such Power, it seems to me nonsense to talk of the absolute reality of time.
2 Appearance, pp. 163-6, 485-6.
Now in every finite center (on our view) the Whole, immanent there, fails to be included in
To pass from this point, there is, I have contended, in all truth the separation of idea and being, the loosening of that which an idea itself is from that which it means and stands for. And in my opinion this breach is at once essential and fatal to truth. For truth is not perfect until this sundering of aspects is somehow made good, until that which in fact is forms a consistent whole with that which it stands for and means. In other words truth demands at once the essential difference and identity of ideas and reality. It demands (we may say) that the idea should in the end be reconstituted by the subject of the judgement and should in no sense whatever fall outside. But the possibility of such an implication involves, in my view, a passage beyond mere truth to actual reality, a passage in which truth would have completed itself beyond itself. Truth, in other words, content with nothing short of reality, has, in order to remain truth, to come short forever of its own ideal and to remain imperfect.
1 Thus when I think of the Absolute, in which all ideas are in the end real, that truth and thought does not, in my judgement and for me, reconstitute the psychical being of my idea. Everything, that is, implies everything else. But in a judgement you fail to include the condition on which your idea is true of the Real. And you also fail to include the condition on which your judgement, itself as a fact, exists. And these two disabilities in the end are one.
But on
There are, we may say, two main views of error, the absolute and the relative. According to the former view there are perfect truths, and on the other side there are sheer errors. Degrees of truth and error may, on this view, in a sense be admitted, but in the end you have ideas which are quite right, and again other ideas which are quite wrong. This absolute view I reject. I agree that in limited spheres and for some working purposes its doctrine holds good, but I find it untenable ultimately. Ultimately there are, I am convinced, no absolute truths, and on the other side there are no mere errors. Subject to a further explanation, all truth and all error on my view may be called relative, and the difference in the end between them is one of degree. This doctrine at first sight may perhaps seem paradoxical, but, when its real meaning is perceived, I think the paradox disappears. And I will venture here to repeat and to enlarge on that which I have advocated elsewhere.
If there is to be sheer truth, the condition of the assertion must not fall outside the judgement. The judgement must be thoroughly self-contained. If the predicate is true of the subject only by virtue of something omitted and unknown, such a truth is defective. The condition left out is an x which may be filled in diversely. And, according to the way in which the unspecified condition is actually filled in, either the judgement or its denial is true. The judgement therefore, as it stands, is ambiguous, and it is at once true and false, since in a word it is conditional.
The more the conditions of your assertion are included in your assertion, so much the truer and less erroneous does
For (a) the limited self-contained subject to which you seek to attach the predicate, is not in the end real as so limited. And (b) further, even if it were so, there remains a difficulty with regard to predication. The separation of the predicate from the subject seems at once to be necessary and yet indefensible. These obstacles in the way of perfect truth are on my view irremovable.
(a) All judgement (I have argued elsewhere) predicates its idea of the ultimate Reality.
1 At the same time the very form of predication prevents any judgement from being perfectly true (Appearance, p. 544). Subject to this condition the above doctrine to my mind holds good. There is an objection, raised by Mr. Russell (Principles of Math., p. 450), that on this view you cannot say that ‘reality is real’ or that ‘Existence exists’. No truth (I have just stated) can upon my view be perfectly true, but, apart from that, I should find it easier to deal with this objection if I were told the sense in which any one ever could want to say that Reality is real. To affirm that Reality has the character of reality, I presume, is harmless, while to suggest that Reality is a member of a class ‘real’, to my mind is monstrous. And it would be of course wrong to call it ‘real’, in some sense which would restrict it. With regard to ‘Existence exists’, once more, until I know exactly what that means, I can hardly reply. What I can say is this, that to place ‘Existence’ itself within the sphere of existence would be clearly indefensible. There are, however, several other objections raised by Mr. Russell (ibid., p. 448), which I think I understand, and to which I will reply briefly, (i) It is (as we have seen) true that predication is in the end self-contradictory, (ii) It is true that relations (a) do, and (b) do not, presuppose their terms. Terms (a) must be, and (b) cannot be, different through being related. And within any related term there is a difference which sets up an endless process, (iii) It is true that to predicate of the Absolute involves contradiction, because it involves an unjustified difference between subject and predicate. It implies that the Absolute as subject is not the Absolute but a distinction made within it, and so on indefinitely. While admitting or rather urging all this, I do not agree with Mr. Russell that I have failed to see and to meet it.
There is an objection raised by Prof. Taylor, in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. ix, p. 205, to which I have to make much the same reply. Certainly I myself am not a class and cannot (to speak strictly) be a predicate, but then again, to speak strictly, I cannot be a subject either. Our relational logic (no matter of what kind) is in the end not adequate to reality. It is adequate neither to my self nor the Universe, nor on the other side to any given fact of sensuous perception or of feeling. From this I do not see that any conclusion follows which is contrary to that which I hold. For such a conclusion would (as I understand) be required other premisses which I should reject.
I should be glad to carry out here a sort of promise, and to discuss the arguments advanced by Prof. Dewey, in Mind, No. 63, but I do not find that this is possible. Any objection resting on the antithesis of ‘formal’ and ‘material’ I obviously cannot deal with, unless supplied by Prof. Dewey with a clear statement as to the meaning to be given to these ambiguous terms. And as the idea of truth’s plunging us into contradictions is to Prof. Dewey obviously inconsistent with the idea of its also pointing to an end above and beyond them, and also realizing that end progressively, though always imperfectly—and as on the other hand all this to me is consistent, and was offered to and urged on the reader as consistent and true—there is really nothing to be discussed by me, and no more to be said but to leave the issue to the reader. But I am ready to admit that, though I seldom read anything written by Prof. Dewey without pleasure, when it comes to first principles I seldom succeed in understanding him. On some of the points referred to in this footnote I shall once more touch in the Supplementary Notes appended to this chapter. And the reader must, on the whole subject, be requested to read Prof. Bosanquet’s Logic (Ed. II), vol. ii, chap. viii.
Certainly I do not mean by
1 See Chap. XI, pp. 331 foll.
Our advance in knowledge
Now you may object that in the judgement the condition, though it may not be stated, is understood. It is left out (you may say) merely for the sake of convenience. But, if so, the judgement, as it stands, is I presume admitted to be imperfect. And when you urge that the conditions are understood, I reply that, if so, they can be stated. But (I will return to this) I maintain that you are really unable to state the conditions. You cannot in the end specify them, and you cannot show how far, being completely specified, they would modify your subject and your judgement. The conditions therefore, which you call ‘understood’, remain in the most fatal sense unknown. And the only consistent course which remains is to deny wholly that these conditions exist. Reality consists of (we must not say in) an unconditioned plurality. Reality is not R but r, r, r. There are thus a number of self-contained subjects, and it is of one of these that you make your assertion, which is hence absolutely true. How can it be conditional in a world where nothing like a condition or an implication exists, or indeed could have any meaning? This I take to be the real absolute view of truth, and I will return to it lower down.
(b) I will now go on to notice the difficulty which attaches, not merely to the subject of a judgement, but to the predication itself. If the predicate is different from the subject, what is the sense and the justification of their unity? And, if the predicate is not different, is there any sense left at all? If we take the ‘is’ as mere identity, the assertion disappears. It once more vanishes if the ‘is’ is understood as mere difference. And the question is whether we have any other way of taking the ‘is’ which in the end satisfies us and is tenable. We do not, in my opinion, possess any other way.
In the above statement the words ‘in the end’ must be emphasized. It is an old objection that, if you believe in an Absolute, all distinctions are lost, and, since everything comes to the same, nothing in particular is left. And I admit that the relative view of error and truth may be held and taught one-sidedly. But, rightly understood, it comprehends, and on a lower plane it justifies, the absolute view. In the realm of the special sciences and of practical life, and in short everywhere, unless we except philosophy, we are compelled to take partial truths as being utterly true. We cannot do this consistently, but we are forced to do this, and our action within limits is justified. And thus on the relative view there is after all no collision with what may be called Common Sense. Before explaining this more fully I will once more point out the real essence of that absolute view which I reject.
Error, upon this view, will consist in the deviation of the idea, whether by excess or defect, from that reality at which it aims. It is impossible for me here to be precise, and you may understand reality as a fact or as a mere type, or in short however you think is best. The point is that by being something else, whether by addition or substitution or default, or through all these in one,
1 Substitution in the end seems otiose, and addition and default seem in the end to imply one the other.
Among various forms of reply I will notice an answer which I have mentioned already. ‘The separate facts and truths’, it may be said, ‘need not really be separate. They are however determined definitely, because fixed by a Universe which is conditioned really throughout.’ Now, even if the conditions of our finite truth are known and could be given, surely apart from these conditions our truth is so far imperfect, and exists only by a kind of convenient sufferance. But on the other hand suppose that the conditions are not statable because they are not known; in this case the whole conclusion which I advocate appears to follow irremediably. You may possibly reply that you do not know the conditions in detail, but, none the less on this account, you believe them to exist, and you therefore are justified in taking the finite fact and the finite truth as being real and perfect. To me, however, this position appears to be untenable.
1 See Chapter VIII, pp. 230-1.See Chapter VIII, pp. 230-1.
1 I shall discuss lower down the attempt to gain this inclusion by postulating uniqueness.
Passing on from this reply we may consider truth and error under the heads (a) of abstract ideas and (b) of matters of fact. The former head (a) I shall touch on but briefly. The contention that an abstract truth is wholly and utterly true, must mean, I take it, that this truth, as it stands, is self-contained and self-subsistent. Either there are nowhere any conditions or implications, and nothing anywhere makes a difference to anything, or else in this truth you have within itself any conditions that are required. The first of these
I will go on to deal at greater length (b) with ‘matters of fact’. What is contended here is that a fact, in time or space or in both, is, as it stands, real, and that hence such a fact can serve as a test of absolute truth and sheer error. The ground of this contention, at least in most cases, seems to consist in an appeal to ‘designation’, a subject on which I have already remarked in the preceding chapter.
1 Chapter VIII, pp. 233-6.
‘Caesar crossed the Rubicon,’ we say, ‘or not’; but this ‘either-or’ is only true if you are confined to a single world
1 I may perhaps mention that criticisms on Hegel, with regard to his teaching as to the meaning of ‘this’, usually show to my mind an entire failure to perceive what he is driving at. But the reader must not take the statement in the text, however much it owes to Hegel, as being an exposition of his doctrine.
The matters of fact in which we are to find absolute reality and truth, must, in the first place, be self-consistent; and they must, in the second place, go beyond a mere generality in which both what we mean and its opposite hold good. But our matters of fact belong essentially to an order in time, if not also in space. And with regard to the self-containedness of any member in these orders there are well-known difficulties. In the case of time these difficulties are aggravated, and, far from being the technical puzzles of the school, they are visible to all who reflect. Are past events, we all ask, dead, and is the future really nothing, and, if so, what is left, and what do we mean by the present? And again, if future and past are not wholly unreal, can we on the other side say that they really exist? And, if lapse and change are not to be inherent in matters of fact, in what
If truth as to matter of fact falls short of uniqueness, that truth, we have seen, is defective. Without contradicting yourself you can at once affirm and deny that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. But such uniqueness (as we have already seen in part) is unattainable by truth. For it is not sufficient to give to your event an exclusive place in its series. The event still remains a mere generality, unless the series itself is unique. What you seek is something which is positively itself, and not a sort of a heading which can be identified at once with discrepant qualities. But no truth can reach the unique order which is to be the condition of such an absolute fact.
Uniqueness is a well-known topic, which might with profit be discussed at very great length. I must confine myself here to stating briefly what to myself appears to be the one tenable conclusion. Wherever you have a different quality, you have so far something unique, and this is the one root of uniqueness. Uniqueness in a word means difference, and difference in a word means a quality. For a distinction without a difference, and again a difference without a diversity in quality, are things which in the end to me are devoid of meaning. I do not, I hope, ignore wholly the difficulties which have led to the acceptance of such ideas, but, whatever are the difficulties, these ideas I am unable to accept. Briefly then every quality, so far as it is distinct from other qualities, is unique. You cannot conceivably divide it and make two specimens within it and of it, unless you introduce further difference and go on to make so far new quality. A quality which positively is itself, and therefore and so far cannot be something else, this is in the end the
The ‘this’ of feeling (I ignore here the difficulties) which arise
1 Of these I will mention two. In the first place every different ‘this’ will require a new quality. In the second place we have the problem of the connexion of identity with difference, and of the ‘infinite process’ which arises at either end. Chapter VIII, p. 240. Uniqueness is a subject to which I desire to return. I fully assent to the remarks on Individuality and Uniqueness made by Prof. Bosanquet in his Logic (Ed. II), vol. ii, pp. 260-1. I agree that the further an individual is removed from designation, the more unique (the less of a mere ‘sort’) it becomes, though it never becomes unique utterly. A thing, that is, has uniqueness through being above as well as through being below a kind or class. And the former of these senses is perhaps the more important of the two. But I do not understand that this consideration conflicts with the statement of the text.
I will add here that what Mr. Russell (On the relations of Universals and Particulars, p. 24) calls ‘the self-evident fact that certain spatial relations imply diversity of their terms, together with the self-evident fact that it is logically possible for entities having such spatial relations to be wholly indistinguishable as to predicates’ to me remains inadmissible. On the contrary, that every place must differ from others in quality, and again, that in spatial ‘occupation’ there is not a mere relation, is to my mind clear fact. Occupation implies, I should say, a union of qualities. Hence it is only in one respect, and by virtue of an abstraction from their difference, that two things in two different places are the same. I fully admit that the above is in a sense unintelligible. But I do not find that, like Mr. Russell’s view of ‘occupation’, it violates plain fact; and, again, to me it is not in the same sense unthinkable. For mere numerical diversity remains to me unthinkable, unless, while thinking it, I allow differences in quality to introduce themselves surreptitiously.
Where is the quality
1 In order to include uniqueness within the judgement ‘Caesar crossed the Rubicon’ you would require (I should say) not less than two false assumptions, and with anything less must fail, (i) You want (a) an assumption that there is only one possible order in space and time—an assumption which in my opinion is not true (Appearance, chap, xviii); or (b), failing this, you must include a definition of the particular order which you mean, (ii) Having got so far, (a) you must make a further assumption that within your unique order there is no possible recurrence of ‘Caesar’—and this assumption again to my mind is quite untenable. Or you must (as you cannot) define the ‘this’ of that Caesar which you mean. The reader will of course understand that the above unique order, with its, exclusion of possible recurrence of ‘Caesar’, has got to be made true unconditionally of the Universe.
The absolute view of perfect truth and of sheer error rests, we saw, on the idea that separate facts and truths are self-contained and possess independent reality. And such an idea (we have argued) must be rejected in the end; but this
1 Chapters III and XVI. Apart from a certain reservation as to dreams and dreamlike states, this ‘real world’ is the world of practice. The difference in practice, between my reaching here and now my end and failing to reach it, may be said to be absolute. And this absolute difference is thus fully preserved in our relative view. We must remember here, on the other side, that the ends to be realized in my practice cannot all be said to belong to my ‘real world’, and are certainly not all ‘practical’. No doctrine of practice for the sake of practice will stand before an inquiry into the meaning of ‘practice’.
And, so far as we assume this, we of course
On the other side, even within the special sciences and within the world of practical life, the absolute view of truth has its limits. The ideas which we use within the special sciences are hardly self-consistent, and in our practical life we experience the collision of discordant principles. And it is now an old story that, even if the worlds of our diverse interests were each at one with itself, at all events these worlds can conflict with one another. Assuredly it is not merely within philosophy that the absolute view of error and truth is driven to suggest itself as false. But for philosophy, as I at least understand it, the reason is plain. All ideas in the end, if we except those of metaphysics, lack ultimate truth. They may be called working conceptions, good and true so far as they work. And, because they work, and because nothing else could work so well, there is therefore nothing better and nothing truer than such ideas, each in its own proper place; since nothing else could possibly be more relative to our needs. But these ideas are not consistent either with one another or even with themselves, and they come short of that which we demand as truth. How far and in what sense even within metaphysics that demand can be satisfied, I have discussed elsewhere.
1 Appearance, pp. 544 foll. How far (we may ask here in passing) are the ideas used by metaphysics to be called ‘working conceptions’? (i) In the first place these ideas are not merely ‘instrumental’. They are not mere means to some end outside of, or other than, understanding. And (ii) they are not means to, or elements in, the understanding merely of one limited region. On the contrary, metaphysics aims at understanding the world in principle, in general and as one whole. The ideas used for this purpose, since they work, may, if we please, be called working conceptions. They are again all imperfect, and all differ in the degree in which they approach and fall short of perfection. But the main point is this, that, in order to work metaphysically, these ideas must themselves have the character of the metaphysical end. They do not merely conduce to a foreign purpose, but are themselves the very existence in which their end and principle is realized. The phrase ‘working conceptions’ tends, I think, to suggest that this is otherwise, and hence it seems to me safer not to apply it to the ideas of metaphysics.
1 On Common Sense and Consistency compare Chapter V, pp. 123-4, 132-3; and, again, Chapter XV, p. 430.
II. I will pass on from this to remark briefly on one of the points which remain. Error, appearance and truth, we have seen, do not in their proper sense belong to feeling.
It may repay us to consider the matter further with regard specially to Contradiction. The self-contradictory, I suppose most of us would agree, is unreal. And yet, since we discuss it, it is clear that the self-contradictory in some sense exists. Whether this is a problem which presses more on those who agree with me than on those who differ, I will not here discuss. The problem was noticed by myself some years ago (Mind, No. 20, p. 482), and I have returned to it later (Mind, No. 43, p. 308, and No. 60, p. 455);
The reader will recall that on our view there is in feeling no contradiction as such. We feel uneasiness and change, and we have in feeling contents which do not agree.
1 See Chapter III, p. 41, note, and Chapter X, p. 302.
2 Cf. Chapter VI, pp. 168 foll., 174. I may perhaps be permitted to mention here, in passing, that I do not venture to derive change from inconsistency. I think it better to take change as belonging to the inconsistent finite, but exactly how we do not know.
And this state of things is again present in those perceived contents
1 See Appearance, Appendix, Note A. The reader will remember that we have diversities which can sensuously be in one and ‘coinhere’, and other diversities where we find that this is not possible. An inconsistency like change, for instance, can be felt and perceived (so far as appears) immediately and simply. An inconsistency, again, such as a round square, cannot be perceived or felt apart from some further complication. This distinction possesses on certain views, which I think erroneous, a fundamental importance. But a thing to me is not self-consistent or real because it is present in feeling or to perception. Beside the pages of Appearance just referred to, the reader will find some further discussion in Mind, No. 20, pp. 475-81.
But (and this is once more the point which we should emphasize) there is no such thing as a mere contradiction, just as there cannot be any such thing in the world as a bare negation. Every negation (I have dealt with this elsewhere) must have a positive ground. And every contradiction implies in some sense the actual conjunction of that which clashes. Within feeling, as we saw, and in many cases even within sensuous perception, the discrepant elements were, by virtue of an unknown condition, together in one whole. And when these elements pass into judgement and are seen
When I think of contraries I first take them as being somehow separated and yet conjoined. The special nature of this ‘somehow’, this known or unknown condition, will vary in different cases, but it here is irrelevant.
1 When I, for instance, think of a round square, I may for the moment drop out of view the special meaning of these words, and couple them as if they were some other adjectives, like ‘cold’ and ‘green’, which can together qualify a perceived thing. Or, if I realize the meaning of ‘round’ and ‘square’, I may drop out of view the identity of the space which these adjectives are to qualify. I take the round space and the square space as being somehow diverse; or again I may deliberately represent them as two surfaces, one lying over the other, and so compatible. The moment, however, that I suppress the diversities and make these spaces really one, a collision takes place and the round square is destroyed.
Contradiction in the proper sense thus belongs to the middle space of our reflective world, and it may be said to inhabit that region, or rather part of that region, which lies between feeling and perfect experience. But contradiction is perceived nowhere except on the ground of a neutral conjunction, present to sense or imagination, and it is possible
III. I will end by touching on a difficulty which was noticed some years ago by Prof. Stout.
Having removed from our minds these possible misconceptions, we may address ourselves to the above dilemma. Are we to maintain that the Absolute does really appear? If we answer No, then it seems to follow that nothing appears. But if on the other hand we say Yes, then finite centers seem at once to have become absolutely real. Our true reply, as I understand the matter, is to say ‘Yes, but also and in the end No’. The Absolute really appears, but the conditions of its appearance are not known.
1 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, ‘Mr. Bradley’s Theory of Judgement,’ pp. 27-8.
2 Appearance, pp. 557-8.
3 This again is in principle the answer to the objection urged by Prof. Royce (The World and the Individual, Series i, pp. 550 foll.). The objection, as I understand it, rests on the assumption that the transcendence of the relational form, which is experienced in the Absolute, must itself be in the relational form, or else be nothing. But it is precisely the opposite of any such alternative which, at least I have contended, is true.
Our
Professor Stout’s view of Error. It is hard to say how it differs from that of Professor Bosanquet and myself, and further explanation on his part is wanted.
Since the publication of the foregoing paper there have appeared (in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1910-11) two essays dealing with the subject of Error. The first of these, by Dr. Schiller, makes, so far as I see, no contribution to the discussion of the subject, but the second, by Prof. Stout, has, as was natural, a different character. Without any claim that he some years back ‘inaugurated the modern theory of Error’
His essay, interesting as it is, I have found extremely hard to understand. If Prof. Stout’s main doctrine is that Error consists in treating what is only possible as if it were actual, his main conclusion would seem to differ hardly, if at all, from that which I have advocated. It would apparently be another way of saying that Error takes the conditional as being categorical and absolute. And, again. Prof. Stout’s solution of the question as to how we can think of the contradictory, seems to me (perhaps wrongly) to be the same in principle as that which I have offered myself.
Prof. Stout’s account of error implies to my mind (perhaps mistakenly) the metaphysical doctrine that all possibilities are, as such, ultimately real. If this is his position, he seems to me not to appreciate the difficulties by which it is beset. But, if this is not his position, I have failed to understand how exactly it differs here from my own. Certainly Prof. Stout’s apparent acceptance of the doctrine
1 This claim (I do not suggest that Prof. Stout approves) is made on his behalf by Dr. Schiller, p. 156.
2 See Chapter III, p. 41, and Chapter IX, pp. 269-71.
3 I have discussed this matter in Chapter III. The conclusion there advocated has so far as I know not been met otherwise than by being simply ignored.
that the difference between an actual
How great, in one sense at least, that disagreement is, may be seen from the criticism offered by Prof. Stout on myself. He says, on p. 199, ‘My position [is?], that whatever is thought, in so far as it is thought, is therefore real. His [Mr. Bradley’s] position is, that whatever is thought, in so far as it is thought, is therefore unreal.’ I should have said that no one, except Prof. Bosanquet, has emphasized more strongly than myself the impossibility of thinking anything which is unreal. And the exact sense in which for instance the possible, as such, is real for Prof. Stout and is not real for me, is precisely the point which, so far as I see, he does not explain. Again it is said that according to me ‘the whole development of thinking consciousness resolves itself into an endeavor to reconstitute the unity which it has destroyed’. But this, I have tried to point out, is not my view. The unity at which thought aims lies beyond that from which it starts. Otherwise the consequence would follow that, the more you think, the more you remove yourself from reality, nor could such a consequence well escape the notice of any one who has learned from Hegel. In short, for a satisfactory discussion between Prof. Stout and myself, each of us should take account of the sense or senses in which the other of us understands reality. And since I do not know of any sufficient explanation as to the sense in which the possible according to Prof. Stout is real, I cannot in the end judge as to the meaning of his account of Error. It would be a satisfaction to me to find that really in the main we are agreed. But in any case I should hope to profit, if Prof. Stout would return to a problem at once so interesting and so difficult.
Since writing the above I have read the remarks in Prof. Bosanquet’s Logic (Ed. II), vol. i, pp. 383-4. I am glad to find that he considers that Prof. Stout and himself come to much the same conclusion, for certainly I accept the view of Error taken by Prof. Bosanquet.
With regard to the latter’s two cases of error I should understand them as follows.
(ii) Where S-P is affirmed of a certain designated world, S-P also may contain and depend on a condition x1, which condition is incompatible with a condition x2 taken to be present in the designated world. S-P therefore is valid elsewhere but not in this world. Whether the condition x2 is viewed as positive or as privative makes no difference. Error here consists in discrepancy with something limited which is taken as absolutely real. This, I understand, is the kind of error of which I have spoken in Chapter IX, p. 266.
Error is always difference between an idea and reality. And hence in the end all truth is in varying degrees error, and, on the other side, no error is absolute. For every idea, to be an idea, must be real. But, where the reality has been for any purpose limited, and is viewed in this character as absolute—so far we can have unconditional truth and utter error. This is the doctrine which I understand to be advocated by Prof. Bosanquet and myself. If I could think that Prof. Stout also had now been led to a conclusion much the same, that result would be welcome. In any case I am sure that the subject would gain if he would discuss it further.
Supplementary Note II.
I. Professor Royce argues that Number can be created a priori and is self-consistent. But neither of these contentions is really tenable (277-80). Mr. Russell’s fundamental principles. How are Unities to be reconciled with Pluralism? (281-2). Difficulty as to certain ideas (282), and especially Class (283-6), Negation and Zero (286-8).
In this Supplementary Note, I propose to deal briefly with two subjects. (I.) I wish to examine the doctrine as to Number advocated by Prof. Royce in The World and the Individual, First Series. And (II.) I must attempt to show that some of the main ideas on which Mr. Russell’s views seem to rest, are inconsistent and ultimately untenable.
1 This Note is from the article in Mind for April 1910.
It is with great reluctance
I. I understand Prof. Royce to contend that number and truths about number can be constructed a priori, and that these truths are completely unconditional and self-consistent. The origin in time of our perception of number and quantity he, I understand, does not discuss, and we are concerned simply with what may be called an act of logical creation. I will ask first as to the nature of the process, and next as to the character of the result.
The process of creation appears to consist in reflection, a process more or less familiar to students of philosophy. We are to think of some object (no matter what), and then we are to think of our thought of this object, and so on indefinitely. In this way we gain (it is contended) an ordinal series where the process contains no unknown condition, and where the result is consistent. Now I agree that in the above way we produce somehow a series which is ordinal, in the sense that each fresh product somehow contains and preserves what has gone before. I do not mean that, after reflecting in such a manner for a certain time, I know in fact where I am, and could say how many steps are included in my present result. To gain that knowledge I should say that a further operation is required. Still I admit (what is, I presume, the main point) that through the process of reflection an ordinal series is somehow generated. What I have to deny is first (a) that the generation consists in pure thought, and next (b) I have to deny that the product is consistent with itself.
(a) You have an object (O) before your self (S). You then go on to reflect that this is so; and in consequence you now have a new object (S-O) before you. A further reflection of the same kind gives an object
(S — | )
O
and thus you make an ordinal series which has in principle no end. Now what is the
Thus the series of reflection is generated by and through the unity of immediate experience. And this unity is a one in many and a many in one which for thought is not intelligible or unconditional. It is this totality which for ever demands an expression which is unattainable within our relational experience, or within any experience for which the object is against the subject in some way which we are unable to understand. The principle of the process therefore does not reside in pure thought, but on the contrary must be said to imply a mere conjunction. And any process other than the above to my mind is even impossible. There is for me no such thing as a mere object or mere objects, nor any process of reflection which falls down from nowhere.
(b) Prof. Royce insists that both process and product are self-consistent and free from all contradiction. If what I have already urged is correct, no such claim can be admitted. An
Hence the principle which generates the series carries within itself a difference and a negation, which it at once asserts and denies. To Prof. Royce, on the other hand, the principle is wholly positive (p. 510); but how that can be I fail to perceive. The illustration, again, advanced by Prof. Royce (pp. 503 foll.) appears to myself to contain an obvious and glaring fallacy (compare Prof. Taylor’s Elements of Metaphysics, p. 150). The idea of a copy which has not an existence different from, and so far negative of, its original, remains to me meaningless. If you take away the idea of another existence, another and a different medium and fact, you for my mind abolish the essential element of copying and representation. And yet, according to Prof. Royce, the coming into existence of the copy is not to alter the fact. And, while I hesitate to attribute to Prof. Royce such an open inconsistency, I have been unable in any other way to interpret his teaching. I must end therefore by submitting that both principle and product are self-contradictory in essence. And I have already urged that the process is not unconditional and ‘pure’.
1 I of course do not mean visual schemata. Obviously that could not be true of every mind. But of how many minds it would be true is, again, another question.
II. I have now to remark on some of the fundamental ideas used by Mr. Russell, and must endeavor to show that these ideas contain inconsistency. It is a task to which in one sense I am quite unequal. I am incompetent utterly to sit in judgement on Mr. Russell’s great work (Principles of Mathematics). But, if the mathematical part is as good as the part which is philosophical, I am sure that he has produced a book of singular merit. To confine myself here to a one-sided criticism of ideas which I can only partially comprehend, is ungrateful to me, and I could not do it if I did not feel myself in a sense compelled to say something.
I understand Mr. Russell to hold that mathematical truth is true perfectly and in the end, since the principles as well as the inferences are wholly valid. The fundamental ideas, I understand,
I encounter at the outset a great difficulty. Mr. Russell’s main position has remained to myself incomprehensible. On the one side I am led to think that he defends a strict pluralism, for which nothing is admissible beyond simple terms and external relations. On the other side Mr. Russell seems to assert emphatically, and to use throughout, ideas which such a pluralism surely must repudiate. He throughput stands upon unities which are complex and which cannot be analyzed into terms and relations. These two positions to my mind are irreconcilable, since the second, as I understand it, contradicts the first flatly. If there are such unities, and, still more, if such unities are fundamental, then pluralism surely is in principle abandoned as false. Mr. Russell, I cannot doubt, is prepared here with an answer, but I have been unable to discover in what this answer consists. To urge that these unities are indefinable would to myself be merely irrelevant. If they had no meaning they could serve no purpose, and the question is with regard to their meaning. If that is not consistent with itself or with Mr. Russell’s main doctrine, then that meaning is not admissible as true, unless it is taken subject to an unknown condition. But, if so taken, that meaning, I would urge, is not ultimate truth. For a certain purpose, obviously, one can swallow whole what one is unable to analyze; but I cannot see how, with this, we have rid ourselves of the question as to ultimate truth.
On my own position here I need not dwell. For me immediate experience gives us a unity and unities of one and many, which unities are not completely analyzable or intelligible, and which unities are self-contradictory unless you take them as subject to an unknown condition. Such a form of unity seems to me to be in principle the refutation of pluralism, and on the other side it more or less vitiates the absolute claim of all truths (I cannot stop here to make the required qualification) including those of mathematics. Now what is Mr. Russell’s attitude towards
The notion of ‘implication’,
1 In connexion with ‘implication’ the axioms given by Mr. Russell (p. 16) demand the attention of logicians. But want of space makes it impossible for me to offer here any criticism.
I will enter now on some instances of a somewhat different kind, where however the difficulty remains at bottom the same. I will not repeat what in a former chapter I have urged with regard
I will proceed now to remark more in detail on the inconsistency of such an idea as ‘class’. We have here no fresh difficulty in principle, any more than if we examined, for example, such a word as ‘instance’. It is still the old problem of the universal, and of the one in the many, and the dilemmas which everywhere arise change their particular shape but not their radical essence. Mr. Russell however has attached great importance to the problem raised specially by the word ‘class’. I regret that my incapacity for following abstract arguments has prevented me in great part from understanding the position which he has here taken up. But I will venture briefly to exhibit some of the puzzles and inconsistencies from which I cannot find that he delivers us.
I will first remark that no class can be related merely to itself. We have seen above that everywhere relation without diversity
After this necessary preface I will set out briefly the inherent inconsistency of ‘class’. (a) The class is many. It is its members. There is no entity external to and other than the members. The class is a collection. And it is not a mere possible collection, nor is it a collection of mere possibles. Either of these alternatives would ruin the idea of class, as could be shown, if required. The class is an actual collection of actuals. But it is a collection which is not collected by itself (that idea would seem meaningless), nor is it again collected by anything from the outside—for, if so, it would have to contain this other agency. It is a collection, since it is taken together; but it is a collection collected by nothing—an idea which seems either senseless or self-contradictory.
(b) The class is One, but the One is not something else outside the members. The members even seem to be members because of what each is internally. And this apparent quality in each cannot be a relation to something outside the class. The One clearly is something within the members. If there are two qualities they must be taken in one, or else we have forthwith two classes. And (to return to the idea of a collection) two collections, differing only as collections and not differing at all in their contents, seem certainly not the idea which we seek in a class. On the other hand a quality merely internal to each member seems to leave the class without any unity at all. The unity therefore, not being external, must be taken itself as a member of the class. And, since this once more seems senseless, the class appears to be dissolved.
The discussion of these inconsistencies (the reader is perhaps aware) might be pursued almost ad libitum. Since the class cannot fall outside the several members, each member by itself will be the class, and will even be the whole class. And from this will follow results which are obviously ruinous. For instance, the member itself will become many, and will be internally dissipated. But the reader, if so inclined, can develop these consequences for himself, as well as the puzzles which arise in connexion with the ideas of ‘a collection’ and of what is ‘actual’ and ‘possible’. I have, I hope, said enough "to show that the idea of class is inconsistent ultimately, and that every region where it is employed must be more or less infected with self-contradiction.
How Mr. Russell would avoid this conclusion I regret to say I have been unable to understand. He apparently defends the idea of a class being a member of itself—an idea which to myself contains a glaring self-contradiction. And, as we have seen, he advocates the doctrine that a term can be related to itself a view which for the same reason I am forced to reject. In every instance adduced, such, for example, as ‘Predicability is predicable’, I find (I would repeat) a distinction and difference, or else I find nothing. The reader will permit me perhaps to illustrate and explain this statement by the instance of ‘being’. I do not reject as meaningless such a judgement as ‘being is’ or ‘is is’. I only insist that, in order to have a meaning, I must introduce distinction and diversity. I might, for instance, mean by such an assertion that only or merely being is and that anything else must be denied. I might wish to convey that after all, or whatever else it is, being still is. I might in the end mean that in ‘being’ itself there is the distinction and diversity of
I will end by some remarks on the subject of negation.
1 Cf. Chapter X, pp. 295 following.
2 ‘Any’ tends to drift away from this assertion, but so tends to drift away from itself.
To come now to the account of zero, this idea, unless I have failed to understand it, seems to contain an open self-contradiction. ‘It would seem that "no pleasure" has the same relation to pleasure as the various magnitudes of pleasure have, though it has also, of course, the special relation of negation’ (p. 186). The
It is intolerable to my mind to speak of ‘no pleasure’ as being a decreased lot of pleasure, or, when pleasure is once more added, to speak of pleasure as being increased. On the other hand, since to me there is no such thing as bare nothing, and since all negation rests on a positive basis, you can rightly speak of diminution when you descend from pleasure to no pleasure, and, when you pass the other way, you can rightly speak of increase. But what is this positive something which has here become less or more, and has become less or more by pleasure? To call this something ‘pleasure’, even where pleasure is specifically excluded, surely involves self-contradiction. And the same remark applies to any attempt to begin with less than something, and to increase this until it becomes something, or to descend by degrees of diminution from something to nothing. If such ideas are useful, then of course they must be used, but in the end they do not hold together. But I hasten to add that I think it probable that on the subject of zero I have wholly failed to understand Mr. Russell.
These pages have been written, I would repeat, with great
Supplementary Note III.
Mr. Russell’s explanations seem unsatisfactory. On unities, facts, implications, related terms without diversity, externality, etc. (288-91). Are Mr. Russell’s views really in accordance with science and common sense? (291-2).
The explanations offered by Mr. Russell in the July number of Mind (1910) have been read, I am sure, with interest by many readers. I unfortunately did not see the number at the proper time, but still I hope it is not too late to ask Mr. Russell to explain somewhat further; for in the main I am left still unable to understand. If, however, Mr. Russell should feel that within convenient limits there is no more to be done, such a position, so far as I am concerned, would call for no justification.
1. In the first place, my difficulty as to ‘unities’ remains.
1 From Mind for January 1911.
2 On this and some other points compare Chapter X.
Is there anything, I ask, in a unity beside its ‘constituents’, i.e.
2. In the next place, as to ‘implication’ my troubles continue. If we have nothing but facts, I see no room for implication, and if we have anything more or less than facts, I cannot understand what this is. By all means banish possibility as real, but where among facts does implication fall? Is a disjunction with its ‘Either-or’ an actual fact? Are ‘conditions’ facts? Is ‘deducibility’ a fact? With regard to facts I thought our attitude was one of ‘It is’ or (perhaps also) ‘It is not’. I do not in the least understand the position of ‘either-or’ or of ‘can be’ or ‘may be’.
3. I urged against the possibility of a term being related to itself the fact that relation implies diversity, and I should like to explain my reason for holding to this fact. I do not proceed here by arguing downwards from some assumption or axiom.
1 Cf. here Chapter XI, pp. 311 foll.
4. With regard to diversity, externality and mere fact, the assumptions (I do not call them such) which I make are as follows. I assume first that, where I get the unmeaning or the self-destructive, I have not got even the possible. And I assume that what is is, in the sense that, so far as I have truth and
(a) But, first, with regard to diversity Mr. Russell maintains, as I understand, that our only reason for denying the relation of diversity between a term and its own self is that this relation is not a fact. Whether Mr. Russell means more than that the relation has not yet been found, I am unable to judge. To myself on the other hand the above relation is not possible. To myself it either is meaningless or self-destructive. In making an ideal experiment I either have no diversity, or else the terms are different; and, when I suppress the difference, the relation is destroyed. I therefore deny this possibility, and I go on further to argue that any premisses from which such a possibility follows are false.
(b) With regard to externality and mere fact I should first explain that, in my opinion, these are things which are not and which cannot be observed. To have bare A in bare external relation to B is not possible in any observation or experiment. The supposed fact is really an inference reached by vicious abstraction. We saw above how ‘unities’ and ‘implications’, without which Mr. Russell apparently cannot move a step, involve always a something more which on his view seems inexplicable. And the same thing holds good with regard to any alleged perception of mere conjunction.
To myself the mere fact in which something seems to qualify A from the outside, is never really the whole fact. There is always here a condition left outside of what you take as the fact. Your statement is therefore true not of A itself but of A qualified by X. And hence the opposite of your statement is also true. On the other hand to say something about A which in no sense qualifies A, remains to my mind meaningless. In other words, no ‘and’ which is purely external is thinkable. This is once more the point to which Mr. Russell is invited to address himself. The above is the ground of objection to externality and to mere fact. You want, that is, to say something about something, and not about something else, particularly when the something else is unknown. The demand for ‘intrinsic’ relations I take to be an expression of this want, but I agree that here once more
Naturally I realize that in this way doubt may be thrown upon every possible conclusion, however certainly it seems to follow in ideal experiment. How are we anywhere to save ourselves from doubt arising from the presence of the possibility of an unknown condition? Have we not with every result a counter-possibility? This question in its turn leads to the inquiry whether the alleged counter-possibility is everywhere really possible. But I must not here digress into a defense of what I have argued elsewhere.
5. I have stated the main principle on which objection is taken to absolute externality and bare conjunction. I would go on to add that I am still in doubt as to the sense in which according to Mr. Russell relations are external. The terms are to contribute nothing, and so much I understand. But I still do not know whether Mr. Russell takes the relations apart from any terms to be thinkable. To be consistent he should, in my opinion, hold this view, but I cannot say that he does so. If all that is meant is that this or that term contributes no more than any other term, clearly, from so much, absolute externality and pluralism do not follow. On the other hand, a relation apart from terms is to me unmeaning or self-destructive, and is an idea produced by an indefensible abstraction (compare pp. 295 following).
6. I will end by noticing briefly Mr. Russell’s contention that on his view we are less in conflict with science and with common sense. This is an argument which I am very far from undervaluing. In fact the doctrine which I hold I hold largely because it seems to me to remain, more than others, in harmony with life as a whole. I am speaking of course only of views which aim at theoretical consistency, and not of those where inconsistency and self-contradiction are of minor importance. But I could not on this ground compare the conclusions advocated by myself with those taught by Mr. Russell, because on the most important point I do not know what his conclusion is. To myself the things which matter most in life are not to be resolved into terms with relations between them. And I am ignorant as to what on this point Mr. Russell may really hold. The question is in a word as to experiences which, to a greater or less extent, are non-relational. Obviously, when I do not know whether and how far Mr. Russell
Chapter X. A Discussion of Some Problems
in Connexion with Mr. Russell’s Doctrine
I. Mr. Russell’s view of judgement and truth difficulties with regard to it (293-4). Relations without terms are not conceivable, and cannot be inferred (295). Mr. Russell’s arguments examined. Our consciousness of universals involves negation. Its ultimate nature (295-9). On analysis its nature (299-301). Ideality, what (301). How impossible ideas are thinkable (302-3). Multiple relations, (a) No whole can in the end be merely relational (303-6). And (b) there really are no multiple relations. Instance of between (306-7). Series, problem of (308-9).
Since the preceding chapter appeared in Mind, Mr. Russell has brought out several important articles in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1910-12), and, beside his Essays, has published an interesting little volume on the Problems of Philosophy. While grateful for all these I do not find that my main difficulties have been removed. And I cannot perhaps do better than touch and even enlarge on certain points which seem vital.
I. The first of these will be Mr. Russell’s theory of judgement and truth. I will not attempt to state this, since I doubt my having succeeded in grasping it. But I cannot accept the view that a unity can here, or anywhere, consist in a multiple relation, and to this difference in principle I will return lower down. And, even apart from this, Mr. Russell’s doctrine to my mind has remained untenable, and I have found my difficulties confirmed, it seems to me convincingly, by Prof. Stout.
1 In the Aristotelian Proceedings for 1910-11. Prof. Stout, however, seems willing, as I am not, to accept in principle the ‘multiple relation’.
Only (so it seems) because of this supervening relation is for me the horse before the cart, and everything through
Suppose that, as sometimes happens, a husband A is jealous of a man C who does not exist in fact but is imaginary. On the above doctrine this complex unity C would, apparently, be made ad hoc by A’s present judgement. But C has really been the result of a gradual morbid growth. And, in order for the new unity of the judgement to supervene, this result apparently must be ad hoc disintegrated. Again, to pass from this, there is a difficulty, the importance of which it would, I think, be hard to exaggerate. I understand that the world made for me by a new multiple relation may or may not answer to things as they are outside that relation. But what I cannot understand is why one of these two worlds should be more real than the other. Why is not the content affirmed in my judgement in any case absolutely real? Suppose that, more or less, it does not correspond with some other arrangement, why and on what principle do we set one arrangement above the other? Why is a multiple relation, where a subject comes in, not just as real as anything else? And can its detail be false, just because that detail is different from something other than itself? I have so far been unable on all these points to understand Mr. Russell’s teaching. Are we, I repeat, to call unreal anything which is what it is only in and through relation to a subject, and, if so, why? And, if we are not to say that this is unreal, are we ever to call it false, and if so, on what principle? And are we, I add, still to use the word ‘false’ even where we have a whole psychical state which does not so much as pretend to be true?
Difference and identity, where nothing is the same or different, after and before and the difference between after and before, where nothing is before or after anything, right and left and their difference, and greater and less on some scale, where there are no terms and, perhaps, no different places—all of this to my mind in the end is unmeaning. When I remove the terms wholly, my idea is forthwith destroyed, or, again, it becomes inconsistent with itself when the removal is ambiguous. And there is no question here of arguing downwards from some axiom which I assume. I am appealing direct to an ideal experiment, and the result, at least to my mind, is certain. Whether Mr. Russell goes so far as to ask me to conceive of a series or scale where there are absolutely no terms, where there is nothing at all but bare relations, and perhaps in the end nothing but one multiple relation—I am unable to say. But I cannot find that any relation survives in my mind the total removal of its terms. The terms may be to the last degree vague and schematic, but, once attempt to abstract them, and you find that they were there.
1 Chapter VIII, p. 238, and IX, p. 291.
2 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1910-11, pp. 111, 112.
But relations without terms, Mr. Russell argues, must be thinkable, and I go on to deal with what I understand to be the reasons adduced. Where a relation is universal and holds of ‘anything’, you could not take it so, Mr. Russell
(a) I will consider first the argument with regard to universals. Whether, given a bare universal, Mr. Russell can supply a satisfactory account of its relation to ‘anything’, I will not inquire. What I wish to show here is that the facts can be dealt with quite otherwise. The subject is a large one, and it raises psychological problems on which I cannot touch, but I will endeavor to state briefly the conclusion which to myself seems tenable. There is no such thing as a bare universal, nor for my consciousness of universality is such a thing wanted, nor could it serve. In fact there is always an aspect of particularity, though this aspect may of course be hard to observe, and though the whole content may be highly schematic in character. But, though in our perception of a universal the particularity always is there, it is treated as more or less irrelevant. We ignore it, or, while recognizing it, we exclude it from our view entirely or partially. It is in a word negation which is implied in our awareness of universals and which makes that awareness possible.
When I have the universal idea, say, of a triangle, that idea is an event in my mind, and it is particular in a certain aspect. In what this aspect of particularity in various cases consists, I do not propose here to discuss. But every psychical event, I assume, has particular existence.
1 Cf. pp. 286-7.
2 Cf. pp. 153 foll., and Prof. Bosanquet’s Logic, vol. ii, chap. x.
Now
1 It is important to keep in mind that we use universals from the very beginning of our mental development. With regard to these we of course do not know that they are universals, or are representative, or form a class. Whether and in what sense there is negation here, is of course a further question. The action from the very first of universals is a matter discussed by me elsewhere. See my Principles of Logic.
‘But your account of the matter’, the reader may urge, ‘takes no heed of an obvious objection. According to you I have not before me the bare universal idea, and yet what I have to use, in the negation which you describe, is apparently nothing else. How can negation help me to arrive at that from which it proceeds, and which it presupposes as already there?’ This objection, I reply, forgets that negation is of more than one kind. Denial always rests on a
Our idea of a triangle has, we saw, a particular side which we ignore or take as irrelevant. Our attitude here is so far negative, and, as negative, it involves a positive basis. This basis is that central area in our triangle which is identified in feeling with a familiar name and with a use beyond itself.
1 Even in the case of a sensation, such as our awareness of red, the universal aspect depends, I should say, in the end on a certain use, but, in some cases, on a mere theoretical use.
Suppose that on an object of a certain kind you are accustomed to act, practically or theoretically, in a special manner. So far you may know nothing about any universal, though obviously there is here a universal, which you use, or which uses you, in a certain fashion. Then let us suppose that there comes a striking difference in the instance. Upon this you hesitate perhaps, and then proceed to act in your usual way. Still this noticed difference may have its effect, and may lead to a consciousness of ‘and yet’ and of ‘after all’. You are now aware of a sameness, and, with it, a difference which is there and does not count. But this
If this brief account is not mistaken, it would follow that for our consciousness of a universal the idea of a class or collection is not required. The diversity, ignored in use or recognized as excluded, may (to repeat this) be the particular nature of our idea as a mental fact. There is here no reference to other cases whether actual or possible. When these cases and their diversity are recognized, we are aware of an ‘instance’. And, when again further the other instances are taken collectively, we have the idea of a class. But knowledge of an instance or a class is not essential to our use of a universal, nor, even when we have before us an abstract idea, need this aspect be present to our minds. On the difficulties involved in the idea of a class I have remarked already (pp. 283 foll.).
(b) I will pass from this to touch briefly on the nature of analysis. Mr. Russell urges, as I understand, that the fact of analysis proves the existence of bare relations. For, if you were not acquainted with these relations by themselves, the result of the analysis would to you be meaningless. The principle here involved leads to results which, so far as I see,
Without any further reference then to Mr. Russell I will venture to add a word on this difficult problem. Analysis and synthesis I take in the end to be two aspects of one principle, just as are again (to give a general illustration) rights and duties. Every analysis proceeds from and on the basis of a unity. The ‘and’, we have already seen, is nothing but a form of oneness. Analysis and abstraction, far from suppressing union and totality, are the substitution, the superposition for a certain end and purpose, of another kind of synthesis.
1 Loc. cit., p. 112.
2 Principles of Logic, pp. 430-54. And, for the nature of ‘And’, see above, p. 231, note.
You have the feature b given at
The whole of this question, both as to universals and as to analysis, turns on the meaning given to ideality, for all discrimination is ideal. Here the two paths diverge. If an idea is something separate, there will be in the end no difference between facts and ideas, and in the end, I should say, you will be left without either.
1 There is a further point of importance to be noticed here. After we have learnt to discriminate, we have gained a new form of awareness of many in one. And hence, when later we go about to discriminate, we can make use of this form. We can apply it as an ideal schema to some unanalyzed complex, and then the features of this complex may become distinct through fusion and identification with the differences in our schema. This is of course one form of what is called ‘apperception’, but it is obviously not so ultimate as the process explained in the text. It should be clearly understood that in that process ‘fusion’ is not involved, and that, to bring it in, would be in my opinion a serious error.
2 So far as I can judge that is really the case with Mr. Russell. Unless, that is, he is prepared to place ‘unities’ first, and to subordinate to that principle all the rest of his doctrine, I fail to see what place is left in his world for either a fact or an idea.
3 Cf. Chapter III, pp. 28-9.
Leaving the subject of analysis I will notice a dilemma,
Any idea, of course not meaningless, let it be ever so monstrous, is thinkable, so long, that is, as you do not think it out. For you may couple it with some tacit condition, taken with which its elements are somehow kept apart and so combined. In this manner you can hold it before you as an object. But go on to realize your ‘somehow’ and to make that explicit, and the object either becomes another, or, by the withdrawal of the condition, is disintegrated. Thus a relation without terms is a thinkable idea. ‘Relation’ and ‘exclusion of terms’ and ‘coupling’ are all thinkable, and their union without doubt is an object somehow; but then the question is how. The relation by itself is thought of really perhaps as a relation taken with other terms, and on the strength of these other terms, which are ignored, I exclude the terms which are explicit. Or I couple ‘relation’ and ‘absence of terms’, because coupling is intelligible, and it is easy to forget the special nature of the coupled. Or (it is all the same thing) exclusion clearly is a relation, and there can be a relation, we know, between a relation and its terms. But realize what you are doing, cease to ignore and to forget, and once begin to make explicit every ‘somehow’, and your relation without terms is either transformed or goes to pieces before your eyes.
1 Chapter III, p. 41, note, and Chapter IX, pp. 269-72. Cf. Prof. Stout, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for 1911-12, p. 194.
III. I will pass now to the subject of what Mr. Russell calls ‘multiple relations’. If there were such things, I cannot think that they would serve their alleged purpose, and in the second place I fail to see that such things exist at all.
(a) We are brought back once more here to the fundamental question of ‘unities’. Is there, in the end and really, for Mr. Russell such a thing as a whole which is nonrelational or again super-relational? Unless we know the answer to this question, the entire position seems doubtful throughout. Now on the one hand Mr. Russell appears to be fully committed to such unities, but, if so, how this doctrine stands to his other views, I am unable to conceive. On the other hand, in his interesting little book on the Problems of Philosophy, the idea seems to have disappeared. There is even a tendency to imply that a complex unity consists in a relation (p. 202). But this problem surely (if in philosophy there are problems) is second to none in importance.
1 Cf. p. 289, and Chapter XI, at the beginning.
Let us consider (it is one of Mr. Russell’s instances) the case of jealousy. We have here an emotional state, and in
I can imagine a view which I certainly do not attribute to Mr. Russell, a view which for a moment (if the reader is so inclined) it may be well to take seriously. Reality here, or at least the main reality, will consist in relations, bare relations without terms. And these relations are able to generate a kind of world. They are of many kinds, and at least some of them are such as to have what Mr. Russell calls ‘sense’, and to be capable thus of forming series, unities which express and consist in one constitutive relation. There are (to use another terminology) various functions of analysis and synthesis in one. And these, being applied one to the other and so dealing only with themselves, produce thus an indefinite number of more complex wholes in endless generation. Thus a spatial relation may seem to be single, but a relation of time, applied to it, forms a principle of
1 Take a relation, such as ‘up and down’, and to this, as a term, apply the same relation. The result apparently would be ‘up and down’ in another dimension. And this same procedure could be continued so as to reach an indefinite number of dimensions. And, if you believe that the self-same term can stand on both sides of a relation, I do not see how you can object that this process of a priori construction is from the first illegitimate. Then, not content with this result, repeat the same procedure even where the first relation has no terms at all. The same result (it seems to me) will still follow, if once you can accept, as real or possible, a relation without terms and yet not meaningless.
There remains, however, a doubt and a question as to the terms. It is hazardous perhaps after all to generate terms by one naked relation which turns another relation, or even itself, into its object and the field of its own activity. On the other hand, if we cannot venture as far as this, we at least do not require a plurality of actual reals to serve as ‘matter’. Nor need we fall back on the mythology of a Chaos at once nothing and ready for everything. All that we require in the end is one single term. And this one term, together with our world of ideal functions, will make the concrete universe. For one and the same term can be related to itself, and so becomes double and different. And entering into the multiplicity of the various series, it becomes through them an infinity of diverse matters. Its singleness is thus sundered into endless plurality, and is at the same time connected in the end perhaps into one great world of organic unity.
I need not, I presume, state once more that I do not for one moment attribute anything like the above to Mr. Russell.
(b) Even if there were multiple relations, such relations could not constitute unities, since no whole, however relational, is made by and consists in a relation. This is the first point. And now further I wish to question the existence anywhere of a ‘multiple relation’. This, so far as I can judge, is merely something which has to be postulated because the theory requires it. And in this it seems to me to be like, for instance, the relation alleged by Mr. Russell to exist in ‘occupation’.
Let us take Mr. Russell’s instance of ‘between’.
1 See Chapter IX, pp. 264, 287.
2 Problems, p. 195. The meaning of ‘between’ is discussed elaborately by Mr. Russell in his Principles of Mathematics, chap. xxv.
3 If, however, a term could be related to itself, all that we should want would be, I presume, one term, and the multiplicity would come from the ‘multiple relation’.
So far as the unity of the complex is relational, it is a relation between relations and not between terms. And, secondly, the
Certainly in a series you can find between the terms one relation, one, that is to say, in character. So far as a series is one series, its several connexions, I understand, must have one character throughout, and one or more of its terms must be between others. And, given this formula, I agree that you can construct a series. But, even if the formula were the series, which surely it is not, yet the formula itself is not between, and what really is between is not the formula.
And, where I probably have not succeeded in understanding; it would hardly serve to elaborate further. I agree of course that there is a looser usage of speech which may be adduced in support of multiple relations. We can doubtless speak, for instance, of jealousy as being a relation between persons, but we do not here, I am convinced, mean to assert a single relation which is multiple. We are saying perhaps that jealousy is an arrangement involving such and such relations. But more probably we mean that, where persons are related in a certain manner, with that you have jealousy. And so we go on, expressing ourselves carelessly, to call this manner a relation. But, when we try to speak accurately, our position, I think, is otherwise. The doctrine that an emotion is a relation, we should reject, nor should we agree that it even implies one relation of many terms. We should be again perhaps quite as clear, if we were asked to take the instance of some product of fine art. And with this, regretting once more my failure to comprehend, I am forced to leave the subject of multiple relations.
1 On the other hand I am still unable to accept what has been called the Law of Duality (Mind, O.S., No. 47, p. 382). In the apprehension, say, of a hexagon or a triangle, I am compelled to follow no such principle. I can have a relational arrangement, perceived as a unity, where there is no such dual subordination of the relations involved. This is possible because their unity is more than relational. Such, again, is the case, I would add, with every possible spatial figure. No points and lines in the end can make that what it is.
Hence, finally, we are led to ask as to what is involved in that which Mr. Russell calls ‘sense’, and which in English is perhaps better expressed as ‘direction’. Can any mere relation by itself have a ‘sense’? Has a series, and have the links of a series, if taken apart from a serial whole, any meaning left? Does not the ‘sense’ of each relation take its very character from the serial whole, and, viewed by itself, is not a relation with ‘sense’ a vicious abstraction? I need not state how in my opinion such a question should be answered.
I should thus agree that a series is in the end teleological, but such a conclusion, we must remember, may help us but little. If the end or object is taken as outside the passage and its steps, we are as far as ever from having reached the essential nature of a series. We do not have a series unless the end is immanent in the passage itself, and is reached not merely by that passage, but in it, at once gradually and as a whole.
1 Principles of Mathematics, chap. xxiv.
In a series there must throughout be something identical, of which each link gives you more, and apart from
Throughout the foregoing remarks I have doubtless failed to comprehend, and I fear that I must have perverted Mr. Russell’s doctrines. But I publish what I have written, partly to express my own views, but mainly perhaps as a help towards a better understanding. There is no living writer, with whom I am acquainted, whose work in philosophy seems to me more original and valuable than that of Mr. Russell. It will, I hope, not be long before he is able on some fundamental points to explain himself more fully.
Note to p. 299 —The reader will, I hope, not misunderstand what I have written with regard to universals on p. 299. The universal, and even our awareness of it, come in my view (p. 297, note) long before language is developed. As soon as one has with anything the sense of sameness or familiarity, with and over against the sense of difference or novelty, one is, I should say, aware of a universal. On the other hand, I agree that it is only through language that the universal becomes known as such.
1 In connexion with the above would have to be discussed the question as to whether, and how far, passage, and I mean by that in the end temporal passage, is implied in a relation of any kind whatever. Obviously at first sight from some relations anything like passage is excluded. But still, if you remove passage wholly, the relation, as such, seems to disappear, since in its essence it seems to be discursive. The solution lies, I presume, in our taking the passage as at once implied and ignored, since its direction in the supposed cases is immaterial. There are of course those who with regard to spatial and other relations would dispute this, but hardly, I think, rightly. And, if in the result the whole idea of a relation becomes inconsistent, that is a conclusion which may perhaps already have been forced upon our minds. Everywhere in the end a relation appears as a necessary but a self-contradictory translation of a non-relational or super-relational unity.
Chapter XI. On Some Aspects of Truth
The general view (310). The method of inquiry. Axioms (311-14). Truth, experience, and reality (314-17). The theoretical criterion. It cannot be taken as satisfaction in general (317-21). Darwinism and the Criterion (321-3). Meaning of Only or Merely (323-4). Meaning of Qualification (324). Does truth refer to something other than itself? The question is unanswerable if you take the soul or self as a separate thing (325-8). The subjective, what (328-9). Sense in which all judgement passes beyond itself. Reality in the judgement, how (329-34). Has every or any truth been thought before I think it? And does knowledge alter reality? (334-7). Can Truth be made? Does it depend on me? (338-42). What is the relation between reality and truth, and can truth copy reality? (343-5) What is the good of Truth? This question rests on a mistaken view (346-9). In what sense the view which I advocate involves subjectivism and of relativism. A Note on Nature (349-52).
I must begin this chapter by once more asking for the indulgence of the reader. Once again I am writing on a theme where I doubt if I have anything really new to offer. My excuse is that there are some questions on which, even at the cost of repetition, I desire to be explicit. And these questions are so difficult and so important, that the reader, if led to dwell on them, may, I hope, be too much occupied to ask for novelty. ‘When I think truly, can I think that which has never been so thought before?’ and ‘Can I in any sense make truth?’—these were the two problems which I wished specially to notice. And I have thought it better to take these problems more or less in connexion with some other inquiries.
1 This chapter appeared first in Mind, July 1911.
In any discussion about truth I am met by what to myself is a great difficulty. It is impossible, in my opinion, to deal with truth apart from an examination of the nature of reality. Not merely has every one (though perhaps only at the back of his mind) a view as to reality which is sure to affect his result. The very questions as to truth with which a man begins, involve in the end an answer to certain questions about the nature of things. And to deal with these final inquiries here is obviously not possible. Hence I am forced to refer the reader to that which I have published elsewhere. In what follows I am in the main confined to showing how various problems are dealt with, supposing that you adopt a certain view as to the Universe. If the reader insists on
I will however begin by noticing some misunderstandings as to the method employed in ultimate inquiry by writers like myself. There is an idea that we start, consciously or unconsciously, with certain axioms, and from these reason downwards. This idea to my mind is baseless. The method actually followed may be called in the main the procedure used by Hegel, that of a direct ideal experiment made on reality. What is assumed is that I have to satisfy my theoretical want, or, in other words, that I resolve to think. And it is assumed that, if my thought is satisfied with itself, I have, with this, truth and reality. But as to what will satisfy I have of course no knowledge in advance. My object is to get before me what will content a certain felt need, but the way and the means are to be discovered only by trial and rejection. The method clearly is experimental.
Speaking from this point forwards simply for myself, I find an object which is plural. I do not of course mean that it is only plural, but I mean that it has maniness. Now how am I to take this object ideally so as to satisfy my mind? If I try to take the object as merely many, it is forthwith dissipated and is lost. Therefore the object is not a mere many. Let me now, starting from this result, try to take the object as a mere conjunction of terms and external relations. The aspect here, other than the mere many, will be a bare ‘together’ or ‘and’. But I want to see what this aspect is. I take it first as adding to the many only another one, a something more of them. And, as soon as I do this, the object once more is dissipated, and the whole conjunction disappears. Therefore the ‘together’ or ‘and’ does not consist in terms and external relations. It is something else. It may perhaps be called a form of unity and totality.
1 On the nature of ‘and’ see Chapter VIII, p. 231
As to what has been called the axiom of internal relations, I can only repeat that ‘internal’ relations, though truer by far than ‘external’, are, in my opinion, not true in the end. You have no alternatives here, by denying one of which you can go on to assert the other; for truth in the end is not merely relational. And the alleged axiom is a comparative truth which is not a premiss but a result. The same remark applies to any ‘axiom of ground’. Where A is not real by itself but implies and belongs to an ideal whole, you want a reason for A, for you want to know the How of this unity. Mediation is called for, and, if external merely, is none. But the ‘axiom’, once more here, is a result and not a premiss.
I will venture to enlarge on this second supposed axiom. Is it true that everything must have a reason, a ‘how’ and a ‘why’? In the end this assertion is not true, we see at once, of the Universe. The ‘axiom’ holds only so far as a thing is not complete in itself, and is therefore, on our view, ideally beyond itself. The demand for the making good of such imperfection, not as real but as ideal, the completion of the thing in idea so as to satisfy us theoretically, is what we mean by the search for a ‘why’ and ‘how’. Wherever, in other words, you have an ‘implication’, you want a reason, because you desire to see the whole nature of your implication.
Where you have a felt whole, as felt, or where you have a non-relational unity, as in a work of art, there, so far, you need not ask ‘why’. The tendency of the content to pass beyond the limits of the thing is not always forced on your
Every felt whole changes in time, and the felt ‘present’ has narrow limits. We are left, when we notice this, with two things, a felt present and a recalled past; and these two things come to us somehow together. But are the two felt or perceived as one in the sense that their contents are throughout in immediate unity? Clearly not so, and hence the ‘somehow’, as it is, does not satisfy us. It is the name of something which, for us, is not all there, and is not actually contained in our fact. And we want the whole of the ‘somehow’ actually and in detail. Such a complete totality we cannot directly experience, so as to have once more something which is or seems to be self-sufficient. We therefore attempt to supply this defect by ideas. We seek to understand, to make good ideally our lost unity.
Passing by the question raised by space, let us go on also to ignore change in time. Let us take some sensible whole, or other non-relational unity; let us suppose that this does not change in time, and let us, for the sake of argument, assume also that within this, as it comes to you, there is no tendency of the content to pass beyond the limits of the thing. Here so far, it will be said, there is no ‘why’ or ‘how’. I agree, but I ask whether you intend to remain here. And that, as I observe, is precisely what you do not intend to do. You go on to think, you analyze, you introduce terms and relations, whereas in your immediate whole there were no relations or terms; or, at least and in any case, the whole itself was non-relational. And, so far as you have terms and relations, the unity is destroyed. It now, as the fact of ‘relatedness’, falls outside of the relational scheme, and this
To ask us here why we cannot remain content with ‘the brute fact’, seems even ridiculous. What is the brute fact? Is it the fact as merely felt? Is it an immediate unity taken non-relationally and so not understood? On the contrary your ‘brute fact’ is that ideal scheme of terms and relations which comes into being only through the destruction of the felt whole. Such a fact is not brute, but is ideal. It is a thing which, as itself, is only for thought. And it itself is not a fact. It has no unity except that which is added from outside itself and is supplied irrationally from elsewhere. Your ultimate brute fact is in brief your own half-thought-out theory.
We have now seen the nature of the demand for a reason, a ‘how’ and a ‘why’. We have here no axiom, standing on which we proceed to argue downwards. So far as this truth is true, it is a result and a character of our procedure itself.
Passing now from this misunderstanding about axioms, I will venture (if the reader will pardon the repetition) to try to throw some further light on the general method which I have used. In theorizing we put questions directly to Reality. In other words we experiment ideally on the nature of things. We find that, given a, we have b, and that this is how the world behaves.
1 Cf. Principles of Logic, p. 87.
But obviously with an unknown condition we are but partly satisfied. To pass from one term to another term, we do not know how, is not enough. We have to seek knowledge where the mode of transition, the mediation itself, also is known. And, even if we had various pieces of knowledge which held good, each in itself, that would still fail to satisfy us, as long as we remained in ignorance as to the connexion of these pieces. For some connexion there is. If we had no ‘and’ or ‘together’, we should not even have pieces, and ‘together’ or ‘and’, as we have seen, is an expression of unity and totality. It asserts a whole, but it couples this assertion with blank ignorance as to ‘how’. And such ignorance does not content us. We are led, therefore, to search for the reason why we pass from one term to another term. We seek in other words a mediated intelligible whole. That whole, if we could reach it, would fulfill our theoretical want. That would be true and real; and reality and truth, we have to assume, is that. But whether we can say ’merely that’, is of course a further question.
The reader may object that, even if the above, so far as it goes, is admitted, if still is useless. It tells us nothing as to the world, since all it tells us is formal. The word ‘formal’ I put on one side as a probable source of misapprehension. But I fully agree that all the knowledge we have reached so far about reality is too general and empty. To the question ‘What do I know?’ the above is an answer which by itself does not satisfy. And not only do I hold this, but I have urged also that by itself no such knowledge could even exist. For the whole of our knowledge may be said to depend upon immediate experience. At bottom the Real is what we feel, and there is no reality outside of feeling. And in the end the Reality (whatever else we say of it) is experience.
If then Reality is an intelligible whole and reality also is experience, can we assume that, above relations and inclusive of them, there is an Experience which reasserts our original unity? If this is possible, our theoretical want would be satisfied. Such a whole would be Reality, and nothing else could in the end be called even possible. There is of course no question here of explaining everything. Such an idea, at least to my mind, is ridiculous, not to say insane. The real question everywhere as to the inexplicable is whether it falls within the general view, or whether, falling outside that, it becomes a negative instance. In the latter case, and in the latter case only, the general view is refuted. But into the discussion of such alleged instances there is no space to enter here.
1 See especially Chapter VI.
2 We have here a matter for observation and experiment and not for long trains of reasoning. In Mind, No. 75, p. 335, I notice, for instance, that Prof. Perry, while uprooting Idealism, demolishes in passing myself. He takes me to argue to a conclusion which I do not hold, from a basis which I have rejected as an error, and then wonders at the unnameable vice of the process. But, if Prof. Perry wishes to get an idea as to the view which he is anxious to refute, why should he not suppose (for a moment) that on my side there is no argument at all, and that on his side there is an inference by way of vicious abstraction?
3 Any critic who desires to be fair, should, I think, make up his mind on these two questions: (a) Has or has not a philosophy got to explain everything? (b) What is it (if anything) that a philosophy may leave unexplained? Without some consideration of these points I do not myself see how rational discussion is possible.
The theoretical criterion, for myself, is in theory supreme. The truth for any man is that which at the time satisfies his theoretical want, and ‘more or less true’ means more or less of such satisfaction. The want is a special one. We do not of course know beforehand what it is and what can satisfy it. We only at first feel that there is something special that we miss or gain, and we go on to discover the nature of the want and its object by trial, failure and success. Let me now proceed to ask what will happen if we take the Criterion to lie in satisfaction not specific but general. The necessary result to my mind is failure and bankruptcy.
1 What follows may be taken as a commentary on Appearance, pp. 373-4.
There is a mental attitude from which the above must again be distinguished. We may, despairing, for ourselves or in general, of ultimate truth, or finding the quest of it too costly, resolve to abandon it. The satisfaction of our human interests, truth included, is our end; and we decide for ourselves to limit truth to those ideas which subserve our interests so far as they subserve them. Truths are to be working ideas. And if we really understand our present position (as we seldom do), any ideas, no matter how inconsistent, are to be counted true, if and so far as they are required in our spiritual interest. What we feel to be the general health and harmony of our being is the end, and truth is to be subject absolutely to dictation from that. But within these limits we, like the common Hedonist, use the everyday notion of truth, and confine it to the search for that which, in the above sense, works. I myself have much sympathy with this attitude which of course, in theory, is not mine.
1 Cf. Chapter V, pp. 132-3.
It is better however to examine it further. The general satisfaction includes the future and is not merely present. Let us call it satisfaction in the long run for myself or for humanity. And ‘in the long run’ does not mean what ‘will be’ in an ordinary realistic sense. For that sense is excluded by our doctrine of truth. What ‘will be’ is that which satisfies now as tending to satisfy in the long run. Whatever idea of means to our end satisfies most now, is the truth.
And ‘satisfies’ does not point solely or specially to theoretical satisfaction. That would be a return to the view of truth which has been abandoned definitely. Then satisfies (we must at once proceed to ask) whom and how? It cannot be my future self, or humanity in the future, which has to be satisfied, for these surely are inaccessible. The satisfaction clearly must be present. And the present satisfaction of
Truth is the idea which satisfies me now. Then in what way? Not theoretically, for to say that would be to relapse into a discarded attitude. You may say, ‘It satisfies me most now to adopt and act on a certain view as to the probable future. This view rests on my present satisfaction, and hence all is consistent.’ But no such defense is really valid. For it is an obvious fact that (not to speak of other persons) to adopt and to act on other views sometimes satisfies me as much or more. If we admit this fact, then all these opposite views will be equally true. And we can only deny the fact by a collision with everything like common experience and common sense. To identify my satisfaction now with a certain view and a certain object which I take as real, with an ideal construction capable of appearance at other moments and in other persons, would be to make the criterion theoretical. And on our present theory there is no essential connexion between the satisfaction and any special quality in the object. The idea therefore, whatever it is, which satisfies me most now, is true. The truth is whatever idea at this moment is felt to satisfy me most, and, beside this, there is no other truth.
Theoretical satisfaction may be rejected (and this is the better course) as not existing or as subordinate. Or it may be admitted as one element in the satisfaction which is general. This admission leads inevitably to a collision between the truth which is theoretical and the truth which is true. And there would be no principle on which to decide between these conflicting claims. The only criterion left in any case is the feeling which at the moment prevails. Truth is nothing but whatever idea I feel at a given moment to
I will pass on now to say something on the doctrine called Darwinism, so far as it bears on the question of the criterion. We have here at first sight the antipodes of our former view. That stood on satisfaction, while for Darwinism there is nothing in the world like value or good or evil. Anything implying evolution, in the ordinary sense of development or progress, is wholly rejected. But the two views meet positively so far as there is coincidence between that which prevails and that which satisfies. And negatively they meet in their exclusion from the criterion of anything like a special quality, type or character, as essential to the object.
1 Cf. Chapter IV, pp. 85, 103.
Darwinism often recommends itself because confused with a doctrine of evolution which is different radically. Humanity is taken in that doctrine as a real being, or even as the one real being, and Humanity advances continuously. Its history is development and progress to a goal, because the type and character in which its reality consists is gradually brought more and more into fact. That which is strongest on the whole must therefore be good, and the ideas which come to prevail must therefore be true. This doctrine, which possesses my sympathy, though I certainly cannot accept it, has, I suppose, now for a century taken its place in the thought of Europe. For good or for evil it more or less dominates or sways our minds to an extent of which most of us, perhaps, are dangerously unaware.
Any such view of course conflicts radically with Darwinism, and let us now ask how the latter can deal with our inquiry as to truth. The ideas (it may explain) by which our world, and our human world, have got on so far, are
(a) The first conclusion is suicidal, since it contradicts its basis.
For Darwinism the true idea is the idea which prevails, and we may perhaps identify satisfaction with inward prevalence. Then the question which at once arises is, ‘prevails where and when?’ As to the ‘how’ we need not ask, because we know that ‘how’ means ‘anyhow’. If the where and when are taken as in our world in general, then (as we saw before) such knowledge on our part must rest on the very theoretical truth which we deny. But, if the prevalence is in myself, and in myself here and now, then any idea, no matter what, if it prevails, is true, and all such ideas are true alike. There is no criterion, and from this result we cannot escape by refinements. The argument that Darwinism’s idea of prevalence prevails in me here and now, and so proves itself by a circular reinforcement, will not stand scrutiny.
1 Cf. Appearance, p. 137.
For all that we have here is the moment’s coincidence, unessential and external, and any of the other ideas which elsewhere or at another time prevail, are as
It may however repay us, before we go further, rapidly to view this matter from the other side. To maintain that Reality or Truth is what prevails, or is that which satisfies us, is not wrong. And similarly it is not wrong to affirm that Reality is ‘this’, ‘now’ or ‘mine’. The mistake here, so far as there is a mistake, lies in our simple identification of both terms, and in our addition of the word ‘only’. Any positive attribution, in other words, to Reality must be right, so long as it abstains from the denial, implicit or explicit, of ‘something more’. To say ‘only’ is to lay emphasis on the negative side of the positive identity. ‘Only’ or ‘merely’ excludes any ‘other’, or again it may warn us against making an abortive attempt to find an ‘other’ where any other is meaningless. Hence such an assertion as that Reality is merely prevalence, is, on our view, inconsistent with itself. Since an other than mere prevalence has, on that view, a meaning, we have set up within Reality the distinction of R (a) and R (b). This distinction however must imply a higher and more inclusive R within which it falls, and the exclusive identification asserted by our ‘merely’ is thus in contradiction with itself.
Even the judgements that Reality is one in many and is experience, would be untenable, if we meant by these judgements to deny that Reality is in any sense more. But no such denial should be the intention of our judgement. What we really exclude here as senseless is the idea of any
1 See Appearance, chap, xxvii.
I will now proceed to deal with a number of special questions as to truth. Any knowledge which on my view can in a proper sense be called truth, is the qualification of Reality by ideal content. The Real must here have the form of an object, and the idea must in some sense have an existence other than that of the object. With these points I have dealt fully elsewhere, and I propose to go on here to ask first as to the meaning of qualification. That meaning is derived from immediate experience and sensible perception. If you take, for instance, an object such as an apple, this is qualified by its adjectives. It is each and all of them, and yet it is something more, though you are unable to say what. It is different from its qualities, and it is also the same and one with them. This is the idea of qualification which we apply to judgement. It is an imperfect idea obviously, and it is not ‘thinkable’ or ‘intelligible’ if that means that you can analyze it without destruction into terms and relations. But it has a positive sense which, however inconsistently, you use. And, because this sense is not ‘intelligible’, there is a constant tendency to deny or to destroy it. You may seek for the essence of qualification in an arrangement of relations and terms, or in a simple identity; and in either case what you will find is anatomized death or vacuity. Or again, shrinking from these, you may still deny that anything other than these is there. But the positive meaning exists, and, with all its imperfection, it is applied in truth. On the
From this I go on to approach another question at once important and full of difficulty. Does truth always refer to something other than itself? And, if this is always the case, in what sense are we able to affirm it? As to what is the obvious view, there is no doubt. Truth, to be true, must be true of something, and this something itself is not truth. This obvious view I endorse, but to ascertain its proper meaning is not easy. And it commonly is misinterpreted so as not to be tenable. I will begin the discussion by the statement of what is called an antinomy.
(i) No judgement is self-contained. For (a) on my side there is always something which does not qualify the object, and which therefore falls outside. There is always my psychical state of the moment, a context in which the assertion happens and which it has to transcend. So far, for example, as my judgement pleases and satisfies, that feeling, where we are confined to truth, does not qualify the object. And, again, I may be aware of an act which proceeds in and from me with more or less of difficulty or ease, and either faster or more slowly. But this difference is irrelevant to the judgement. And (b), on the side of the object. Reality is never confined in and limited to my special object, but is always also beyond it.
1 Appearance, chap, xxiii; Mind, No. 33. Cf. Chapter XIV of this volume.
2 Even where reality or the Universe is the subject, this still will hold good; see Chapter III, p. 41.
(ii) No judgement is self-transcendent. For (a) it refers to and qualifies something real. But how it could qualify something which is not there for me and present, or how this something could be present and yet not within the judgement, seems not intelligible. Or rather we see that, when we attempt such assertions, we have really implied the opposite. And (b) that activity which seemed to lie
A dilemma such as the above is insoluble so long as we remain on the ground which supports it. The notion of myself as a thing standing over against the world, externally related to it in knowledge, and dividing with it somehow unintelligibly the joint situation or result, must once for all be abandoned. This point of view rests on the ideal construction which we call the soul or the mind, and it assumes this construction to be an absolute fact. But, as I have argued elsewhere,
1 What some one should explain is how the merely external relation of two terms is able to be aware of itself.
2 Appearance, chapter, xxiii; Mind, No. 33. Cf. Chapter XIV of this volume.
For certain purposes we are right, and we are even compelled, to adopt such an attitude. And not to realize this necessity is to fall into dangerous
Here, as everywhere, so far as I can discover, there is no way except one which holds good in the end. We must view the Reality in its unbroken connexion with finite centers. We must take it as, within and with these centers, making itself an object to itself and carrying out them and itself at once ideally and practically. The activity of the process is throughout the undivided activity of the Reality and of the center in one. There is in the end no ‘between’, nor any external relation. The striving of one side or the other merely for itself is impossible, and to seek to verify such a striving, for instance, in selfishness or its opposite, is futile. And in knowledge the impression by the object, and the will to experiment in fact with the object or to grasp it ideally, all belongs to the single activity
1 In his interesting book, Pragmatism and its Critics (p. 31), which I read while revising the above in 1911, Prof. Moore states that the doctrine that the individual consciousness is a function of the ‘community life’, has appeared only within our own generation. Such a statement surprises me. Is Prof. Moore really prepared to deny that the doctrine was taught by Hegel, and that I, for instance (if I may mention myself), following Hegel, fought for it in 1876? What Prof. Moore, I think, has failed to realize is the necessity for defining the ‘community life’, and for deciding whether this is merely social, and, if so, precisely in what sense. We seem to have here once more the well-known old ambiguity which obscures, and which assists, that which calls itself Humanism. But is Prof. Moore ready to identify reality with the ‘community life’, and, if so, in what sense of this term? The question left unanswered surely threatens to destroy his doctrine as to the perception of material objects. But I am glad to find that on the whole the differences between Prof. Moore and myself are small in comparison with the amount of our agreement.
2 The same thing of course holds with regard to passivity. My present actual contents are, for instance, disturbed by the felt inroad of an unexpected perception or of a sudden and surprising thought. And on the other side the object is passive where in reflection I attack and analyze it. But such passivity is on neither side the change made in a thing acted on merely from without. Truth does not break into my premises like a burglar, nor again like a corpse does it suffer my anatomy.
You cannot however, it will be urged, deny that with every judgement there goes an element which is only personal and merely ‘subjective’. There is surely something, when I judge, which you cannot take as belonging to the object. Certainly to this I agree, and to myself it seems even incontestable. But what, I ask, do we mean by the ‘subjective’? For myself it is merely the irrelevant. It is that which does not count, it is that which falls outside of the matter here in hand, and does not now serve our purpose. Our purpose, when we seek truth, is the ideal qualification of the object. In our search for goodness or for beauty again we pursue in each case a different end, and the subjective is whatever in each case is irrelevant to our end. The irrelevant may be called the ‘mere this’, because it is left behind in the general immediacy of the moment. And it may be called the ‘mere mine’, because my self is a construction based upon the feeling of one finite center. But there is no mere ‘this’ or ‘mine’ which is such absolutely. These things are everywhere illusions, unless we take them as relative.
1 Cf. Chapter VI.
2 See Appearance, chap, xix, and Chapter V, p. 119, of this volume.
The merely personal is the irrelevant; but this brings us to a serious difficulty. How can anything in the end be irrelevant? If all in the end hangs together, then, whether in the world inside us or outside, there seems no place for
All judgement and truth depend on distinction, upon abstraction and selection. That which falls outside a particular judgement is hence taken as not counting for the purpose, and this not merely in degree but utterly. And, if truth is to exist, such an attitude is necessary. You cannot (to put the same thing otherwise) condition your judgement from the outside. After it is made, you can of course go on to reflect on it and to correct it, but for you, while you make it, its truth must be absolute.
1 Cf. here Chapter IX, p. 273.
2 Cf. Chapter XIII. It is impossible in the end by any judgement to qualify Reality as conditioned. R, taken with the condition, implies a higher R within which it falls and of which it is asserted. This general principle has of course many applications. Thus (as we have seen) you may attempt to make the qualification of the object in a judgement include also the personal satisfaction of the judger. But this inclusion forthwith makes a new object, and so on indefinitely. Hence the satisfaction of the judger, as and while he judges, is necessarily excluded from the judgement. From the other side, the satisfaction, or the psychical prevalence, which is asserted, cannot be the satisfaction or prevalence belonging to the act of such assertion. It may or may not be consistent with this, but to judge concerning such a point belongs to and involves a further reflection.
The selection is not arbitrary, for its object is truth. Our goal is in the end to gain Reality in an ideal form, to possess ourselves of a self-contained individual whole. The criterion here, as everywhere, which we use is the Absolute. And the
Every judgement therefore transcends immediacy. It involves a distinction and selection, and it may be said to pass beyond whatever for its purpose it leaves outside of its object. But the notion of a psychical subject, standing opposed to the object and then transcended somehow in knowledge, must be rejected as illusory. It holds good elsewhere, but only so far as it is an idea which works usefully.
1 Cf. Chapter IX, p. 266.
2 The same thing holds again of course mutatis mutandis in Ethics and in Aesthetics, in short wherever you have an object.
And even the account of truth which we have just given cannot satisfy in the end. It implies that dualism which, involved in truth’s essence, for ever stands between it and its goal. Truth is not perfect so long as it fails anywhere to include its reality, and its reality is not whole so long as any of its conditions are left out. Truth, compelled to select, is therefore forced to remain for ever defective. Its purpose, though realized increasingly, is not utterly fulfilled, and to fulfill that purpose would be to pass beyond the proper sphere and limits of truth. The problem cannot be solved by any alleged creation, in and by one act, of truth and reality in one. And it cannot be solved by that reunion at a higher level of fact and idea, which we can produce (I will not ask how far) in our intuitive knowledge or again in aesthetic perception. For everywhere there is an object which remains incomplete in itself, and which in any case
The question, how far a judgement refers to something beyond itself, can now be answered as follows. If you take a judgement as my psychical state, then certainly it refers to that which is beyond itself. But to take a judgement thus is to destroy its essence and to be lost in dilemmas. From a better point of view our answer to the question is twofold. (i) No judgement can refer to anything beyond itself, since in every judgement the ultimate Reality is actually present. In any judgement on the other hand this Reality is incomplete, and there will therefore be a difference between the reality present and the truth actually reached in the judgement. But this difference remains within the object, and for truth to pass or to refer beyond that is impossible, (ii) In the second place every judgement is conjoined with irrelevant existence and must transcend this. For a judgement to exist, you must have that which, as you judge, you do not in any sense include within the object. This attitude, untenable in the end, is essential to truth. But if, going further, you desire to know how in the end irrelevancy is explained, the answer is that it cannot be explained. Irrelevancy belongs to the fact of finite centers and the process in time, and this aspect of the Whole I at least have set down as inexplicable.
1 Those who have done me the honor to read my book will know this. Other critics may be referred to the Index (in any edition of my work, under the heading Inexplicable. {Inexplicable, 114, 118, 177, 189-90, 203, 209, 239, 246, 249, 272, 278, 316, 324, 331, 344, 350, 410, 412, 418, 433, 468.}
I will dwell further on one of the points which has just been noticed. judgement refers always an ideal content to reality. Now in every judgement this reality is at once the whole Universe and something less than the Universe. (a) Although judgement is mine, and again involves a selection,
On the other side (b) what I have in judgement is not the whole Universe at once. This seems obvious, and, for example, it is clear that I must leave the present to gain, so far as I am able to gain, the past and future. For I do not possess these as present. I have everywhere indeed present to me the whole Universe, but I have not all of its detail or even its actual complete form. In knowledge what is felt and perceived at any moment is but little, and what again is true is but ideal. That which we call our real world, the past and future of ourselves and of others, and the whole body of things common to us—all this in the main is ideal construction made by selection and synthesis. It is the Universe realizing itself as truth within finite centers. And the immediate experience on which this common world, so far indeed as it is common, is based, is at any time and in any center obviously incomplete. The entire undivided Universe in short is everywhere present, but it is present as appearance and but partially. And, though it again in and
We have to guard ourselves here against a double mistake. Truth, we have seen, qualifies the Reality by an ideal content. And we may be led to take on one side this ideal content as detached wholly from the Real, to which then we apply it. And the Reality on its side may perhaps be regarded as an undetermined object, such as mere Being or again the Universe at large. But, in the first place, there is no such thing as an ideal content which absolutely fails to qualify the Real. Except in a relative sense, there are no ideas which float or are suspended, or are assumed or presumed or in any way entertained, except as adjectives of the Real. This is a common mistake which leads everywhere to dangerous confusion and error.
1 The reader must not take me to have forgotten the worlds of art and of social reality. I am confining myself here to the problem of knowledge and of truth in the narrower sense.
2 See Chapter III. Into this error, with really no decent excuse, I fell myself for a time (Principles of Logic, chap. i). The second mistake I certainly never made, though I failed to be clear on the matter. But see pp. tog, 438 (ibid.).
And in the next place the Reality (as we have seen), while it is the Universe, is never the mere Universe. It is always also a selected reality. The selection may be made only by a designation that does not seek to specify, but the selection always is there. My idea is not attached to a blank object, but is launched into a context which more or less is distinguished and ordered. And thus judgement in principle, we can say, involves mediation and is in a sense inferential. It asserts something of and in a whole, and the place of this something in the whole and the relation which it bears to other elements, are problems implied in the assertion. ‘Reality is such that S is P,’ may be taken, we saw, as a formula which expresses the nature of truth. S is P (to put it otherwise) because Reality is such. The ‘such’ is that order which we
I will pass on now to consider two questions which the reader perhaps may find more interesting, (a) Has every truth which I think been thought before? Did it, as truth, always exist before? And, together with this, I will ask, Can truth or knowledge alter reality? (b) Further again, in what sense, if in any sense, can I be said to make truth?
(a) Neither this problem nor any other problem can be solved by bringing in the potential or virtual.
To pass from this point, there is a sense in which we may maintain that every truth, however old, is new at any time when it is affirmed.
1 To take the intermediaries as mere events in time is a ruinous error; see pp. 146-7.
2 Other terms of the same kind are ‘nascent’, or some word ending in ‘ible’, or, possibly again, ὕλη.
3 Cf. Prof. Bosanquet’s Logic, vol. ii, p. 310.
I shall be told perhaps that there is a higher Mind and Intelligence by which all truths are thought. Even if we admit this, there, however, remains, in connexion with this, a question as to the validity of before and after. I will not, however, discuss that question, since I do not accept the Intelligence referred to. I am not asking here how God is to be conceived by the religious consciousness.
1 See Chapter XV.
2 Appearance, pp. 273-4, 527-8, and see pp. 350-1 of the present chapter.
But I must hasten to add that any such answer is one-sided. It pays its regard solely to that which is but one aspect of the whole matter. Wherever you have truth you must have one or more series of appearances in time, of events which occur one before or after another. On the other hand, with no more than this, truth would have no existence. Events happen because of that which is beyond all happening and at once contains and subordinates its temporal form. The Reality, above mere time and mere relations, possesses now and always all truths, whether actual or possible. And hence the whole view for which a truth first was not and then is, must be set down as in the end inadmissible and false. You may therefore insist that my present truth was waiting there and has been found. Such a statement once more must in the end be called untenable, because it again is but partially true. But it is truer far than the assertion that a truth can originate as this or that person first conceives it.
Starting from such a basis we can now dispose rapidly of a further question. Is it possible that any knowledge should alter its object? It is easy here to answer in the negative, and even to insist that the opposite is really self-evident. But the assertion, however self-evident, that reality or fact is not altered by knowledge, is still but a partial truth, which, taken as more, becomes false. For if truth and knowledge, when they come to exist, make no alteration in reality, to
1 The attempt to escape by urging that a difference is made but made only to me, cannot succeed. The difficulties which arise here should be well known, and can never, I think, be met. To fall back on an external relation, which, though external, is lopsided and so makes a difference to one term, seems even ridiculous. The conclusion which will follow really is that neither knowledge, nor anything else, can make any difference to anything, and that anything like alteration is an illusion which itself could not exist.
We cannot always be laboring to express at once the I complementary aspects of the whole. We are forced, to suit our varying purpose, from time to time to make statements which, as they are made, contradict one the other. Unless the Reality itself enters into the process of events, unless it itself is what it becomes there, unless it itself discovers itself to itself and us, and takes on a change from that discovery the Reality remains outside of knowledge, and itself is unreal. On the other hand if that which is discovered is not found, if that which appears is not revealed, if in short the thing, which we get to see, was really not there—then reality and knowledge once more are illusory. But we are unable to combine these partial truths so as to understand in detail how both of them go to make the Universe.
Any such expression is condemned, we may notice first, by the usage of language. I may make a true assertion or a mistake, or again an experiment, but, unless I violate language, I cannot make either a truth or an error or a lie.
1 Cf. Chapter V, p. 141. Prof. Dewey has republished the article there noticed, but has not tried, I think, to go any further into the matter. (The above was written before Prof. James’s lamented death.)
2 I can make a lie only when the lie is regarded as a thing which exists, and the phrase, even then, is clearly irregular.
What is ‘to make’? It is to produce in time, and usually also in space, a certain existence. What so exists may, or may not, be what we call a thing which goes on to endure for a period. Neither endurance, nor again the character of being a thing, is here really essential. I can, for instance, make a noise or an experiment. What is essential here and essential absolutely is the aspect of event
Truth, beauty and goodness must appear as temporal facts, but their essence does not consist in that appearance. It transcends the lapse of time and the flux of change, and it everywhere in this sense is eternal. Wherever you have an object taken as good or beautiful or true, or as the opposite of one of these,
1 Illustrations, I know, are dangerous, but perhaps to some persons the above may be clearer if I state it as follows. Suppose that there is a necessary way of doing something, say of making a box, can you be said to make this way? No, it may perhaps be answered, but all the same I make the box, and, if so, why not truth? The reason why you cannot may be put thus. The box can be regarded, and is regarded, as separable from the way in which it has to be made. But, with truth, an abstraction of this kind is not possible. There is ho truth left if you abstract from the way in which truth is made, a way which itself is not made. What is made is therefore something which, taken by itself, is not truth.
2 You can, we saw, ‘make a mistake,’ but this is because, and so far as, you can regard a mistake merely as an event.
And, if it were otherwise, a truth, true at one moment, might at another moment have become a falsehood; and, if so, obviously the whole notion of
And even if ‘Humanity’ is brought in, the same answer applies. This seems to be obvious if by Humanity you mean merely the set of beings on our planet. Or if, attempting to profit by a wretched ambiguity long since exposed, you seek tacitly to identify Humanity with all finite mind, or perhaps the entire Universe, still your conclusion is false. Even from such an extreme paradox it does not follow that truth can be made. The issue still turns upon the way in which Humanity or the Universe is taken, and on the position given there to the aspect of temporal event. But it is difficult to discuss a doctrine which its supporters seem afraid even to try to state clearly.
1 See Chapter IX, pp. 261 following.
2 I have repeatedly called attention to what I must now regard as mere bankruptcy veiled by ambiguity. See the Index, s.v. Humanity.
The conclusion is suggested that, if that which calls itself ‘empiricism’ takes reality to have its life in the mortal world of events, and holds time and change to be ultimately real, no empiricism can give an account of truth or beauty, or, generally, of goodness or worth. It will be compelled to break openly with the plainest of facts, or to obscure its bankruptcy in a mist of phrases such as ‘potential’ and ‘virtual’.
I will ask finally, at the cost of repetition, how far it can be said that ‘Truth does not depend on me’. There are misunderstandings here against which it is vital to guard our minds. Obviously, first, in the case where the truth is about me, the assertion that it in no way depends on me is false. On the other hand, if the ‘me’ stands for that which is irrelevant in and to the judgement, the above assertion (we have seen) will hold. Its more probable meaning, however, is that truth does not depend on my act.
1 Not only is all beauty an object, but it is even taken as that which is self-existent. Cf. Appearance, chap. xxvi.
2 If the ‘my’ is here taken in opposition to the object, and it is assumed that my act is not also the act of the Reality, that would be of course once more an error, which has been dealt with sufficiently (p. 327).
You may reply that the whole thing is a matter of emphasis. You may object that in acting, and even in making, if you insist on emphasizing too strongly the aspect of mere event, you in the end would have no act, and nothing in the end could be said even to be made. In the end both aspects are inseparable. I do not seek to dispute this, for in what has gone before I have been endeavoring throughout to urge (if you please) that falsehood lies in a one-sided emphasis.
1 Everything (to repeat this) in the end depends on everything else, and connexion is in the end a matter of degree. It is our selective emphasis for a certain purpose which makes the relative absolute. And the point here is this, that, in asserting the dependence of truth on my act, the emphasis and the selection is not warranted by the degree of connexion.
2 On the whole matter the reader is referred to Prof. Bosanquet’s Logic, vol. ii, chap. x. Practice, he points out (p. 321), finds as well as makes, and knowledge alters as well as finds. The reader perhaps will recognize that, if we have a complete whole completing itself in the temporal development of finite selves, these apparent inconsistencies must be. The universe in knowledge makes itself in and by me into something nearer to its full actual nature. The result therefore is found. Again in practice the idea which I carry out into existence—so altering existence—was actually there for me as an ideal, and I then find it in what I make to exist.
I will now proceed to touch in passing on two further
1 I may refer in particular to Chapter V. Cf. Prof. Bosanquet’s Logic, chapters ix. and x.
(a) You cannot ask how in any proper sense truth is related to the real. For such a relation to be possible, you would require reality on one side and truth on the other. And, since without truth reality would not be real, and truth apart from reality would not be true, the question asked is ridiculous. There cannot in the end be a relation between two inseparable aspects of one whole. On the other hand you can inquire as to how truth stands to reality, in this sense that you can ask in what way truth is different from and falls short of the Whole. What is it lacking to truth, on the addition of which truth itself would be reality? This is a question which to some extent can be discussed and answered.
Reality for me (if I may be pardoned such repetition) is one individual Experience. It is a higher unity above our immediate experience, and above all ideality and relations. It is above thought and will and aesthetic perception. But, though transcending these modes of experience, it includes them all fully. Such a whole is Reality, and, as against this whole, truth is merely ideal. It is indeed never a mere idea, for certainly there are no mere ideas. It is Reality appearing and expressing itself in that one-sided way which we call ideal. Hence truth is identical with Reality in the sense
Further, the ultimate Reality is not a development, and it is absurd even to ask if it progresses. On the other hand it essentially contains a process, or rather processes, in time. And, looking at it from this partial aspect, we may say that the Reality uses ideas in order to realize itself. Immediate experience, itself showing ideality in lapse and change, in its endeavor to complete itself develops truth. It produces ideas progressively freed more and more from union with particular objects of sense. It uses these ideas to procure for itself a fuller experience, both practically and in higher perceptions and in intuitive understandings and in apprehensions of beauty. It is the nature of ideas, we may say, to pass over into a completer whole which both subordinates and includes them. Even for us in our experience this end partially is attained. And in the absolute Reality it is reached entirely and throughout, though obviously for us not visibly.
On the one side, therefore, our experience remains in part merely ideal, and thus, within certain limits, an activity which is but theoretical is called for and is justified. With every side of our life all the other sides are inseparably implied, but it is impossible that everywhere in detail these other sides should be verifiable. So far as the detail goes, we everywhere, and not merely in theory alone, may be said to rest upon faith. But on the other hand the character of the absolute Reality is everywhere manifest, and we can possess no other possible criterion of truth.
(b) For a discussion of the question as to how far truth is a copy of reality, I must once more refer the reader to Chapter V, but I will repeat briefly what seems called for
The working to carry out a certain general character, to construct an ideal world according to a certain prescription, would surely not be copying in detail. And, when the general character and prescription is itself again not copied, the idea of copying is nowhere applicable.
Copying, as an ultimate account of truth, is therefore out of the question, and to ask what would be gained by it, if it were possible, is an idle inquiry. I have spoken of course, so far, of that copying which is absolute, that which has to reproduce in truth an object which does not already itself more or less consist in truth. On the other hand with copying in a relative sense we are all familiar, though the extent even of this we are prone to exaggerate. Past and future facts, for example, can scarcely be copied, unless we are assisted by some miraculous ‘Faculty’. We come nearest to copying intellectually when we attempt to describe a perceived fact. But, even here, the fact itself depends more or less upon idealization, and the reproduction of it involves a further process of the same kind. And, where this can perhaps be doubted as to the fact itself, as, e.g., in sensations of pleasure and pain, the conclusion as to our truth about this fact will still hold. Truth must select and abstract, and, if it failed to do this, and if it repeated feeling, it would be itself mere feeling and no longer truth. But I will not venture
What is the good of truth? To ask a question is here, as everywhere, to imply an assertion. And the assertion involved in the above inquiry is often as follows. The inquirer may affirm (a) that truth itself is not good, and he may (b) imply also that some other aspect of life, taken by itself, is good. This is the position of the ordinary Hedonist, and he at least knows, or may be supposed to know, what he means. But it is the position of others also, who possibly may know what they mean, but whose mental state, for anything that appears, is certainly otherwise. Any one, however, who in philosophy asks such a question as ‘What is the good of’,
1 It may of course be said that with truth we have the same idea in two different contexts. We have it before us as an adjective of the real, and at the same time it has its place in the series of psychical events. This, I should agree, is indubitable, but, once more here, there is obviously nothing like copying from an original.
2 The same remark mutatis mutandis applies to the covert assertion contained in such phrases as ‘instrument’ and ‘use’; pp. 134-5.
On any view such as mine no one aspect of life is good ultimately by itself. To set up any one aspect of life as the absolute Good or Evil, and to reduce the rest of life to mere means, is a most serious error. Relatively of course with every aspect of life this point of view is tenable. Morality and religion can be regarded as means to worldly success or to bodily health. We can say the same thing of pleasure, or again pleasure may be taken not as a means but as the end which all else should subserve. The pursuit of beauty in art may be spoken of as a more or less useful amusement, or as a way perhaps of keeping out of vice. And truth again also undeniably is useful, and is a means and instrument valued for the sake of other purposes. All this is justifiable, but justifiable only when we remember that it is but relative.
The question, What is the good of truth? can (as we have seen above) be asked properly, if it means. How does truth stand to, and how does it conduce to experience or life as a whole? And, except as so conducing, you can certainly affirm that truth is not good, and that it possesses no value whatever. I emphasize this assertion, and I once more repeat that truth’s natural destiny is to return once more into unbroken union with Reality, and to restore at a higher level that totality out of which it has emerged. But that this destiny is accomplished, verifiably and in detail, within and throughout our experience seems demonstrably false. And (as we have seen) within our experience truth remains and must for ever remain relatively free.
1 It is possible to identify Reality with the Good, but I prefer not to do this. It is unnecessary to enter on the question here; see pp. 89, 179.
2 While denying this freedom, Prof. Moore, speaking for the ‘pragmatist’ (Pragmatism, p. 168), allows, as I understand, to thought a value of its own, though not in ‘independence’. It is, I think, important to have got even as far as this. But what surely follows is that to speak of thought, e.g., as instrumental, is not permissible. The rest of the whole process is surely also instrumental, as thought is, and may itself, by the same right, be taken as instrumental to thought. But Prof. Moore does not say this, and once more as to the position of beauty, so far as I have seen, he says nothing at all. But to deal with these matters is surely imperative. However, between such a ‘pragmatist’ as Prof. Moore and myself, the points of difference (as I said before), in comparison with the amount of agreement, seem really small. And again with regard to Prof. Dewey the same remark, I think, would hold good.
The attempt to deny or to condemn the relative freedom of truth and of art, involves to my mind, in general, mere prejudice and error. And it is difficult to argue where, as opposed to you, you for the most part can perceive little else but confusion. But it may perhaps tend to make this whole matter clearer, if we consider it from another side. Let us take the instance of a high and heroical will for good at any cost to oneself, an effort which, so far as we can see, has
Truth and beauty then on the one hand within limits are free. On the other hand truth and beauty, all without exception, conduce to a higher Reality. But in detail this consummation must remain for us invisible. The idea, however, that any one truth is just as good as another is senseless. A truth is true so far as it works, in the first place theoretically, and truths, so far as they are empty and are idle, fail to work. They fail proportionately to make a
In conclusion I will ask how far the view which I hold is open to the charge of ‘subjectivism’ and ‘relativism’. What I mean by relativism here is the consequence that, beyond this or that man or set of men, there is no truth or reality. In neither of these senses (between which of course there is in principle no difference) can my view be said to end in relativism. With regard to Solipsism there is, I think, no occasion for me to notice any criticism which ignores or is ignorant of what I have said on this subject.
1 Cf. Chapters IV and V.
2 Appearance, chap. xxi. It may be useful perhaps to recall that Mr. E. D. Fawcett (Mind, No. 78, p. 200) understood me to start from a ‘provisional Solipsism’. Mr. Fawcett attended here, I think, merely to one side of my view. On that view the whole Universe is directly aware of itself in each finite center, but so as not there to be aware of the contents of any other finite center as they are experienced immediately by itself within that other centre. The highest all-embracing experience is never reached in any finite mind. How this is possible, I repeat, is inexplicable. I fully understand that the logical result of applying here an ‘Either-or’, is either a denial of any self or else an assertion of Solipsism, whichever of these alternatives you please. But I do not see how it can be right to suppose that I accept either of these alternatives. I may add that, if I accepted either of them provisionally, I should have to accept it as final. But whether there is any real disagreement here between Mr. Fawcett and myself, I cannot say.
Certainly for me beyond and outside of all finite minds there is no truth. From the doctrine which I inherited all such transcendence has in principle been banished. And certainly for that doctrine, once more, the desire and the striving of finite minds is essential to Reality. The immanent will of the Universe, for knowledge and truth within those minds, is impossible unless it is in one with their personal endeavor. If to hold this is to embrace subjectivism,
1 A point on which difficulty, I believe, has been felt, is the account to be given of Nature and of its position in the Universe. Nature has seemed on my view to possess no external reality. But this apparent failure is mainly perhaps due to a defect in my exposition. I have emphasized perhaps too one-sidedly our inability to arrive here at an ultimate explanation. I never sought to deny that in our own wills we have the experience of what we may call a power of real externalization. Certainly the idea that any such externalization can break somehow quite out of the absolute Experience, to my mind remains untenable. But to a conclusion which stops short of that I am far from being in principle opposed.
I will venture, in republishing this footnote, to add some further remarks on the subject of Nature. The fact of finite centers, with change in time and apparent externality, must remain, I would once more repeat, in my view inexplicable. Certainly in volition we experience the carrying out of what is ideal into the world over against us. And, though no ultimate explanation can in my judgement be found in Will (compare Chapter IV), it may be well to consider the fact of Nature from this side.
The absolute Reality of course is will, since it includes will in something higher. On their side the wills of finite centers, though real, are never the mere wills of these several centers. Experienced volition is always the will of the Whole in one with my own. What therefore is carried out into existence in and by my will is always more than any content which merely is mine. The content carried out belongs also and, in one sense, just as much to the Whole. And not only is this so, but some content is realized in and by my will, though this content goes beyond that of which in willing I was aware. To some extent this realization beyond what I have consciously willed seems evident in fact, and how far it conceivably might go, we seem unable to say. My will thus carries out into existence, and into the external world, more than in one sense was actually contained in my will.
It is thus important to ask about the source of such additional matter. Is there any margin of content over and above that which is experienced in all finite centers? The totality of experiences must (this is obvious) have some content beyond that which falls in the experiences as several. For otherwise the totality (this seems clear) would be nothing. But is there (here is the point) in the absolute Experience any margin of content beyond what falls in the finite centers as unified? In my book (Appearance, pp. 273-4, and pp. 527-8) I raised a doubt on this point, a doubt which later I have tended perhaps too much to ignore. The question is difficult, and since we do not know how the finite centers are One, the question possibly may be unmeaning. On the other hand I cannot maintain that it is so, and hence I am forced to admit as possible this margin of content not included in finite centers. Such a, margin, if so, might go to make up that sphere which appears to each of us as the world of external existence. It would contribute to, or at least affect, that order of disorderly perception in which other centers appear to mine. But, beyond this, it would never enter into my consciousness or will. And, though made one in the whole with all finite centers, it could never be properly called the content of any.
I do not think that, in order to account for Nature, such a supposition is necessary. But to my mind it is tenable, and any one, to whom it seems to remove difficulty, is, I think, right if he adopts it. On the other hand beyond this point I am unable to move. I could not admit that any externality is more in the end than appearance. A real split or sundering in the Universe I am forced to reject, and anything of the kind leads, so far as I see, to difficulties far worse than those which it may appear to banish or lessen. But this is a point on which naturally I am willing to hear reason.
The above are those aspects of truth on which I wished to remark. I cannot hope that I have succeeded in not tasking the patience of the reader. My remarks have at the best been disjointed, and I have repeated (it is the vice of advancing years) what I have said, and have said perhaps too often before. But I will end by insisting once more on that with which I began. Except in connexion with a view or views as to the nature of Reality, any controversy as to the nature of knowledge and truth in the end is futile. Such a discussion may be more or less instructive, and it may be stimulating more or less, but it never can deal with the real question at issue, or arrive at any final result whether positive or negative.
Chapter XII. Some Remarks on Memory and Inference
Ambiguity of Memory (353-4). We think of the past by an ideal construction, which involves the degradation of the present (354-7). How, when we think forwards, we can remember backwards. No merely successive Association (357-62). Difference between Fancy, Memory, and Inference. Defect of internal necessity in mere fancy. Thought not always abstract (362-5). How Memory and Inference agree and differ, but inference is implied in memory (365-70). How is memory in a given case to be distinguished from mere imagination? There is no test which is not fallible (370-2). Veracity of memory how far to be assumed (372-5). On Memory and Belief (376-7). On the meanings of matter of fact (377-80).
My object in this paper is to discuss certain questions about the nature of memory in connexion with inference on one side and mere imagination on the other. I have been led to write it partly from a desire to explain and justify the position which I took elsewhere.
We may notice first the well-known ambiguity of the word ‘memory’. I have used, and shall use, the term in what seems its proper sense, the consciousness of past events as having been in fact experienced in my past. But memory is often employed otherwise. It may be taken to embrace all recognition and sense of familiarity, to cover persisting after-sensation and resurgent images, sporadic and undated. It may be a general head which includes all retentiveness and reproduction, and may be enlarged to cover every habit, even where habit rightly or wrongly is applied to a case of mere physical mechanism.
1 This chapter appeared first in Mind for April 1899.
2 In my Principles of Logic.
And hence nothing is easier than to defend memory as basal, if not as quite ultimate, and to refute the true view that it is a complex and late
Memory in its proper sense seems certainly complex, and involves a high degree and development of thinking, and memory for any sound psychology must be derivative and secondary. We may find it for the moment more convenient to postulate a faculty inexplicable and ultimate, by which I know my past events isolated or even in their synthesis with my present, an organ which gives us really the really existing past, or somehow immediately reports to us that which perhaps really does not exist—an oracle, which, although inexplicable or even perhaps because inexplicable, is to be accounted veracious. But the path which seems easy may be long in the end when it involves us in confusion, and a miracle, however cheap, in the end is dear when it entails the subversion of principle. And if against fact we are led to postulate the veracity of memory, that postulate, as I shall show, leads to ruinous scepticism.
Memory is an ideal construction of the past by which the present reality is qualified, or we know the past as an enlargement by ideal content of reality beyond the present. In this respect memory does not differ, it will be urged at once, from. at least some inference and even from fancy. But, without at present touching on these differences, it will be better to ask in general how we are able at all to think of the past. There is, of course, the further question as to what in the end is the real nature of the past, but that question does not in this chapter concern us. We are to ask about the past simply so far as it is for us.
Now there are doctrines which I must take for granted without explanation or discussion, and all that I can here do is to try to state them so as to avoid unnecessary objections. If the reader finds that he dissents, I would ask him to consider this chapter as written for others. We must first of all presuppose retentiveness and the growth of associations,
Now, so much being assumed, it is no great step to advance from it to serial connexions. Wherever A tends to call up B, and B to bring in C, A being present will tend to produce the series A-B-C. The means and the condition of this mediate connexion is the identity of B. There is here a common link which is one and the same, or which at least somehow behaves as if it were so, and which also again on examination seems so. Without this identical link there is certainly no series at all, but how far its identity must be perfect is a further question to be considered later. And at that point there will arise the difficult and most important problem about the unity of the whole series, a problem at which I shall be able to do no more than glance.
But when once we have such series joined by common links, it seems easy from this point to proceed to the future and past and to transcend the present. For given the disposition to an ideal series such as c-d-e, and given on the other side a present qualified as A(b-c), there is, through the identity of c, a transition from A to e through b-c-d. And with this transition memory, it might be said, is at once explained. Now in principle I think memory is so explained, and the explanation is correct, but it on the other hand is insufficient, and takes no account of serious differences. For in the first place memory has perforce to go backwards if it is to reach the past, while our series, it seems, run all the other way, and we can only think forwards. And in the second place memory is certainly not the mere extension of
To know the past or future as such is a hard and late achievement of the mind, for it implies an enormous degradation of the present. We do not properly represent the past or future until we have gained an order of things in which the present has become but one thing among others. These other things, not the present, are not presented, and, if by a miracle they were so while the present itself still remained untransformed, the result would be chaos. But past and future do not and cannot exist for us until reality appears as a series in which the present has sunk and has become but one member among others. Such an order is an array into the ranks of which the present is cashiered; it is an order which is ideal and yet real, which is often not practical except remotely and indirectly, and which can conflict sharply with our presented perception and our presented need. The passage to this new world is the barrier, if there is one, between the animal and the human mind.
1 I do not mean to say that there is no animal but man which ever in fact makes this transition.
Its present is clouded and is brightened by the movement of its ideas, but remains always its present;
I regret to be unable to explain and defend this brief statement. It may serve, perhaps, to point out the interval which in my judgement separates memory from the lower level of mind. How in detail that interval is filled up and crossed I cannot here discuss. I agree that it is the use of language for social needs which is the principal agent. It is in this manner, I agree, that in fact we gain a world of ideas beyond, and in part incompatible with, our personal world, an ideal order which seems fixed and independent and which subordinates the present. On the other hand, I must demur to the conclusion that without society no such ideal world is in principle possible or could slowly be fixed by the mind. But, however it may have arisen, it is this ideal order which makes memory possible, and apart from this development to postulate memory is to invoke a senseless miracle.
I will pass next to the difficulty which arises from the direction of our thoughts. The past lies behind us while, it seems, we can only think forwards. Given the disposition to an ideal series b-c-d, then, if Xb is presented, the identity of b can develop X ideally as Xb-c-d. But if, on the other hand, Xd is presented, how are we able to arrive at b-c? Our sensations, we may say, come wave on wave out of the future and disappear backwards into the past, while the direction of our ideas is naturally opposite, and our associated series, usually if not always, run from the present to the future.
1 Cf. Appearance, v. 214.
We, to maintain our being, must face and must meet with our ideas the incoming waves, and it is this practical attitude against the course of mere events which gives the direction to all our series. I do not, indeed, admit
How then, given the disposition to an ideal series a-b-c-d-e, and given our actual presence at d, can we arrive at the past? The result is gained in this way. Our present has a character associated with a, the beginning of the series, and so, by means of a, we identify ourselves with and pass through the series a-b-c-d-e. But this so far is not enough. This series so far, it will be rightly said, can at best give us a future, and it will not supply us with a past which lies behind us. Our explanation, however, so far was incomplete, and our fuller reply is as follows: (a) In order to perceive the past we must not merely identify ourselves with the beginning of a series, but that beginning must, also and as well, be incompatible with our present. That beginning must, beside its identity with our present state, have also a further character which prevents identification. If our present is Xd, then, since x is associated with a, we through x ideally reconstitute Xa, but the two, Xd and Xa, are or may be incompatible. (b) And secondly, starting from this incompatible beginning Xa, the series leads up to our actual present Xd, and can be prolonged into the future. And this in principle is the explanation required for our recovery and perception of the past.
I will illustrate this first by a simple example which in part is defective. I have seen a stone thrown and now perceive it at my feet. It is the ideal identity of the stone which reinstates its existence at the point of departure, an existence incompatible with the present. And then that incompatible sameness produces itself in series ideally till it is one with the actual present perception. The illustration is, however, imperfect because it presupposes and makes use of a fixed spatial order, and, whatever may be true of our
1 By Janet. See his Automatisme. The principle was long ago laid down by Lotze, Medical Psychology, 487, Mikrokosmus, i, 371. I would remark in this connexion that any one who fails to see that the present character of my feeling is a basis of reproduction, and who argues as if that basis must either be something before the mind, or else not psychical at all, does not in my opinion really understand the doctrine of Association.
The above may be made clearer, perhaps, by a reply to a possible objection. You cannot in every case, it may be said, show that what we remember is thus reproduced from the present, and memory therefore, it may be urged, is immediate and inexplicable — except of course, like everything else, by physiology. Now I should myself admit that the reason why I remember this thing and not that often cannot be found in my present psychical state. One might indeed
1 If we wish to avoid mistake here, we must beware of confusion. We must distinguish the exciting cause of a reproduction from the ground of a memory. The ground of a particular memory is that which places it in connexion with a certain member of my past series. But it may be partially excited by that which cannot complete and so date it. A scent may, for instance, remind me of a certain flower, which then by association calls up its adjuncts involving a dated event in my life. The dating associations here are not those which excite, and the latter may be very frail and slight indeed. The reproduced when excited then dates itself by association with what is constructed from my present. If on the contrary I go backwards or forwards retracing my life, the exciting cause of a memory and its ground may be the same.
The past, we have so far seen, is perceived by means of serial association, and, before I proceed, it is necessary to warn the reader here against a dangerous misconception. We have in the series a-b-c the association of b with a and of c with b; but we have not merely these separate associations,
/ \
a—b
And so we perceive how the whole series may thus be thought of as one, and how the idea of the whole is united with and so may reproduce any of the members, singly or at irregular intervals, and again in either direction. For beside the mere association of member with member we have as its complement in every series the connexion of each member with the idea of the whole.
1 Cf. Chapter X, pp. 307-9.
2 This consideration, I need hardly add, should never be lost sight of, as at times it has been, in investigating the subject of ‘successive’, ‘regressive’, and again ‘indirect’ association. Another aspect of the same problem is the existence of general forms or schemata of series. It seems clear, from abstract considerations as well as from particular facts, that these must exist and be used in the retaining of concrete series. Our awareness of gaps and our transition over them, and our power of representing series in an abbreviated form, point in this direction. But these schemata, being themselves presumably psychical and associative, tend to confirm the doctrine of our text. There are some results bearing on this point in the investigations of Schömann and Müller. The subject is both very obscure and very difficult, and it deserves more attention than it appears to have received, a remark which applies emphatically to the perception of a series in general.
And
We are aware of and think of the past as past always by an ideal construction from the present, and the immediate presentation of the past as such would be a gratuitous miracle. But the past comes to us not by memory alone but also in mere fancy and again by pure inference, and it is clear that we are here concerned with serious differences. I may for instance remember that yesterday I sent a letter to the post; or I may imagine how I might have done this, though in fact I know that I did not; or again, while I cannot remember my act, I can perhaps prove that it happened. I will now briefly discuss the nature of these differences, beginning with mere fancy in its contrast with thought, and taking thought here in the sense of proof or inference.
How does mere imagination differ from inference? The question, difficult in itself, has been obscured by a fundamental error, a superstition about the abstract nature of thought proper. Deferring the consideration of this, I will state briefly the true ground of distinction. In inference there is, or at least there is supposed to be, a continuous necessity, and there is necessity because in a word there is identity. The self-same subject develops itself ideally in the process, and is qualified in the conclusion. And it qualifies itself throughout by itself, without the intrusion at any point of an extraneous connexion. We say that b is c and c is d and d is e, and each of these is not because of anything outside, but simply. Hence Ab must be Ae because in the end it is so. And whatever difficulties may be raised as to the possibility of using in our actual practice this type, this type at least represents what we aim at and seek to find in inference. It may help us to perceive this if we suppose
It is a defect of this kind which vitiates the result of mere imagination. That result, we should agree, has no necessity. In my mind’s wandering the subject Ab may have actually now become Ae, but we cannot add that the thing is so really and of itself, for Ab, also and just as actually, may become something incompatible and may appear as Ab-not-e. In mere imagination, because the thing may be otherwise, it is not really what it is. Necessity is not present, and necessity is absent because there is a breach of identity. The subject Ab becomes Ae, but you cannot add ‘of itself’. Something extraneous has at some point entered in and has vitiated the process, and you have passed from b to c not because b is c, but only because the passage has happened. An element has intervened not belonging directly to the pure essence of b, but attached to b merely as b is now present in psychical fact; and it is this unknown addition, this x, which by a chance association has carried Ab to e. Such is the defect in identity which distinguishes mere imagination from inference,
1 Cf. my Principles of Logic, p. 410.
It may be instructive to notice here the superstition to which I referred. The distinction of mere imagination from
1 See for example Prof. Sully, Human Mind, i, p. 384. He finds himself later in conflict with fact, and admits (p. 395, note) that the demarcation is ‘not to be taken absolutely’. But the real question surely is whether the very principle of distinction is not false and contrary to fact, and, if so, how we can be justified in using it. If Prof. Sully’s view is that between thought and mere imagination there is in principle really no difference at all, that the distinction drawn between them is merely an affair of language and convenience, and depends, perhaps usually though certainly not always, on degree of concreteness, that is a doctrine which, however unsatisfactory, would be intelligible. But such a doctrine hardly entitles any one who holds it to speak of these processes as if they really were two, to lay down a ground and principle of distinction, and to go on to speak of ‘a connexion between the two’ (p. 381). Such a position seems quite inconsistent and indefensible, though I fear it is not uncommon.
2 I am tempted to say this again of any one who can maintain that thought must depend upon language. There arises here, of course, the further question, how far thinking which is not throughout dependent on language, and which is in this sense intuitional, can be genuinely abstract. This is an interesting and important question, but we are not concerned with it here.
Inference of course is always abstract if that means that it implies
1 I do not know whether Wundt (Grundzüge, ii, p. 490) really means to say that all imagination involves a plan and an idea which it develops. Such a statement seems to be in collision with the obvious fact of mental wandering. The nature of the different kinds of control over mere wandering is, so far as I see, the only ground from which this whole question could be satisfactorily treated. I certainly could not myself attempt that treatment, and I do not myself know where to send the reader for satisfaction. Wundt’s exposition seems not only confused in detail but based on no clear principle whatever. Such principles of division as ‘passive’ and ‘active’ are, for instance, much worse than merely useless.
From this our inquiry may return to the subject of memory. The mere imagination of the past, we have seen, is, like inference, an ideal construction from the present, and yet it fails to be inference. Memory is also an ideal construction from the present, and thus we are led to ask in what way memory differs from inference and from fancy;
1 pp. 376-7.
If inference is understood in the sense in which we have taken it above, inference and memory certainly differ. For in memory there is a sequence and a continuity which is necessary, but on the other hand the necessity is not wholly intrinsic, or, if wholly intrinsic, is not so visibly. We do not, as in inference, go from Ab to Abc, because b is c. The sequence in memory cannot be so stated. The premisses are not Ab, bc, but must be written as Ab, Bc. Now certainly b is contained in and is an element in B, but, with only so much, the sequence fails to be logical. For you cannot logically proceed from Ab, Bc, to A-c, unless you assume that Bc is equivalent, say, to b-B-c, and not merely to b(x)-c. The essential question is as to how the difference, which turns b into B and which so brings in c, is related to b; whether, in short, and how far this difference is really accidental. Let us take once more the example which we used above. When I remember that on Tuesday last I sent my letter, the sending does not follow of itself from the mere idea of myself on last Tuesday. Thus I cannot prove that I sent the letter, and I can even imagine that in fact I did not send it. The connexion, therefore, between the day and the act is not
Now a breach of visible continuity I have agreed must be admitted, and memory therefore will fall short of inference. There is no proper inference where you predicate the conclusion of the subject because the subject is conditioned by something not intrinsically developed from its own nature. But in memory on the other hand the constraint is not wholly external. For the necessity is taken to lie within the content of the ideal process which develops the subject. From the idea of myself on Tuesday I pass to the sending of my letter because of something which belongs to the nature of things which is taken as present at that date. The compulsion in other words is assumed to come, not from mere matter of fact, but from the special character of a certain concrete fact.
1 I shall add at the end of this chapter some further remarks on the logical difference between memory and imagination, and on the ambiguity of the term ‘matter of fact’. Mere imagination gives ‘matter of fact’, in one sense, more than memory does.
On the other hand, because the x cannot further
But though memory is not inference, in all memory an inference is involved. To connect my letter with the idea of last Tuesday I must first of all possess myself of that idea. But this possession involves, as we saw, a process from the present to something different, a process made through and resting on a point of ideal identity; and a passage of this sort seems certainly to be an inference. From the present Ac I go to the past C because of the c within C, and to go otherwise is not possible. You may object that the initial difference here between c and C is really external to c, just as again the further connexions given by memory were admitted not to be internal. This objection goes deep and would raise questions which I cannot discuss in this chapter, but for our present purpose it may be dismissed. It would, if admitted, show that we have a defective inference here, as perhaps almost everywhere,
1 Hence to draw an inference from a recollection as such is not possible. For the mere recollection implies that we have not got the premiss which we desire to employ. To draw an inference from one individual fact as such to another fact is as impossible actually as it would be senseless in principle. So far as you remember, we may say, so far you are debarred from reasoning. But on this subject I am confident that better ideas are beginning to prevail both in psychology and in logic.
2 In now republishing the above I would call the attention of the reader to the fact that, in my Principles of Logic, pp. 518-9 (published 1883), it is clearly stated that, even if the form of the inference is impeccable, every inference is subjected to the risk of error on account of the doubt as to the identity of the middle term. Cf. Chapter XIII, pp. 392 foll., 407.
In the proper sense of inference then memory involves an inference but itself really is not one.
1 We see here that inference both logically and in time precedes memory. I am convinced that, while in fact many or most of the lower animals certainly reason, perhaps none of them is able to remember in the proper sense of memory.
2 The above and what follows may, I hope, justify the doctrine I have stated elsewhere, that memory in its essence involves an inference and so is inferential. I have never said or meant that memory consists in mere inference, and that you could make the goodness of the inference a test of memory. The question as to how memory, involving an inference, differs from inference proper, was not discussed or raised by me at all. The statement in my Principles of Logic, p. 75, as to the want of a point of identity in mere imagination, is certainly, as it stands, obscure and perhaps misleading. Whether my mind was clear when I wrote it I cannot now tell. What I should have said is that wherever we take ourselves merely to imagine, there not only is no intrinsical necessity attaching the result to the starting-place, but we also recognize that the identity of the subject is lost and that there is a breach in continuity. In memory, on the other hand, though the result is not taken as the necessary ideal development of the subject itself, yet we ignore the doubt as to a solution of continuity. We connect the end of the process with and attribute it to the beginning, because the process comes to us from one end to the other without an apparent break or loss of the subject, and without the suggestion of an alien intrusion, or again of a sufficient competing alternative. In imagination the connexion between subject and predicate is that of casual occupancy, but in memory we have possession which to such an extent is de facto that the question of title is not raised, or, if raised, is assumed to be somehow satisfactorily settled. With regard to the distinction between inference and mere imagination, that is given correctly in my Principles, p. 410.
If, however, the term
1 A sceptical objection of this kind, if based on a psychological ground, seems (Appearance, p. 137) inconsistent with itself. The proper way to urge the objection is to compare the actual inferences which we must use with that ideal of inference which alone we can take as satisfactory.
A memory, we have seen, is a state of mind which differs from a mere imagination of the past, and in passing from one to the other we are aware that we take a new attitude. But how in the end can we tell that in memory our attitude is justified, and that our remembrance really is any better than mere fancy? So far, indeed, as we can apply inference and can rationally construct the past order, we seem to stand on safe ground. But when we are left at last with an idea of the past which shows no visible inconsistency, but about which we are able to find no further evidence, what test can we apply? The answer must be that we do not possess any valid criterion. There are marks which give us a certain
We may place first the characters of clearness and strength, and in the next place fullness of detail, a detail which is not visibly rational. Next may come the sense of familiarity, and after that fixity of connexion; and I will then go on to add a few remarks, (i) I will not venture to ask here what clearness and strength are to mean, but, whatever they mean, a mere imagination may have as much of them as a memory (or even more), and this seems even plain, (ii) The same may be said with regard to mere fullness of detail, for a simple imagination may be very full in comparison with a memory. The character of the details is, however, a sign to be noticed. If the particulars are many and yet appear as an accidental conjunction, not depending upon any general idea but seemingly irrelevant, that, so far as it goes, is a mark of genuine memory. But this mark of irrational detail is, however, no test, (iii) The sense of familiarity is again deceptive. Its nature has been much discussed,
1 The word ‘assimilation’ tends to introduce us here, in the pages of Wundt and others, into a world of what I will venture to call the merest mythology.
For your present accidental mood may favor and support strongly some idea about the past, and this idea may in consequence strike you as natural
The veracity of memory is not absolute, and memory itself is subject to the control of a higher criterion. Our justification for regarding memory as in general accurate is briefly this, that by taking such a course we are best able to order and harmonize our world. There is in the end no other actual or possible criterion of fact and truth than this, and the search for a final fact and for an absolute datum is everywhere the pursuit of a mere ignis fatuus. You may look for it in outward perception, or you may seek it in inward experience and intuition, but in each case you are misled by one and the same error in a different dress. This is a subject too large to be dealt with here as a whole, but I will notice before proceeding a recent instructive attempt to prove that memory is not fallible.
1 Philosophy of Mind, pp. 133 following; I have at present no acquaintance with Prof. Ladd’s other works.
2 If a man mistakenly remembers events ten years before he was born, is it satisfactory to add: There you see at once that his memory is really infallible, for he had, as fact, some actual past (as you saw) before he made that mistake about his past? And even this amount of de facto infallibility rests on the assumption I have noticed in the text. It is therefore so far precarious, as well as in any case derivative.
1 How is mere memory to be a ruler and judge of itself? I cannot see how this Is to be possible. If, on the other hand, memory is to subject itself to the judgement of reason, I cannot see how anywhere it is to claim independent authority, and to be treated as infallible or as more than de facto not mistaken. These are points on which I seek enlightenment so far in vain. If, for instance, it is urged that, in order to make the world intelligible, I must postulate that memory is right, unless so far as I have some special reason to think it anywhere wrong, I entirely agree. Certainly, I reply, and without doubt, we must make this assumption. But if, on this, I am told that, if so, we have an independent and ultimate postulate, I am forced to demur. Most evidently not so, I answer, if the assumption is made in order to make the world intelligible. If you leave out that, then, I agree, the postulate becomes ultimate, but it becomes at the same time arbitrary and, so far as I see, quite indefensible. If we are to think at all, we must postulate that reason is in principle infallible, and is the ultimate judge of its own errors. But to postulate that memory is in principle infallible seems to me to be, on the one hand, wholly unnecessary and, for any legitimate purpose, quite useless; and, on the other hand, it appears to me to be in the end almost devoid of meaning.
1 There are some further remarks on this head in the following chapter.
2 Even in an indirect argument, where I divide A into Ab and Ac, and then by disproving Ac prove Ab, I do not in the operation depend upon memory. Certainly at the end of my disproof of Ac I may have forgotten Ab, but I then return to the beginning with the knowledge that A is not c, and now with that in my mind reach the conclusion Ab from A. The knowledge that A is not c does not here depend on memory. It might so depend if, e.g., I had merely found in my notes that I had one day proved Ac to be false, and if I used that bare result. But so far that result obviously does not pretend to be itself made in my inference at all. And with direct reasoning it seems clear that, so far as the subject has lapsed from the mind by the way, there is properly no inference. The operation, to become an inference, must in some form be repeated without that lapse. The retention of an identical content before the mind, and the assumption that where I have seen no difference by the way there is no difference, can neither of them be called memory except by an abuse of language. The points raised by Prof. Ladd are certainly well worth raising and discussing, but his treatment of them seems not satisfactory.
I will add some words on the question which has been raised about Belief. Memory, we saw, takes its ideas of the
1 In this matter Prof. Bain’s doctrine of Primitive Credulity has been of great service to psychology. I must, however, in passing remark that I am forced largely to dissent from his view as to belief. I dissent further from the mere identification of judgement with belief, but I cannot enter here into the difference between them. I would further direct the reader’s attention to the fact that I may disbelieve in that which I certainly remember. The memory is here a judgement necessary in and on its own ground, but that region has here been disconnected from the world which I call my real world. This attitude is, of course, my common attitude towards the ‘imaginary’. The judgement will be here a kind of conditional judgement. The difference I have noted between either the theoretical or practical acceptance of an idea after it has been held as a mere idea and its acceptance previously, has great importance. There is a reunion of the element, which was held aloof, once more with the felt reality. And it is this re-union which gives that feeling of ‘consent’ which has been found so inexplicable. On the question of ‘mere ideas’ and ‘the imaginary’, see Chapter III.
I should like to append to this chapter some remarks on a point to which I have adverted (p. 367), the question, that is, about what is to be called ‘Matter of fact’. So large a
‘Matter of fact’ seems a highly ambiguous phrase, and for our present purpose we may distinguish three different senses, or three aspects of one sense, (1) The word may stand for that which is merely felt or is simply experienced, something which therefore excludes, so far, anything like judgement, truth, or falsehood. In this meaning of the word, imagination, memory and observation all alike are above, or if you please are below, matter of fact; for their connexions are all more or less analytic and abstract. (2) On the other side, these connexions will be matter of fact in varying degrees in proportion as they are external and apparently devoid of any intrinsic reason. (3) And again, they may be matter of fact as belonging to and as dependent on a certain point in our ‘real’ series. It is on these two later shades of meaning that I am about to make some very brief remarks.
1 A man is, I presume, called for good or evil a ‘matter of fact’ person, according as he confines himself to the actual events of what we call ‘our real world’, in opposition either to the ‘imaginary’ or again to wide general principles of truth and conduct. For the limited reality of ‘our real world’ the reader is referred to Chapters III and XVI.
The ‘merely imaginary’ marks the furthest extreme of matter of fact in the second of our meanings. It is not an affair of mere sense, since it qualifies a subject by an ideal predicate; but its bond of connexion, on the other side, is bare matter of fact. This connexion or conjunction on the one hand is actually there, but on the other hand it seems entirely irrational, since there is no more reason for it than for its diametrical opposite. The connexion therefore is, but it is true and real only by virtue of unknown conditions, and therefore in an unknown form. You pass from subject to predicate not on any ground which appears as intrinsic, not because of anything which seems comprised in your content,
But if we pass from the second to the third meaning of our term, and understand matter of fact not as general but as special and individual, the case is altered, and observation and memory must now be admitted to stand above mere imagination. For in them the predicate is not attached to the subject by a merely unknown cause, but is taken as connected with it by the nature of what appears at a certain point of our real series. Their truth therefore belongs to, and is conditioned by, what is known at least in part. The connexion on the one side remains outward and an unintelligible conjunction, so far as its bond, though localized, is not made explicit. The condition cannot be specified and so brought within the subject, and the judgement to this extent remains irrational and mere matter of fact. But on the other side, so far as the connexion falls within, and is conditioned by, a limited area of content, so far as it belongs, in other words, to a special matter of fact, it has so far already ceased to be a mere conjunction, and has become intrinsic and rational.
1 A mere imagination, if you take it as an occurrence in my history, belongs to matter of fact in the above sense of limited and individual fact. But this is because you have taken it not logically but psychologically. If you confine yourself to its logical aspect and consider it with reference merely to what it asserts, it is of course so far not an event in my life and a thing which can be observed. It so far is not matter of fact, but possesses matter of fact in the sense of matter of fact in general.
It is impossible within these limits to attempt to show how the process once begun is carried further. The growth of our knowledge consists, we may say, in the sustained endeavor to get rid of mere matter of fact, to make the bond of connexion explicit, and to bring the condition of the predicate within the content of the subject. A genuine
1 In this respect memory remains inferior. To speak broadly and apart from a certain qualification, we have in memory a mere result which cannot be developed, and we cannot, as in continued and repeated observation, inquire further into the conditions of the result. For in memory (in the main) we are not in direct contact with these special conditions.
Chapter XIII. On Memory and Judgement
My present judgement must be taken as infallible (381-2). Some objections answered (383). Memory has no independent validity, and any such claim must lead to scepticism (384-6). Some misunderstandings removed. Further explanation of the doctrine that my present judgement must be treated as infallible (386-92). What is a single judgement? Unity of judgement (392-6). Omission of irrelevancy permissible (396-7). Continuity of the subject in judgement. Some difficulties discussed (397-402). The question is not in the end psychological (403). Duration of a judgement, what (403-6). How far does a judgement, once made, remain true for me? Postulate as to memory’s general correctness (406-8).
My object in this chapter is to throw light on the ultimate value of memory as a test of truth.
As soon as doubt is raised as to what we are finally justified in believing, that doubt, it is clear, drives us back on reflection. And truth, if we go on to find it, will be a judgement which, when we reflect, satisfies us. Now, as to the nature of this special satisfaction there is of course much to be discussed, and there are points on which here I am unable to enter.
1 This chapter appeared first in Mind for April 1908. It was written some four or five years before that time, and hence, for better or worse, contains no reference to any controversy of later date.
2 Most of these are dealt with in other parts of the present volume.
It means that, until that
The objections we have noticed, it is clear, possess no force. We must continue so far to maintain that our last
The independent value of memory is often asserted. It suggests itself at times as an obvious fact, while at other times it comes in to stop a hole in some theory, and it may even be offered as a sure remedy for scepticism. But to me it seems that no long consideration is required in order to perceive that such a doctrine is ruinously sceptical. Memory is used in a number of different senses.
1 See p. 353.
2 See Dr. Venn, Empirical Logic, pp. 116-18. Dr. Venn appears to accept here some traditional psychology which at best is doubtful. I do not know how he would propose to meet the sceptical result from his view of memory. This last remark applies again to other writers.
Now no one can deny that in a sense we depend on past experience. For, apart from any other consideration, it is from past experience that in the main our minds are filled. And generally to suppose that without the past we should have an intelligible present seems obviously absurd. We bring, to the present from the past, materials, furniture and implements, and no one, so far as I am aware, could even
In the first place it gains little if any support from Common Sense. Common Sense goes no further than to take some memory as practically certain, while it allows that memory in general may be mistaken and is corrigible. But, on the other hand, anything which stands independently seems not capable of correction. If however, passing from Common Sense, we consider the facts, we seem forced to admit that memory is fallible to an indefinite extreme. If you add to ordinary mistakes those cases of error which are called pathological, and include in these the results of hypnotic experiment, there seems no limit to the possibility of memory’s failure.
1 I have above, pp. 373-5, criticized Prof. Ladd’s position with regard to this point, Philosophy of Mind, p. 133. To hold that memory cannot be wrong as to the fact of my past existence is, even if tenable in the abstract, quite futile, because it is tenable only in the abstract. If my memory may be wrong so far as it says anything about my past existence—and this apparently Prof. Ladd does not deny—how much is left for it to assert infallibly I hardly comprehend. But see the pages referred to.
And the position is no better where the meaning of memory is improperly widened, and covers in general our present use of past perception or judgement. For past experience may be incorrectly retained or connected wrongly with a present instance, and at what point here a line can be drawn I am unable to perceive. In short to hold that memory is not fallible seems to entail the denial
Still, it will be objected, if the alternative you offer is to throw away all past results, your alternative itself in the end is ruinous. But it is your mistake, I reply, which brings in such a vicious alternative. To say that no past result has independent and absolute value is not to deny that past results are in another way indispensable. Past results are in short to be used as material out of which my present judgement has to make a construction; but there is no standing conjunction in this material which is in principle sacred.
1 I regret that I cannot, while correcting this paper for the press, remark on the position lately taken by Mr. Russell and again by Prof. Stout. But in passing I would emphasize the following point. Our object is to make the widest and most harmonious construction. In order to carry out this object we accept, and we must accept, remembered past facts. But we accept them only provisionally, and subject in any particular case to correction in the light of further knowledge. The reason why we do not in the same way accept what is offered by mere fancy, is that on such a principle of action we could not make the intellectual construction which we seek. [This footnote belongs to the year 1908, and I now refer the reader to Chapter VII of this volume.]
On the other side the superiority of present to past judgement
I have so far urged that a present judgement cannot be treated as fallible, and that as against this nothing outside can possess any force. And I have argued that to assign an independent and ultimate value to memory leads necessarily to scepticism. On the other hand the doctrine which I advocate requires explanation, for it seems itself to invite and to justify sceptical doubt. ‘If to rest on memory’, it will be objected, ‘is to build upon sand, it is after all upon sand that your doctrine is based. For you cannot deny that your judgement requires time and is successive, and you cannot deny that the result of past experience now qualifies your judgement. Even if in some instance you contend that this is not visibly the case, yet in no instance can you exclude the doubt or even the presumption that really it is so. And hence, if you will not invoke a “faculty of Memory”, and if you will not go on to assume that this “faculty” is infallible, your own conclusion will in any case fall into ruin. For your judgement in the end will stand on something external and foreign, something the truth of which will remain at best precarious. And your judgement itself, when arrived at its end, will fail to connect its end with that beginning of itself which now has perished. It is only through memory that a judgement is one, and any judgement that is not one, is no judgement at all.’ This objection seems serious, and we must endeavor to meet it.
We are led at once to recall a principle, well known but often neglected, the distinction between a judgement viewed in its logical and, on the other side, in its psychical aspect.
1 I may remind the reader that I am not here replying to scepticism in general, but only to one kind of sceptical objection.
Again, on the
Every judgement may be taken to involve a psychical lapse and succession, but this aspect of its existence falls outside of the judgement as logical. If, for instance, the judgement asserts a succession, this is not the succession which belongs to its existence as a psychical fact. And again the judgement need not assert any succession at all. In this case within the judgement there is no succession; and whether we begin (as we say) with the subject or begin
Such a doctrine, I know, must appear to be ridiculous. It is absurd, I shall be told, to suggest that there is no reason for my judgement being true except the fact that it is there, and it is perverse to recommend me to hold my judgement standing in order to keep it infallible. But I have made, I reply, no suggestion of this kind. I agree on the contrary that it is our duty to ask and to reflect, and to supersede one judgement by another. Thus ‘He is the person who did that last week’, may be superseded by ‘The truth of that depends merely on my recollection’, and this by ‘After all one must trust one’s memory’, and this again by ‘In the present case the main point is uncertain’. But it does not follow that
1 By doubt here I do not mean the mere psychical oscillation in which, after failure or rejection, the judgement merely comes back again as it was. I mean by doubt the state where the judgement is made an object, and where another idea is held as opposed to it. Again in denial the reader must remember that a judgement may be denied from a basis which is not made explicit. The denial here merely takes the form of. This judgement does not satisfy me.
And at least I cannot deny it except by another judgement which I cannot at once make and regard as fallible. And, while I make a judgement, that which falls outside it is so far nothing to me. The psychical existence with its lapse and its duration is nothing. The priority or independence of any portion of its content is nothing. These things cannot be anything for our judgement till they are brought into that judgement; until, that is, one judgement is superseded by another, itself now infallible. We may end with the decision that there are conflicting ideas between which we are unable to decide, or we may conclude that, in the end and in its full exactitude, no conclusion is tenable. But even here our decision and our conclusion, if we make it,
We have so far seen that my present judgement cannot be taken as fallible, and further that in a sense it must be self-contained. Whatever independent reason there may be for or against its assertion, that reason, while independent, is nothing to my judgement. And if it becomes something for me, then forthwith I have gone beyond my original judgement, which thus has ceased to exist. This conclusion, if trivial, seems certain, but it leads at once to a further question: What am I to mean by one judgement, and how am I to know that one judgement is over and has been succeeded by another? For, if on this point I remain in doubt, our doctrine, however true, will remain inapplicable. When I say today that ‘Caesar is sick’, and tomorrow that ‘he is well’, we naturally should take this as a succession of judgements. But if I tell you that ‘he has crossed the street and has now entered that shop’, you probably take these successive events to be expressed in one judgement. Indeed otherwise we should be led to doubt if in the end any judgement is one. And hence it is necessary to seek a principle by which to decide whether in any given case we have several judgements or one judgement.
The singleness of a judgement lies in the identity of its subject.
1 In what sense a judgement is self-contained, and how we are able to correct one judgement by another, are of course further questions. They involve difficulties which are discussed elsewhere.
2 On this whole matter the reader is referred to Prof. Bosanquet’s logical works.
The subject throughout must be one, and it must remain one for me, and otherwise we have
What I mean by one judgement is an ideal determination of reality in which for my mind the subject remains one and unbroken. It is not enough that at the end I merely have still the same subject, for I may have the same subject in a succession of different judgements. A judgement is one when its subject keeps hold throughout of the diversity, and carries with it to the end everything which it has gained in its process.
1 Everything, that is, which is essential. See below, pp. 396 foll.
The dropping on the road of that character which has been taken up by the way is the fault which makes a solution of logical continuity and draws a line across the process. I have a single judgement where for me the one subject qualifies itself continuously and qualifies itself
Before illustrating the above by some ordinary examples, I must first call attention to a point of importance. By the subject of a judgement I do not mean the mere grammatical subject, or that again which at first sight may seem to be the real subject. The real subject is that, whatever it is, which does in fact qualify itself continuously in the way I have mentioned. In any given judgement to discover what this individual subject is, you must inquire into the meaning of the special judgement before you. And the answer cannot be reached by the application of any general rule.
1 I seem to observe now that scarcely any one who sets a value on himself intellectually, ventures to use the former of these words when he can bring in the latter. It is perhaps difficult for any of us wholly to avoid cant.
2 The doctrine of ‘the universe of discourse’ (the phrase is far from being elegant) has been useful, but it fails here to give us much help. It rightly calls attention to the truth (the discussion of which will be found in Chapters VIII and IX) that judgements are made subject to an unexpressed qualification. Thus when we say that a chimaera does not or again does exist, the term ‘existence’ in each case has a different meaning. But if we ask whether ‘existence’ here is or is not the real subject of the judgement, the doctrine of the ‘universe of discourse’ seems to fail us.
will now give some instances of the principle which we laid down above. If I first say that A has traveled from Paris to London, and then later add that A has traveled from London to Liverpool, we have probably two judgements. If I say on the contrary that, having traveled from Paris to London, he thence went to Liverpool, there is presumably but one judgement. The first half of the journey has in this latter case not dropped off from the subject, and hence we have here no solution of continuity. To assert ‘John is in London’ and then ‘William is in London’, may or may not be one judgement, but ‘John and William are in London’ is certainly one assertion. For here, when we arrive at William, we have not let fall John. The most
1 This statement is once more made subject to explanation given below.
2 Cf. Chapter X, pp. 307-9.
The nature of this subject, I should agree, is not easy to fix, but without it I am forced to conclude that a series is unmeaning. If like a child or an idiot I thoughtlessly repeat ab, ab, that obviously for myself is no series at all. It is a series for me so far as I take the sequence abab as one process. And I do not take it as one process unless the second ab is qualified by the first, unless, that is, the subject of the series carries the first ab with it to
1 Cf. here Chapter XII, pp. 362 following.
I will pass now from the general question to consider some special difficulties. Has the subject in a judgement, we may be asked, really to carry on everything? Is not on the contrary some acquired detail often dropped by the way? Certainly I should agree that not every detail need be carried on to the end. And I should agree that such a retention is often both useless and impossible. If for example I judge that a vehicle has passed from A to D, my final judgement may or may not contain its passage through B and C. But
The subject of the judgement, we have seen, must remain continuously before my mind, but there is a question as to the sense in which it has so to maintain itself. When I trace a genealogy it is clear that I end with a judgement, but as to the subject which maintains itself, and as to how much that subject carries on, we are left after all in some perplexity. And there are cases where our perplexity is
The difficulty which we find in such cases is due, I think, to several causes, (a) The subject in the first place, if present throughout, may be present in more than one shape. The subject may have a character which is more or less fully individualized, or again it may be abbreviated and made schematic to a greater or less degree, (b) In the second place the real and the apparent subject may differ widely, and the former may remain though the latter has lapsed, (c) In the third place, though the subject and with it the judgement has lapsed, yet the process at its end may result in a judgement. And, since in this ensuing judgement the original subject may once more appear, it may hence naturally seem to have been present throughout.
(a) Every judgement, we may remind ourselves, is made in a certain interest; and hence, to discover the shape in which the subject is present, we should begin by asking for the sense in which that subject is wanted. When, for instance, I trace a pedigree from A to Z, I may for the moment perhaps desire only to know that the connexion is direct and unbroken. Thus I begin with A, and I end with the judgement ‘A is the direct ancestor of Z’. And A in this case may throughout the process have remained before my mind, and may never for one moment have lapsed by the way. But how much has qualified A on its road, and in what precise sense A at the end has been modified, is a question which may admit of various answers. Where the series is very short all its steps may possibly remain before my mind, and each severally may in some shape
(b) There is one judgement (we know) so long as one subject develops itself continuously. But, even where the subject may appear to have lapsed, this lapse, we must add, need not affect the real subject of the judgement. For the real subject (this distinction is of supreme importance) may be different from that which at first sight offers itself to us as such. When I trace a genealogy from A to Z, there may come a point at which A is no longer before my mind, but then on the other hand A may not have been the real subject of the process. The actual object of my inquiry may be in fact the whole series. Hence it is the whole series which determines itself continuously before me, and is here the genuine subject of my judgement. I may seek, for example, to discover the length of this series, or again the presence of some quality in its several members or in their modes of sequence. And so far as, however vaguely and schematically, the series as a whole maintains itself before me and develops itself ideally, the result so far is a single judgement. It is accompanied probably by other judgements which I make on the way. But these, so far as they are let fall
In the same way, when watching a house, I may perceive the exit of A or of B, and may end with the judgement that it was A or B who there entered and remained. A man known to be inside may be no doubt here the genuine subject, and throughout he may have been waiting before my mind to be determined further. But on the other hand the subject may have been not the man but the house, or again more generally the whole scene or situation concerned. But so long as while watching I have kept before me something, however vague, to be determined further, and so long as my judgement at the end does determine this subject, there has been an unbroken judgement throughout. And through the whole process of watching this final judgement, we must say, has been continuously in making.
(c) On the other hand the state of watching, if prolonged, tends naturally to degenerate. There may be no constant subject there which develops itself without lapse before my mind. And in this case the process may result in a judgement, but you cannot say that this judgement has been present throughout. When I set myself to watch a house, I may allow the subject more or less to lapse from my mind. I place myself usually, as we say, so as to keep the door in sight or so as perhaps to hear it if opened. I keep myself, that is, so that any change of a certain kind at once attracts my attention. But here my not forgetting, as we say, to be attentive does not imply the continuous presence of an idea before my mind. It does not in short mean that all the time I am attending actually. The house may be associated with the general scene and with my felt uneasiness, so that its absence from my view tends to recall me with a kind of shock. On the other hand the renewed sight of the house renews my uneasiness, and any observed change in it along
The matter is so important that I may be permitted perhaps to repeat and to insist on these distinctions. A feeling which is in my mind and qualifies my felt self is one thing, and an object qualified ideally before my mind is another thing. And what we call a condition of watchfulness or of attention or of standing will, may amount to little or no more than an emotional state.
1 And it hardly, taken at some moments, need even amount actually to that. Cf. Mind, N.S., No. 41, p. 26.
It need not involve the development of a single ideal content throughout the
1 I cannot wholly follow Prof. Royce here; but a melody, perceived as a continuous object, I agree, so far implies judgement.
2 This, however, appears to be the conclusion which was adopted by Prof. Schumann, Zeitschrift für Psych., Bd. xvii, an article noticed in Mind, N.S., No. 33, by the Editor. To myself not only this conclusion but Prof. Schumann’s general view of judgement, as there developed, is quite unintelligible. What precisely his observers took to be and not to be before their minds, when after an interval they made their judgement, is a point to which insufficient attention seems to have been directed. I would venture to suggest that here (as too often happens), from want of theoretical inquiry beforehand, the experiments were largely based on a vicious alternative.
The unity of a judgement, we have now seen, lies in the continuous development of one ideal content. This unity is
Thus an answer to the question of the unity in a judgement does not in principle call for an appeal to psychology. On the other hand there are points where such an appeal, although not necessary, seems desirable, and I refer specially to the duration which we allow to a judgement. Certainly the content of the judgement is one thing and its psychical duration is another thing, and in principle we have seen that the duration is irrelevant. On the other side every judgement is a psychical event and has therefore duration. Wholly to deny the existence of this aspect seems a fundamental error,
1 Cf. Mind, N.S., No. 41.
2 I am not asking above how the unity of the idea is in fact maintained. That is a further question which here I think it is not needful to discuss. All that I am urging is this, that the unity of the ideal content is essential, and that, unless you both recognize this unity and also treat it as a feature belonging to or resulting from a certain psychological state, the appeal to psychology has added nothing. And in any case the addition seems here quite unnecessary.
3 This fatally unsound position seems to me to be taken by Prof. Münsterberg in his Grundzüge d. Psychologie.
1 The qualification of the house by A is not present, we may presume, actually on the exit of B, but is then recalled. The judgement therefore begins at this point.
Logically the duration of a judgement, if viewed merely as psychical, is irrelevant. But taken otherwise that duration
1 Cf. here Chapter XII, p. 368.
1 This is not the place to discuss this whole question, together with the special nature of theoretical satisfaction.
I will pass from this to deal, rapidly and in conclusion, with several questions. Every judgement, while I make it, must be taken by me as infallible, but, when once it has been made, the situation seems altered. A judgement, we say, may be corrected by a later judgement. It may be subordinated to this later judgement, and over-ridden by it in a way which here I am unable to discuss. But can we say that every judgement remains standing until in this way it has been rectified explicitly? Such an assertion would assume that judgements once made remain always before me, and maintain themselves in living connexion with every later judgement. And this assumption would obviously be contrary to fact. In fact our past judgements may be wholly forgotten, and, where not forgotten, they may often be said to be unconsciously modified and altered, unknown to us, in order to suit our altered present. Subject to this limitation a judgement, once made, may perhaps be said to stand till corrected. But on the other hand we can maintain this only if we assume that a certain condition is satisfied. A past judgement holds not because once it was made, nor
We may finally deal with the postulate as to memory’s general correctness. This remains standing and valid although the infallibility of memory has been rejected as illusory. We are accustomed in practice to assume that memory is correct so far as we have no special reason for doubting it. And this assumption is rational, but it is not ultimate. Its warrant is that it enables us best to introduce order into our world, and to make our experience as a whole more concordant and inclusive. And, if so, our assumption’s force is obviously derivative.
1 The reader is now referred to Chapter IX.
2 Cf. Chapter XII, p. 374.
As far as we have
I may now briefly resume the main results of this chapter. My present judgement must be taken by me as infallible, and on the other hand memory cannot claim any independent or ultimate force. Any such claim, we saw, led inevitably to ruinous scepticism. The main difficulty in the case, we found, arises from a confusion between what I assert and my state as asserting it. My psychical state may be complex, and full of lapse and of dependency on something foreign. But none of these characters can be transferred to the judgement itself, and its independence and its unity remain unaffected. This suggested the doubt as to what in the end is the unity of a judgement, and we found an answer in the continuous and progressive development of the subject for me. Nothing can be dropped by the subject except what falls outside of and is incidental to the judgement’s end. And we then went on to ask for the sense in which the subject must throughout be present to my mind, and were led here to offer some important distinctions. With regard to the duration of a judgement we allowed in principle no appeal to psychology, but we found it better for several reasons to limit that duration. We finally touched on the question how far a judgement once made remains standing, and stated the rational ground for our assumption that memory is in general correct.
Chapter XIV. What Is the Real Julius Caesar?
The main point, what. Preliminary warning. Necessary distinctions (410-11). Finite centres, their nature, duration, identity, and plurality (410-12). Digression on transcending finite centres (412-14). Soul, what (414-16). Self, what. (416-18). How my self is mine only, and its importance (418-20). Self and Soul how related (420-1). Return to the main question. The real Caesar cannot be limited to the Caesar as directly experienced (422-3). The individual is real so far as he works in any sense, even in mere knowledge (423-5). Ideal and real experience are not separable (425-7). Our main result may be indefinite, but is necessary (427).
It may throw some light on the general position defended by myself, if I briefly state the answer which in my opinion should be given to this question. I will begin by emphasizing what to myself is the main and vital issue. Mr. Russell in a recent essay
The problem of the ultimate reality of Julius Caesar is obviously one which in a limited space cannot be thoroughly discussed. I can here deal with it but partially, and only on the assumption that the general conclusion which I have advocated is sound. To me the Universe is one Reality which appears in finite centers, and it hence is natural to ask at once if Julius Caesar is to be identified with a finite center. The reply is obviously in the negative. A finite center is not a soul, or a self, or an individual person.
1 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. xi, pp. 118-19.
There is, however, one point to which I must first call attention. The Universe to me is one Experience which appears in finite centers. I take this to be true, but on the other hand it is not the whole truth. It is the truth to my mind so far as truth is attainable by me, but it nevertheless remains imperfect, and in the end it is not intelligible. Our ultimate conceptions, that is, are necessary, and in a sense they are really ultimate. But there are features in them which without any satisfactory insight we have to accept, since we are able to do no better. The complete experience which would supplement our ideas and make them perfect, is in detail beyond our understanding. And the reader, throughout what follows, will, I hope, not ignore this general warning.
To proceed then, a finite center, when we speak strictly, is not itself in time. It is an immediate experience of itself and of the Universe in one. It comes to itself as all the world and not as one world among others. And it has properly no duration through which it lasts. It can contain a lapse and a before and after, but these are subordinate. They are partial aspects that fall within the whole, and that, taken otherwise, do not qualify the whole itself. A finite center itself may indeed be called duration in the sense of presence. But such a present is not any time which is opposed to a past and future. It is temporal in the sense of being itself the positive and concrete negation of time.
1 See my Appearance, the last chapter, for a discussion of this matter.
2 I will allow myself to add two passages from an early work of my own. ‘The present is the filling of that duration in which the reality appears to me directly; and there can be no part of the succession of events so small or so great, that conceivably it might not appear as present.’…‘Presence is really the negation of time, and never can properly be given in the series. It is not the time that can ever be present, but only the content.’ Principles of Logic (pub. 1883), pp. 52-3. The reader will of course not understand me here to claim originality for a doctrine which I inherited.
1 Cf. here Chapter XII.
2 From such a position as mine it is obvious that the question whether change is in the end real, admits of but one answer. The Universe contains change, but the Universe itself cannot change. I would gladly deal here or elsewhere with any arguments in favor of an opposite conclusion. But, to speak frankly, those arguments, so far as I know them, have failed to understand the position which they seek to attack.
And thus in the end a finite center has no identity with any past or future of itself. It has, or it contains, a character, and on that character its past and future depend. And the special quality which makes my self one self as against others, remains (I will return to this point) in unbroken unity with that character. But the identity of a center or a self with itself in time is essentially ideal. Its being depends on construction and holds good only through a breach in the immediate given unity of what and that. And so, to speak strictly, there is in my life neither continuance nor repetition of a finite center. For a center is timeless, and for itself it is not even finite as being itself one thing among others. To speak of its continuance and its sameness is to apply to it expressions which we are forced
The duration of a finite center in time, and a plurality of centers which do not share their immediate experiences as immediate, are (I would repeat) necessary ideas. They are conceptions without which we could not express ourselves, and through which alone we can formulate that higher truth which at once contains and transcends them. Such ideal constructions, on the one hand, beyond question are real, and their reality is affirmed both in thought and volition. But they are neither immediately given nor in the end are they wholly intelligible. They are special appearances the full and ultimate reality of which cannot in detail be known.
It is interesting to inquire into the stages of that process by which we enter into possession of our everyday world, and it is important to trace in outline that development by which we come to distinguish outward things from our selves, and our own self from others. But in principle we are concerned here not with the origin but with the nature of our knowledge. We have seen that a finite center, so far as it exists as an object, so far as it endures in time, and is one of a number, is made and subsists by ideal construction. There really is within the Absolute a diversity of finite centers. There really is within finite centers a world of objects. And the continuance and identity of a finite center, together with the separation of itself from all others, can become an object to that center. These things are realities, and yet, because imperfect, they are but appearances which differ in degree. That they are supplemented and without loss are all made good absolutely in the Whole, we are led to conclude. But how in detail this is accomplished, and exactly what the diversity of finite centers means in the end, is beyond our knowledge.
To repeat myself thus may perhaps be useless, and is certainly not pleasant to myself. And yet I will pause to
From the side of the Universe, so to express ourselves, the one Reality is present in a plurality of finite centers, but so that these do not directly share their experiences as immediate. None the less the one Universe is there, and it is real throughout, and it is also a higher experience in which every unshared diversity is unified and harmonized. How this ‘also’ is possible, and how there can be such a thing as appearance, we on the one hand do not understand. But, on the other hand, that the thisness of each finite center must prevent the one Absolute from knowing itself and from realizing itself in and through finite centers, otherwise than in their several immediacies—of this again I assuredly am ignorant. My critics may perceive and may even comprehend this alleged incompatibility, but to my mind the incompatibility does not exist. For rejecting a higher experience, in which appearances are transformed, I can find no reason, while on the contrary I have more than sufficient reason to accept it.
Again, to view the same thing from the side of my finite center, all my experience and knowledge is that of the Universe and this center in one, and therefore clearly without exception all my knowledge is ‘transcendent’. The entirety of the object-world, the prolongation in time of my finite center, its conscious limitation as one among others and as mine and not yours, the whole of this distinguished region comes from and lives through transcendence. To ask as to the possibility of my passing beyond my finite center seems therefore senseless. My being is there only because and in so far as my being is also and
What I mean by truth and reality is that world which satisfies the claim of the Universe present in and to what I call my self. Here is the one criterion, and to me no other criterion is possible. This satisfaction, I am sure, implies that the Universe immanent in my self is present also otherwise and elsewhere. The Reality therefore I take to have this character, and, though I cannot understand how it is so, I find no reason in my own want of comprehension. Thus by the radical incompatibility, of which my critics speak, I am not moved. For they have themselves made their own difficulty, because they have begun by falsifying the nature of things. It is they who have dismembered the living whole, and have sunk it in the pits which they have dug, and out of which they challenge it to rise. But this illusory construction of their own is possible only because in the end it is not true. Their divided world is made thinkable only by that totality which itself throughout upholds and is beyond it.
After this digression, which I hope the reader will excuse, I will return to our main inquiry. I will proceed to ask as to the meaning of a soul and again of a self. Neither of these ideas must be confused with what we call a finite center, and with each there is a demand for careful distinction.
What is a soul? A soul is a finite center viewed as an object existing in time with a before and after of itself.
1 See Appearance, and Mind, No. 33. The reader will bear in mind that, though feeling is in itself not an object, on the other hand, when you go on to view it as an event, you have so far made it objective. For psychology everything psychical which happens is in one sense an object, though most certainly not everything is an object for the individual soul in question.
Whether the soul is essentially one among other souls need not be discussed. I cannot myself see that an affirmative answer is necessary, but the question here seems not relevant. We may say the same of the doubt whether
The self in the first place is not the same as the finite center. We may even have a finite center without any self, where that center contains no opposition of self to not-self. On the other hand we have a self wherever within a finite center there is an object. An object involves opposition, theoretical and practical, and this opposition is to a self, and it must so be felt. As to the duration of a self, that in principle need be no more than momentary. If we keep to ordinary usage a different reply would have perhaps to be given, but the usage, so far as I can judge, does not rest on any principle. And, again, for myself I cannot see that to be a self implies what is called memory. Wherever you take a finite center as containing the opposition of not-self to self, and as having, of course, some duration through which this opposition remains or recurs, you have reached that which we term a self. It is usual, of course, for the object to consist at least partly of other selves, but to my mind this feature is certainly not essential.
We have, then, first (i) an immediate felt whole without any self or object.
1 On these matters see my Appearance.
2 On this and the following points cf. Chapter VI.
Next (ii), where we find an object
(vi) The question why one finite center, rather than any other, should be mine, can now be readily answered. My self, we have seen, depends on that which cannot become merely an object, and hence it remains intimately one thing with that finite center within which my Universe appears. Other selves on the contrary are for me ideal objects, the being of which is made by opposition and construction.
1 See Appearance, chapter ix.
2 That any mind should have an immediate and direct experience of another mind seems, to me at least, out of the question. So far as I know, the only ground for such a doctrine is to be found in a false alternative. There is an apparent failure to perceive the extent to which my knowledge even of my own self is itself ideal and not immediate. My self and other selves are, each alike, constructions made in my experience. But my self is connected there with the basis of feeling, as other selves, in my experience, most certainly are not connected. If, however, we are to believe in memory in the sense of a direct knowledge of the past, and are to believe, again, in a direct experience of others’ states, I do not see why, in principle, we should not claim to experience Caesar, even today, directly from the inside.
It is true that other selves and God are far more than mere ideal objects. On the contrary, the wills of others can, as we say, be taken up into mine or mine resolved into theirs. And, however we phrase it, this real unity of emotion and action is most certain; and I know that God’s will or that of others is carried out in my volition into actual fact. Nay, in comparison with the reality of this higher common will, anything that is merely my own can be experienced as unreal and worthless. And yet, so far as within my center the overruling end is realized, the volition is mine in a sense in which it belongs to no other being. It realizes and it expresses that which is felt as itself in unbroken unity with what is given, while it is only with a different center that another’s will can be felt as thus intimately one. I can be aware of a common will which is realized in and by myself. I can be sure that, present also in another person, this same common will is also felt directly as his own. But, though each of us knows certainly of the other’s feeling, neither of us can experience it as it comes in direct unity with immediate experience.
It is only because it is an object that the other, for me, is another at all. Our joint experience, which I feel, I can feel as yours only on the strength of an ideal construction, which does not cease to be such because it is also a familiar fact. Our common feeling may in you, as in me, be referred ideally to both me and yourself. But that which in your experience makes in the end your feeling to be yours is no construction, while in my experience it depends on and
It does not follow from the above that I myself am my world, or that I possess any superior importance or reality. As against the Universe, against the community or God, I may find myself, as we saw, to be trifling and contemptible. The nothingness of the self, in fear and in the condemnation of the higher Will, is familiar to us all. I have indeed a special and a singular reality possessed by naught else. This reality of mine is even indispensable to the Universe. But the same thing holds again of the meanest rudiment of fact or least vestige of appearance. That which is indispensable has its place; but what kind of place and what amount of value belongs to it we have still to ask. The World and God without myself are in the end inconceivable—so much is certain. But this tells us nothing as to the degree and as to the manner in which I serve to conduce to their reality. In short I cannot suppose that those critics who charge me with Solipsism can have much of an idea as to the position in which I stand. My self is not my finite center, and my finite center is but one amongst many, and it is not the Universe. It is the whole Universe entire and undivided, but it is that Universe only so far as it appears in one with a single center. Feeling is the beginning, and it is the source of all material, and it forms the enfolding element and abiding ground of our world. But feeling is not that world, and it is not the criterion of Reality. The criterion for each of us is that system of developed content which we call true and good and beautiful. But for further explanation the reader must be referred to other chapters.
(vii) The intimate connexion of the finite center and the self leads us continually into error. We identify the two, and then, failing perhaps to distinguish the finite center from the
The true relation of the self to the soul may be now stated briefly. The soul is a self so far as within that soul we have the felt opposition of not-self to self. Whether within a soul there can at any time be more than one self, is a question which here we need not answer. For myself any decision on this point would have to remain more or less arbitrary. The same reply must be given if we are asked whether personal identity and the identity of the soul are indistinguishable or at least must coincide. But it is not necessary for us here to embarrass ourselves with these problems.
1 Cf. Appearance, chapters ix and x.
Passing them by, we may observe how a want of clearness as to the relative positions of soul and self leads us fatally to confusion or ruin. On the one hand the self is a content which falls within the soul, and must, I suppose, in a sense be regarded as its ‘state’. Hence, if we forget to distinguish the self from the finite center, which finite center, as prolonged, we have turned into the soul-thing, the result is certain disaster. Every psychical content will belong to, and will be an adjective of, the self, while again the self will be an adjective and a state, in the end, of itself. On the other hand, if the soul be taken as an aggregation or collective unity, the self tends to become a mere ‘ingredient’ which with others is found in this vessel. The self has here been turned into a mere object and its essence has vanished. For that essence, as we saw, lived in feeling and was inseparable from immediate experience as a whole.
The foregoing discussion has, I fear, been wearisome,
(a) Even these limits, it may be argued, are already far too wide. The real Caesar is the man who is actually perceived, and, further, the man is not a body but is mental, and no one, we have agreed, but the man himself can perceive his own mind. The reality of Caesar must be therefore confined to his own self-knowledge. But from the above it follows that no one else, not even Caesar’s own mother, ever knew the real Caesar, and that we ourselves now are even more ignorant, if greater ignorance can exist. And yet, even with this, the being of Caesar has not been narrowed to its strict reality. For how much of Caesar was ever given even to himself in direct knowledge? That knowledge, whenever actual, was certainly confined to one present time. The past of Caesar and his future never came within his own experience. It was the being of a fleeting moment of which alone he was aware, and aware even of that, we may add, but imperfectly; and it is in this fragment or succession of fragments that at last we have reached the actual hero. In other words the real man has, if not essentially, at least mainly become a thing unknowable even by himself. And,
(b) If, however, leaving this error, we go on to fix other limits, and now confine the reality of Caesar within the period of his own lifetime, is our position more secure? On the contrary we seem left at once without any principle at all—unless the identification of Caesar with his perishing body is perhaps to serve as a principle. And in short our narrowing of his true being to the mere period in which he lived, seems once more to rest on prejudice. Based on no principle, it is in collision both with common sense and consistent theory, and may be finally dismissed.
How far then, we ask, is the reality of the individual to extend? It extends, I reply, in a word just so far as it works. As far as any man has knowledge, so far, I insist, the man himself really is there in what is known. And it seems even obvious that his reality goes out as far as what we call his influence extends. The real individual is in short ‘that sphere which his activity doth fill’. The question within what limits a man feels and is aware of himself, does not, we saw, when it is answered, give you the bounds of his reality. And, if it is objected that the limits have now become too indefinite to be fixed, I reply that I both recognize and accept this consequence. It is a consequence which conflicts, so far as I see, with nothing better than prejudice.
Why should I be forced to believe that the great minds of the past, where they influence me, are unreal, and are themselves simply dead? Surely I am right to ask here for a reason, and for a reason that will bear scrutiny. ‘Then you imagine also’, I perhaps may hear, ‘that a man’s will really can survive his death.’ Long ago, I reply, I have
We must accept a like consequence with regard to dead Caesar’s knowledge. A man actually must be there, wherever his knowledge extends, even if that knowledge is of the unseen present or of the past or future. So far as Caesar in his own day foresaw ours, his proper reality was not limited to his own world or time. He was and he is present there, wherever anything that the Universe contains was present to his mind. Caesar of course was not, and he is not, in our own time as we ourselves now are there. The distinction is obvious and to ignore it would be even absurd. On the other hand this separation only holds within limits, and it is perfectly compatible with the real presence of Caesar in his known object. The further result that Caesar’s knowledge will affect the being of, and will make a difference to, his object, must again be affirmed. But as to the amount of such a difference of course nothing is implied. Differences may be there, and yet may fairly be called inappreciable. For certain of our purposes, that is, they may be taken as negligible.
1 Mind, N.S., No. 44, p. 11. Cf. Mind, O.S., No. 49, p. 21, for the question as to the object of desire.
2 Cf. Chapter XI, pp. 336-7.
It is then not evident, it is far from being evident, that the real Caesar is unable to come within my knowledge. He enters into my judgement on the contrary just as I, if he had foreseen me, might have been an actual constituent of his known world. Such a view, I fully admit, brings with
We are here confronted by that error which consists in the sundering of ideal from real experience. If we know only by ideas, we never (it is an old argument) are able to reach reality, that reality, at least, which we find in direct awareness. But the whole division, when you take it thus as absolute separation, is false. We never anywhere know merely by ideas, and in the end a mere idea is but a ruinous abstraction, just as, on the other hand, wherever we have an object, our knowledge cannot fail to be ideal. That ideal construction in which for us the entire past consists, is based on and is inseparable from present feeling and perception. If these do not support and do not enter into that extension of themselves which is the past, that past has disappeared. You may insist that Caesar, at least as he knew himself, falls outside of our construction, but even this contention, understood as you understand it, is false. My idea of Caesar is not in the full sense an immediate experience of Caesar’s mind, and as to this there is no question. But I have none the less an idea of Caesar’s immediate experience, and my idea is true, and, so far as it goes, it is real, and actually, so far, it is Caesar’s own direct awareness of himself. The difference here is not a wall which divides and isolates two worlds. The immediate experience and the idea of it, are, on the contrary, one in substance and in reality. Why they should not be so, I fail to perceive, and I am convinced, that if they are not so, our knowledge is illusion.
1 When (to use the instance given by Mr. Russell in his essay referred to already) we assert that Scott was the author of Waverley, what we presuppose as true and real is the idea of a unique individual man at such and such a determinate place in our unique ‘real’ order of space and time. This idea, Mr. Russell contends, is not a constituent of any judgement. It is on the contrary, lie says, something indeterminate which falls outside our proposition.
Any such doctrine to my mind is both false and utterly ruinous. I urge that in connexion with present perception, and by an ideal extension of that, we get the idea Of a unique series and order, with a unique man at a certain part of that series and order. Such an idea is incomplete, but it is positive and determinate, and most assuredly it does enter into our judgement. And, if this is not so, then what Mr. Russell has to show is how our judgement can possibly be anything but senseless, and again how in fact our judgement even is possible.
With regard to Mr. Russell’s contention that there are propositions without any denotation (p. 122), I of course reject this. The sense in which all propositions have denotation, and all are existential, has been long ago discussed by me (I admit imperfectly) in my Principles of Logic. Cf. Chapter III of this volume. The general view advocated by Prof. Bosanquet and myself seems (I would venture to add) to be ignored by Meinong and again by Mr. Russell.
There is immediate experience assuredly which
The past and future (once more to repeat this) are ideal constructions which extend the given present. And our present world itself is a construction based on feeling and perception, ‘construction’ here meaning for us (the reader will note) a living outgrowth of the continuous reality. The past and future vary, and they have to vary, with the changes of the present, and, to any man whose eyes are open, such variation is no mere theory but is plain fact. But, though ideal, the past and future are also real, and, if they were otherwise, they could be nothing for judgement or knowledge. They are actual, but they must remain incomplete essentially. Caesar’s direct feeling and self-awareness are known by us really. Our knowledge does not go far, but, so far as it goes, our idea is the veritable reality. And, if it were anything else, then once more surely we could have no idea of Caesar. The immediate experience which Caesar had of himself, if you take that, not in its general character, but in its unbroken felt totality of particular detail, remains
The real individual then (we find) does not fall merely within a moment, nor is he bounded by his birth and death, nor is he in principle confined to any limited period. He lives there wherever the past or future of our ‘real’ order is present to his mind, and where in any other way whatever he influences or acts on it. If you complain that these limits are too indefinite, I will not ask you to reflect also whether the individual’s reality does not pass even beyond the temporal order. I will content myself here with urging that at least any limit in time can in the end be seen to be arbitrary. We must treat the individual as real so far as anywhere for any purpose his being is appreciable. If this is to be inconsistent, it is still perhaps our least inconsistent course, and it is our way, our only way, of satisfactory knowledge.
1 Cf. Appearance, and Chapter VII, p. 205. The reader will, I hope, bear in mind the difference between the felt basis on which the knowledge of self depends, and, on the other side, that knowledge itself.
Chapter XV. On God and the Absolute
The Absolute not God and why (428-9). Inconsistency in religion. Attempt to avoid this by making God finite (429-30). But religion has not to be consistent theoretically, and it has to use the ideas which best serve its main interest (430-2). The personality of God is certainly not necessary for all religion, but is a valid idea (432-3). In personal religion the personality is not all on one side (433-4). God has reality in the religious consciousness, apart from which an Individual Person would not really be God. Theoretical consistency must be sacrificed (434-8). Continued personal existence after death is certainly not the main interest of religion. But, if and so far as really demanded in that interest, it may be accepted as true. Mere hope, fear, and curiosity as to the spirit-world are not religious (438-40). Morality and Religion difference between them (441-2). This chapter will not be satisfactory to the reader who holds to what he calls Common Sense. The defects of this last. Are they irremediable? In general by Metaphysics, Yes. And otherwise? (442-7).
The following pages will contain little beyond that which I have published already,
1 Appearance, chapters xxv and xxvi.
I have not, I know, to repeat to those who are acquainted with my book that for me
But from the above it follows that there is a fundamental inconsistency in religion. For, in any but an imperfect religion, God must be perfect. God must be at once the complete satisfaction of all finite aspiration, and yet on the other side must stand in relation with my will. Religion (at least in my view) is practical, and on the other hand in the highest religion its object is supreme goodness and power.
An obvious method of escape is to reject the perfection of God. God will still remain good, but in a limited sense. He will be reduced to a person who does the best that is in him with limited knowledge and power. Sufficiently superior to ourselves to be worshiped, God will nevertheless be imperfect, and, with this admitted imperfection, it will be said, our religion is saved. For the practical opposition and struggle between our will and God’s, the hindrance or furtherance (as the case may be) of either will by the other, will be utter reality. It will be fact and truth not conditioned by anything standing higher than, or going beyond, itself.
Now certainly on such terms religion still can persist, for there is practical devotion to an object which is taken, with all its defects, to be at a level far above our own. Such a religion even in one sense, with the lowering of the Deity, may be said to have been heightened. To help a God in his struggle, more or less doubtful and blind, with resisting Evil, is no inferior task. And if the issue were taken as uncertain, or if even further the end were known to be God’s indubitable defeat and our inevitable disaster, our religion would have risen thereby and would have attained to the extreme of heroism. But on the other hand, if religion is considered as a whole and not simply from one side, it is not true that with the lowering of God religion tends to grow higher. A principal part of religion is the assured satisfaction of our good will, the joy and peace in that assurance, and the added strength which in the majority of men can come perhaps from no other source.
And yet it will be urged that we have ourselves agreed that all other ways of escape are closed. For, if God is perfect, we saw that religion must contain inconsistency, and it was by seeking consistency that we were driven to a limited God. But our assumption here, I reply, is precisely that which we should have questioned from the first. Is there any need for our attempt to avoid self-contradiction? Has religion really got to be consistent theoretically? Is ultimate theoretical consistency a thing which is attainable anywhere? And, at all events, is it a thing attainable in life and in practice? This is the fundamental question upon which the whole issue depends. And I need not pause here to ask whether it is quite certain that, when God is limited, the Universe becomes theoretically consistent?
I have elsewhere discussed the question of theoretical consistency. 2 With a certain exception (and how far this is an exception I have explained) I have argued that all truth must be imperfect. Truth cannot in the end become consistent and ultimately true, but, for all that, it is satisfactory in varying degrees.
1 Chapter IX. See also the Index of this volume. {Consistency (cf. Coherence, Truth), 123-4, 132-3, 268, 318, 430-2, 435-8, 445.}
The idea that in the special sciences, and again in practical life, we have absolute truths,
Viewed thus the question as to what may be called religious ideas is seriously changed. To insist on ultimate theoretical consistency, which in no case can we reach, becomes once for all ridiculous. The main question is as to the real nature and end of religion, and as to the respective importance of those aspects which belong to it. The ideas which best express our highest religious needs and their satisfaction, must certainly be true. Ultimate truth they do not possess, and exactly what in the end it would take to make them perfect we cannot know. But in this respect they are like the whole body of special truths attainable by us, or indeed by any other possible finite beings, whether in this life and world or in any other. What we have to consider is the relative importance of that purpose which the ideas serve, and how well, viewed from all sides, they aid and express its satisfaction.
If the object of religion is to realize in the fullest sense in my will the supremacy of goodness, then the ideas and the practices called for by this object are true and right. The test in every case is to ask whether our ideas and practices really answer to our need, while to judge them from the outside by applying some other criterion is mistaken and dangerous. This I take to be the principle, but I cannot here discuss doubts as to the genuine essence of religion, and still less can I offer to decide on those particular ideas
I will touch briefly on two points which I have elsewhere discussed, laying at that time perhaps an undue emphasis on one aspect of the matter.
1 The doctrine that there cannot be religion without a personal God is to my mind certainly false.
But there is one condition on
Before proceeding I may warn the reader against a dangerous mistake. It may be said that, if anywhere, we find personality in religion. Personal striving and discord, satisfaction and peace, are essential to that experience. And hence, if there is a difficulty as to the personality of God, why not avoid this by confining all that is personal to the side of man? Why not insist, it will be urged, not merely that God is self-conscious only in me, but also that this self-consciousness in the end is merely mine? Any such contention must however be rejected for a double reason. Religion, in the first place, is throughout a two-sided affair. Hence to place on one side (whichever that side is) the felt struggle and harmony, and the consciousness of unity and discord, is to remove the essence of religion. How far we may go in representing mythologically each
1 Appearance, and cf. Chapter XIV of this volume.
We encounter here the main hindrance to the adoption of a view of religion such as that which I have accepted. On the assumption that individual men, yourself and myself, are real each in his own right, to speak of God as having reality in the religious consciousness, I agree, is nonsense. God must be another independent individual, and, if not that, is not real at all. On the other hand, unless this whole assumption is rejected or ignored, the essential content of the religious consciousness must, I submit, be lost or denied. And the independent reality of the individual, when we examine it, is in truth mere illusion. Apart from the community what are separate men? It is the common mind within him which gives reality to the
If you can deny social reality, if you can maintain, for example, that the State is a mere aggregate or abstraction, and can affirm that the human individual taken by himself is still there and still human, then at least you are consistent. And it is but a consequence when you refuse also to admit the reality of the one spirit which is present in religion. But otherwise I fail to understand how your difficulty is rational. For me, if the individual by himself anywhere is a fact, the whole Universe is wrecked, while, from the other side, if anywhere the community is real, the reality of God in religion seems a matter of course. The Supreme Will for good which is experienced within finite minds is an obvious fact, and it is the doubt as to anything in the whole world being more actual than this, which seems most to call for inquiry. If you turn this indwelling will into a mere relation between yourself and another individual, religion has perished and the world is so far destroyed. The question which, so much being admitted, you can go on to ask, is whether and in what sense the reality of the immanent Will is also personal.
I have stated already that I cannot accept a personal
1 I do not think that the facts of dual or multiple personality can help us here. It is, I believe, found that the more inclusive of these personalities is, at least in general, the lower. And it is perhaps the case that the opposite relation is excluded by a principle. Still I do not deny the possibility of a higher inclusive will which can say ‘I’ to itself, whether, for instance, in the case of the State or some other human community, or again in the case, say, of some planet or even of the Universe. The difficulty, however, remains that any such will must be finite, and that, when you try to make it more, you pass at once into another form of being and knowledge. God’s ways, in short, must be so different from our ways that in the end, we may say, we find them cease even to be God’s ways.
The so-called ‘pantheism’ which breathes through much
The difficulties in the way of any view such as mine will always be serious. It will recommend itself to few except those who have realized that on any opposite view the difficulties are worse. If you can accept individualism—the doctrine that I and you, apart from any substantial unity, are real—then what I have to offer must be rejected. But on the other side how much is implied in its rejection I have tried to show. This may be called the first obstacle, and a second obstacle lies in the demand everywhere for strict theoretical consistency. No one is likely to content
I will now pass on to say a few words about what is called ‘immortality’. I do not think that my individual existence, whether before my birth or after my death, could possibly be disproved by metaphysics, and in favor of each existence have been urged metaphysical arguments which I do not discuss.
1 On this subject see Dr. McTaggart’s Studies in Hegelian Cosmology and Some Dogmas of Religion. Cf. also the following chapter of this volume.
2 There are some further remarks in this chapter, Supplementary Note B.
What is wanted for religion is not the mere continuance, in either direction beyond this life, of something which in a sense may be called myself. The main demand of religion is for the assurance that the individual, as one with the Good, has so far conquered death, and that what we call this life with its before and after is not the main reality. If and so far as it is necessary in the interest of
I have no desire to discuss once again the arguments for what is called immortality. From a religious point of view their value, at least to my mind, seems limited.
1 The insatiable divine discontent within our finite personalities, according to Prof. Royce (William James, pp. 296-7), calls for and implies satisfaction; and therefore we are to have ‘an opportunity for an endless series of deeds’. As this, at least to some minds, appears to be the evident condemnation of both God and themselves to the fate of Tantalus, and as Prof. Royce can hardly be unaware of this result, I am once more led to wonder whether on this question of personal immortality there is much use in argument.
We are encountered here once more by the unfortunate
1 The same remark is again applicable to any mere curiosity as to ‘spirits’, or as to our own condition after death. Such curiosity is not in the proper sense religious at all. I am of course not condemning any kind of scientific inquiry, so far as it is scientific. And I fully recognize that, for instance, in some present attempts to communicate with the dead there is much which deserves sympathy. Though anything like necromancy to myself is most distasteful, I cannot doubt the genuineness, at least in part, of the motive which prompts these attempts. But there is too much tendency, I think, to forget certain aspects of the matter. And the first point is that mere personal survival and continuance has in itself absolutely nothing to do with true religion. A man can be as irreligious (for anything at least that I know) in a hundred lives as in one. And the second point is this. If you are to treat the evidence scientifically, you must divest your mind of preconceived ideas. But, when this is done, and when we are satisfied that we converse with beings other than living men, the question as to what these beings are at once becomes formidable. The old reply, still given, I believe, by orthodox Catholicism, has at least to be considered. The inquiry which is opened is in short not altogether a pleasant one, and the ordinary course, so far as I know, is to avoid it blindly. What I myself wrote on this head some time ago (Fortnightly Review, December 1885) is, I recognize, one-sided and unsatisfactory; but it contains, I think, doubts which are far easier to ignore than to remove. For instance, to discuss the question of the identification of a ‘spirit’ without any regard to what is involved logically in the identification of a man, seems to be still the common way, and to myself it still seems to be ridiculous.
1 Some further remarks may perhaps be offered to the reader. If you contemplate the realized good as a perceived, individual, self-existing object, it is beautiful. To be so contemplated it must of course be loosened from its context, be taken out of its space and time, and have thus become eternal. And it is possible so to take an actual person or action. But with beauty there is no essential relation of my will to the object.
It is otherwise with the object of religion. That, no matter how far it stands above the world of events, is taken as the felt consummation of my whole being, in which my self is at one with this utter reality. My will is included in the object, and included not by way of relation, but in felt intimate unity in which it is satisfied. But religion has also another side, and here my will is related to the object as to a superior will, and can even conflict with that object. This aspect of relation is essential to religion. It depends on, and is subordinate to, the former aspect in which the entire reality, including my satisfied will, is already there in the object and is felt as mine and as absolute. But, though subordinate, this feature of practical relation and of possible discord is necessary for religion, and serves to distinguish it from that which is merely aesthetic. The aesthetic object fails to comprehend and so to demand the whole of my being.
The object in religion must be idealized so as to be taken out of time, and on the other side it must be no mere idea but be real. And, in the sense of utterly satisfactory, the object is absolute. But, so far as these characters are preserved, the object can be finite. A man’s country, the view of his native place or of his home, may, for example, be objects for religion, if the man feels that ‘this reality is my consummation’. The finite reality is taken thus out of time and, we may say, as absolute. But there is here a contradiction in principle between the characters of absoluteness and finitude. And, as religion develops, it is seen that the true object of religion can in the end be nothing finite.
For morality, in the stricter sense, the object (in this unlike the religious object) is not real. Or, if and so far as the moral ideal is taken as real, this ideal, if it is to remain moral, must not appear as the complete realized Good. Wherever the moral ideal is viewed as existing, it may, so far, become beautiful, and in any case it tends to pass into a form of worshiped reality, where mere morality is transcended. Morality, in the sense of duty, emphasizes that aspect of relation and process which religion admits only as overridden by the aspect of realized Good. Thus the moral failure to realize a duty becomes in religion the falling away from one’s essential being and reality. And everywhere religion must be taken as the completion and fulfillment of what is moral.
I do not suppose that what I have said above with regard to God and Immortality has given satisfaction. The reader
I cannot believe that a general remedy for our disease is to be found in the study of Metaphysics. My own experience, it is true, might tend to support that idea. Metaphysical speculation has led me, if I may speak of myself, neither to scepticism nor to pessimism. It has on the contrary, I hope, inspired me with a higher and a wider confidence, and a better-grounded sympathy with all that is best in life. It has in principle broken down the unnatural barrier between beauty and truth, between poetry and fact.
Such a scepticism, I would add, if not the best issue, may serve at least as a deliverance from spiritual oppression. For it may free us on every side from the tyranny of intellectual prejudices, and in our own living concerns from the superstitious idolatry of abstract consistency.
1 Cf. pp. 123-4, 132-3.
For such a scepticism all our truths without exception are mere working ideas. And this of course does not mean that all truths are ‘practical’. It means that our ideas are there to serve our living interests, of whatever kind these may be, whether practical or otherwise, and that our ideas are to be subject to those interests which they serve. Hence any claim on the part of these ideas to dictate to us on the ground of consistency or of ‘Common Sense’, may at once be dismissed as ridiculous. And, with this, there comes in principle an end to the worship of abstractions, abstractions whether of the school or of the market-place. And there comes the perception that prose and ‘fact’ may be fanciful in a more extravagant and in a lower sense than poetry or
Such a result, where there is nothing better, may be welcome, and yet such a result is not in general enough. For theoretical scepticism, if it is to have no bad side, demands (we must not forget) some strength of character. And, apart from this, there is a desire deep-seated in our nature for what we call truth, and for the intelligent and rational justification of our best instincts. We want and we require in short some kind of working creed, and this requirement is hardly met by any mere collection of working ideas. And where there are no metaphysics, or where metaphysics have led to no positive result, such a doctrine apparently would have to rest on what we call religion, individual or general.
There is, I should say, a need, and there is even a certain demand, for a new religion. We want a creed to recognize and justify in due proportion all human interests, and at the same time to supply the intellect with that to which it can hold with confidence. Whether we shall get this new religion, and, if so, how, whether by modification of what exists or in some other way, I am unable to surmise. But it is not, so far as I see, in the power of philosophy to supply this general demand. And I must doubt the possibility of a religious doctrine able in the end to meet our metaphysical requirement of ultimate consistency. All that, in my opinion, we can reasonably desire, is on one side a general faith, and on the other side such a critical philosophy as would be able in some sense to justify and to support this faith. I think, that is (to use a word perhaps anticipated by the reader), that any positive metaphysical doctrine must remain ‘esoteric’, while a religion condemned to be esoteric is but a refuge amid general destitution. Therefore a religious belief founded otherwise than on metaphysics,
Supplementary Note A. On the Reality and Personality of God
I am anxious on this subject to be frank with the reader, and to answer plainly, so far as I can, or decline to answer, his questions. But there is a difficulty here which the reader may perhaps fail to apprehend. His questions, as he asks them, may imply certain beliefs on his part which I do not share. This is eminently the case with regard to God’s reality. The reader perhaps may be sure that a thing must be real or unreal, that, whatever things are real, are real alike and equally, and that, in short, with regard to reality it is always a case of Yes or No, and never of more and less. Now, if I am forced to take reality as having thus only one sense, I must reply that God is not real at all, any more than you and I are real. Nothing to me in this sense is real except the Universe as a whole; for I cannot take God as including, or as equivalent to, the entire universe. This answer is the result of forcing me to reply to a question which I regard as erroneous. But, if on the other hand I am allowed to hold to degrees in reality, the conclusion at once is different. God to me is now so much more real than you or myself that to compare God’s reality with ours would be ridiculous. This conclusion to my mind is the truth; but how can I give this reply, if I am asked a question which really implies that my truth is an error? Obviously, if we are to understand one another here, the reader and myself must begin by coming first to some agreement as to the meaning of reality.
When we pass from this source of ambiguity to inquire
If the reader can go with me thus far, he may further agree that to define the exact nature of the true religious interest becomes at once most important. Any unstated difference of opinion here will probably lead to ambiguity which obscures the issue and tends to vitiate the result. And I may perhaps remind the reader that in my view the essence of religion is practical.
1 Appearance, pp. 439 following.
If now, passing onwards, I am asked if the personality of God is required for religion, in the sense that without it religion is ruined, I can answer at once No. Such a statement would be to me not only false but absurd. One may, however, maintain in another sense that the personality of God is a necessary truth. If without that belief religion
There is, however, still an ambiguity to which I would invite the reader’s attention. Suppose that we have settled the definition of personality, and have further agreed that God must be personal, there none the less may be doubt as to a point which seems important if not vital. How much personality and of what kind are we to ascribe to God? The personality, for instance, that is proved in a philosophical treatise, may, so far as religion is concerned, be no more than impersonal. And it is not simply the reality perhaps of a special Providence, but the whole matter of personal intercourse, love and friendship, which is really here at stake. ‘It is not merely one of the doctrines of religion, but the central doctrine, the motive for all religious exercises, that God cares for every one of us individually, that he knows Jane Smith by name, and what she is earning a week, and how much of it she devotes to keeping her poor paralyzed old mother’.
1 Hamerton, Human Intercourse, p. 166. The whole context is well worth reading.
Finally I must insist that we are dealing here, as everywhere, with that which in the end is beyond us. Any
Supplementary Note B. On Our Fear of Death and Desire for Immortality
What I myself feel actually (451-2). And generally the nature of our interest in a future life is most ambiguous (453). Identity in feeling is the basis, and, beyond this, memory seems implied in individual personal interest (453-6). On this subject our imaginations are confused. But fear of death is not wholly irrational (456-9).
It may perhaps assist the reader if I add to this chapter some further remarks on what is called the fear of death and the desire for immortality. I do not doubt that there is here some difference in our individual natures and sentiments, but the great divergence of opinion among us cannot, it seems to me, be justified on this ground. It rests mainly on what I am forced to regard as confusion and mental impotence. And it may be well for me perhaps to begin by setting down my own feelings, so far as I know them.
Certainly in a sense I fear death and desire future life. I shrink, perhaps more than I ought, from the pain of bodily destruction, from the cruelty of severance, and the infinite sadness of being torn from what one loves. And, the older I grow, the more I recoil from any forced venture in the dark. But I recognize that religion, if it were effective in me, would master these feelings. And in any case I know nothing of what is called the horror of ceasing to be. Any
Again, as to personal survival, I should wish to survive if my future life were to be desirable, and I on my side to remain much what I am now. But, if my future life is to be undesirable, I am of course averse from it. And, if I am not to continue to be much what I am, the future life, being the life of another man, does not personally concern me.
I have spoken already of the hope that after death we might still, or once more, be young, and be with those with whom we would be, the hope that decay and parting are after all hardly real. If this could be more than a hope, then death, I suppose, would have lost its worst terror. Apart from this, I should welcome of course the chance to undo some evil that I have done—if, that is, I did not fear that perhaps I might go on to do more, and if the hope of individual perfection appeared to me to be anything but insane. If I believed that whatever I do now would make all the difference to me hereafter, that of course might make me more careful; though to be sanguine about a future where all, no matter what, is retrievable, might possibly produce a different effect. And the idea that by my misdeeds I may be prolonging indefinitely an evil series of lives, would conceivably trouble me more if I regarded life as an evil. Such are my own feelings, which I do not suppose to be wholly typical, and, passing from these, I will consider more in general what is called the personal interest in immortality.
The question whether what I do and fail to do now, is to make any difference, worth considering, to any one after my death, must first be dismissed. An answer in the negative (I fully assent to this) would be a very serious matter, but we are not here concerned with it. I am assuming here that we are agreed that death does not end all, but
That in which I take a personal, an individual, interest is the self which I actually feel, and feel as mine now. So far as I take this self to be in the past or future, and so far as I feel myself now in that past or future self, it is to me a matter of personal concern. Memory or anticipation (so much seems clear) is not all that is wanted. To some of my past which I remember, I remain indifferent, since it is alienated too far from my present feeling. And again, if I contemplate a future which is alienated in the same way, that future fails to concern me personally. To be felt as mine the past or future must be included within the self which I feel now, or (it is the same thing) I must feel myself individually into them. Memory and anticipation are thus by themselves insufficient, and yet on the other side memory seems clearly wanted for personal interest.
You may be tempted to deny this. You may suppose, for instance, the case of a letter written by me long ago and now wholly forgotten. If I read this letter, I recognize that there is in it something which is mine, and my interest is individual though I do not remember. Yes, I reply, but what I feel here as ray own, is placed by me, however indefinitely, in my past, and that depends upon memory.
Suppose after my death a man to exist who is to be very like myself. Certainly I prefer to feel that I have now perhaps helped such a man rather than another man less like me. And suppose that I myself am to exist after death and am to be altered considerably, the more I am altered the less and less personal concern do I now feel, until a point is reached where my interest really ceases to be special. The only personal identity which seems to count here is the degree and the amount of likeness in the felt self. From the other side, though felt sameness in character is wanted in order to have continuity recognized between myself now and then, this by itself is not enough. If I am to have an individual personal interest, I must suppose also a memory in the ‘then’. I must imagine, for instance, a man after my death reading what I myself write now, and saying to himself, ‘Yes, I wrote it.’ He must not only feel it to be the expression of his self, but he must make that self continuous in the past (even if there are intervals) with my own. Here is the identity in which I can now take interest as personal to me myself. In whatever falls short of this I can feel a concern which, though never individual, may be special, special until by lessening degrees we arrive at that which is merely general.
It may help us if we consider the case of a man who, under an anesthetic, has endured an operation as to which his memory is a blank. Let us suppose that a question is raised now as to whether at the time pain was present or absent. Would the man, if he is sure that he is in any case
1 He would take a personal interest in his future self, as that is to be while anesthetized, if (a) that self is to feel and remember, or if (b) it is to be included in the memory of a later self which remembers. I am of course not assuming that the second alternative without the first is really possible.
And, if not, why, if there is to be no memory, should he trouble himself as to whether his future life is to be his or another man’s? To answer that, if he is obtuse about one thing, he need not be obtuse about another, does not help us to see where there really is obtuseness. And if you reply that the man in fact assumes that his state, while anesthetized, is in any case so alienated as not to be his, while with regard to a future life that assumption is not made, I am not shaken in my conclusion. Your alleged fact in the first place seems at best very doubtful. And in any case this supposed alienation and its opposite are connected inseparably, I would urge, with the absence and presence of memory. The man in the past or in the future who knows nothing about me, whatever else he is, after all will not be myself. The interest that I feel in him may (to repeat this) be more or less special, but it never can really be individual.
I can of course transcend my present felt state. I can make an object of what goes beyond it and is even far removed from my life. And with regard to such things I can of course entertain a variety of feelings. In such objects I can take an interest which is in varying degrees special, and which again, from being impersonal, may alter till it becomes in a sense personal. So far, I presume, we are agreed. The question is whether my felt self can take an interest in anything as being its own individual self, unless it regards its present feeling as prolonged into that object. And the further question is whether I can suppose
This conclusion is obscured by the weakness of our imagination, and by this I mean our difficulty in realizing what elements are and what are not actually present in our object. There is a constant tendency to import into the object feelings and ideas which are incompatible with that object, and which may even have been formally excluded from its being. And to this tendency we, many of us, seem a helpless prey. Thus, to shrink from pain and from partial annihilation is rational, while, if the annihilation really is total, there is nothing either to shrink or to shrink from. Our fear comes from imagining ourselves present where we are explicitly set down as absent. What we actually fear is the process where that which clings to itself is rudely torn away and apart; while, on the other hand, the pain of sheer negation is an inconsistent and illusory idea. At sunset where, sunk before our eyes,
Le soleil s’est noye dans son sang qui se fige,
we listen in our hearts to the complaining of
Un coeur tendre qui hait le néant vaste et noir,
Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige.
But, once the heart has ceased to beat, it is but folly to ream that it feels. And again to suppose that I seek merely ‘to go on’ after death, while at the same time I refuse to ‘go on’ as another man, seems (to use plain words) be something like stupidity. For obviously I am here desiring for myself a great deal more than merely to ‘go on’. Again there is no illusion when we are pained by the thought of parting from what we hold dear. The struggle against the destruction of our being, while it lasts, is terrible, and the prospect of those whom we love missing us and suffering is cruel. And to sorrow for our loss of those who are dead is at once rational and human, while to imagine them on their side seeking to rejoin us in vain would be torture. But at once to suppose our dead to have ceased, and yet to grieve not for ourselves but for them, comes from mental confusion. Whether the dead now remember me or not may concern me vitally, but whether, if they do not remember, they are now themselves or some other self, can hardly make a difference to me. What they now have become makes if course a difference to the Universe. But how, if they recall nothing, personal continuance, or its absence, should be anything to me or them, I cannot imagine. Again, if we meet hereafter, and if (as some think) we are drawn, without memory, to one another once more, the question of our individual identities (so far as I see) is not likely to concern us. That what we have done in this life may cause our future love might be true, and yet, if nothing is remembered, individual continuance might to us then mean nothing. Where love is the passion of which poets speak, the whole inquiry might lack interest. Something has been revealed which is beyond time and sports with the order of events. There never was a before, and God has made the whole world for this present. The sum of the matter is this, hat I understand gratitude towards a past, though I do not remember it, if that past has brought good, whatever
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know’st no wane,
The Moon of Heaven is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me—in vain!
–Omar Khayyam
The desolation that invades us, as we recall these lines, is due not wholly to illusion. That what we have left should search for us hereafter with grief and pain, distresses us in prospect, and this is rational. But illusion begins if we imagine ourselves at once as nothing, and at the same moment as struggling helplessly in darkness towards light and love. It may aid us perhaps in testing the real nature of our sadness and our desire, if we go on to imagine another man hereafter in the same garden, filled with the same spirit and offering the same unaltered devotion, a devotion recognized rapturously as the same without change or loss. If, with that thought, we still suffer, our defect is human. But, if we justify our pain, and if we insist that we have something here really worth grieving for, then either we do not understand, or we do not love. And, though what I am about to say will perhaps with some right be turned against myself, I must add that, if there were more love, there would, at least on such points, be less misunderstanding. The striving for personal and individual existence and satisfaction is no doubt good in its own place, but, whatever else it is, I cannot take it as essential to love or religion.
The reader will understand that the scope of the above remarks is limited. I have tried to point out the illusion involved in some fears and in some hopes about the hereafter. But I have not attempted to argue that all such fear is irrational. To die and go we know not where, to survive as ourselves, and yet to become we know not what
Chapter XVI. On My Real World
Familiar doubts as to dream and reality (460). My real world is the world of my real body, and what is that? Merely my present waking body (460-2). But is this world more real than others, as being more systematic? The known facts do not show this conclusion, nor can we infer it otherwise (462-5). We are right to call abnormal states irrational and their deliverance unreal, if we make a certain assumption. This assumption we must make, but still it is not true (465-7). How the above bears on Death (467-8). General Result (468-9).
There is an old familiar doubt as to dream and waking. A man is led at times to ask whether his real life may not be a dream and his dreams reality. With this doubt we all of us perhaps are in some sense acquainted. There are moods in which our daylight world seems to have lost actuality, where the reflection and what it mirrors have equal force, and we ourselves seem hardly more than one of the things which we contemplate. And, apart from this, we are tempted from time to time in an idle hour to question and to wonder. Is there not another world within which I might suddenly wake, and from which I should look back upon this life as unreal? Such doubts and surmises, far from being irrational, are in my opinion even justified. And in any case to consider them may serve perhaps as a way of approach to some ultimate problems of thought.
What is the world which I am accustomed to call ‘my real world’?
1 On this point cf. Chapter III, pp. 46 following.
Again, this arrangement is true theoretically,
My ‘real’ world depends, as we saw, on my body, but then that leads to a further question, What is really my body? If we insist on an answer we have to reply that my real body means my waking body, and that this means my present body. It is simply the body which is for me here and now as I am asking myself this question. The whole center and foundation of what I call my ‘real’ scheme is the body which to me is mine at this here and this now. Such a result may be unwelcome, but, however unwelcome, it seems unavoidable. Why I should then assign to my ‘real’ scheme an exclusive or even a superior reality, seems far from evident.
For admittedly in dream, in mere imagination, and in states of hypnotism or madness, I find myself with other bodies. My body, as I dream, may often, I remember, seem more or less helpless and ineffectual. But at other times my dream-body does wonderful things to suit with a marvelous environment. As I am awake even now, I can remember that this was so. And suppose that I could not remember, would my failure be a sufficient ground for denying both the fact and the possibility, and for insisting on the unique claim of my waking body? Again, as I find myself now awake, I can act only with my body which is here present. With these other bodies, try as I may, I can do nothing. They are to me here and now both useless and foreign, and, in this sense, they are without doubt unreal. But that this sense should be the only sense does not rationally follow. And if I am to set up this one ‘here’
My waking world, you may reply, dominates, and ought to dominate, because as a system it is vastly more rational. The order of things which I construct from the basis of my waking body, is far more consistent and more comprehensive than any other possible arrangement. In this order my own past and future and the past and future of other selves, together with our environment, can be displayed as a harmonious scheme. If the scheme is not perfect, it is at least incomparably better than any scheme set up from the basis of any imaginary body. My real world in short, you may urge, will contain rationally the other worlds, while by none of them is it contained. And surely upon this principle that world alone possesses a right to claim reality.
The above argument is plausible but it is at the mercy of a twofold objection. For in the first place (i) the facts, even as known to us, will not warrant its conclusion. And in the second place (ii) to argue from these facts to a region beyond them would in any case be illogical.
(i) Even within our experience it is not always the fact that our normal and waking state is wider and more comprehensive than other states. On the contrary, of certain dreams, and of some hypnotic and other abnormal conditions, the opposite assertion would hold good. The abnormal mind is often wider than the mind which we call normal, and at times it may be said to include and comprehend the normal mind; and in certain cases this result, however it is to be explained, appears even to be regular. Again, to speak in general, it may be true that the controlling system of ideas and principles is less orderly and wide in our abnormal states; but, if we go beyond the general, such a statement becomes indefensible. If there is less tendency in the normal waking mind to dissociation and to fixation of the one-sided, we still have no right to exclude apparent exceptions to this rule; and again with regard to the normal
(ii) And if my conclusion were so far correct, to push it further would still be forbidden. I must not argue from the facts as they come to me on a certain ground to the denial of facts as they would appear from a different basis. Such a denial, so far as I can discover, would rest on the merest assumption. On the foundation of your waking self you urge that a certain ideal arrangement is best. No one has questioned this or has proposed that your arrangement should be dropped. From the same foundation you find, again, that your actions can start and succeed. And no one has suggested that your starting-place should be abandoned by yourself. What we object to is your assumption that no one anywhere can start from a different basis, or at least that, if he does so, the result will turn out worse theoretically and practically. Those abnormal states which in relation to your environment seem to you to be inferior, and to be inferior even when taken in and by themselves, may really be otherwise when viewed in relation to a different
Suppose that there are other minds which, in their waking lives, start from a basis other than that of my waking self, is it impossible that their worlds should be better and more real than mine? And if you reply that the whole supposition is untenable, such an assertion, we have seen, has no rational ground. Again (to leave other minds) suppose that in hypnotism, madness or dream, my world becomes wider and more harmonious than the scheme which is set up from my normal self—then does not, I ask, what I dream become at once a world better and more real? And if you know that this does not and cannot happen, then explain how you know it. Or, again, quit the position of an onlooker even on yourself, and imagine your own self in dream, and that, while you dream, you can recall but little of your waking state. But suppose also that, from what you can recall, you judge that your waking state was more distracted and more narrow, would you not be right if you set down your waking state as less rational and real? And if you went on further to embrace your dream as the sole true reality, would you not, if reasoning badly, be reasoning still on the principle so widely accepted? And it is useless to protest that the above supposition is absurd, if you are able to assign no reason for your protest.
Once more, let us suppose that, as life goes on, your mind becomes gradually alienated, that you are able still to reflect and yet that things somehow come to you differently. Your former interpretation and order of the world would, if so, strain the given facts more and more, until a point
In what sense, then (we may ask once more), and how far are we justified when we regard such states as dream and madness as irrational and take their deliverance as unreal? We believe in the first place their content to be more narrow and less consistent; and within our actual knowledge that belief (we have seen) is, to speak in general, correct. Such a conclusion on the other hand, even so far as it goes, we must remember, is ex parte. It rests on the mere assumption that our waking world has a sole or superior reality. Again what we call ‘abnormal’ states lead in general, we find, to isolation and destruction. Between dream-bodies, for example, we can discover no co-operation, and these bodies seem in relation with no common environment. Now that, to speak in general, they have no working connexion with our environment must be admitted. On the other hand to conclude that these bodies have no world of their own and are everywhere isolated, each from all others, goes (we saw) beyond our knowledge. Our judgement once more here is simply ex parte. We are resting throughout on the assumption that our ‘real’ world of fact is the one reality.
Within limits, we must all agree, such an assumption is necessary. If I am to live at all I must act, and, if I am to act, it must be on the world which comes to me here and
It is well to remember that my life and world, as mere existing facts, have no value; and the thought of other, of even an indefinite number of other, unknown worlds and lives may keep this truth before our minds. I will permit myself, therefore, still to dwell for a while on this theme. Other systems, as real as my own or more real, seem beyond doubt to be possible. Into one or more of these orders from time to time I may enter in my dreams, and in one of them, for anything that I can tell, I might awake tomorrow. And in the words ‘from time to time’ and ‘tomorrow’ I am using the ideas, we must remind ourselves, which take their meaning only from my ‘real’ scheme of facts. Even my present being may be double. At times in dream, or even perhaps always by night or day, I may be leading a different life somewhere else. Romuald’s twofold existence in Gautier’s exquisite tale of La Morte amoureuse might conceivably be fact. We may have many lives sundered wholly, or lives again which more or less
These considerations bear specially on the question as to what we call Death. Our ‘real’ bodies are seen to weaken and to be corrupted; and, answering to the decay and dissolution of these bodies, we partly experience, and in part go on to infer further, a perishing and decease of ourselves. Now, on the assumption that our real world is the sole reality, such an inference, we must agree, has considerable force, though obviously it falls very far short of proof. On the other hand, if that assumption is untenable and unsound, the strength of any argument drawn to the destiny of my mind from the fate of my body is seriously reduced. For how great a part of my mental life are we to set down as connected or conjoined, solely or principally, with the growth and change of my ‘real’ body? We must I think, admit that we are unable to answer this inquiry. And, when we leave the observed facts of organic growth and retrogression in our ‘real’ world, facts which, I believe, are far from being as yet understood, is there any valid argument at all for senility and death? Everything finite is, I agree, subject in principle to chance and change and to dissolution of its self. But from this it does not follow that finite beings are unable to endure, as themselves, for an indefinite time. And in the end the argument that we are finished when our bodies have decayed, seems to possess but a small degree of logical evidence. Death may be an overmastering impression, but it is certainly no necessary truth, and the poet was perhaps not wrong when he called
I am assuming here that we do not know how and why, and in the end how far, we have a world of perception and action common to ourselves and other finite beings. The presence within us all of the same living Universe is obviously by itself no explanation in detail, and for myself I cannot think that any such explanation is possible. I must not, however, here attempt to justify the general position which I have defended elsewhere.
1 The reference is to Shelley’s Sensitive Plant. I do not know whether this in my case is a mark of senility, but I find myself now taking more and more as literal fact what I used in my youth to admire and love as poetry.
2 See my Appearance. This present essay may be taken as a commentary on some of the doctrines advanced in that volume.
The main outcome of what has gone before may now be stated briefly. Our real world of fact may, for anything we know, be one of the least pieces of reality, and there may be an indefinite number of other real worlds superior to our own. On the other hand our world is the one place in which we are able to live and work. And we can live there in no way except by making our construction of facts in space and time, and by treating this construction as the one sphere in which our life is actual. Cultiver notre jardin is the beginning, and it is in a sense the end, of wisdom. No other place but here, no other time but now, no other world but this world of our own, can be our concern.
Our world and every other possible world are from one side worthless equally. As regions of mere fact and event, the bringing into being and the maintenance of temporal existence, they all alike have no value. It counts for nothing where or when such existence is taken to have its place. The differences of past and future, of dream and
‘For love and beauty and delight’, it is no matter where they have shown themselves, ‘there is no death nor change’; and this conclusion is true. These things do not die, since the Paradise in which they bloom is immortal. That Paradise is no special region nor any given particular spot in time and space. It is here, it is everywhere where any finite being is lifted into that higher life which alone is waking reality.
Concluding Remarks
I may be asked how the parts of this volume are connected, and it will be well perhaps to add a few words in answer to the question. The above chapters have a unity, I should say, as being all illustrations of one main thesis. They are applications of what I take to be the true view as to ultimate Reality. And I seek throughout to show that doctrines opposed to that view are based on one-sidedness and on vicious abstraction. Everywhere on behalf of the real Absolute I have been warning the reader against that false absolutism which in philosophy is to me another name for error. And it is an error which results in a twofold mistake. It takes some distinction within the whole and asserts it as being real by itself and unconditionally; and then from this misconceived ground it goes on to deny or to belittle other complementary aspects of the same whole. But, as against such absolutism, the very soul of the Absolute which I defend is its insistence and emphasis on an all-pervasive relativism.
My opponents for the most part, it seems to me, have failed here to understand. Where the absolute reality of some feature of the whole is rejected, they too often interpret this as the denial that such a feature exists. And how, for instance (they object) can an Absolute which implies that there is no such thing as change, be better than a vain idol? But to me, as to everyone else, the world is throughout full of change, and as to this, I suppose, there is no question. The question is how change stands to that which changes or shows change, and what, and how far subordinate, is the place and rank which belongs in the Universe to this its aspect of change. You cannot get rid of this question unless you will set up the abstraction of change as real by itself, or as even perhaps the main or only reality of things. On the other side, if you denounce the Absolute for admitting change, in the vulgar sense, as something more than an illusion, you have to show where else than in the real Universe this mere illusion falls, and how apart from such appearance your Real or Reals can be more than an abstract ‘preparation’ from the living unity.
And so again it is with the becoming and the endless incompletion of the world. To deny that this side of things is fact would in my view be absurd. But on the other hand to accept this side of things as real in itself and unconditionally, and to proclaim it as being in its own character the last word about the Universe, to me seems no less ridiculous. And as to my rejecting (to take another instance) personality and will, surely nothing has been further from my mind. Far from denying these facts I should even be forward to urge their eminent reality, if only you would not seek to deny or degrade what will not fairly fall under
On the one side the creations of the intellect everywhere are real. The substantiated terms and relations, into which analysis breaks up the continuity of the given, are no mere errors or simple instruments. They cannot fall somewhere outside or fail positively to qualify the Universe. And the idea that by discarding these figments of the understanding we are to gain reality, is a mistake now long since refuted; for it is only through such distinction and dissection that it is possible to reach knowledge progressively more living and individual. On the other side these constructions, however inclusive, are not independent truths. They are real only so far as subordinate and as relative to individual totality. And even in life it is only when I forget higher experience that I can anywhere accept for all purposes as final the partial and abstracted products whether of science or of a presumptuous ‘common sense’.
Francis Herbert Bradley
1846–1924
Premier British Idealist Philosopher
‘The greatest mind in Europe’
Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, 1870–1924
LL.D., University of Glasgow, 1883,
Royal Danish Academy, 1921
British Academy, 1923
British Order of Merit, 1924
(First Philosopher so Honored)
Reference
Bradley, F. H. Essays on Truth and Reality. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1st ed. 1914, reprinted 1950.
F. H. Bradley Bibliography
Appearance and Reality (1893); 2nd ed., with appendix (1897), new edition. Oxford, 1930.
Collected Essays. 2 vols. Oxford, 1935.
Essays on Truth and Reality. Oxford, 1914.
Ethical Studies (1876); 2nd ed., rev., with additional notes. Oxford, 1927.
Principles of Logic (1883); 2nd ed., rev., with Terminal Essays. Oxford, 1922.