To put it otherwise, we have the statement " X is first Xa, an<l later also Xb." But how can " later also b" be the truth, if before mere a was true? Shall we answer " No, not mere a; it is not mere 220 REALITY.
Xa, but Xa (given c\ which is later also b "? But this reply leaves us still face to face with a like obstacle; for, if Xa (c) is X later b, then how separate these terms? If there is a difference between them, or if there is none, our assertion in either case is untenable. For we cannot justify the difference if it exists, or our making it, if it does not exist. Hence we are led to the conclusion that subject and predicate are identical, and that the separation and the change are only appearance. They are a character assuredly to be added to the whole, but added in a way beyond our compre- hension. They somehow are lost except as elements in a higher identity.
Or, again, say that the present state of the world is the cause of that total state which follows next on it. Here, again, is the same self-contradiction. For how can one state a become a different state b? It must either do this without a reason, and that seems absurd; or else the reason, being additional, forthwith constitutes a new a, and so on for ever. We have the differences of cause and effect, with their relation of time, and we have no way in which it is possible to hold these together. Thus we are drawn to the view that causation is but partial, and that we have but changes of mere elements within a complex whole. But this view gives no help until we carry it still further, and deny that the whole state of the world can change at all. So we glide into the doctrine that partial changes are no change, but counterbalance one another within a whole which persists unaltered. And here certainly the succession remains as an appearance, the special value of which we are unable to explain. But the causal sequence has drifted beyond itself and into a reality which essentially is timeless. And hence, n /in attempting an objection to the eternity of the t [Absolute, causation would deny a principle implied in its own nature TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL APPEARANCE. 221 At the end of this chapter, I trust, we may have reached a conviction. We may be convinced, not merely as before, that time is unreal, but that its appearance also is compatible with a timeless uni- verse. It is only when misunderstood that change precludes a belief in eternity. Rightly apprehended it affords no presumption against our doctrine. Our Absolute must be; and now, in another respect, again, it has turned out possible. Surely therefore it is real.
I shall conclude this chapter with a few remarks on the nature of space.1 In passing to this from time, we meet with no difficulties that are new, and a very few words seem all that is wanted. I am not attempting here to explain the origin of space; and indeed to show how it comes to exist seems to me not possible. And we need not yet ask how, on our main view, we are to understand the physical world. That necessary question is one which it is better to defer. The point here at issue is this, Does the form of space make our reality impossible? Is its existence a thing incompatible with the Abso- lute? Such a question, in my judgment, requires little discussion.
If we could prove that the spatial form were a development, and so secondary, that would give us little help. The proof could in no degree lessen the reality of a thing which, in any case, does exist. It would at most serve as an indication that a further growth in development might merge the space- form in a higher mode of perception. But it is better not to found arguments upon that which, at most, is hardly certain.
What I would stand upon is the essential nature of space. For that, as we saw in our First Book, is entirely inconsistent It attempts throughout to 1 I must here refer back to Chapter iv.
222 REALITY.
reach something which transcends its powers. It made an effort to find and to maintain a solid self- existence, but that effort led it away into the infinite process both on the inside and externally. And its evident inability to rest within itself points to the solution of its discords. Space seeks to lose itself in a higher perception, where individuality is gained without forfeit of variety.1 And against the possibility of space being in this way absorbed in a non-spatial consummation, I know of nothing to set. Of course how in particular this can be, we are unable to lay down. But our ignorance in detail is no objection against the general possibility. And this possible absorption, we have seen, is also necessary.
1 The question as to whether, and in what sense, space possesses a unity, may be deferred to Chapter xxii. A dis- cussion on this point was required in the case of time. But an objection to our Absolute would hardly be based on the unity of space.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE THIS AND THE MINE.
We have seen that the forms of space and time supply no good objection to the individuality of the Absolute. But we have not yet faced a difficulty which perhaps may prove more serious. There is the fact which is denoted by the title of the present chapter. The particularity of feeling, it may be contended, is an obstacle which declines to be en- gulfed. The " this " and the " mine " are undeni- able; and upon our theory, it may be said, they are both inexplicable.
The " this " and the " mine " are names which stand for the immediacy of feeling, and each serves to call attention to one side of that fact. There is no " mine " which is not " this," nor any " this " which fails, in a sense, to be " mine." The immed- iate fact must always come as something felt in an experience, and an experience always must be particular, and, in a sense, must be " unique." But I shall not enter on all the problems implied in the last word. I am not going to inquire here how we are able to transcend the " this-mine," for that question will engage us hereafter (Chapter xxi.), and the problem now before us is confined to a single point. We are to assume that there does exist an indefinite number of " this-mines," of immediate ex- periences of the felt. And, assuming this fact, we are to ask if it is compatible with our general view.
The difficulty of this inquiry arises in great part from vagueness. The "this" and "mine" are 2 24 REALITY.
taken as both positive and negative. They are to possess a singular reality, and they are to own in some sense an exclusive character. And from this shifting basis a rash conclusion is hastily drawn. But the singular reality, after all, may not be single and self-existent. And the exclusive character, perhaps, may be included and taken up in the Whole. And it is these questions which we must endeavour to clear up and discuss. I will begin with what we have called the positive aspect.
The " this " and the " mine " express the immed- iate character of feeling, and the appearance of this character in a finite centre. Feeling may stand for a psychical stage before relations have been devel- oped, or it may be used generally for an experience which is not indirect (Chapters ix., xxvi., and xxvii.). At any time all that we suffer, do, and are, forms one psychical totality. It is experienced all together as a co-existing mass, not perceived as parted and joined by relations even of co-existence. It contains all relations, and distinctions, and every ideal object that at the moment exists in the soul. It contains them, not specially as such and with exclusive stress on their content as predicated, but directly as they are and as they qualify the psychical " that." And again any part of this co-existence, to which we attend, can be viewed integrally as one feeling.
Now whatever is thus directly experienced — so far as it is not taken otherwise — is " this " and 11 mine." And all such presentation without doubt has peculiar reality. One might even contend that logically to transcend it is impossible, and that there is no rational way to a plurality of " this-mines." But such a plurality we have agreed for the present to assume. The " this," it is however clear, brings a sense of superior reality, a sense which is far from being wholly deceptive and untrue. For all our knowledge, in the first place, arises from the " this."
THE THIS AND THE MINE. 225 It is the one source of our experience, and every element of the world must submit to pass through it. And the " this," secondly, has a genuine feature of ultimate reality. With however great imper- fection and inconsistency it owns an individual character. The " this " is real for us in a sense in which nothing else is real.
Reality is being in which there is no division of content from existence, no loosening of " what " from "that." Reality, in short, means what it stands for, and stands for what it means. And the "this" possesses to some extent the same wholeness of character. Both the "this" and reality, we may say, are immediate. But reality is immediate be- cause it includes and is superior to mediation. It developes, and it brings to unity, the distinctions it contains. The " this " is immediate, on the other side, because it is at a level below distinctions. Its elements are but conjoined, and are not connected. And its content, hence, is unstable, and essentially tends to disruption, and by its own nature must pass beyond the being of the " this." But every " this " still shows a passing aspect of undivided singleness. In the mental background specially such a fused unity remains a constant factor, and can never be dissipated (Chapters ix., x., xxvii.). And it is such an unbroken wholeness which gives the sense of individual reality. When we turn from mere ideas to sensation, we experience in the " this " a revelation of freshness and life. And that revela- tion, if misleading, is never quite untrue.1 We may, for the present, take " this " as the positive feeling of direct experience. In that sense it will be either general or special. It will be the 1 It is mere thoughtlessness that finds in Resistance the one manifestation of reality. For resistance, in the first place, is full of unsolved contradictions, and is also fixed and consists in that very character. And in the second place, what experience can come as more actual than sensuous pain or pleasure?
226 REALITY.
character which we feel always, or again in union with some particular content. And we have to ask if, so understood, the " this " is incompatible with our Absolute.
The question, thus asked, seems to call for but little discussion. Since for us the Absolute is a whole, the sense of immediate reality, we must sup- pose, may certainly qualify it. And, again, I find no difficulty when we pass to the special meaning of " this." With every presentation, with each chance mixture of psychical elements, we have the feeling of one particular datum. We have the felt exist- ence of a peculiar sensible whole. And here we find beyond question a positive content, and a fresh element which has to be included within our Abso- lute. But in such a content there is, so far, nothing which could repel or exclude. There is no feature there which could resist embracement and absorp- tion by the whole.
The fact of actual fragmentariness, I admit, we cannot explain. That experience should take place in finite centres, and should wear the form of finite " thisness," is in the end inexplicable (Chapter xxvi.). But to be inexplicable, and to be incom- patible, are not the same thing. And in such frag- mentariness, viewed as positive, I see no objection to our view. The plurality of presentations is a fact, and it, therefore, makes a difference to our Absolute. It exists in, and it, therefore, must qualify the whole. And the universe is richer, we may be sure, for all dividedness and variety. Certainly in detail we do not know how the separation is over- come, and we cannot point to the product which is gained, in each case, by that resolution. But our ignorance here is no ground for rational opposition. Our principle assures us that the Absolute is superior to partition, and in some way is perfected by it. And we have found, as yet, no reason even to THE THIS AND THE MINE. 227 doubt if this result is possible. We have dis- covered, as yet, nothing which seems able from any side to stand out There is no element such as could hesitate to blend with the rest and to be dis- solved in a higher unity.
If the whole could be an arrangement of mere ideas, if it were a system barely intellectual, the case would be altered. We might combine such ideas, it would not matter how ingeniously; but we could not frame, and we should not possess, a product con- taining what we feel to be imparted directly by the " this." I admit that inability, and I urge it, as yet another confirmation and support of our doctrine. For our Absolute was not a mere intellectual system. It was an experience overriding every species of one-sidedness, and throughout it was at once intui- tion and feeling and will. But, if so, the opposition of the " this " becomes at once unmeaning. For feel- ings, each possessing a nature of its own, may surely come together, and be fused in the Absolute. And, so far is such- a resolution from appearing impossible, that I confess to me it seems most natural and easy. That partial experiences should run together, and should unite their deliverances to produce one richer whole — is there anything here incredible? It would indeed be strange if bare positive feelings proved recalcitrant and solid, and stood out against absorp- tion. For their nature clearly is otherwise, and they must be blended in the one experience of the Absolute. This consummation evidently is real, because on our principle it is necessary, and because again we have no reason to doubt that it is possible. And with so much, we may pass from the positive aspect of the " this."
For the " this " and " mine," it is clear, are taken also as negative. They are set up as in some way opposed to the Absolute, and they are considered, in some sense, to own an exclusive character. And 228 REALITY.
that their character, in part, is exclusive cannot be denied; but the question is in what sense, and how far, they possess it. For, if the repulsion is relative and holds merely within the one whole, it is compat- ible at once with our view of the universe.
An immediate experience, viewed as positive, is so far not exclusive. It is, so far, what it is, and it does not repel anything. But the " this " certainly is used also with a negative bearing. It may mean 11 this one," in distinction from that one and the other one. And here it shows obviously an exclu- sive aspect, and it implies an external and negative relation. But every such relation, we have found, is inconsistent with itself (Chapter hi.). For it exists within, and by virtue of an embracing unity, and apart from that totality both itself and its terms would be nothing. And the relation also must penetrate the inner being of its terms. " This," in other words, would not exclude "that," unless in the exclusion " this," so far, passed out of itself. Its repulsion of others is thus incompatible with self- contained singleness, and involves subordination to an including whole. But to the ultimate whole nothing can be opposed, or even related.
And the self-transcendent character of the " this " is, on all sides, open and plain. Appearing as im- mediate, it, on the other side, has contents which are not consistent with themselves, and which refer themselves beyond. Hence the inner nature of the " this " leads it to pass outside itself towards a higher totality. And its negative aspect is but one appearance of this general tendency. Its very ex- clusiveness involves the reference of itself beyond itself, and is but a proof of its necessary absorption in the Absolute.1 1 The above conclusion applies emphatically to the " this " as signifying the point in which I am said to encounter reality. All contact necessarily implies a unity, in and through which it takes place, and my self and the reality are, here, but partial appear- THE THIS AND THE MINE. 229 And if the "this" is asserted to be all-exclusive because it is " unique," the discussion of that point need not long detain us. The term may imply that nothing else but the " this-mine " is real, and, in that case, the question has been deferred to Chapter xxi. And, if "unique" means that what is felt once can never be felt again, such an assertion, taken broadly, seems even untrue. For if feelings, the same in character, do in fact not recur, we at least hardly can deny that their recurrence is pos- sible. The " this " is unique really so far as it is a member in a series, and so far as that series is taken as distinct from all others.1 And only in this sense can we call its recurrence impossible. But here with uniqueness once more we have negative rela- tions, and these relations involve an inclusive unity. Uniqueness, in this sense, does not resist assimila- tion by the Absolute. It is, on the other hand, itself incompatible with exclusive singleness.
Into the nature of self-will I shall at present not enter. This is opposition attempted by a finite subject against its proper whole. And we may see at once that such discord and negation can subserve unity, and can contribute towards the perfection of the universe. It is connection with the central fire which produces in the element this burning sense of selfness. And the collision is resolved within that harmony where centre and circumference are one. But I shall return in another place to the dis- cussion of this matter (Chapter xxv.).
We have found that the "this," taken as exclu- sive, proclaims itself relative, and in that relation forfeits its independence. And we have seen that, ances. And the " mine " never, we may say, could strike me as "not-mine," unless, precisely so far as it does so, it is a mere factor in my experience. I have spoken above on the true meaning of that sense of reality which is given by the " this." 1 On this point compare Principles of Logic, Chapter ii.
23O REALITY.
23O REALITY.
as positive, the u this " is not exclusive at all. The " this " is inconsistent always, but, so far as it excludes, so far already has it begun internally to suffer dissipation. We may now, with advantage perhaps, view the matter in a somewhat different way. There is, I think, a vague notion that some content sticks irremovably within the "this," or that in the " this," again, there is something which is not content at all. In either case an element is offered, which, it is alleged, cannot be absorbed by the Whole. And an examination of these prejudices may throw some light on our general view.
In the " this," it may appear first, there is some- thing more than content. For by combining quali- ties indefinitely we seem unable to arrive at the " this." The same difficulty may be stated perhaps in a way which points to its solution. The " this " on one hand, we may say, is nothing at all beside content, and, on the other hand, the " this " is not content at all. For in the term " content " there lies an ambiguity. It may mean a " what " that is, or again, is not, distinct from its " that." And the " this," we have already seen, has inconsistent aspects. It offers, from one aspect, an immediate undivided experience, a whole in which " that " and " what " are felt as one. And here content, as imply- ing distinction, will be absent from the "this." But such an undivided feeling, we have also seen, is a positive experience. It does not even attempt to resist assimilation by our Absolute.
If, on the other hand, we use content generally, and if we employ it in the sense of " what " without distinction from "that" — if we take it to mean some- thing which is experienced, and which is nothing but experience — then, most emphatically, the " this " is not anything but content. For there is nothing in it or about it which can be more than experience. And in it there is further no feature which cannot be made a quality. Its various aspects can all be THE THIS AND THE MINE. 23 1 separated by distinction and analysis, and, one after another, can thus be brought forward as ideal pre- dicates. This assertion holds of that immediate sense of a special reality, which we found above in the character of each felt complex. There is, in brief, no fragment of the " this " such that it cannot form the object of a distinction. And hence the " this," in the first place, is mere experience through- out; and, in the second place, throughout it may be called intelligible. It owns no aspect which refuses to become a quality, and in its turn to play the part of an ideal predicate.1 But it is easy here to deceive ourselves and to fall into error. For taking a given whole, or more prob- ably selecting one portion, we begin to distinguish and to break up its confused co-existence. And, having thus possessed ourselves of definite contents and of qualities in relation, we call on our " this " to identify itself with our discrete product. And, on the refusal of the " this," we charge it with stub- born exclusiveness. It is held to possess either in its nature a repellent content, or something else, at all events, which is intractable. But the whole con- clusion is fallacious. For, if we have not mutilated our subject, we have at least added a feature which originally was not there — a feature, which, if intro- duced, must of necessity burst the " this," and de- stroy it from within. The " this," we have seen, is a unity below relations and ideas; and a unity, able to develope and to harmonize all distinctions, is not found till we arrive at ultimate Reality. Hence the " this " repels our offered predicates, not because its nature goes beyond, but rather because that nature comes short. It is not more, we may say, but less than our distinctions.
And to our mistake in principle we add probably an error in practice. For we have failed probably 1 Compare here p. 175, and Principles of Logic, chapter ii.
232 REALITY.
to exhaust the full deliverance of our " this," and the residue, left there by our mere failure, is then as- sumed blindly to stand out as an irreducible aspect. For, if we have confined our " this " to but one por- tion of the felt totality, we have omitted from our analysis, perhaps, the positive aspect of its special unity. But our analysis, if so, is evidently incom- plete and misleading. And then, perhaps again, qualifying our limited " this " by exclusive relations, we do not see that in these we have added a factor to its original content. And what we have added, and have also overlooked, is then charged to the native repellence of the " this." But if again, on the other hand, our "this" is not taken as limited, if it is to be the entire complex of one present, viewed without relation even to its own future and past — other errors await us. For the detail here is so great that complete exhaustion is hardly possible. And so, setting down as performed that which is in fact impracticable, we once more stumble against a residue which is due wholly to our weakness. And we are helped, perhaps, further into mistake by an- other source of fallacy. We may confuse the feeling which we study with the feeling which we are. Attempting, so far as we can, to make an object of some (past) psychical whole, we may unawares seek there every feature which we now are and feel. And we may attribute our ill success to the positive obstinacy of the resisting object.1 The total subject of all predicates, which we feel in the background, can be exhausted, we may say in general, by no predicate or predicates. For the 1 Success here is impossible because, apart from the difficulty of analysis and exhaustion, our present observing attitude forms a new and incompatible feature. It is an element in our state now, which (ex hyp.) was absent from our state then. In this connec- tion I may remark that to observe a feeling is, to some extent, always to alter it. For the purpose in hand that alteration may not be material, but it will in all cases be there. I have touched on this subject in Principles of Logic, p. 65, note.
THE THIS AND THE MINE. 233 subject holds all in one, while predication involves severance, and so inflicts on its subject a partial loss of unity. And hence neither ultimate Reality, nor any " this," can consist of qualities. That is one side of the truth, but the truth also has another side. Reality owns no feature or aspect which cannot in its turn be distinguished, none which cannot in this way become a mere adjective and predicate. The same conclusion holds of the " this," in whatever sense you take it. There is nothing there which could form an intractable crudity, nothing which can refuse to qualify and to be merged in the ultimate Reality.
We have found that, in a sense, the " this " is not, and does not own, content But, in another sense, we have seen that it contains, and is, nothing else. We may now pass to the examination of a second prejudice. Is there any content which is owned by and sticks in the " this," and which thus remains outstanding, and declines union with a higher system? We have perceived, on the contrary, that by its essence the " this " is self-transcendent But it may repay us once more to dwell and to enlarge on this topic. And I shall not hesitate in part to repeat results which we have gained already.
If we are asked what content is appropriated by the " this," we may reply that there is none. There is no inalienable content which belongs to the " this " or the " mine." My immediate feeling, when I say " this," has a complex character, and it presents a confused detail which, we have seen, is content But it has no "what" which belongs to it as a separ- ate possession. It has no feature identified with its own private exclusivity. That is first a negative relation which, in principle, must qualify the internal from outside. And in practice we find that each element contained can refer itself elsewhere. Each tends naturally towards a wider whole outside of th*» 234 REALITY.
H this." Its content, we may say, has no rest till it has wandered to a home elsewhere. The mere " this " can appropriate nothing.