I will recur first to the difficult subject of Solip- sism. This has been discussed perhaps sufficiently in Chapter xxi., but a certain amount of repetition may be useful here. It may be objected that, if Reality is proved to be one experience, Solipsism follows. Again, if we can transcend the self at all, then we have made our way, it may be urged, to something perhaps not experience. Our main con- clusion, in short, may be met not directly but through a dilemma. It may be threatened with destruction by a self-contradictory development of its own nature.
Now my answer to this dilemma is a denial of that which it assumes. It assumes, in the first place, that my self is as wide as my experience. And it a in the second place, that my self is something hard and exclusive. Hence, if you are inside you are not outside at all, and, if you are 524 REALITY.
outside, you are at once in a different world. But we have shown that these assumptions are mistaken (Chapters xxi. and xxiii.); and, with their withdrawal, the dilemma falls of itself.
Finite centres of feeling, while they last, are (so far as we know) not directly pervious to one another. But, on the one hand, a self is not the same as such a centre of experience; and, on the other hand, in every centre the whole Reality is present. Finite experience never, in any of its forms, is shut in by a wall. It has in itself, and as an inseparable aspect of its own nature, the all- penetrating Reality. And there never is, and there never was, any time when in experience the world and self were quite identical. For, if we reach a stage where in feeling the self and world are not yet different, at that stage neither as yet exists. But in our first immediate experience the whole Reality is present. This does not mean that every other centre of experience, as such, is included there. It means that every centre qualifies the Whole, and that the Whole, as a substantive, is present in each of these its adjectives. Then from immediate ex- perience the self emerges, and is set apart by a distinction. The self and the world are elements, each separated in, and each contained by experience. And perhaps in all cases the self — and at any rate always the soul l — involves and only exists through an intellectual construction. The self is thus a construction based on, and itself transcending, immed- iate experience. Hence to describe all experience 1 These terms must not be taken as everywhere equivalent. There certainly is no self or soul without a centre of feeling. But there may be centres of feeling which are not selves, and again not souls (see below). Possibly also some selves are too fleeting to be called souls, while almost certainly there are souls which are not properly selves. The latter term should not be used at all where there is in no sense a distinction of self from not-self. And it can hardly always be used in precisely the 'jaine sense (Chapter ix.).
ULTIMATE DOUBTS. 525 as the mere adjective of a self, taken in any sense, is indefensible. And, as for transcendence, — from the very first the self is transcended by experience. Or we may in another way put this so. The self is one of the results gained by transcending the first im- perfect form of experience. But experience and Reality are each the same thing when taken at full, and they cannot be transcended.
I may be allowed to repeat this. Experience in its early form, as a centre of immediate feeling, is not yet either self or not-self. It qualifies the Reality, which of course is present within it; and its own finite content indissolubly connects it with the total universe. But for itself — if it could be for itself — this finite centre would be the world. Then through its own imperfection such first ex- perience is broken up. Its unity gives way before inner unrest and outer impact in one. And then self and Ego, on one side, are produced by this development, and, on the other side, appear other selves and the world and God. These all appear as the contents of one finite experience, and they really are genuinely and actually contained in it. They are contained in it but partially, and through a more or less inconsiderable portion of their area. Still this portion, so far as it goes, is their very being and reality; and a finite experience already is partially the universe. Hence there is no question here of stepping over a line from one world to another. Experience is already in both worlds, and is one thing with their being; and the question is merely to what extent this common being can be carried out, whether in practice or in knowledge. In other words the total universe, present imperfectly in finite experience, would, if completed, be merely the completion of this experi- ence. And to speak of transcendence into another world is therefore mistaken.
For certain purposes what I experience can be 526 REALITY.
considered as the state of my self, or, again, of my soul. It can be so considered, because in one aspect it actually is so. But this one aspect may be an infinitesimal fragment of its being. And never in any case can what I experience be the mere adjective of my self. My self is not the immediate, nor again is it the ultimate, reality. Immediate reality is an experience either containing both self and not-self, or containing as yet neither. And ultimate reality, on the other hand, would be the total universe.
In a former chapter we noticed the truths con- tained in Solipsism. Everything, my self included, is essential to, and is inseparable from, the Absolute. And, again, it is only in feeling that I can directly encounter Reality. But there is no need here to dwell on these sides of the truth. My experience is essential to the world, but the world is not, except in one aspect, my experience. The world and ex- perience are, taken at large, the same. And my experience and its states, in a sense, actually are the whole world; for to this slight extent the one Reality is actually my self. But it is less misleading to assert, conversely, that the total world is my experience. For it appears there, and in each appearance its single being already is imperfectly included.
Let us turn from an objection based on an irrational prejudice, and let us go on to consider a point of some interest. Can the Absolute be said to consist and to be made up of souls? The question is ambiguous, and must be discussed in several senses. Is there — let us ask first — in the universe any sort of matter not contained in finite centres of experience? It seems at first sight natural to point at once to the relations between these centres. But such relations, we find on re- flection, have been, so far, included in the percep- ULTIMATE DOUBTS. 527 tion and thought of the centres themselves. And what the question comes to is, rather, this, Can there be matter of experience, in any form, which does not enter as an element into some finite centre?
In view of our ignorance this question may seem unanswerable. We do not know why or how the Absolute divides itself into centres, or the way in which, so divided, it still remains one. The relation of the many experiences to the single experience, and so to one another, is, in the end, beyond us. And, if so, why should there not be elements ex- perienced in the total, and yet not experienced within any subordinate focus? We may indeed, from the other side, confront this ignorance and this question with a doubt. Has such an unattached element, or margin of elements, any meaning at all? Have we any right to entertain such an idea as rational? Does not our ignorance in fact forbid us to assume the possibility of any matter experienced apart from a finite whole of feeling? But, after consideration, I do not find that this doubt should prevail. Certainly it is only by an abstraction that I can form the idea of such unattached elements, and this abstraction, it may seem, is not legitimate. And, if the elements were taken as quite loose, if they were not still inseparable factors in a whole of experience, then the abstraction clearly would lead to an inconsistent idea. And such an idea, we have agreed, must not be regarded as possible.
But, in the present case, the elements, unattached to any finite centre, are still subordinate to and integral aspects of the Whole. And, since this Whole is one experience, the position is altered. The abstraction from a finite centre does not lead visibly to self-contradiction. And hence I cannot refuse to regard its result as possible.
But this possibility, on the other side, seems to have no importance. If we take it to be fact, we 528 REALITY.
shall not find that it makes much difference to the Whole. And, again, for so taking it there appears to be almost no ground. Let us briefly consider these two points. That elements of experience should be unattached would (we saw) be a serious matter, if they were unattached altogether and absolutely. But since in any case all comes to- gether and is fused in the Whole, and since this Whole in any case is a single experience, the main result appears to me to be quite unaffected. The fact that some experience-matter does not directly qualify any finite centre, is a fact from which I can draw no further conclusion. But for holding this fact, in the second place, there is surely no good reason. The number of finite centres and their diversity is (we know) very great, and we may fairly suppose it to extend much beyond our knowledge. Nor do the relations, which are "between" these centres, occasion difficulty. Relations of course cannot fall somewhere outside of reality; and, if they really were " between " the centres, we should have to assume some matter of experience external and additional to these. The conclusion would follow; and we have seen that, rightly understood, it is possible. But, as things are, it seems no less gratuitous. There is nothing, so far as I see, to suggest that any aspect of any relation lies outside the experience-matter contained in finite centres. The relations, as such, do not and cannot exist in the Absolute. And the question is whether that higher experience, which contains and transforms the relations, demands any element not experienced somehow within the centres. For assuming such an element I can myself perceive no ground. And since, even if we assume this, the main result seems to remain unaltered, the best course is, perhaps, to discard it as unreal. It is better, on the whole, to conclude that no element of Reality falls outside the experience of finite centres.
ULTIMATE DOUBTS. 529 Are we then to assert that the Absolute consists of souls? That, in my opinion, for two reasons would be incorrect. A centre of experience, first, is not the same thing as either a soul or, again, a self. It need not contain the distinction of not-self from self; and, whether it contains that or not, in neither case is it, properly, a self. It will be either below, or else wider than and above, the distinction. And a soul, as we have seen, is always the creature of an intellectual construction. It cannot be the same thing with a mere centre of immediate ex- perience. Nor again can we affirm that every centre implies and entails in some sense a corre- sponding soul. For the duration of such centres may perhaps be so momentary that no one, except to save a theory, could call them souls. Hence we cannot maintain that souls contain all the matter of experience which fills the world.
And in any case, secondly, the Absolute would not consist of souls. Such a phrase implies a mode of union which we can not regard as ultimate. It suggests that in the Absolute finite centres are maintained and respected, and that we may con- sider them, as such, to persist and to be merely ordered and arranged. But not like this (we have seen) is the final destiny and last truth of things. We have a re-arrangement not merely of things but of their internal elements. We have an all-per- vasive transfusion with a re-blending of all material. And we can hardly say that the Absolute consists of finite things, when the things, as such, are there transmuted and have lost their individual natures.1 1 For this reason Humanity, or an organism, kingdom, or society of selves, is not an ultimate idea. It implies an union too incomplete, and it ascribes reality in too high a sense to finite pieces of appearance. These two defects are, of course, in principle one. An organism or society, including every self past present and future — and we can hardly take it at less than this — is itself an idea to me obscure, if not quite inconsistent But, in any case, its reality and truth cannot be ultimate. And, for A.K, MM 530 REALITY.
Reality then is one, and it is experience. It is not merely my experience, nor again can we say that it consists of souls or selves. And it cannot be a unity of experience and also of something beside; for the something beside, when we examine it, turns out always to be experience. We verified this above (Chapters xxii. and xxvi.) in the case of Nature. Nature, like all else, in a sense remains inexplicable. It is in the end an arrangement, a way of happening coexistent and successive, as to which at last we clearly are unable to answer the question Why. But this inability, like others, does not affect the truth of our result. Nature is an abstraction from experience, and in experience it is not co-ordinate with spirit or mind. For mind, we have seen, has a reality higher than Nature, and the essence of the physical world already implies that in which it is absorbed and transcended. Nature by itself is but an indefensible division in the whole of experience.
This total unity of experience, I have pointed out, cannot, as such, be directly verified. We know its nature, but in outline only, and not in detail. Feeling, as we have seen, supplies us with a positive idea of non-relational unity. The idea is imperfect, but is sufficient to serve as a positive basis. And we are compelled further by our principle to believe in a Whole qualified, and qualified non-relationally, by every fraction of experience. But this unity of all experiences, if itself not experience, would be meaningless. The Whole is one experience then, and such a unity higher than all relations, a unity which contains and transforms them, has positive meaning. Of the manner of its being in detail we are utterly ignorant, but of its general nature we myself, even in Ethics I do not see how such an idea can be insisted on. The perfection of the Whole has to realise itself in and through me; and, without question, this Whole is very largely social. But I do not see my way to the assertion that, even for Ethics, it is nothing else at all (pp. 415, 431).
ULTIMATE DOUBTS. 531 possess a positive though abstract knowledge. And, in attempting to deny or to doubt the result we have gained, we find ourselves once more uncon- sciously affirming it.
The Absolute, though known, is higher, in a sense, than our experience and knowledge; and in this con- nection I will ask if it has personality. At the point we have reached such a question can be dealt with rapidly. We can answer it at once in the affirma- tive or negative according to its meaning. Since the Absolute has everything, it of course must pos- sess personality. And if by personality we are to understand the highest form of finite spiritual development, then certainly in an eminent degree the Absolute is personal. For the higher (we may repeat) is always the more real. And, since in the Absolute the very lowest modes of experience are not lost, it seems even absurd to raise such a question about personality.
And this is not the sense in which the question is usually put " Personal " is employed in effect with a restrictive meaning; for it is used to exclude what is above, as well as below, personality. The super- personal, in other words, is either openly or tacitly regarded as impossible. Personality is taken as the highest possible way of experience, and naturally, if so, the Absolute cannot be super- personal. This conclusion, with the assumption on which it rests, may be summarily rejected. It has been, indeed, refuted beforehand by previous discussions. If the term u- personal " is to bear anything like its ordinary sense, assuredly the Absolute is not merely personal. It is not personal, because it is personal and more. It is, in a word, super-personal.
I intend here not to enquire into the possible meanings of personality. On the nature of the self and of self-consciousness I have spoken already,1 and 1 See Chapters ix. and x. Compare xxi. and x*»n.
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I will merely add here that for me a person is finite or is meaningless. But the question raised as to the Absolute may, I think, be more briefly disposed of. If by calling it personal you mean only that it is nothing but experience, that it contains all the highest that we possibly can know and feel, and is a unity in which the details are utterly pervaded and embraced — then in this conclusion I am with you. But your employment of the term personal I very much regret. I regret this use mainly not because I consider it incorrect — that between us would matter little — but because it is misleading and directly serves the cause of dishonesty.
For most of those who insist on what they call " the personality of God," are intellectually dishonest. They desire one conclusion, and, to reach it, they argue for another. But the second, if proved, is quite different, and serves their purpose only be- cause they obscure it and confound it with the first. And it is by their practical purpose that the result may here be judged. The Deity, which they want, is of course finite, a person much like themselves, with thoughts and feelings limited and mutable in the process of time. They desire a person in the sense of a self, amongst and over against other selves, moved by personal relations and feelings towards these others — feelings and relations which are altered by the conduct of the others. And, for their purpose, what is not this, is really nothing. Now with this de- sire in itself I am not here concerned. Of course for us to ask seriously if the Absolute can be personal in such a way, would be quite absurd. And my busi- ness for the moment is not with truth but with intel- lectual honesty.
It would be honest first of all to state openly the conclusion aimed at, and then to enquire if this con- clusion can be maintained. But what is not honest is to suppress the point really at issue, to desire the personality of the Deity in one sense, and then to ULTIMATE DOUBTS. 533 contend for it in another, and to do one's best to ignore the chasm which separates the two. Once give up your finite and mutable person, and you have parted with everything which, for you, makes per- sonality important. Nor will you bridge the chasm by the sliding extension of a word. You will only make a fog, where you can cry out that you are on both sides at once. And towards increasing this fog I decline to contribute. It would be useless, in such company and in such an atmosphere, to discuss the meaning of personality — if indeed the word actually has any one meaning. For me it is sufficient to know, on one side, that the Absolute is not a finite person. Whether, on the other side, personality in some eviscerated remnant of sense can be applied to it, is a question intellectually unimportant and practically trifling.
With regard to the personality of the Absolute we must guard against two one-sided errors. The Absolute is not personal, nor is it moral, nor is it beautiful or true. And yet in these denials we may be falling into worse mistakes. For it would be far more incorrect to assert that the Absolute is either false, or ugly, or bad, or is something even beneath the application of predicates such as these. And it is better to affirm personality than to call the Absol- ute impersonal. But neither mistake should be necessary. The Absolute stands above, and not below, its internal distinctions. It does not eject them, but it includes them as elements in its fulness. To speak in other language, it is not the indifference but the concrete identity of all extremes. But it is better in this connection to call it super-personal.
We have seen that Reality is one, and is a single experience; and we may pass from this to consider a difficult question. Is the Absolute happy? This might mean, can pleasure, as such, be predicated of the Absolute? And, as we have seen in the pre- 534 REALITY.
534 REALITY.
ceding chapter, this is not permissible. We found that there is a balance of pleasure over and above pain, and we know from experience that in a mixed state such a balance may be pleasant. And we are sure that the Absolute possesses and enjoys somehow this balance of pleasure. But to go further seems impossible. Pleasure may conceivably be so sup- plemented and modified by addition, that it does not remain precisely that which we call pleasure. Its pleasantness certainly could not be lost, but it might be blended past recognition with other aspects of the Whole. The Absolute then, perhaps, strictly, does not feel pleasure. But, if so, that is only because it has something in which pleasure is included.
But at this point we are met by the doubt, with which already we have partly dealt (Chapter xiv.). Is our conclusion, after all, the right one? Is it not possible, after all, that in the Absolute there is a balance of pain, or, if not of pain, of something else which is at all events no better? On this difficult point I will state at once the result which seems true. Such a balance is possible in the lowest sense of barely possible. It does not seem to me unmeaning, nor can I find that it is self-contradictory. If we try to deny that the Absolute is one and is experience, our denial becomes unmeaning, or of itself turns round into an assertion. But I do not see that this is the case with a denial of happiness.
It is true that we can know nothing of pain and pleasure except from our experience. It is true that in that experience well-nigh everything points in one direction. There is, so far as I know, not one special fact which suggests that pain is compatible with unity and concord. And, if so, why should we not insist, "Such is the nature of pain, and hence to deny this nature is to fall into self-contradiction "? What, in short, is the other possibility which has not been included? I will endeavour to state it.
The world that we can observe is certainly not ULTIMATE DOUBTS. 535 all the universe; and we do not know how much there maybe which we cannot observe. And hence everywhere an indefinite supplement from the un- known is possible. Now might there not be condi- tions, invisible to us, which throughout our experi- ence modify the action of pleasure and pain? In this way what seems to be essential to pain may actually not be so. It may really come from unseen conditions which are but accidental. And so pain, after all, might be compatible with harmony and system. Against this it may be contended that pain itself, on such a hypothesis, would be neutralised, and that its painfulness also would now be gone. Again it may be urged that what is accidental on a certain scale has become essential, essential not less effectively because indirectly. But, though these contentions have force, I do not find them conclus- ive. The idea of a painful universe, in the end, seems to be neither quite meaningless nor yet visibly self- contradictory. And I am compelled to allow that, speaking strictly, we must call it possible.
But such a possibility, on the other side, possesses almost no value. It of course rests, so far as it goes, on positive knowledge. We know that the world's character, within certain limits, admits of indefinite supplementation. And the supplementation, here proposed, seems in accordance with this general nature of known reality. That is all it has in its favour, an abstract compliance with a general char- acter of things; and beyond this there seems to be not one shred of particular evidence. But against it there is everything which in particular we know about the subject. And the possibility is thus left with a value too small to be estimated. We can only say that it exists, and that it is hardly worth con- sidering further.
But we have, with this, crossed the line which separates absolute from conditional knowledge.
536 REALITY.
That Reality is one system which contains in itself all experience, and, again, that this system itself is experience — so far we may be said to know abso- lutely and unconditionally.1 Up to this point our judgment is infallible, and its opposite is quite impos- sible. The chance of error, in other words, is so far nothing at all. But outside this boundary every judgment is finite, and so conditional. And here every truth, because incomplete, is more or less erroneous. And because the amount of incomplete- ness remains unknown, it may conceivably go so far, in any case, as to destroy the judgment. The oppos- ite no longer is impossible absolutely; but, from this point downwards, it remains but impossible rela- tively and subject to a condition.
Anything is absolute when all its nature is con- tained within itself. It is unconditional when every condition of its being falls inside it. It is free from chance of error when any opposite is quite incon- ceivable. Such characters belong to the statement that Reality is experience and is one. For these truths are not subordinate, but are general truths about Reality as a whole. They do not exhaust it, but in outline they give its essence. The Real, in other words, is more than they, but always more of the same. There is nothing which in idea you can add to it, that fails, when understood, to fall under these general truths. And hence every doubt and all chance of error become unmeaning. Error and doubt have their place only in the subordinate and finite region, and within the limits prescribed by the character of the Whole. And the Other has no meaning where any Other turns out to be none. It is useless again to urge that an Other, though not yet conceived, may after all prove conceivable. It is idle to object that the impossible means no more than what you have not yet found. For we have 1 This statement will be modified lower down.
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