If about any theory you desire to ask intelligently the question, " What does it mean? " you must be prepared, I should have thought, to enter into that theory. And attempting to enter into it you are very liable, in raising your doubts, to base yourself tacitly on some dogma which the theory in question has given its reason for rejecting. And to avoid such crude dogmatism is not given to every man who likes to call himself a sceptic. And it is given to no man, I would repeat, without labour and education.
But in the article which I have cited there is, apart from this absurd idea about scepticism, nothing we need notice. There are some mistakes and failures to comprehend of an ordinary type, coupled with some mere dogmatism of an uninteresting kind. And it is to myself a matter of regret that generally in this point I have been helped so little by my critics, and am compelled (if I may use the expression) still to do most of my scepticism for myself.1 X. The doctrine of this work has been condemned as failing to satisfy the claims of our nature, and has been charged with being after all no better than "Agnosticism." Now without discussing the meaning of this term — a subject in which I am not much at home — I should like to insist on what to me seems capital. According to the doctrine of this work that which is highest to us is also in and to the Universe most real, and there can be no question of its reality being somehow upset. In common-place Materialism, on the other hand, that which in the end is real is certainly not what we think highest, this latter being a secondary and, for all we know, a precarious result of the former. And again, if we embrace mere ignorance, we are in the position that, for anything we know, our highest beliefs are illusions, or at any moment may become so, and at any moment 1 I may mention here that to a criticism of this work by Mr. Ward, in Mind, N. S., No. 9, I, perhaps hastily, replied in the next number of that journal. I should doubt if in the criticism or the reply anything calls for the reader's attention, but, if he desires to see them, I have given the reference.
APPENDIX. 56l APPENDIX. 56l may be brought to nought by something — we do not know what. And I submit that the difference between such doctrines and those of this work is really considerable.
And if I am told that generally the doctrines of this book fail to satisfy our nature's demands, I would request first a plain answer to a question which, I think, is plain. Am I to under- stand that somehow we are to have all that we want and have it just as we want it? For myself I should reply that such a satisfaction seems to me impossible. But I do not feel called on to criticise this demand, until I see it stated explicitly; and at present I merely press for a plain answer to my question.
And if the real question is not this, and if it concerns only the satisfaction somehow of our nature's main claims, I do not see that, as compared with other views about the world, the view of this work is inferior. I am supposing it to be compared of course only with views that aim at theoretical consistency, and not with mere practical beliefs. Practical beliefs, we know, are regulated by working efficiency. They emphasize one point here, and they suppress another point there, without much care to avoid a theoretical self-contradiction. And working beliefs of any kind, I imagine, can more or less exist under and together with any kind of theoretical doctrine. The comparison I have in view here is of another order, and would be made between doctrines each of which claimed to be a true and consistent account of the whole of things. Such a comparison I do not propose to make, since it would require much space, and, while perhaps serving little purpose otherwise, could not fail to give great offence. But there are two conditions of any fair comparison on which I would insist In a question about the satisfaction of our nature all the aspects of that nature must first be set forth, and not a one-sided distortion of these or an arbitrary selection from them. And in the second place every side of the doctrines compared must be stated without suppression of any features that may be found inconvenient For every view of the world, we must all agree, has its own special difficulties. Where, for instance, from a theistic or a Christian point of view a writer condemns, say, a "naturalistic" account of good and evil — would that writer, if he had a desire for fairness and truth, fail to recall the fact that his own view also has been morally condemned? Would he forget that the relation of an omniscient moral Creator to the things of his hand has given trouble intellectually, and is morally perhaps not from all sides "comfortable?" His attitude, I judge, would be otherwise, and this judgment, I submit, is that of every fair-minded man, whatever doctrines otherwise he may hold. Nothing is easier than to make a general attack on any doctrine while the alternative is ignored, and few things, I would add, are, at least in philosophy, less profitable. With this I will pass to a special treatment of some difficult problems.
Note A. Contradiction, and the Contrary.1 If we are asked " What is contrary or contradictory? " (I do not find it necessary here to distinguish between these), the more we consider the more difficult we find it to answer. " A thing cannot be or do two opposites at once and in the same respect " — this reply at first sight may seem clear, but on reflection may hreaten us with an unmeaning circle. For what are "opposites " except the adjectives which the thing cannot so combine? Hence we have said no more than that we in fact find predicates which in fact will not go together, and our further introduction of their 11 opposite " nature seems to add nothing. " Opposites will not unite, and their apparent union is mere appearance." But the mere appearance really perhaps only lies in their intrinsic opposition. And if one arrangement has made them opposite, a wider arrangement may perhaps unmake their opposition, and may include them all at once and harmoniously. Are, in short, opposites really opposite at all, or are they, after all, merely different? Let us attempt to take them in this latter character.
"A thing cannot without an internal distinction be (or do2) two different things, and differences cannot belong to the same thing in the same point unless in that point there is diversity. The appearance of such a union may be fact, but is for thought a contradiction." This is the thesis which to me seems to contain the truth about the contrary, and I will now try to recommend this thesis to the reader.
The thesis in the first place does not imply that the end which we seek is tautology. Thought most certainly does not demand mere sameness, which to it would be nothing. A bare tautology (Hegel has taught us this, and I wish we could all learn it) is not even so much as a poor truth or a thin truth. It is not a truth in any way, in any sense, or at all. Thought involves analysis and synthesis, and if the Law of Contradiction forbade diversity, it would forbid thinking altogether. And with this too necessary warning I will turn to the other side of the difficulty. Thought cannot do without differences, but on the other hand it cannot make them. And, as it cannot make them, so it cannot receive them merely from the outside and ready-made. Thought demands to go proprio molu, or, what is the same thing, with a ground and reason. Now to pass from A to B, if the ground remains external, is for thought to pass with no ground 1 Reprinted with omissions from Mind, N.S., No 20, ■ This addition is superfluous.
APPENDIX. 563 at all. But if, again, the external fact of A's and 7>'s conjunction is offered as a reason, then that conjunction itself creates the same difficulty. For thought's analysis can respect nothing, nor is there any principle by which at a certain point it should arrest itself or be arrested. Every distinguishable aspect becomes therefore for thought a diverse element to be brought to unity. Hence thought can no more pass without a reason from A or from B to its conjunction, than before it could pass groundlessly from A to B. The transition, being offered as a mere datum, or effected as a mere fact, is not thought's own self-movement Or in other words, because for thought no ground can be merely external, the passage is groundless. Thus A and B and their conjunction are, like atoms, pushed in from the outside by chance or fate; and what is thought to do with them but either make or accept an arrangement which to it is wanton and without reason, — or, having no reason for anything else, attempt against reason to identify them simply?
" This is not so," I shall be told, " and the whole case is other- wise. There are certain ultimate complexes given to us as facts, and these ultimates, as they are given, thought simply takes up as principles and employs them to explain the detail of the world. And with this process thought is satisfied." To me such a doctrine is quite erroneous. For these ultimates (a) cannot make the world intelligible, and again (/;) they are not given, and (c) in themselves they are self-contradictory, and not truth but appearance.
Certainly for practice we have to work with appearance and with relative untruths, and without these things the sciences of course would not exist. There is, I suppose, here no question about all this, and all this is irrelevant. The question here is whether with so much as this the intellect can be satisfied, or whether on the other hand it does not find in the end defect and self-contradiction. Consider first (a) the failure of what is called " explanation." The principles taken up are not merely in themselves not rational, but, being limited, they remain ex- ternal to the facts to be explained. The diversities therefore will only /a//, or rather must be brought, under the principle. They do not come out of it, nor of themselves do they bring themselves under it. The explanation therefore in the end does but conjoin aliens inexplicably. The obvious instance is the mechanical interpretation of the world. Even if here the principles were rational intrinsically, as surely they are not, they express but one portion of a complex whole. The rest there- fore, even when and where it has been "brought under" the principles, is but conjoined with them externally and for no known reason. Hence in the explanation there is in the end neither self-evidence nor any "because" except that brutally things come so.
564 APPENDIX.
" But in any case," I may hear, " these complexes are given and do not contradict themselves," and let us take these points in their order, (b) The transition from A to B, the inherence of b and c as adjectives in A, the union of discretion and con- tinuity in time and space — "such things are facts," it is said. " They are given to an intellect which is satisfied to accept and to employ them." They may be facts, I reply, in some sense of that word, but to say that, as such and in and by themselves, they are given is erroneous. What is given is a presented whole, a sensuous total in which these characters are found; and beyond and beside these characters there is always given some- thing else. And to urge "but at any rate these characters are there," is surely futile. For certainly they are not, when there, as they are when you by an abstraction have taken them out. Your contention is that certain ultimate conjunctions of elements are given. And I reply that no such bare conjunction is or possibly can be given. For the background is present, and the background and the conjunction are, I submit, alike integral aspects of the fact. The background therefore must be taken as a condition of the conjunction's existence, and the intellect must assert the conjunction subject in this way to a condition. The conjunction is hence not bare but dependent, and it is really a connection mediated by something falling outside it. A thing, for example, with its adjectives can never be simply given. It is given integrally with a mass of other features, and when it is affirmed of Reality it is affirmed of Reality qualified by this presented background. And this Reality (to go further) is and must be qualified also by what transcends any one presentation. Hence the mere complex, alleged to be given to the intellect, is really a selection made by or accepted by that intellect. An abstraction cuts away a mass of environing particulars, and offers the residue bare, as something given and to be accepted free from supporting conditions. And for working purposes such an artifice is natural and necessary, but to offer it as ultimate fact seems to me to be monstrous. We have an intellectual product, to be logically justified, if indeed that could be possible, and most certainly we have not a genuine datum.
At this point we may lay down an important result. The intellect cannot be reduced to choose between accepting an irrational conjunction or rejecting something given. For the intellect can always accept the conjunction not as bare but as a connection, the bond of which is at present unknown. It is taken therefore as by itself appearance which is less or more false in proportion as the unknown conditions, if filled in, less or more would swamp and transform it. The intellect therefore while rejecting whatever is alien to itself, if offered as absolute, can accept the inconsistent if taken as subject to conditions.
APPENDIX. 565 Beside absolute truth there is relative truth, useful opinion, and validity, and to this latter world belong so-called non-rational facts.1 (c) And any mere conjunction, I go on to urge, is for thought self-contradictory. Thought, I may perhaps assume, implies analysis and synthesis and distinction in unity. Further the mere conjunction offered to thought cannot be set apart itself as some- thing sacred, but may itself properly and indeed must become thought's object There will be a passage therefore from one element in this conjunction to its other element or elements. And on the other hand, by its own nature, thought must hold these in unity. But, in a bare conjunction, starting with A thought will externally be driven to /?, and seeking to unite these it will find no ground of union. Thought can of itself supply no internal bond by which to hold them together, nor has it any internal diversity by which to maintain them apart. It must therefore seek barely to identify them, though they are different, or somehow to unite both diversities where it has no ground of distinction and union. And this does not mean that the connec- tion is merely unknown and may be affirmed as unknown, and also, supposing it were known, as rational. For, if so, the conjunction would at once not be bare, and it is as bare that it is offered and not as conditional. But, if on the other hand it remains bare, then thought to affirm it must unite diversities without any internal distinction, and the attempt to do this is precisely what contradiction means.
" But," I shall be told, " you misrepresent the case. What is offered is not the elements apart, nor the elements plus an external bond, but the elements together and in conjunction.'* 1 I use "validity" much in the sense in which it was made current, I believe, by Lotze, and in which it has been said, I presume, with some truth, partly to coincide with £6£a. For my own purposes I have tried elsewhere to fix the meaning of the term, and I think it would have been letter if Mr. Hobhouse, in his interesting and most instructive volume on 'The Theory of A'now/edge, had remembered, when concerned with myself, that what is self-contradictory may also for me be valid. I should find it in general very difficult to reply to Mr. I lobhouse's criticisms on my views, because in so many places I have to doubt if I can have apprehended his meaning. I understand him e.g. to urge that a judgment must be categorically true, if its content can be shown to be ''contained" in reality. But the question was, I supposed, not in the very least as to whether the content is contained in reality or not, but entirely as to how, being contained there, it is contained, i.e. whether categorically or otherwise. Again Mr. Hobhouse seems to assume that, if a complex (such as the inherence of diverse adjectives or the union of continuity and discretion) is "bet," it therefore cannot be self-contradictory for thought. But surely the view he is engaged in controverting, holds precisely that to be false here which he, as far as I have seen, without any discussion assumes to be true. So that it is better that I should admit that I must have failed to follow the argument. If Mr. Hobhouse has in general understood the main drift of the view he criticises, I have not been able for the most part to understand his criticism, and I do not doubt that I am the loser.
566 APPENDIX.
Yes, I reply, but the question is how thought can think what is offered. If thought in its own nature possessed a "together," a "between," and an "all at once," then in its own intrinsic passage, or at least somehow in its own way and manner, it could re-affirm the external conjunction. But if these sensible bonds of union fall outside the inner nature of thought, just as much as do the sensible terms which they outwardly conjoin — the case surely is different. Then forced to distinguish and unable to conjoin by its own proper nature, or with a reason, thought is confronted by elements that strive to come together without a way of union. The sensible conjunctions remain for thought mere other ele- ments in the congeries, themselves failing in connection and external to others. And, on the other hand, driven to unite without internal distinction thought finds in this attempt a self- contradiction. You may exclaim against thought's failure, and in this to some degree I am with you; but the fact remains thus. Thought cannot accept tautology and yet demands unity in diversity. But your offered conjunctions on the other side are for it no connections or ways of union. They are themselves merely other external things to be connected. And so thought, knowing what it wants, refuses to accept something different, something which for it is appearance, a self-inconsistent attempt at reality and truth. It is idle from the outside to say to thought, " Well, unite but do not identify." How can thought unite except so far as in itself it has a mode of union? To unite without an internal ground of connection and distinction is to strive to bring together barely in the same point, and that is self-contradiction.
Things are not contrary because they are opposite, for things by themselves are not opposite. And things are not contrary because they are diverse, for the world as a fact holds diversity in unity. Things are self-contrary when, and just so far as, they appear as bare conjunctions, when in order to think them you would have to predicate differences without an internal ground of connection and distinction, when, in other words, you would have to unite diversities simply, and that means in the same point. This is what contradiction means, or I at least have been able to find no other meaning. For a mere "together," a bare con- junction in space or time, is for thought unsatisfactory and in the end impossible. It depends for its existence on our neglecting to reflect, or on our purposely abstaining, so far as it is concerned, from analysis and thought. But any such working arrangement, however valid, is but provisional. On the other hand, we have found that no intrinsical opposites exist, but that contraries, in a sense, are made. Hence in the end nothing is contrary nor is there any insoluble contradiction. Contradictions exist so far only as internal distinction seems impossible, only so far as diversities are attached to one unyielding point assumed, tacitly APPENDIX. 567 APPENDIX. 567 or expressly, to be incapable of internal diversity or external complement But any such fixture is an abstraction, useful perhaps, but in the end appearance. And thus, where we find contradiction, there is something limited and untrue which invites us to transcend it Standing contradictions appear where the subject is narrowed artificially, and where diversity in the identity is taken as excluded. A thing cannot be at once in two places if in the " at once " there is no lapse, nor can one place have two bodies at once if both claim it in their character as extended. The soul cannot affirm and deny at a single time, unless (as some perhaps rightly hold) the self itself may be divided. And, to speak in general, the more narrowly we take the subject, and the less internal ground for diversity it contains, the more it threatens us with standing or insoluble contradictions. But, we may add, so much the more abstractedness and less truth does such a subject possess. We may instance the presence of "disparate" qualities, such as white, hard and hot, in a single thing. The " thing " is presented as one feature of an indefinite complex, and it is affirmed as predicate of a reality transcending what is given. It is hence capable in all ways of indefinite addition to its apparent character. And to deny that in the u real thing " can be an internal diversity and ground of distinction seems quite irrational. But so far as for convenience or from thoughtlessness the denial is made, and the real thing is identified with our mutilated and abstract view of the thing — so far the disparate qualities logically clash and become contradictory.1 The Law of Contradiction tells us that we must not simply identify the diverse, since their union involves a ground of distinction. So far as this gTound is rightly or wrongly excluded, the Law forbids us to predicate diversities. Where the ground is merely not explicit or remains unknown, our assertion of any complex is provisional and contingent. It may be valid and good, but it is an incomplete appearance of the real, and its truth is relative. Yet, while it offers itself as but contingent truth and as more or less incomplete appearance, the Law of Contradiction has nothing against it But abstracted and irrational conjunctions taken by themselves as reality and truth, in short " facts " as they are accepted by too many philosophers, the I,aw must condemn. And about the truth of this Law, so far as it applies, there is in my opinion no question. The question will be rather as to how far the Law applies and how far therefore it is true.
But before we conclude, there is a matter we may do well to consider. In this attempt to attribute diversity and to avoid 1 Of course the real thing or the reality of the thing may turn out to be something very different from the thing as we first take it up 568 APPENDIX.