identity (sameness) of two distinct things. It differs from identity in its lowest form — the identity, that is, where things are taken as the same without specific awareness of the point of sameness and distinction of that from the diversity — because it implies the distinct consciousness that the two things are two and different It differs again from identity in a more explicit form, because it is of the essence of Resem- blance that the point or points of sameness should remain at least partly undistinguished and unspecified. And further there is a special feeling which belongs to and helps to con- stitute the experience of similarity, a feeling which does not belong to the experience of sameness proper. On the other hand resemblance is based always on partial sameness; and with- out this partial sameness, which in its own undistinguishing way it perceives, there is no experience of resemblance, and without this to speak of resemblance is meaningless. And it is because of this partial identity, which is the condition of our experiencing resemblance and which resemblance asserts, that we are able within certain limits to use ' same ' for ■ like,' and to use ■ like ' for 'same.' But the specific feeling of resemblance is not itself the partial identity which it involves, and partial identity need not imply likeness proper at alL1 But without partial identity, both as its condition and as its assertion, similarity is nothing.
From a logical point of view, therefore, resemblance is secondary, but this does not mean that its specific experience can be resolved into identity or explained by it. And it does not mean that, when by analysis you specify the point of sameness in a resemblance, the resemblance must vanish. Things are not made so simply as this. So far as you have analyzed, so far the resemblance (proper) is gone, and is succeeded so far by a per- ception of identity — but only so far. By the side of this new perception, and so far as that does not extend, the same experi- ence of resemblance may still remain. And from this to argue that resemblance is not based on sameness is to my mind the strangest want of understanding. And again it is indifferent whether the experience of identity or that of resemblance is prior in time and psychologically. I am myself clear that identity in its lowest sense comes first; but the whole question is for our present purpose irrelevant The question here is whether resem- blance is or is not from a logical point of view secondary, whether it is not always based on identity, while identity need not in any sense be based on it I will now proceed to consider some objections that seem raised against this view, and will then go on to ask, supposing we deny it, in what position we are left The first part of this task I shall treat very briefly for two reasons. Some of the 1 See Note B.
594 APPENDIX.
objections I must regard as disposed of, and others remain to me obscure. The metaphysical objection against the possibility of any identity in quality may, I think, be left to itself; and I will pass to two others which seem to rest on misunderstanding. We are told, 'You cannot say that two things, which are like, are the same, unless in each you are prepared to produce and to exhibit the point of sameness.' I have answered this objection already,1 and will merely here repeat the main point. I want to know whether it is denied that, before analysis takes place, there can be any diverse aspects of things, and whether it is asserted that analysis always makes what it brings out, or whether again (for some reason not given) one must so believe in the power of analysis as to hold that what it cannot bring out naked is there- fore nothing at all, or whether again, for some unstated reason, one is to accept this not as a general principle, but only where sameness is concerned. When I know what I have to meet I will endeavour to meet it, but otherwise I am helpless.2 And another objection, which I will now notice, remains also un- explained. The perception of a series of degrees, it seems to be contended, is a fact which proves that there may be resemblance without a basis of identity. I have tried to meet this argument in various forms,3 so far as I have been able to understand them, and I will add here that I have pressed in vain for any explanation on the cardinal point. Can you, I would repeat, have a series of degrees which are degrees of nothing, and otherwise have you not admitted an underlying identity? And if I am asked, Cannot there be degrees in resem- blance? I answer that of course there can be. But, if so, and in this case, the resemblance itself is the point of identity of and in which there are degrees, and how that is to show either that there is no identity at all, or again that no identity underlies the resemblance, I cannot conjecture. I admit, or rather I urge and insist, that the perception of a series is a point as difficult as in psychology it is both important and too often neglected. But on the other side I insist that by denying identity you preclude all possibility of explaining this fact, and have begun by turning the fact into inexplicable nonsense. And no one, I would add, can fairly be expected to answer an objection the meaning of which is not stated.4 1 See p. 348 and the Note thereto.
1 I observe that Mr. Hobhouse appears (p. 109) to endorse this objection, but he makes no attempt, so far as I see, to explain or justify it. And as he also appears not to be prepared to deny that sameness always underlies resem- blance, his position here and in some other points is to me quite obscure.
4 Whether Mr. Hobhouse is to be taken again as endorsing this objection I am quite unable to say. The argument, on p. 112 of his book, I to my regret have 'not been able to follow, and it would be unprofitable to criticise it m a iense which it probably may not bear. But I have been able to find nothing APPENDIX. 595 APPENDIX. 595 Passing from this point let us ask what is the alternative to identity. If we deny sameness in character and assert mere resemblance, with what are we left? We are left, it seems to me, in confusion, and end with sheer nonsense. How mere resemblance without identity is to qualify the terms that resemble, is a problem which is not faced, and yet unsolved it threatens ruin. The use of this mere resemblance leads us in psychology to entertain gross and useless fictions, and in logic it entails immediate and irretrievable bankruptcy. If the same in character does not mean the same, our inferences are destroyed and cut in sunder, and in brief the world of our knowledge is dissolved.1 And how is this bankruptcy veiled? How is it that those who deny sameness in character can in logic, and wherever they find it convenient, speak of terms as ' the same,' and mention ' their identity/ and talk of 'one note' and 'one colour'? The ex- pedient used is the idea or the phrase of 'exact likeness' or 4 precise similarity.' When resemblance is carried to such a point that perceptible difference ceases, then, I understand, you have not really got sameness or identity, but you can speak as if you had got it. And in this way the collision with language and logic is avoided or rather hidden.
What in principle is the objection to this use of ' exact likeness '? The objection is that resemblance, if and so far as you make it 'exact' by removing all internal difference, has so far ceased to be mere resemblance, and has become identity. Resemblance, we saw, demands two things that resemble, and it demands also that the exact point of resemblance shall not be distinguished. This is essential to resemblance as contra- distinguished against identity, and this is why — because you do not know what the point of resemblance is and whether it may not be complex — you cannot in logic use mere resemblance as sameness. You can indeed, we also saw, while analyzing still retain your perception of resemblance, but, so far as you analyze, you so far have got something else, and, when you argue, it is not the resemblance which you use but the point of resemblance, if at least your argument is logical. But a point of resemblance is clearly an identity. And it is, we saw, that looks like an attempt to deal with the real issue involved here. Can you have decrees which arc degrees of nothing, and can you have a resemblance where there is no point of resemblance? The apparent contention that txreause relations of quantity and degree do not consist in bare identity, they therefore must consist in mere resemblance without any identity, I cannot comprehend. Why are we forced to accept cither? But I must not attempt to criticise where I have failed to understand.
1 The position of Mr. Hobhouse here, who appears on the one hand to deny all identity of quality or character, and yet on the other hand appears not to be willing to assert that resemblance without a basis of identity is possible, I may repeat does not seem intelligible.
596 APPENDIX.
596 APPENDIX.
the double sense of the word 'likeness/ which seems to authorize this use of likeness for sameness. Likeness may mean my specific experience of resemblance — and that of course itself is not identity — or it may mean the real partial sameness in character of two things whether to me they resemble or not. Thus ■ exact likeness ' can be used for the identical character which makes the point of likeness, and it need not mean the mere likeness which can be opposed to identity. And where exact likeness does not mean the identical character, bankruptcy at once is patent.1 We are warned, "You must not say that two notes are the same note, or that two peas have the same colour, for that is to prove yourself incompetent to draw an elementary distinction; or rather you may say this with us, if with us you are clear that you do not mean it, but mean with us mere resemblance." And when we ask, Are the notes and colours then really different? we hear that 'the likeness is exact.' But with this I myself am not able to be satisfied. I want to know whether within the character of the sounds and within the character of the colours there is asserted any difference or none. And here, as I under- stand it, the ways divide. If you mean to deny identity, your one consistent course is surely to reply, "Of course there is a difference. I know what words mean, and when I said that it was not the same but only alike, I meant to assert an internal diversity, though I do not know exactly what that is. Plainly for me to have said in one breath, The character has no difference and yet it is not the same character, would have been suicidal." And this position, I admit, is so far self-consistent; but it ends on all sides in intellectual ruin. But the other way, so far as I understand it, is to admit and to assert that in exact likeness there is really no difference, to admit and to assert that it involves a point of resemblance in which internally no diversity is taken to exist, and which we use logically on the understanding that divergence of character is excluded — and then, on the other side, to insist that here we still have no 1 1 may perhaps be allowed to illustrate the above by an imaginary dialogue. " Is that piece of work the same?" " Well, it's exactly like." "You 're sure?" "Oh yes, it's identical, it's a. facsimile." " H'm, it looks exactly like, but, as I 've examined the other, I 'd rather take that, though I dare say there's really no difference." The "looking exactly like," the producing the same impression, implies of course a real identity in the two things, but as I do not know what that is, I do not know if it is what I want. It is this ambiguity of ' likeness ' which gave its plausibility to J. S. Mill's doctrine of reasoning from particular to particular, and it is this again which has enabled Mr. Hobhouse (pp. 280-5) to represent that Mill's doctrine, once held to be original and revolutionary, consists really in the view that you never do proceed direct from particular to particular, but always through a universal. The task that still awaits Mr. Hobhouse is the proof that, when Mill talked of Association by Similarity, he always meant nothing whatever but Redintegra- tion through identity. But I am not persuaded after all that Mill must have been a prophet because he has at last found a disciple to build his sepulchre.
APPENDIX. 597 APPENDIX. 597 sameness but only likeness. And with this, so far as I can see, there is an end of argument. I can myself understand such an attitude only as the result of an unconscious determination to deny a doctrine from fear of its consequences.
But if we are to look at consequences — and I am ready to look at them — why should we be blind on one side? To avoid confusion between what may be called individual same- ness and mere identity of character, we should of course all agree, is most desirable. But the idea that you will avoid a mistake by making an error, that you will prevent a confusion between different kinds of identity by altogether denying one kind, seems to me to be irrational The identity that you deny will in practice come back always. It may return in a form genuine but disguised, obscured and distorted by the deceptive title of exact likeness. But on the other hand it may steal in as an illusive and disastrous error. And we need not seek far to find an instructive illustration of this. J. S. Mill may be called, I presume, the leader of those who amongst us deny identity of quality, and J. S. Mill on the other hand taught Association by Similarity. At least we must say this until it has been proved here — as elsewhere with regard to the argument from particulars — that we who criticise Mill know no more of his real meaning than in fact Mill himself did. And Association by Similarity, as taught by Mill and his school, entails (as I have proved in my Principles of Logic) and really asserts the coarsest mythology of individual Resurrection. And I do not think that the history of philosophy can exhibit a grosser case of this very confusion against which we who believe in identity are so specially warned. Yes, you may try to drive out nature, and nature (as the saying goes) will always come back, but it will not always come back as nature. And you may strive to banish identity of character, and identity always will return, and it will not always return in a tolerable form. The cardinal im- portance of the subject must be my excuse for the great length of this Note, and for my once more taking up a controversy which gives me no pleasure, but which I feel I have no right to decline.
EXPLANATORY NOTES.
Page 15. The action of one part of the body on another percipient part may of course be indirect. In this case what is perceived is not the organ itself but the effect of the organ on another thing. The eye seen by itself in a mirror is an illustration of this.
/. 18. Compare here the Note to chapter xxi.
/. 22. For the "contrary" see Note A, and for "external relations" see Note B.
Chapter iii. In this chapter I have allowed myself to speak of 'relations' where relations do not actually exist. This and some other points are explained in Note B. The reader may compare pp. 14 1-3.
/. 30. The Reals to which I am alluding here are Herbart's.
p. 36. By a " solid " I of course here merely mean a unit as opposed to a collection or aggregate.
p. 48. On the connection between quality and duration, ct Note C.
p. 51. "Ideas are not what they mean." For some further discussion on this point see Mind, N.S. IV, p. 21 and pp. 225 foil.
p. 53. A difficulty which might have been included in this chapter, is the problem of what may be called the Relativity of Motion. Has motion any meaning whatever except as the alteration of the spatial relation of bodies? Has it the smallest meaning apart from a plurality of bodies? Can it be called, to speak strictly, the state either (a) of one single body or (b) of a number of bodies? On the other hand can motion be predicated of anything apart from and other than the bodies, and, if not, can we avoid predicating it of the bodies, and, if so, is it not their state, and so in some sense a state of each?
It would of course be easy to set this out antithetically in the form, Motion (a) is and (b) is not a state of body. The reader who takes the trouble to work it out will perhaps be profited* EXPLANATORY NOTES. 599 The conclusion which would follow is that neither bodies nor their relations in space and time have, as such, reality. They are on each side an appearance and an abstraction separated from the whole. But in that whole, on the other hand, they cannot, as such, be connected intelligibly, and that whole there- fore points beyond itself to a higher mode of being, in comparison with which it is but appearance.
The idea of the motion of a single body may perhaps (I am ignorant) be necessary in physics, and, if that is so, then in physics of course that idea must be rational and right. But, except as a working fiction of this kind, it strikes my mind as a typical instance of unnecessary nonsense. It is to me nonsense, because I use 'body' here to cover anything which occupies and has position in space, and because a bare or mere space (or time) which in itself has a diversity of distinct positions, seems to me quite unmeaning. And I call this nonsense un- necessary, because I have been unable to see either what is got by it, or how or why in philosophy we are driven to use it. The fact, if it is a fact, that this idea is necessary for the explanations of physics has, I would repeat, here no bearing whatever. For such a necessity could not show that the idea is really intelligible. And if, without it, the laws of motion are in their essence irrational, that does not prove, I imagine, that they become rational with it, or indeed can be made intrinsically rational at all. This, I would add, is in principle my reply to such arguments as are used by Lotze, Metaphysik, §§ 164, 165, and Liebmann, Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit^ pp. 113 foil. The whole idea, for instance, of a solitary sphere in space, to say nothing of its rotation and centrifugal force, is, considered metaphysically, I should say, a mere vicious abstraction and from the first totally inadmissible. And if without it the facts are self-contradictory, with it they still more deeply contradict themselves.
But, however that may be, I must be excused the remark that on such subjects it is perhaps not surprising that any man should come in the end to any result whatever, yet that in philosophy any man should use the idea of a single moving body, as if it were a thing self-evident and free from difficulty — this really surprises me.
Note to Chapter vl I have left this chapter as it stood, though it would be very easy to enlarge it; but I doubt if any end would be obtained by insistence on detail. I will however in this Note call attention to one or two points.
(i) If the cause is taken as complex, {here is a problem first as to the constitution of the cause itselt How are its elements united internally, and are they united intelligibly? How is it limited intelligibly so as to be distinct from the universe at 600 EXPLANATORY NOTES.
large? And, next, how does it become different in becoming the effect, and does it do so intelligibly? And if it does not become different, is there any sense in speaking of cause where there is no change? I will return to this point lower down.
(ii) With regard to Continuity (p. 61) the point is simple, and is of course the old difficulty urged once more. If cause is taken as a temporal existence and has a being in time, how can it have this unless it has some duration as itself? But, if it has duration, then after a period it must either pass into the effect for no reason, or else during the period it was not yet the cause, or else the temporal existence of the cause is split up into a series the elements of which, having no duration, do not temporally exist, or else you must predicate of the one cause a series of internal changes and call them its state — a course which, we found all along, could not be rationally justified in the sense of being made intelligible. It will of course be under- stood that these difficulties are merely speculative, and do not necessarily affect the question of how the cause is to be taken in practice.
(iii) I have really nothing to add in principle to the remark on Identity (p. 58), but I will append some detail. It seems to be suggested, e.g.> that the mere existence of a temporal thing at one moment can be taken as the cause of its still continuing to exist at the next moment, and that such a self-determined Identity is intelligible in itself. To me on the contrary such an idea is inconsistent and in the end quite meaningless, and I will try to state the reason briefly. Identity in the first place (let me not weary of repeating this after Hegel) apart from and not qualified by diversity is not identity at all. So that without differ- ences and qualification by differences this supposed thing would not be even the same, continue or endure at all. The idea that in time or in space there can be distinctions without any differences is to my mind quite unmeaning, and the assertion that anything can be successive in itself and yet merely the same, is to me an absurdity. Again to seek to place either the identity or the difference in mere 'existence' is, so far as I can see, quite futile — mere existence being once more a self-contradictory idea which ends in nonsense. This is all I need say as to the continued identity of a thing which does not change. But if it changes, then this thing becomes other than it was, and you have to make, and you cannot make, its alteration in the end intelligible. While, if you refuse to qualify the thing by the differences of succession, you once more contradict yourself by now removing the thing from out of temporal existence.
In the same way we may briefly dispose of the idea that a process may be intelligible up to a certain point, and may therefore be taken as the cause of its own continuance in EXPLANATORY NOTES. 6oi the same character. Certainly if per impossibile you possibly j could have a self-contained intelligible process, that would be the cause of its own continuance, though why it would be so is quite another matter. But then such a process is, so far as I can see, in principle impossible, and at all events I would ask where it is found or how it could exist To adduce as an instance the motion of a single body in a straight line is to offer that as self-contained, and in itself intelligible, which I should have ventured to produce as perhaps the ne plus ultra of external determination and internal irrationality. And I must on this point refer to the remarks made in the Note to Temporal processes certainly, • as they advance from this extreme of mere motion in space and become more concrete, become also more self-contained and more rational in an increasing degree. But to say of any temporal process what- ever that it is in the end self-intelligible is, so far as I can perceive, a clear mistake. And if the succession which up to a certain point it contains, is not intelligible, how could that, if by some miracle it propagated itself, be used as a way of making intelligible its own continuance?