In its nature is incapable of conjunction and has no way

of mere "together." On the other side no such

conjunction is or possibly could be given. It is itself

a mere abstraction, useful perhaps and so legitimate and

so far valid, but taken otherwise to be condemned as the

main root of error.

Contradiction is appearance, everywhere removable by

distinction and by further supplement, and removed

actually, if not in and by the mere intellect,

by the whole which transcends it. On the other hand

contradiction, or rather what becomes such, as soon as

it is thought out, is everywhere necessary. Facts and

views partial and one-sided, incomplete and so

incoherent--things that offer themselves as characters

of a Reality which they cannot express, and which

present in them moves them to jar with and to pass

beyond themselves--in a word appearances are the stuff

of which the Universe is made. If we take them in their

proper character we shall be prone neither to over-

estimate nor to slight them.

We have now seen the nature of incompatibles or

contraries. There are no native contraries, and we have

found no reason to entertain such an idea. Things are

contrary when, being diverse, they strive to be united

in one point which in itself does not admit of internal

diversity. And for the intellect any bare conjunction is

an attempt of this sort. The intellect has in its nature

no principle of mere togetherness, and the intellect

again can accept nothing which is alien to itself. A

foreign togetherness of elements is for the intellect,

therefore, but one offered external element the more.

And, since the intellect demands a unity, every

distinguishable aspect of a "together" must be brought

into one. And if in this unity no internal connection of

diversity natural to the intellect can be found, we are

left with a diversity belonging to and conjoined in one

undistinguished point. And this is contradiction, and

contradiction in the end we found was this and nothing

but this. On the other hand we urged that bare

irrational conjunctions are not given as facts. Every

perceived complex is a selection from an indefinite

background, and, when judged as real, it is predicated

both of this background and of the Reality which

transcends it. Hence in this background and beyond it

lies, we may believe, the reason and the internal

connection of all we take as a mere external "together."

Conjunction and contradiction in short is but our

defect, our one-sidedness, and our abstraction, and it

is appearance and not Reality. But the reason we have to

assume may in detail be not accessible to our intellect.

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NOTE B: RELATION AND QUALITY

THERE are some aspects of the general problem of

Relation and Quality on which I will offer some words of

explanation. The subject is large and difficult, and

deserves a far more thorough treatment than I am able at

present to bestow on it. There is the question (i)

whether qualities can exist independent of some whole,

(ii) whether they can exist independent of relations,

(iii) whether, where there are fresh relations, new

qualities are made and old ones altered, or whether

again one can have a merely external relation,

and, lastly (iv), whether and in what sense, wherever

there is an identity, we have a right to speak of a

relation.

(i and ii) Within any felt whole--and that term