Itself. 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 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 understood

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, 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 differences 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 the same character. Certainly if per

impossibile you possibly 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 p. 53.

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 whatever 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.

It may perhaps prove instructive if we carry this

discussion somewhat further. There is, we have seen, no

such thing as a continuance without change or as a self-

contained and self-intelligible temporal process. But,

it may be said, anyhow the existence of something at a

certain moment, or up to a certain moment, is a rational

ground for concluding to its continued existence at the

next moment. Now this I take to be quite erroneous. I

maintain on the contrary that no ground could either be

more irrational in itself or more wanting in support

from our ordinary practice. And first, by way of

introduction, let me dispose of any doubt based on the

idea of Possibility. The nature of our world is such

that we see every day the existence of finite things

terminated. The possible termination of any finite

temporal existence is therefore suggested by the known

character of things. It is an abstract general

possibility based on and motived by the known positive

character of the world, and it cannot therefore as a

possibility be rejected as meaningless. On the contrary,

so far as it goes, it gives some ground for the

conclusion, "This existence will at this point be

terminated." And I will now dismiss the general question

as to mere possibility. But for the actual continuance

of a thing, so far as I see, no rational argument can be

drawn from its mere presence or its mere continued

duration in existence. To say, Because a thing is now at

one time it therefore must be at another time, or

Because it has been through one duration it therefore

must be through another duration, and to offer this

argument, not as merely for some other reason

admissible, but as expressing a principle--strikes my

mind as surprising. It is to me much as if a man

asserted baldly, "Because it is here now, therefore it

will be there then," and declared that no further reason

either was or ought to be wanted. And that mere

"existence" should be a reason for anything seems

difficult to conceive, even if we suppose (as we cannot)

that mere existence is itself anything but a false,

self-contradictory, and in the end meaningless

abstraction.

But the true reason why we judge that anything will

continue (whenever and wherever we so judge) is

radically different. It is an inference based not on

"existence" but on ideal synthesis of content, and it

concludes to and from an identity not of "existence" but

character. It rests in a word upon the Principle of

Ideal Identity. If a thing is connected with my world

now, and if I assume that my world otherwise goes on, I

must apart from other reasons conclude that the thing

will be there. For otherwise the synthesis of content

would be both true and false. And, if in my world are

certain truths of succession, then another mere context

cannot make them false, and hence, apart from some

reason to the contrary, the succession A--B--C must

infallibly repeat itself, if there is given at any time

either A or A--B. This is how through ideal identity we

rationally judge and conclude to continuance, and to

judge otherwise to my mind is wholly irrational. And I

have ventured to dwell on this point because of the

light it seems to throw on the consequences which may

follow, when, rejecting the true principle of identity,

we consciously or unconsciously set up in its place the

chim‘ra of identity of mere existence.

I will add that, so far as we take the whole state of

the world at any one moment as causally producing the

whole state of the world at the next moment, we do so

rationally only so far as we rest the succession on a

connection of content, and because otherwise this

connection would not be a true one, as we have taken it

to be. We can only however make use of the above idea in

the end on sufferance. For the state of the world would

not really be self-contained, nor could the connection

really in the end be intelligible. And again to take any

temporal process in the Absolute as the Absolute's own

process would be a fundamental error.