If, one or more, they know the others, such knowledge

must qualify them necessarily, and it must qualify them

reciprocally by the nature both of the known and of the

knower. The knowledge in each knower--even if we

abstract from what is known--seems an internal change

supervening if not superinduced, and it is a change

which cannot well be explained, given complete self-

containedness. It involves certainly an alteration of

the knower, and an alteration such as we cannot account

for by any internal cause, and which therefore is an

argument against, though it cannot disprove, mere self-

existence. And in the second place, when we consider

knowledge from the side of the known, this disproof

seems complete. Knowledge apart from the known is a one-

sided and inconsistent abstraction, and the assertion of

a knowledge in which the known is not somehow and to

some extent present and concerned, seems no knowledge at

all. But such presence implies alteration and relativity

in both knower and known. And it is in the end idle to

strive to divide the being of the known, and to set up

there a being-in-itself which remains outside and is

independent of knowledge. For the being-in-itself of the

known, if it were not itself experienced and known,

would for the knower be nothing and could not possibly

be asserted. Any knowledge which (wrongly) seems to fall

outside of and to make no difference to the known, could

in any case not be ultimate. It must rest on and

presuppose a known the essence of which consists in

being experienced, and which outside of knowledge is

nothing. But, if so, the nature of the known must depend

on the knower, just as the knower is qualified by the

nature of the known. Each is relative and neither is

self-contained, and otherwise knowledge, presupposed as

a fact, is made impossible.

Suppose, in other words, that each of the Many could

possess an existence merely for itself, that existence

could not be known, and for the others would be nothing.

But when one real becomes something for another, that

makes a change in the being of each. For the relation, I

presume, is an alteration of something, and there is by

the hypothesis nothing else but the Many of which it

could be the alteration. The knower is evidently and

plainly altered; and, as to the known, if it remained

unchanged, it would itself remain outside of the

process, and it would not be with it that the knower

would be concerned. And its existence asserted by the

knower would be a self-contradiction.

Such is in outline the objection to a plurality of

reals which can be based on the fact of knowledge. It

would be idle to seek to anticipate attempts at a reply,

or to criticise efforts made to give existence and

ultimate reality to relations outside the reals. But I

will venture to express my conviction that any such

attempt must end in the unmeaning. And if any one seeks

to turn against my own doctrine the argument which I

have stated above, let me at least remind him of one

great difference. For me every kind of process between

the Many is a state of the Whole in and through which

the Many subsist. The process of the Many, and the total

being of the Many themselves, are mere aspects of the

one Reality which moves and knows itself within them,

and apart from which all things and their changes and

every knower and every known is absolutely nothing.

pp. 155-8. I will add a few words in explanation of the

position taken up in these pages, though I think the

main point is fairly clear even if the result is

unsatisfactory. If there is more pain than pleasure in

the Universe, I at least could not call the Universe

perfect. If on the other hand there is a balance of

pleasure, however small, I find myself able to affirm

perfection. I assume, on what I think sufficient ground,

that pleasure and pain may in a mixed total state

counterbalance one another, so that the whole state as a

whole may be painful or pleasurable. And I insist that

mere quantity has nothing whatever to do with

perfection. The question therefore about pleasure and

pain, and how far they give a quality to the Whole, may

be viewed as a question about the overplus, whether of

pain or pleasure. This I take to be the principle and

the limit, and the criterion by which we decide against

or for Optimism or Pessimism. And this is why we cannot

endorse the charming creed of Dr. Pangloss, "Les

malheurs particuliers font le bien g‚n‚ral, de sorte que

plus il y a de malheurs particuliers et plus tout est

bien."