Inner nature which comes out in the result, activity has

no meaning. If this nature was not there, and was not

real in the thing, is the thing really active? But when

we press this question home, and insist on having

something more than insincere metaphors, we find either

nothing, or else the idea which we are pleased to

entertain. And this, as an idea, we dare not attribute

to the thing, and we do not know how to attribute it as

anything else. But a confusion of this kind cannot

belong to reality.

Throughout this chapter I have ignored a certain view

about activity. This view would admit that activity, as

we have discussed it, is untenable; but it would add

that we have not even touched the real fact. And this

fact, it would urge, is the activity of a self, while

outside self the application of the term is

metaphorical. And, with this question in prospect, we

may turn to another series of considerations about

reality.

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CHAPTER VIII

THINGS

BEFORE proceeding further we may conveniently pause at

this point. The reader may be asked to reflect whether

anything of what is understood by a thing is left to us.

It is hard to say what, as a matter of fact, is

generally understood when we use the word "thing." But,

whatever that may be, it seems now undermined and

ruined. I suppose we generally take a thing as

possessing some kind of independence, and a sort of

title to exist in its own right, and not as a mere

adjective. But our ideas are usually not clear. A

rainbow probably is not a thing, while a waterfall might

get the name, and a flash of lightning be left in a

doubtful position. Further, while many of us would

assert stoutly that a thing must exist, if at all, in

space, others would question this and fail to perceive

its conclusiveness.

We have seen how the attempt to reconstitute our

ideas by the help of primary qualities broke down. And,

since then, the results, which we have reached, really

seem to have destroyed things from without and from

within. If the connections of substantive and adjective,

and of quality and relation, have been shown not to be

defensible; if the forms of space and of time have

turned out to be full of contradictions; if, lastly,

causation and activity have succeeded merely in adding

inconsistency to inconsistency,--if, in a word, nothing

of all this can, as such, be predicated of reality,

--what is it that is left? If things are to exist, then

where and how? But if these two questions are

unanswerable, then we seem driven to the conclusion that

things are but appearances. And I will add a few

remarks, not so much in support of this conclusion as in

order to make it possibly more plain.

I will come to the point at once. For a thing to

exist it must possess identity; and identity seems a

possession with a character at best doubtful. If it is

merely ideal, the thing itself can hardly be real.

First, then, let us inquire if a thing can exist without

identity. To ask this question is at once to answer it;

unless, indeed, a thing is to exist, and is to hold its

diversity combined in an unity, somehow quite outside of

time. And this seems untenable. A thing, if it is to be

called such, must occupy some duration beyond the

present moment, and hence succession is essential. The

thing, to be at all, must be the same after a change,

and the change must, to some extent, be predicated of

the thing. If you suppose a case so simple as the

movement of an atom, that is enough for our purpose.

For, if this "thing" does not move, there is no motion.

But, if it moves, then succession is predicated of it,

and the thing is a bond of identity in differences. And,

further, this identity is ideal, since it consists in

the content, or in the "what we are able to say of the

thing." For raise the doubt at the end of our atom's

process, if the atom is the same. The question raised

cannot be answered without an appeal to its character.

It is different in one respect--namely, the change of

place; but in another respect--that of its own character

--it remains the same. And this respect is obviously

identical content. Or, if any one objects that an atom

has no content, let him throughout substitute the word

"body," and settle with himself how, without any

qualitative difference (such as right and left), he

distinguishes atoms. And this identical content is

called ideal because it transcends given existence.

Existence is given only in presentation; and, on

the other hand, the thing is a thing only if its

existence goes beyond the now, and extends into the

past. I will not here discuss the question as to the

identity of a thing during a presented lapse, for I

doubt if any one would wish to except to our conclusion

on that ground.

Now I am not here raising the whole question of the

Identity of Indiscernibles. I am urging rather that the

continuity, which is necessary to a thing, seems to

depend on its keeping an identity of character. A thing

is a thing, in short, by being what it was. And it does

not appear how this relation of sameness can be real. It

is a relation connecting the past with the present, and

this connection is evidently vital to the thing. But, if

so, the thing has become, in more senses than one, the

relation of passages in its own history. And if we

assert that the thing is this inclusive relation, which

transcends any given time, surely we have allowed that

the thing, though not wholly an idea, is an idea

essentially. And it is an idea which at no actual time

is ever real.

And this problem is no mere abstract invented

subtlety, but shows itself in practice. It is often

impossible to reply when we are asked if an object is

really the same. If a manufactured article has been

worked upon and partly remade, such a question may have

no sense until it has been specified. You must go on to

mention the point or the particular respect of which you

are thinking. For questions of identity turn always upon

sameness in character, and the reason why here you

cannot reply generally, is that you do not know this

general character which is taken to make the thing's

essence. It is not always material substance, for we

might call an organism identical, though its particles

were all different. It is not always shape, or size, or

colour, or, again, always the purpose which the thing

fulfils. The general nature, in fact, of a

thing's identity seems to lie, first, in the avoidance

of any absolute break in its existence, and, beyond

that, to consist in some qualitative sameness which

differs with different things. And with some things--

because literally we do not know in what character their

sameness lies--we are helpless when asked if identity

has been preserved. If any one wants an instance of the

value of our ordinary notions, he may find it, perhaps,

in Sir John Cutler's silk stockings. These were darned

with worsted until no particle of the silk was left in

them, and no one could agree whether they were the same

old stockings or were new ones. In brief, the identity

of a thing lies in the view which you take of it. That

view seems often a mere chance idea, and, where it seems

necessary, it still remains an idea. Or, if you prefer

it, it is a character, which exists outside of and

beyond any fact which you can take. But it is not easy

to see how, if so, any thing can be real. And things

have, so far, turned out to be merely appearances.

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CHAPTER IX

THE MEANINGS OF SELF

OUR facts, up to the present, have proved to be

illusory. We have seen our things go to pieces, crumbled

away into relations that can find no terms. And we have

begun, perhaps, to feel some doubt whether, since the

plague is so deep-rooted, it can be stayed at any point.

At the close of our seventh chapter we were naturally

led beyond the inanimate, and up to the self. And here,

in the opinion of many, is the end of our troubles. The

self, they will assure us, is not apparent, but quite

real. And it is not only real in itself, but its

reality, if I may say so, spreads beyond its own limits

and rehabilitates the selfless. It provides a fixed

nucleus round which the facts can group themselves

securely. Or it, in some way, at least provides us with

a type, by the aid of which we may go on to comprehend

the world. And we must now proceed to a serious

examination of this claim. Is the self real, is it

anything which we can predicate of reality? Or is it, on

the other hand, like all the preceding, a mere

appearance--something which is given, and, in a sense,

most certainly exists, but which is too full of

contradictions to be the genuine fact? I have been

forced to embrace the latter conclusion.

There is a great obstacle in the path of the proposed

inquiry. A man commonly thinks that he knows what he

means by his self. He may be in doubt about other

things, but here he seems to be at home. He fancies that

with the self he at once comprehends both that

it is and what it is. And of course the fact of one's

own existence, in some sense, is quite beyond doubt. But

as to the sense in which this existence is so certain,

there the case is far otherwise. And I should have

thought that no one who gives his attention to this

question could fail to come to one preliminary result.

We are all sure that we exist, but in what sense and

what character--as to that we are most of us in helpless

uncertainty and in blind confusion. And so far is the

self from being clearer than things outside us that, to

speak generally, we never know what we mean when we talk

of it. But the meaning and the sense is surely for

metaphysics the vital point. For, if none defensible can

be found, such a failure, I must insist, ought to end

the question. Anything the meaning of which is

inconsistent and unintelligible is appearance, and not

reality.

I must use nearly the whole of this chapter in trying

to fix some of the meanings in which self is used. And I

am forced to trespass inside the limits of psychology;

as, indeed, I think is quite necessary in several parts

of metaphysics. I do not mean that metaphysics is based

upon psychology. I am quite convinced that such a

foundation is impossible, and that, if attempted, it

produces a disastrous hybrid which possesses the merits

of neither science. The metaphysics will come in to

check a resolute analysis, and the psychology will

furnish excuses for half-hearted metaphysics. And there

can be really no such science as the theory of

cognition. But, on the other hand, the metaphysician who

is no psychologist runs great dangers. For he must take

up, and must work upon, the facts about the soul; and,

if he has not tried to learn what they are, the risk is

very serious. The psychological monster he may adopt is

certain also, no doubt, to be monstrous metaphysically;

and the supposed fact of its existence does not prove it

less monstrous. But experience shows that human

beings, even when metaphysical, lack courage at some

point. And we cannot afford to deal with monsters, who

in the end may seduce us, and who are certain sometimes,

at any rate, to be much in our way. But I am only too

sensible that, with all our care, the danger nearest

each is least seen.

I will merely mention that use of self which

identifies it with the body. As to our perception of our

own bodies, there, of course, exists some psychological

error. And this may take a metaphysical form if it tries

to warrant, through some immediate revelation, the

existence of the organism as somehow the real expression

of the self. But I intend to pass all this by. For, at

the point which we have reached, there seems no exit by

such a road from familiar difficulties.

1. Let us then, excluding the body as an outward

thing, go on to inquire into the meanings of self. And

the first of these is pretty clear. By asking what is

the self of this or that individual man, I may be

enquiring as to the present contents of his experience.

Take a section through the man at any given moment. You

will then find a mass of feelings, and thoughts, and

sensations, which come to him as the world of things and

other persons, and again as himself; and this contains,

of course, his views and his wishes about everything.

Everything, self and not-self, and what is not

distinguished as either, in short the total filling of

the man's soul at this or that moment--we may understand

this when we ask what is the individual at a given time.

There is no difficulty here in principle, though the

detail would naturally (as detail) be unmanageable. But,

for our present purpose, such a sense is obviously not

promising.