Itself. And a--b in the present case is to be a relation

of naked primary qualities, or again a relation of

something apart from and independent of myself. After

some assertions as to the possibility of eliminating in

turn all other psychical facts but my perceptive

consciousness--assertions which seem to me, as I

understand them, to be wholly untenable and quite

contrary to fact--the naked independence of A--B appears

to be proved thus. Take a state of things where one term

of the connection is observed, and the other is not

observed. We have still here to infer the existence of

the term unobserved, but an existence, because

unobserved, free (let us say first) from all secondary

qualities. But I should have thought myself that the

conclusion which follows is quite otherwise. I should

have said that what was proved from the premises was not

that A--B exists naked, but that A--B, if unconditioned,

Is false and unreal, and ought never to have been

asserted at all except as a useful working fiction. In

other words the observed absence of one of the terms

from its place, i.e. the field of observation, is not a

proof that this term exists elsewhere, but is rather

here a negative instance to disprove the assumed

universal A--B, if that is taken unconditionally. Of

course if you started by supposing A--B to be

unconditionally true, you would at the start have

assumed the conclusion to be proved.

And, taken as directed against Solipsism, the

argument once more is bad, as I think any argument

against Solipsism must be, unless it begins by showing

that the premises of Solipsism are in part erroneous.

But any attempt at refutation by way of elimination

seems to me even to be absurd. For in any observation to

find in fact the absence of all C*nesthesia and inner

feeling of self is surely quite impossible. Nor again

would the Solipsist lightly admit that his self was co-

extensive merely with what at any one time is present to

him. And if further the Solipsist admits that he cannot

explain the course of outward experience, any more than

he can explain the sequence of his inmost feelings, and

that he uses all such abstract universals as your A--B

simply as useful fictions, how can you, by such an

argument as the above, show that he contradicts himself?

A failure to explain is certainly not always an

inconsistency, and to prove that a view is

unsatisfactory is not always to demonstrate that it is

false. Mr. Hobhouse's crucial instance to prove the

reality of A--B apart from the self could to the

Solipsist at most show a sequence that he was unable to

explain. How in

short in this way you are to drive him out of his circle

I do not see--unless of course he is obliging enough to

contradict himself in advance by allowing the

possibility of A--B existing apart, or being real or

true independently and unconditionally.

The Solipsist, while he merely maintains the

essential necessity of his self to the Universe and

every part of it, cannot in my opinion be refuted, and

so far certainly he is right. For, except as a relative

point of view, there is no apartness or independence in

the Universe. It is not by crude attempts at elimination

that you can deal with the Solipsist, but rather (as in

this chapter I have explained) by showing that the

connection which he maintains, though really essential,

has not the character which he assigns to it. You may

hope to convince him that he himself commits the same

fault as is committed by the asserter of naked primary

qualities, or of things existing quite apart from myself

--the fault, that is, of setting up as an independent

reality a mere abstraction from experience. You refute

the Solipsist, in short, by showing how experience, as

he has conceived it, has been wrongly divided and one-

sidedly narrowed.

p. 268. On the question whether and how far psychical

states are extended, see an article in Mind, N.S.

No. 14.

p. 273. I would here request the reader's attention to

the fact that, while for me "soul" and "finite centre"

are not the same (p. 529), I only distinguish between

them where it seems necessary.

p. 313. In the fourth line from the bottom of this page

I have altered "the same. Or" into "the same, or". The

full stop was, I presume, inserted by an error. In any

case I have removed it, since it may lead some reader,

if not careful, to take the words "we should call them

the same" absolutely. This in fact I find has been done,

but the meaning was not really, I think, obscure. I am

in the first place not maintaining that no continuous

existence at all is wanted for the individual identity

of a soul or of anything else. On the contrary I have in

several places asserted the opposite. I am speaking here

merely of an interval and a breach in continuous

existence. And I certainly am not saying that all of us

would as a fact assert individual identity despite this

breach or interval. I am pointing out that, whether we

assert it or deny it, we are standing in each case, so

far as I can see, on no defensible principle.

I am far from maintaining that my answer to the

question, "What is the soul, especially during those

intervals where there seems to be no consciousness," is

wholly satisfactory. But willing and indeed anxious as I

am to receive instruction on this matter from my

critics, I cannot say that I have been able as yet to

gain the smallest fresh light on it.

p. 333. Without entering here into detail, I will

venture to make a remark which I cannot think quite

uncalled-for. You cannot by making use of a formula,

such as "psycho-physical parallelism"--or even a longer

formula--absolve yourself from facing the question as to

the causal succession of events in the body and the

mind. When we say, for example, that the physical prick

of a pin causes pain, is this assertion in any sense

true or is it quite false? Is the pain not really to any

extent, directly or indirectly, the effect of the prick?

And, if it is not, of what else is it the effect, or can