It again happen quite uncaused and itself be effectless?

Clear answers to these questions are, I should say, more

easily sought than found.

p. 348. On the question whether and in what sense

difference depends on a relation, see Note B, and for a

discussion of Resemblance, see Note C. The controversy,

mentioned in the footnote to p. 348, was continued in

Mind, N.S. Nos. 7 and 8, and I would venture to refer

any reader interested in the matter to it.

p. 356. On the topic of Association holding only between

universals the reader should consult Hegel,

Encyklop„die, ** 452-6.

pp. 363-4. The argument in these pages, the reader will

observe, depends on the truth of certain doctrines. (a)

A merely external relation has no meaning or existence,

for a relation must (at least to some extent) qualify

its terms. (b) Relations imply a unity in which they

subsist, and apart from which they have no meaning or

existence. (c) Every kind of diversity, both terms and

relations alike, are adjectives of one reality, which

exists in them and without which they are nothing. These

doctrines are taken as having been already proved both

in the body of this work and in the Appendix.

From this basis we can go on to argue as follows.

Everything finite, because somehow together in one whole

with everything else, must, because this whole is one

above the level of bare feeling, co-exist with the rest

at the very least relationally. Hence everything must

somehow, at least to some extent, be qualified from the

outside. And this qualification, because only relational

(to put it here in this way), cannot fall wholly inside

the thing. Hence the finite is internally inconsistent

with and contradicts itself. And whether the external

qualification is merely conjoined in some unintelligible

way to its inner nature, or is connected with that

intrinsically--may for our present purpose be ignored.

For anyhow, however it comes about, the finite as a fact

will contradict itself.

From the side of the Whole the same result is

manifest. For that is itself at once both any one finite

and also what is beyond. And, because no "together" can

in the end be merely external, therefore the Whole

within the finite carries that outside itself.

By an attempt to fall back upon mere feeling below

relations nothing would be gained. For with the loss of

the relations, and with the persistence of the unity,

even the appearance of independence on the part of the

diversity is gone. And again feeling is self-

transcendent, and is perfected mainly by way of

relations, and always in a Whole that both is above them

and involves them (p. 583).

The way to refute the above would be, I presume, to

show (a) that merely external relations have in the end,

and as ultimate facts, a meaning and reality, and to

show (b) that it is possible to think the togetherness

of the terms and the external relations--for somehow, I

suppose, they are together--without a self-

contradiction, manifest directly or through an infinite

process of seeking relations between relations and

terms.

p. 366, footnote. I may remark here that I am still

persuaded that there is in the end no such thing as the

mere entertainment of an idea, and that I, for example,

went wrong when in my book on Logic I took this to

exist. It seems to be, on the contrary, the abstraction

of an aspect which by itself does not exist. See Mind,

N.S., No. 60.

p. 398, footnote. To the references given here add Mind,

N.S., iv, pp. 20, 21 and pp. 225, 226.

Chapter xxiv. The doctrine of the Criterion adopted by

me has in various quarters been criticised, but, so far,

I venture to think, mainly without much understanding of

its nature. The objections raised, for example, by Mr.

Hobhouse, Theory of Knowledge, pp. 495-6, I cannot

understand in any sense which would render them

applicable. I will however in this connection make some

statements which will be brief, if perhaps irrelevant.

(i) I have never held that the criterion is to be

used apart from, instead of on, the data furnished by

experience. (ii) I do not teach that, where incompatible

suggestions are possible, we must or may affirm any one

of them which we fail to perceive to be internally

inconsistent. I hold on the contrary that we must use

and arrange all available material (and that of course

includes every available suggestion) so that the reality

qualified by it all will answer, so far as is possible,

to our criterion of a harmonious system. On this point I

refer specially to Chapters xvi, xxiv, and xxvii, the

doctrines of which, I venture to add, should not be

taken as non-existent where my views are in question.

(iii) I do not think that where a further alternative is

possible a disjunction is complete. But I have always

held, and do hold, J. S. Mill's idea of the Unmeaning as

a third possibility to be the merest nonsense. (iv) I do

not admit but deny the assumption that, if our knowledge

could be consistent, it could then be made from the

outside to contradict itself. (v) And I reject the idea

that, so far as our knowledge is absolute, we can

rationally entertain the notion of its being or becoming

false. Any such idea, I have tried to show, is utterly

unmeaning. And on the other hand, so far as our

knowledge is liable to error, it is so precisely so far

as it does not answer to the criterion. (vi) Finally I

would submit that the sense in which this or that writer

uses such principles as those of Identity and

Contradiction, and the way in which he developes them,

cannot always safely be assumed a priori by any critic.

This is all I think it could be useful for me to say

in this connection, except that I would end this Note

with an expression of regret. The view adopted by Mr.

Hobhouse as to the nature of the criterion has, it seems

to me (I dare say quite wrongly), so very much that is

common to myself, as well as also to others, that I am the more

sorry that I have not the advantage of his criticism on

something which I could recognize as in any degree my

own.

p. 407, footnote. On the subject of Hedonism I would add

references to the International Journal of Ethics, Vol.

iv, pp. 384-6 and Vol. v, pp. 383-4.

pp. 458-9. We cannot, if we abstract the aspects of

pleasure and pain and confine ourselves to these

abstractions, discover directly within them an internal

discrepancy, any more than we could do this in every

abstracted sensible quality. But since these aspects are

as a fact together with, first, their sensible qualities

and, next, the rest of the world, and since no relation

or connection of any kind can be in the end merely

external, it follows that in the end the nature of

pleasure or pain must somehow go beyond itself.

If we take pleasure and pain, or one of them, to be

not aspects of sensation but themselves special

sensations, that will of course make no real difference

to the argument. For in any case such sensations would

be mere aspects and adjectives of their whole psychical

states. I would add that, even in psychology, the above

distinction seems, to me at least, to possess very

little importance. The attempt again to draw a sharp

distinction between discomfort and pain would (even if

it could be successful) make no difference to us here.

p. 463, footnote. The account of Will, given in Mind,

No. 49, has been criticised by Mr. Shand in an

interesting article on Attention and Will, Mind, N.S.

No. 16. I at once recognized that my statement in the

above account was defective, but in principle I have not

found anything to correct. I still hold Will always to

be the self-realization of an idea, but it is necessary

to provide that this idea shall not in a certain sense

conflict with that which in a higher sense is identified

with the self. By "higher" I do not mean "more moral,"

and I am prepared to explain what I do mean by the

above. I would on this point refer to an article by Mr.

Stout (in Mind, N.S. No. 19) with which I find myself

largely though not wholly in agreement. I must however

hope at some future time to deal with the matter, and

will here state my main result. "It is will where an