Indeed serve to show that certain views were not true;

but, beyond that, it would remain a mere extraordinary

fact. At least for myself I do not perceive how it

supplies us with a conclusion about the self or the

world, which is consistent and defensible. And here once

again we have the same issue. We have found puzzles in

reality, besetting every way in which we have taken it.

Now give me a view not obnoxious to these mortal

attacks, and combining differences in one so as to turn

the edge of criticism--and then I will thank you. But I

cannot be grateful for an assertion which seems to serve

merely as an objection to another doctrine, otherwise

known to be false; an assertion, which, if we accepted

It as we cannot, would leave us simply with a very

strange fact on our hands. Such a fact is certainly no

principle by which we could solve the riddle of the

universe.

(d) I must next venture a few words on an

embarrassing topic, the supposed revelation of reality

within the self as force or will. And the difficulty

comes, not so much from the nature of the subject, as

from the manner of its treatment. If we could get a

clear statement as to the matter revealed, we could at

this stage of our discussion dispose of it in a few

words, or rather point out that it has been already

disposed of. But a clear statement is precisely that

which (so far as my experience goes) is not to be had.

The reader who recalls our discussions on

activity, will remember how it literally was riddled by

contradictions. All the puzzles as to adjectives and

relations and terms, every dilemma as to time and

causation, seemed to meet in it and there even to find

an addition. Far from reducing these to harmony,

activity, when we tried to think it, fell helplessly

asunder or jarred with itself. And to suppose that the

self is to bring order into this chaos, after our

experience hitherto of the self's total impotence, seems

more sanguine than rational.

If now we take force or cause, as it is revealed in

the self, to be the same as volition proper, that

clearly will not help us. For in volition we have an

idea, determining change in the self, and so producing

its own realization. Volition

perhaps at first sight may seem to promise a solution of

our metaphysical puzzles. For we seem to find at last

something like a self-contained cause with an effect

within itself. But this surely is illusory. The old

difficulties about the beginning of change and its

process in time, the old troubles as to diversity in

union with sameness--how is any one of these got rid of,

or made more tractable? It is bootless to enquire

whether we have found a principle which is to explain

the universe. For we have not even found anything which

can bear its own weight, or can endure for one moment

the most superficial scrutiny. Volition gives us, of

course, an intense feeling of reality; and we may

conclude, if we please, that in this lies the heart of

the mystery of things. Yes, perhaps; here lies the

answer--for those who may have understood; and the whole

question turns on whether we have reached an

understanding. But what you offer me appears much more

like an experience, not understood but interpreted into

hopeless confusion. It is with you as with the man who,

transported by his passion, feels and knows

that only love gives the secret of the universe. In each

case the result is perfectly in order, but one hardly

sees why it should be called metaphysics.

And we shall make no advance, if we pass from will

proper where an idea is realized, and fall back on an

obscurer revelation of energy. In the experience of

activity, or resistance, or will, or force (or whatever

other phrase seems most oracular), we are said to come

at last down to the rock of reality. And I am not so

ill-advised as to offer a disproof of the message

revealed. It is doubtless a mystery, and hence those who

could inform the outer world of its meaning, are for

that very reason compelled to be silent and to seem even

ignorant. What I can do is to set down briefly the

external remarks of one not initiated.

In the first place, taken psychologically, the

revelation is fraudulent. There is no original

experience of anything like activity, to say nothing of

resistance. This is quite a secondary product, the

origin of which is far from mysterious, and on which I

have said something in the preceding chapter. You may,

doubtless, point to an outstanding margin of

undetermined sensations, but these will not contain the

essence of the matter. And I do not hesitate to say

this: Where you meet a psychologist who takes this

experience as elementary, you will find a man who has

not ever made a serious attempt to decompose it, or ever

resolutely faced the question as to what it contains.

And in the second place, taken metaphysically, these

tidings, given from whatever source, are either

meaningless or false. And here once again we have the

all-important point. I do not care what your oracle is,

and your preposterous psychology may here be

gospel if you please; the real question is whether your

response (so far as it means anything) is not appearance

and illusion. If it means nothing, that is to say, if it

is merely a datum, which has no complex content that can

be taken as a principle--then it will be much what we

have in, say, pleasure or pain. But if you offered me

one of these as a theoretical account of the universe,

you would not be even mistaken, but simply nonsensical.

And it is the same with activity or force, if these also

merely are, and say nothing. But if, on the other hand,

the revelation does contain a meaning, I will commit

myself to this: either the oracle is so confused that

its signification is not discoverable, or, upon the

other hand, if it can be pinned down to any definite

statement, then that statement will be false. When we

drag it out into the light, and expose it to the

criticism of our foregoing discussions, it will exhibit

its helplessness. It will be proved to contain mere

unsolved discrepancies, and will give us therefore, not

truth, but in the end appearance. And I intend to leave

this matter so without further remark.

(e) I will in conclusion touch briefly on the theory

of Monads. A tenable view of reality has been sought in

the doctrine that each self is an independent reality,

substantial if not simple. But this attempt does not

call for a lengthy discussion. In the first place, if

there is more than one self in the universe, we are met

by the problem of their relation to each other. And the

reply, "Why there is none," we have already seen in

Chapter iii., is no sufficient defence. For plurality

and separateness without a relation of separation seem

really to have no meaning. And, from the other side,

without relations these poor monads would have no

process and would serve no purpose. But relations

admitted, again, are fatal to the monads' independence.

The substances clearly become adjectival, and mere

elements within an all-comprehending whole. And

hence there is left remaining for their internal

contents no solid principle of stability. And in the second place, even if this

remained, it would be no solution of our difficulties.

For consider: we have found, so far, that diversity and

unity can not be reconciled. Both in the existence of

the whole self in relation with its contents, and in the

various special forms which that existence takes, we

have encountered everywhere the same trouble. We have

had features which must come together, and yet were

willing to do so in no way that we could find. In the

self there is a variety, and in the self there is a

unity; but, in attempting to understand how, we fall

into inconsistencies which, therefore, cannot be truth.

And now in what way is the monadic character of the self

--with whatever precise meaning (if with any) we take

this up--about to assist us? Will it in the least show

us how the diversity can exist in harmony with the

oneness? If it can do this, then I would respectfully

suggest that it should do it. Because, otherwise, the

unity seems merely stated and emphasized; and the

problem of its diverse content is either wholly

neglected or hidden under a confusion of fictions and

metaphors. But if more than an emphasis on the unity is

meant, that more is even positively objectionable. For

while the diversity is slurred over, instead of being

explained, there will be a negative assertion as to the

limits within which the self's true unity falls. And

this assertion cannot stand criticism. And lastly the

relation of the self to its contents in time will tend

to become a new insoluble enigma. Monadism, on the

whole, will increase and will add to the

difficulties which already exist, and it will not supply

us with a solution of any single one of them. It would

be strange indeed if an explanation of all sides of our

puzzle were found in mere obstinate emphasis upon one of

those sides.

And with this result I will bring the present chapter

to a close. The reader who has followed our discussions

up to this point, can, if he pleases, pursue the detail

of the subject, and can further criticise the claims

made for the self's reality. But if he will drive home

the objections which we have come to know in principle,

the conclusion he will reach is assured already. In

whatever way the self is taken, it will prove to be

appearance. It cannot, if finite, maintain itself

against external relations. For these will enter its

essence, and so ruin its independency. And, apart from

this objection in the case of its finitude, the self is

in any case unintelligible. For, in considering it, we

are forced to transcend mere feeling, itself not

satisfactory; and yet we cannot reach any defensible

thought, any intellectual principle, by which it is

possible to understand how diversity can be comprehended

in unity. But, if we cannot understand this, and if

whatever way I we have of thinking about the self proves

full of inconsistency, we should then accept what must

follow. The self is no doubt the highest form of

experience which we have, but, for all that, is not a

true form. It does not give us the facts as they are in

reality; and, as it gives them, they are appearance,

appearance and error.

And one of the reasons why this result is not

admitted on all sides, seems to lie in that great

ambiguity of the self which our previous chapter

detailed. Apparently distinct, this phrase wavers from

one meaning to another, is applied to various objects,

and in argument is used too seldom in a well-

defined sense. But there is a still more fundamental aid

to obscurity. The end of metaphysics is to understand

the universe, to find a way of thinking about facts in

general which is free from contradiction. But how few

writers seem to trouble themselves much about this vital