- •I have been glad to finish it when and how I could. I do
- •Imperfect, it is worthless. And I must suggest to the
- •Interest, or when they show no longer any tendency to
- •Its part to supersede other functions of the human mind;
- •Intellectual effort to understand the universe is a
- •It, may be a harder self-surrender. And this appears to
- •It matters very little how in detail we work with it.
- •Visual, it must be coloured; and if it is tactual, or
- •Indisputable. Extension cannot be presented, or thought
- •Intelligible. We find the world's contents grouped into
- •I presume we shall be answered in this way. Even
- •Indefensible. The qualities, as distinct, are always
- •Information, and can discover with my own ears no trace
- •Into relations, which, in the end, end in nothing. And
- •Incomprehensible. And then this diversity, by itself,
- •In which it disappears. The pieces of duration, each
- •If you want to take a piece of duration as present and
- •Is felt to be not compatible with a. Mere a would still
- •It is only our own way of going on, the answer is
- •If we require truth in any strict sense, we must confine
- •In any given case we seem able to apply the names
- •It never would have done if left to itself--suffers a
- •Inner nature which comes out in the result, activity has
- •It is hard to say what, as a matter of fact, is
- •2. The congeries inside a man at one given moment
- •Its individual form. His wife possibly, or his child,
- •3. Let us then take, as before, a man's mind,
- •Identity, and any one who thinks that he knows what he
- •Is important, but the decision, if there is one, appears
- •Is there any more cause for doubt? Surely in every case
- •Introspection discloses this or that feature in
- •Inconsistent internally. If the reader will recall the
- •Itself, or generally the self-apprehension of the self
- •Intend to consider it, the result is the same. The
- •If self-consciousness is no more than you say, do we
- •Indeed serve to show that certain views were not true;
- •It as we cannot, would leave us simply with a very
- •Issue. Of those who take their principle of
- •Its most consistent form, I suppose, it takes its
- •Is the world of experience and knowledge--in every sense
- •Irrelevant excuse for neglecting our own concerns.
- •Is there an absolute criterion? This question, to my
- •Information. If we think, then certainly we are not
- •It at length. For the test in the main lies ready to our
- •In idea unless also it were real. We might
- •It is in some ways natural to suppose that the
- •It is not proved that all pain must arise from an
- •In our experience the result of pain is disquietude and
- •Is that some feature in the "what" of a given fact
- •Is aiming at suicide. We have seen that in judgment we
- •It, there would be no difference left between your
- •Itself in a mirror, or, like a squirrel in a cage, to
- •Impossibility, if it became actual, would still leave us
- •In immediacy. The subject claims the character of a
- •Incomplete form. And in desire for the completion of
- •Itself even in opposition to the whole--all will be
- •It is free from self-contradiction. The justification
- •Information, and it need imply nothing worse than
- •Is not false appearance, because it is nothing. On the
- •I confess that I shrink from using metaphors, since
- •Includes and overrides. And, with this, the last
- •I will for the present admit the point of view which
- •Itself." This would be a serious misunderstanding. It is
- •In the reality. Thus a man might be ignorant of the
- •It will be objected perhaps that in this manner we do
- •1. The first point which will engage us is the unity
- •2. I will pass now to another point, the direction of
- •If apprehended, show both directions harmoniously
- •It is not hard to conceive a variety of time-series
- •It runs--this is all matter, we may say, of individual
- •It, a change has happened within X. But, if so, then
- •Is no objection against the general possibility. And
- •Implied in the last word. I am not going to inquire here
- •Individual character. The "this" is real for us in a
- •In whatever sense you take it. There is nothing there
- •It has doubtless a positive character, but, excluding
- •Is essential. They exist, in other words, for my present
- •It may be well at this point perhaps to look back on the
- •In our First Book we examined various ways of taking
- •Is it possible, on the other side, to identify reality
- •Increase of special internal particulars. And so we
- •In our nineteenth chapter, that a character of this kind
- •Is, for each of us, an abstraction from the entire
- •It as it is, and as it exists apart from them. And we
- •Views the world as what he must believe it cannot be.
- •Interrelation between the organism and Nature, a mistake
- •In its bare principle I am able to accept this
- •Independence which would seem to be the distinctive mark
- •View, we shall surely be still less inclined to
- •Insufficient. We can think, in a manner, of sensible
- •Is, as we should perceive it; but we need not rest our
- •Imperceptibles of physics in any better case. Apart from
- •Invited to state his own. But I venture to think that,
- •Illusive, and exists only through misunderstanding. For
- •Ideas, inconsistent but useful--will they, on that
- •Inability to perceive that, in such a science, something
- •In the Absolute these, of course, possess a unity, we
- •It is certain first of all that two parts of one
- •In life this narrow view of Nature (as we saw) is not
- •In a later context. We shall have hereafter to discuss
- •Very largely, ideal. It shows an ideal process which,
- •Immediate unity of quality and being which comes in the
- •Is to have the quality which makes it itself. Hence
- •Is, with souls, less profoundly broken up and destroyed.
- •Is appearance, and any description of it must
- •2. We have seen, so far, that our phenomenal view of
- •Vicious dilemma. Because in our life there is more than
- •Is to purge ourselves of our groundless prejudice, and
- •It is perhaps necessary, though wearisome, to add
- •Its detail as one undivided totality, certainly then the
- •Instructions. To admit that the sequence a--b--c does
- •It is a state of soul going along with a state of body,
- •It is only where irregularity is forced on our
- •Interval, during which it has ceased to exist, we have
- •In the course of events, some matter might itself result
- •Is personal to the mind of another, would in the end be
- •Identity of our structure that this is so; and our
- •Is opaque to the others which surround it. With regard
- •Inapplicable to the worlds we call internal. Nor again,
- •Indivisible, even in idea. There would be no meaning in
- •Identity is unreal. And hence the conclusion, which more
- •Is to keep any meaning, as soon as sameness is wholly
- •Identity always implies and depends upon difference; and
- •In the working of pleasure and pain, that which operates
- •In fact, to that problem of "dispositions," which we
- •Insisted that, none the less, ideal identity between
- •Ideas, self-consistent and complete; and by this
- •Validity. I do not simply mean by this term that, for
- •Imperfections, in other words, we should have to make a
- •Ideally qualifies Reality. To question, or to doubt, or
- •Idea must be altered. More or less, they all require a
- •Is necessary to take account of laws. These are more and
- •Is to fall short of perfection; and, in the end, any
- •Included reality. And we have to consider in each case
- •Intellectual standard? And I think we are driven to this
- •View of truth and reality such as I have been
- •Is lacking. You may measure the reality of anything by
- •In other words transcendence of self; and that which
- •Is, once more, drawn from this basis. But the error now
- •Insubordinate. And its concrete character now evidently
- •Inconsistent and defective. And we have perceived, on
- •Inadmissible. We ought not to speak of potential
- •Its own existing character. The individuality, in other
- •Is given by outer necessity. But necessary relation of
- •Inclusion within some ideal whole, and, on that basis,
- •Is simply this, that, standing on one side of such a
- •Idea must certainly somehow be real. It goes beyond this
- •Valid because it holds, in the end, of every possible
- •Is measured by the idea of perfect Reality. The lower is
- •Insist that the presence of an idea is essential to
- •Implication, deny, is the direction of desire in the end
- •It manifests itself throughout in various degrees of
- •I am about, in other words, to invite attention to
- •Individual being must inevitably in some degree suffer.
- •If so, once more we have been brought back to the
- •Internally inconsistent and so irrational. But the
- •Itself as an apotheosis of unreason or of popular
- •Is worthless, has opened that self to receive worth from
- •Inner discrepancy however pervades the whole field of
- •Inconsistent emptiness; and, qualified by his relation
- •It is then driven forwards and back between both, like a
- •In religion it is precisely the chief end upon which we
- •Itself but appearance. It is but one appearance
- •Its disruption. As long as the content stands for
- •In the next chapter I shall once more consider if it is
- •Internally that has undistinguished unity. Now of these
- •Immediate unity of a finite psychical centre. It means
- •Influence the mass which it confronts, so as to lead
- •Vanished. Thus the attitude of practice, like all the
- •It has also an object with a certain character, but yet
- •Intelligence and will. Before we see anything of this in
- •Vagueness, and its strength lies in the uncertain sense
- •Is produced by will, and that, so far as it is, it is an
- •Ideal distinction which I have never made, may none the
- •Very essence of these functions, and we hence did not
- •Idea desired in one case remains merely desired, in
- •In their essences a connection supplied from without.
- •I feel compelled, in passing, to remark on the alleged
- •Inherent in their nature. Indeed the reply that
- •Indefensible. We must, in short, admit that some
- •In what sense, the physical world is included in the
- •Is no beauty there, and if the sense of that is to fall
- •View absolute, and then realize your position.
- •I will end this chapter with a few remarks on a
- •Variety of combinations must be taken as very large, the
- •Irrational. For the assertion, "I am sure that I am
- •I have myself raised this objection because it
- •Isolation are nothing in the world but a failure to
- •In a new felt totality. The emotion as an object, and,
- •In itself, and as an inseparable aspect of its own
- •In view of our ignorance this question may seem
- •In the second place, there is surely no good reason. The
- •Ignorant, but of its general nature we possess
- •Indifference but the concrete identity of all extremes.
- •Inconceivable, according and in proportion as it
- •Invisible interposition of unknown factors. And there is
- •It is this perfection which is our measure. Our
- •VI. With regard to the unity of the Absolute we know
- •X. The doctrine of this work has been condemned as
- •Is really considerable.
- •In its nature is incapable of conjunction and has no way
- •Includes here anything which contains an undistinguished
- •Independently, but while you keep to aspects of a felt
- •Inner nature do not enter into the relation, then, so
- •Internal connection must lie, and out of which from the
- •Ignoratio elenchi.
- •Is, to know perfectly his own nature would be, with that
- •Ignorance.
- •It involves so much of other conditions lying in the
- •In their characters the one principle of identity, since
- •In some cases able to exist through and be based on a
- •Internal difference, has so far ceased to be mere
- •It would of course be easy to set this out
- •Itself. How are its elements united internally, and are
- •I will append to this Note a warning about the
- •In distinction from it as it is for an outside observer,
- •Internal diversity in its content. This experience, he
- •If, one or more, they know the others, such knowledge
- •It is therefore most important to understand (if
- •Interesting book on Pleasure and Pain, and the admirable
- •Individuals are an appearance, necessary to the
- •Indirectly and through the common character and the
- •Itself. And a--b in the present case is to be a relation
- •Is false and unreal, and ought never to have been
- •It again happen quite uncaused and itself be effectless?
- •Idea realizes itself, provided that the idea is not
- •In the shape of any theoretical advantage in the end
Information, and can discover with my own ears no trace
of harmony, I am forced to conclude to a partial
deafness in others. And hence a relation, we must say,
without qualities is nothing.
But how the relation can stand to the qualities is,
on the other side, unintelligible. If it is nothing to
the qualities, then they are not related at all; and, if
so, as we saw, they have ceased to be qualities, and
their relation is a nonentity. But if it is to be
something to them, then clearly we now shall require a
new connecting relation. For the relation hardly can be
the mere adjective of one or both of its terms; or, at
least, as such it seems indefensible. And, being
something itself, if it does not itself bear a relation
to the terms, in what intelligible way will it succeed
in being anything to them? But here again we are
hurried off into the eddy of a hopeless process, since
we are forced to go on finding new relations without
end. The links are united by a link, and this bond of
union is a link which also has two ends; and these
require each a fresh link to connect them with the old.
The problem is to find how the relation can stand to its
qualities; and this problem is insoluble. If you take
the connection as a solid thing, you have got to show,
and you cannot show, how the other solids are joined to
it. And, if you take it as a kind of medium or
unsubstantial atmosphere, it is a connection no longer.
You find, in this case, that the whole question of the
relation of the qualities (for they certainly in some
way are related) arises now outside it, in precisely the
same form as before. The original relation, in short,
has become a nonentity, but, in becoming this, it has
removed no element of the problem.
I will bring this chapter to an end. It would be
easy, and yet profitless, to spin out its argument with
ramifications and refinements. And for me to attempt to
anticipate the reader's objections would probably be
useless. I have stated the case, and I must leave it.
The conclusion to which I am brought is that a
relational way of thought--any one that moves by the
machinery of terms and relations--must give appearance,
and not truth. It is a makeshift, a device, a mere
practical compromise, most necessary, but in the end
most indefensible. We have to take reality as many, and
to take it as one, and to avoid contradiction. We want
to divide it, or to take it, when we please, as
indivisible; to go as far as we desire in either of
these directions, and to stop when that suits us. And we
succeed, but succeed merely by shutting the eye, which
if left open would condemn us; or by a perpetual
oscillation and a shifting of the ground, so as to turn
our back upon the aspect we desire to ignore. But
when these inconsistencies are forced together,
as in metaphysics they must be, the result is an open
and staring discrepancy. And we cannot attribute this to
reality; while, if we try to take it on ourselves, we
have changed one evil for two. Our intellect, then, has
been condemned to confusion and bankruptcy, and the
reality has been left outside uncomprehended. Or rather,
what is worse, it has been stripped bare of all
distinction and quality. It is left naked and without a
character, and we are covered with confusion.
The reader who has followed and has grasped the
principle of this chapter, will have little need to
spend his time upon those which succeed it. He will have
seen that our experience, where relational, is not true;
and he will have condemned, almost without a hearing,
the great mass of phenomena. I feel, however, called on
next to deal very briefly with Space and Time.
--------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV
SPACE AND TIME
THE object of this chapter is far from being an attempt
to discuss fully the nature of space or of time. It will
content itself with stating our main justification for
regarding them as appearance. It will explain why we
deny that, in the character which they exhibit, they
either have or belong to reality. I will first show this
of space.
We have nothing to do here with the psychological
origin of the perception. Space may be a product
developed from non-spatial elements; and, if so, its
production may have great bearing on the question of its
true reality. But it is impossible for us to consider
this here. For, in the first place, every attempt so to
explain its origin has turned out a clear failure.
And, in the second place, its reality would not be
necessarily affected by the proof of its development.
Nothing can be taken as real because, for psychology, it
is original; or, again, as unreal, because it is
secondary. If it were a legitimate construction
from elements that were true, then it might be derived
only for our knowledge, and be original in fact. But so
long as its attempted derivation is in part obscure and
in part illusory, it is better to regard this whole
question as irrelevant.
Let us then, taking space or extension simply as it
is, enquire whether it contradicts itself. The reader
will be acquainted with the difficulties that have
arisen from the continuity and the discreteness of
space. These necessitate the conclusion that space is
endless, while an end is essential to its being. Space
cannot come to a final limit, either within itself or on
the outside. And yet, so long as it remains something
always passing away, internally or beyond itself, it is
not space at all. This dilemma has been met often by the
ignoring of one aspect, but it has never been, and it
will never be, confronted and resolved. And naturally,
while it stands, it is the condemnation of space.
I am going to state it here in the form which
exhibits, I think, most plainly the root of the
contradiction, and also its insolubility. Space is a
relation--which it cannot be; and it is a quality or
substance--which again it cannot be. It is a peculiar
form of the problem which we discussed in the last
chapter, and is a special attempt to combine the
irreconcilable. I will set out this puzzle
antithetically.
1. Space is not a mere relation. For any space must
consist of extended parts, and these parts clearly are
spaces. So that, even if we could take our space as a
collection, it would be a collection of solids. The
relation would join spaces which would not be mere
relations. And hence the collection, if taken as a mere
inter-relation, would not be space. We should be brought
to the proposition that space is nothing but a relation
of spaces. And this proposition contradicts itself.
Again, from the other side, if any space is taken
as a whole, it is evidently more than a
relation. It is a thing, or substance, or quality (call
it what you please), which is clearly as solid as the
parts which it unites. From without, or from within, it
is quite as repulsive and as simple as any of its
contents. The mere fact that we are driven always to
speak of its parts should be evidence enough. What could
be the parts of a relation?
2. But space is nothing but a relation. For, in the
first place, any space must consist of parts; and, if
the parts are not spaces, the whole is not space. Take
then in a space any parts. These, it is assumed, must be
solid, but they are obviously extended. If extended,
however, they will themselves consist of parts, and
these again of further parts, and so on without end. A
space, or a part of space, that really means to be
solid, is a self-contradiction. Anything extended is a
collection, a relation of extendeds, which again are
relations of extendeds, and so on indefinitely. The
terms are essential to the relation, and the terms do
not exist. Searching without end, we never find anything
more than relations; and we see that we cannot. Space is
essentially a relation of what vanishes into relations,
which seek in vain for their terms. It is lengths of
lengths of--nothing that we can find.
And, from the outside again, a like conclusion is
forced on us. We have seen that space vanishes
internally into relations between units which never can
exist. But, on the other side, when taken itself as a
unit, it passes away into the search for an illusory
whole. It is essentially the reference of itself to
something else, a process of endless passing beyond
actuality. As a whole it is, briefly, the relation of
itself to a non-existent other. For take space as large
and as complete as you possibly can. Still, if it has
not definite boundaries, it is not space; and to make it
end in a cloud, or in nothing, is mere blindness
and our mere failure to perceive. A space limited, and
yet without space that is outside, is a self-
contradiction. But the outside, unfortunately, is
compelled likewise to pass beyond itself; and the end
cannot be reached. And it is not merely that we fail to
perceive, or fail to understand, how this can be
otherwise. We perceive and we understand that it cannot
be otherwise, at least if space is to be space. We
either do not know what space means; and, if so,
certainly we cannot say that it is more than appearance.
Or else, knowing what we mean by it, we see inherent in
that meaning the puzzle we are describing. Space, to be
space, must have space outside itself. It for ever
disappears into a whole, which proves never to be more
than one side of a relation to something beyond. And
thus space has neither any solid parts, nor, when taken
as one, is it more than the relation of itself to a new
self. As it stands, it is not space; and, in trying to
find space beyond it, we can find only that which passes
away into a relation. Space is a relation between terms,
which can never be found.
It would not repay us to dwell further on the
contradiction which we have exhibited. The reader who
has once grasped the principle can deal himself with the
details. I will refer merely in passing to a
supplementary difficulty. Empty space--space without
some quality (visual or muscular) which in itself is
more than spatial--is an unreal abstraction. It cannot
be said to exist, for the reason that it cannot by
itself have any meaning. When a man realizes what he has
got in it, he finds that always he has a quality which
is more than extension (cp. Chapter i.). But, if so, how
this quality is to stand to the extension is an
insoluble problem. It is a case of "inherence," which we
saw (Chapter ii.) was in principle unintelligible. And,
without further delay, I will proceed to consider time.
I shall in this chapter confine myself almost
entirely to the difficulties caused by the discretion
and the continuity of time. With regard to change, I
will say something further in the chapter which follows.
Efforts have been made to explain time
psychologically--to exhibit, that is to say, its origin
from what comes to the mind as timeless. But, for the
same reason which seemed conclusive in the case of
space, and which here has even greater weight, I shall
not consider these attempts. I shall inquire simply as
to time's character, and whether, that being as it is,
it can belong to reality.
It is usual to consider time under a spatial form. It
is taken as a stream, and past and future are regarded
as parts of it, which presumably do not co-exist, but
are often talked of as if they did. Time, apprehended in
this way, is open to the objection we have just urged
against space. It is a relation--and, on the other side,
it is not a relation; and it is, again, incapable of
being anything beyond a relation. And the reader who has
followed the dilemma which was fatal to space, will not
require much explanation. If you take time as a relation
between units without duration, then the whole time has
no duration, and is not time at all. But, if you give
duration to the whole time, then at once the units
themselves are found to possess it; and they thus cease
to be units. Time in fact is "before" and "after" in
one; and without this diversity it is not time. But
these differences cannot be asserted of the unity; and,
on the other hand and failing that, time is helplessly
dissolved. Hence they are asserted under a relation.
"Before in relation to after" is the character of time;
and here the old difficulties about relation and quality
recommence. The relation is not a unity, and yet the
terms are nonentities, if left apart. Again, to import
an independent character into the terms is to make
each somehow in itself both before and after.
But this brings on a process which dissipates the terms