Intellectual standard? And I think we are driven to this

alternative. We must either be incapable of saying one

word on the relative importance of things; we can tell

nothing of the comparative meaning, and place in the

world, owned by art, science, religion, social life or

morality; we are wholly ignorant as to the degrees of

truth and reality which these possess, and we cannot

even say that for the universe any one of them has any

significance, makes any degree of difference, or matters

at all. Either this, or else our one-sided view must be

revolutionized. But, so far as I see, it can be

revolutionized only in one of two ways. We may accept a

View of truth and reality such as I have been

endeavouring to indicate, or we must boldly subordinate

everything to the test of feeling. I do not mean that,

beside our former inadequate ideal of truth, we should

set up, also and alongside, an independent standard of

worth. For this expedient, first, would leave no clear

sense to "degrees of truth" or "of reality"; and, in the

second place, practically our two standards would tend

everywhere to clash. They would collide hopelessly

without appeal to any unity above them. Of some

religious belief, for example, or of some ‘sthetic

representation, we might be compelled to exclaim, "How

wholly false, and yet how superior to truth, and how

much more to us than any possible reality." And of some

successful and wide-embracing theory we might remark

that it was absolutely true and utterly despicable, or

of some physical facts, perhaps, that they deserved no

kind of attention. Such a separation of worth

from reality and truth would mutilate our nature, and

could end only in irrational compromise or oscillation.

But this shifting attitude, though common in life, seems

here inadmissible; and it was not this that I meant by a

subordination to feeling. I pointed to something less

possible, but very much more consistent. It would imply

the setting up of feeling in some form as an absolute

test, not only of value but also of truth and reality.

Here, if we took feeling as our end, and identified it

with pleasure, we might assert of some fact, no matter

how palpable, This is absolutely nothing. Or, because it

makes for pain, it is even worse, and is therefore even

less than nothing. Or because some truth, however

obvious, seemed in our opinion not favourable to the

increase of pleasure, we should have to treat it at once

as sheer falsehood and error. And by such an attitude,

however impracticable, we should have at least tried to

introduce some sort of unity and meaning into our

world.

But if to make mere feeling our one standard is in

the end impossible, if we cannot rest in the intolerable

confusion of a double test and control, nor can relapse

into the narrowness, and the inconsistency, of our old

mutilated view--we must take courage to accept the other

revolution. We must reject wholly the idea that known

reality consists in a series of events, external or

inward, and that truth merely is correspondence with

such a form of existence. We must allow to every

appearance alike its own degree of reality, if not also

of truth, and we must everywhere

estimate this degree by the application of our single

standard. I am not here attempting even (as I have said)

to make this estimate in general; and, in detail, I

admit that we might find cases where rational comparison

seems hopeless. But our failure in this respect would

justify no doubt about our principle. It would be solely

through our ignorance and our deficiency that the

standard ever could be inapplicable. And, at the cost of

repetition, I may be permitted to dwell briefly on this

head.

Our standard is Reality in the form of self-

existence; and this, given plurality and relations,

means an individual system. Now we have shown that no

perfect system can possibly be finite, because any

limitation from the outside infects the inner content

with dependence on what is alien. And hence the marks of

harmony and expansion are two aspects of one principle.

With regard to harmony (other things remaining the

same), that which has extended over and absorbed a

greater area of the external, will internally be less

divided. And the more

an element is consistent, the more ground, other things

being equal, is it likely to cover. And if we forget

this truth, in the case of what is either abstracted for

thought or is isolated for sense, we can recall it by

predicating these fragments, as such, of the Universe.

We are then forced to perceive both the inconsistency of

our predicates, and the large extent of outer supplement

which we must add, if we wish to make them true. Hence

the amount of either wideness or consistency gives the

degree of reality and also of truth. Or, regarding the

same thing from the other side, you may estimate by what