Is lacking. You may measure the reality of anything by

the relative amount of transformation, which would

follow if its defects were made good. The more an

appearance, in being corrected, is transmuted

and destroyed, the less reality can such an appearance

contain; or, to put it otherwise, the less genuinely

does it represent the Real. And on this principle we

succeeded in attaching a clear sense to that nebulous

phrase "Validity."

And this standard, in principle at least, is

applicable to every kind of subject-matter. For

everything, directly or indirectly, and with a greater

or less preservation of its internal unity, has a

relative space in Reality. For instance, the mere

intensity of a pleasure or pain, beside its occupancy of

consciousness, has also an outer sphere or halo of

effects. And in some low sense these effects make a part

of, or at least belong to, its being. And with facts of

perception their extent both in time, and also in space,

obviously gives us a point of comparison between them.

If, again, we take an abstract truth, which, as such,

nowhere has existence, we can consider the comparative

area of its working influence. And, if we were inclined

to feel a doubt as to the reality of such principles, we

might correct ourselves thus. Imagine everything which

they represent removed from the universe, and then

attempt to maintain that this removal makes no real

difference. And, as we proceed further, a social system,

conscious in its personal members of a will carried out,

submits itself naturally to our test. We must notice

here the higher development of concrete internal unity.

For we find an individuality, subordinating to itself

outward fact, though not, as such, properly visible

within it. This superiority to mere appearance in the

temporal series is carried to a higher degree as we

advance into the worlds of religion, speculation, and

art. The inward principle may here become far wider, and

have an intenser unity of its own; but, on the side of

temporal existence, it cannot possibly exhibit itself as

such. The higher the principle, and the more

vitally it, so to speak, possesses the soul of things,

so much the wider in proportion must be that sphere of

events which in the end it controls. But, just for this

reason, such a principle cannot be handled or seen, nor

is it in any way given to outward or inward perception.

It is only the meaner realities which can ever be so

revealed, and which are able to be verified as sensible

facts.

And it is only a standard such as ours which can

assign its proper rank to sense-presentation. It is

solely by accepting such a test that we are able to

avoid two gross and opposite mistakes. There is a view

which takes, or attempts to take, sense-perception as

the one known reality. And there is a view which

endeavours, on the other side, to consider appearance in

time as something indifferent. It tries to find reality

in the world of insensible thought. Both mistakes lead,

in the end, to a like false result, and both imply, and

are rooted in, the same principle of error. In the end

each would force us to embrace as complete reality a

meagre and mutilated fraction, which is therefore also,

and in consequence, internally discrepant. And each is

based upon one and the same error about the nature of

things. We have seen that the separation of the real

into idea and existence is a division admissible only

within the world of appearance. In the Absolute every

such distinction must be merged and disappears. But the

disappearance of each aspect, we insisted also, meant

the satisfaction of its claims in full. And hence,

though how in detail we were unable to point out, either

side must come together with its opposite in the Whole.

There thought and sense alike find each its complement

in the other. The principle that reality can wholly

consist in one of these two sides of appearance, we

therefore reject as a fundamental error.

Let us consider more closely the two delusions

which have branched from this stem. The first

of these, perceiving that the series of events is

essential, concludes from this ground that mere sense,

either outward or inward, is the one reality. Or, if it

stops short of this, it still argues that to be real is

to be, as such, perceptible. Because, that is,

appearance in the temporal series is found necessary for

reality--a

premise which is true--an unconscious passage is made,

from this truth, to a vicious conclusion. To appear is

construed to imply appearance always, so to speak, in

person. And nothing is allowed to be real, unless it can

be given bodily, and can be revealed, within one piece

of the series. But this conclusion is radically

erroneous. No perception ever, as we have seen clearly,

has a character contained within itself. In order to be

fact at all, each presentation must exhibit ideality, or