# Appearance and Reality/Chapter XXVII

CHAPTER XXVII.
ULTIMATE DOUBTS.
It is time, however prematurely, to bring this work to an end. We may conclude it by asking how far, and in what sense, we are at liberty to treat its main results as certain. We have found that Reality is one, that it essentially is experience, and that it owns a balance of pleasure. There is nothing in the Whole beside appearance, and every fragment of appearance qualifies the Whole; while on the other hand, so taken together, appearances, as such, cease. Nothing in the universe can be lost, nothing fails to contribute to the single Reality, but every finite diversity is also supplemented and transformed. Everything in the Absolute still is that which it is for itself. Its private character remains, and is but neutralized by complement and addition. And hence, because nothing in the end can be merely itself, in the end no appearance, as such, can be real. But appearances fail of reality in varying degrees; and to assert that one on the whole is worth no more than another, is fundamentally vicious.
The fact of appearance, and of the diversity of its particular spheres, we found was inexplicable. Why there are appearances, and why appearances of such various kinds, are questions not to be answered. But in all this diversity of existence we saw nothing opposed to a complete harmony and system in the Whole. The nature of that system in detail lies beyond our knowledge, but we could discover nowhere the sign of a recalcitrant element. We could ​perceive nothing on which any objection to our view of Reality could rationally be founded. And so we ventured to conclude that Reality possesses—how we do not know—the general nature we have assigned to it.
“But, after all, your conclusion,” I may be told, “is not proved. Suppose that we can find no objection sufficient to overthrow it, yet such an absence of disproof does not render it certain. Your result may be possible, but, with that, it has not become real. For why should Reality be not just as well something else? How in the unknown world of possibilities can we be restricted to this one?” The objection seems serious, and, in order to consider it properly, I must be allowed first to enter on some abstract considerations. I will try to confine them to what is essential here.
1. In theory you cannot indulge with consistency in an ultimate doubt. You are forced, willingly or not, at a certain point to assume infallibility. For, otherwise, how could you proceed to judge at all? The intellect, if you please, is but a miserable fragment of our nature; but in the intellectual world it, none the less, must remain supreme. And, if it attempts to abdicate, then its world is forthwith broken up. Hence we must answer, Outside theory take whatever attitude you may prefer, only do not sit down to a game unless you are prepared to play. But every pursuit obviously must involve some kind of governing principle. Even the extreme of theoretical scepticism is based on some accepted idea about truth and fact. It is because you are sure as to some main feature of truth or reality, that you are compelled to doubt or to reject special truths which are offered you. But, if so, you stand on an absolute principle, and, with regard to this, you claim, tacitly or openly, to be infallible. And to start from our general fallibility, and to argue from ​this to the uncertainty of every possible result, is in the end irrational. For the assertion, “I am sure that I am everywhere fallible,” contradicts itself, and would revive a familiar Greek dilemma. And if we modify the assertion, and instead of “everywhere” write “in general,” then the desired conclusion will not follow. For unless, once more falsely, we assume that all truths are much the same, and that with regard to every point error is equally probable, fallibility in general need not affect a particular result. In short within theory we must decline to consider the chance of a fundamental error. Our assertion of fallibility may serve as the expression of modest feeling, or again of the low estimate we may have formed of the intellect’s value. But such an estimate or such a feeling must remain outside of the actual process of theory. For, admitted within, they would at once be inconsistent and irrational.
2. An asserted possibility in the next place must have some meaning. A bare word is not a possibility, nor does any one ever knowingly offer it as such. A possibility always must present us with some actual idea.
3. And this idea must not contradict itself, and so be self-destructive. So far as it is seen to be so, to that extent it must not be taken as possible. For a possibility qualifies the Real, and must therefore not conflict with the known character of its subject. And it is useless to object here that all appearance is self-contradictory. That is true, but, as self-contradictory and so far as it is so, appearance is not a real or possible predicate of Reality. A predicate which contradicts itself is, as such, not possibly real. In order to be real, its particular nature must be modified and corrected. And this ​process of correction, and of making good, may in addition totally transform and entirely dissipate its nature (Chapter xxiv.).
4. It is impossible rationally to doubt where you have but one idea. You may doubt psychically, given two ideas which seem two but are one. And, even without this actual illusion, you may feel uneasy in mind and may hesitate. But doubt implies two ideas, which in their meaning and truly are two; and, without these ideas, doubt has no rational existence.
5. Where you have an idea and cannot doubt, there logically you must assert. For everything (we have seen throughout) must qualify the Real. And if an idea does not contradict itself, either as it is or as taken with other things (Chapter xvi.), it is at once true and real. Now clearly a sole possibility cannot so contradict itself; and it must therefore be affirmed. Psychical failure and confusion may here of course stand in the way. But such confusion and failure can in theory count for nothing.
6. “But to reason thus,” it may be objected, “is to rest knowledge on ignorance. It is surely the grounding of an assertion on our bare impotence.” No objection could be more mistaken, since the very essence of our principle consists in the diametrical opposite. Its essence lies in the refusal to set blank ignorance in the room of knowledge. He who wishes to doubt, when he has not before him two genuine ideas, he who talks of a possible which is not based on actual knowledge about Reality—it is he who takes his stand upon sheer incapacity. He is the man who, admitting his emptiness, then pretends to bring forth truth. And it is against this monstrous pretence, this mad presumption in ​the guise of modesty, that our principle protests. But, if we seriously consider the matter, our conclusion grows plain. Surely an idea must have a meaning; surely two ideas are required for any rational doubt; surely to be called possible is to be affirmed to some extent of the Real. And surely, where you have no alternative, it is not right or rational to take the attitude of a man who hesitates between diverse courses.
7. I will consider next an argument for general doubt which might be drawn from reflection on the privative judgment. In such a judgment the Reality excludes some suggestion, but the basis of the rejection is not a positive quality in the known subject. The basis on the contrary is an absence; and a mere absence implies the qualification of the subject by its psychical setting in us. Or we may say that, while the known subject is assumed to be complete, its limitations fall outside itself and lie in our incapacity. And it may be urged here that with Reality this is always the case. The universe, as we know it, in other words is complete only through our ignorance; and hence it may be said for our real knowledge to be incomplete always. And on this ground, it may be added, we can decline to assert of the universe any one possibility, even when we are able to find no other.
I have myself raised this objection because it contains an important truth. And its principle, if confined to proper limits, is entirely sound. Nay, throughout this work, I have freely used the right to postulate everywhere an unknown supplementation of knowledge. And how then here, it may be urged, are we to throw over this principle? Why should not Reality be considered always as limited by our impotence, and as extending, therefore, in every respect beyond the area of our possibilities? ​But the objection at this point, it is clear, contradicts itself. The area of what is possible is here extended and limited in a breath, and a ruinous dilemma might be set up and urged in reply to the question. But it is better at once to expose the main underlying error. The knowledge of privation, like all other knowledge, in the end is positive. You cannot speak of the absent and lacking unless you assume some field and some presence elsewhere. You cannot suggest your ignorance as a reason for judging knowledge incomplete, unless you have some knowledge already of an area which that ignorance hides. Within the known extent of the Real you have various provinces, and hence what is absent from one may be sought for in another. And where in certain features the known world suggests itself as incomplete, that world has extended itself already beyond these features. Here then, naturally, we have a right to follow its extended reality with our conclusions and surmises; and in these discussions we have availed ourselves largely of that privilege. But, on the other hand, this holds only of subordinate matters, and our right exists only while we remain within the known area of the universe. It is senseless to attempt to go beyond, and to assume fields that lie outside the ultimate nature of Reality. If there were any Reality quite beyond our knowledge, we could in no sense be aware of it; and, if we were quite ignorant of it, we could hardly suggest that our ignorance conceals it. And thus, in the end, what we know and what is real must be co-extensive, and assuredly outside of this area nothing is possible. A single possibility here must, therefore, be taken as single and as real. Within this known region, and not outside, lies all the kingdom hidden by ignorance; and here is the object of all intelligent doubt, and every possibility that is not irrational.
8. With a view to gain clearness on this point, it ​may repay us to consider an ideal state of things. If the known universe were a perfect system, then it could nowhere suggest its own incompleteness. Every possible suggestion would then at once take its place in the whole, a place fore-ordained and assigned to it by the remaining members of the system. And again, starting from any one element in such a whole, we could from that proceed to work out completely the total universe. And a doubt drawn from privation and based upon ignorance would here entirely disappear. Not only would the system itself have no other possibility outside, but even within its finite details the same consummation would be reached. The words “absence” and “failure” would here, in fact, have lost their proper sense. Since with every idea its full relations to all else would be visible, there would remain no region of doubt or of possibility or ignorance.
9. This intellectual ideal, we know, is not actual fact. It does not exist in our world, and, unless that world were changed radically, its existence is not possible. It would require an alteration of the position in which the intellect stands, and a transformation of its whole connection with the remaining aspects of experience. We need not to cast about for arguments to disprove our omniscience, for at every turn through these pages our weakness has been confessed. The universe in its diversity has been seen to be inexplicable, and I will not repeat here the statement made in the preceding Chapter (p. 469). Our system throughout its detail is incomplete.
Now in an incomplete system there must be everywhere a region of ignorance. Since in the end subject and predicate will not coincide, there remains a margin of that which, except more or less and in its outline, is unknown. And here is a field for doubt and for possibility and for theoretical supplement. An incomplete system in every part ​is inconsistent, and so suggests something beyond. But it can nowhere suggest the precise complement which would make good each detail. And hence, both in its extent and in its unity, it for some part must remain a mere collection. We may say that, in the end, it is comprised and exhausted only through our incompleteness.
10. But here we must recur to the distinction which we laid down above. Even in an incomplete world, such as the world which appears in our knowledge, incompleteness and ignorance after all are partial. They do not hold good with every feature, but there are points where no legitimate idea of an Other exists. And in these points a doubt, and an enquiry into other possibles, would be senseless; for there is no available area in which possibly our ignorance could fall. And clearly within these limits (which we cannot fix beforehand) rational doubt becomes irrational assumption. Outside these, again, there may be suggestions, which we cannot say are meaningless or inconsistent with the nature of things; and yet the bare possibility of these may not be worth considering. But, once more, in other regions of the world the case will be altered. We shall find a greater or less degree of actual completeness, and, with this, a series of possibilities differing in value. I do not think that with advantage we could pursue further these preliminary discussions; and we must now address ourselves directly to the doubts which can be raised about our Absolute.
With regard to the main character of that Absolute our position is briefly this. We hold that our conclusion is certain, and that to doubt it logically is impossible. There is no other view, there is no other idea beyond the view here put forward. It is impossible rationally even to entertain the question of another possibility. Outside our main result ​there is nothing except the wholly unmeaning, or else something which on scrutiny is seen really not to fall outside. Thus the supposed Other will, in short, turn out to be actually the same; or it will contain elements included within our view of the Absolute, but elements dislocated and so distorted into erroneous appearance. And the dislocation itself will find a place within the limits of our system.
Our result, in brief, cannot be doubted, since it contains all possibilities. Show us an idea, we can proclaim, which seems hostile to our scheme, and we will show you an element which really is contained within it. And we will demonstrate your idea to be a self-contradictory piece of our system, an internal fragment which only through sheer blindness can fancy itself outside. We will prove that its independence and isolation are nothing in the world but a failure to perceive more than one aspect of its own nature.
And the shocked appeal to our modesty and our weakness will not trouble us. It is on this very weakness that, in a sense, we have taken our stand. We are impotent to divide the universe into the universe and something outside. We are incapable of finding another field in which to place our inability and give play to our modesty. This other area for us is mere pretentious nonsense; and on the ground of our weakness we do not feel strong enough to assume that nonsense is fact. We, in other words, protest against the senseless attempt to transcend experience. We urge that a mere doubt entertained may involve that attempt, and that in the case of our main conclusion it certainly does so. Hence in its outline that conclusion for us is certain; and let us endeavour to see how far the certainty goes.
Reality is one. It must be single, because plurality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality ​implies relations, and, through its relations, it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity. To suppose the universe plural is therefore to contradict oneself and, after all, to suppose that it is one. Add one world to another, and forthwith both worlds have become relative, each the finite appearance of a higher and single Reality. And plurality as appearance (we have seen) must fall within, must belong to, and must qualify the unity.
We have an idea of this unity which, to some extent, is positive (Chapters xiv., xx., xxvi.). It is true that how in detail the plurality comes together we do not know. And it is true again that unity, in its more proper sense, is known only as contradistinguished from plurality. Unity therefore, as an aspect over against and defined by another aspect, is itself but appearance. And in this sense the Real, it is clear, cannot be properly called one. It is possible, however, to use unity with a different meaning.
In the first place the Real is qualified by all plurality. It owns this diversity while itself it is not plural. And a reality owning plurality but above it, not defined as against it but absorbing it together with the one-sided unity which forms its opposite—such a reality in its outline is certainly a positive idea.
And this outline, to some extent, is filled in by direct experience. I will lay no stress here on that pre-relational stage of existence (p. 459), which we suppose to come first in the development of the soul. I will refer to what seems plainer and less doubtful. For take any complex psychical state in which we make distinctions. Here we have a consciousness of plurality, and then over against this we may attempt to gain a clear idea of unity. Now this idea of unity, itself the result of analysis, is determined by opposition to the internal plurality of distinctions. And hence, as one aspect over against ​another aspect, this will not furnish the positive idea of unity which we seek. But, apart from and without any such explicit idea, we may be truly said to feel our whole psychical state as one. Above, or rather below, the relations which afterwards we may find, it seems to be a totality in which differences already are combined. Our state seems a felt background into which we introduce distinctions, and it seems, at the same time, a whole in which the differences inhere and pre-exist. Now certainly, in so describing our state, we contradict ourselves. For the fact of a difference, when we realize and express its strict nature, implies in its essence both relation and distinction. In other words, feeling cannot be described, for it cannot without transformation be translated into thought. Again, in itself this indiscriminate totality is inconsistent and unstable. Its own tendency and nature is to pass beyond itself into the relational consciousness, into a higher stage in which it is broken up. Still, none the less, at every moment this vague state is experienced actually. And hence we cannot deny that complex wholes are felt as single experiences. For, on the one side, these states are not simple, nor again, on the other side, are they plural merely; nor again is their unity explicit and held in relation with, and against, their plurality.
We may find this exemplified most easily in an ordinary emotional whole. That comes to us as one, yet not as simple; while its diversity, at least in part, is not yet distinguished and broken up into relations. Such a state of mind, I may repeat, is, as such, unstable and fleeting. It is not only changeable otherwise, but, if made an object, it, as such, disappears. The emotion we attend to is, taken strictly, never precisely the same thing as the emotion which we feel. For it not only to some ​extent has been transformed by internal distinction, but it has also now itself become a factor in a new felt totality. The emotion as an object, and, on the other side, that background to which in consciousness it is opposed, have both become subordinate elements in a new psychical whole of feeling (Chapter xix.). Our experience is always from time to time a unity which, as such, is destroyed in becoming an object. But one such emotional whole in its destruction gives place inevitably to another whole. And hence what we feel, while it lasts, is felt always as one, yet not as simple nor again as broken into terms and relations.
From such an experience of unity below relations we can rise to the idea of a superior unity above them. Thus we can attach a full and positive meaning to the statement that Reality is one. The stubborn objector seems condemned, in any case, to affirm the following propositions. In the first place Reality is positive, negation falling inside it. In the second place it is qualified positively by all the plurality which it embraces and subordinates. And yet itself, in the third place, is certainly not plural. Having gone so far I myself prefer, as the least misleading course, to assert its unity.
Beyond all doubt then it is clear that Reality is one. It has unity, but we must go on to ask, a unity of what? And we have already found that all we know consists wholly of experience. Reality must be, therefore, one Experience, and to doubt this conclusion is impossible.
We can discover nothing that is not either feeling or thought or will or emotion or something else of the kind (Chapter xiv.). We can find nothing but this, and to have an idea of anything else is plainly impossible. For such a supposed idea is either meaningless, and so is not an idea, or else its meaning will be found tacitly to consist in experience. ​The Other, which it asserts, is found on enquiry to be really no Other. It implies, against its will and unconsciously, some mode of experience; it affirms something else, if you please, but still something else of the same kind. And the form of otherness and of opposition, again, has no sense save as an internal aspect of that which it endeavours to oppose. We have, in short, in the end but one idea, and that idea is positive. And hence to deny this idea is, in effect, to assert it; and to doubt it, actually and without a delusion, is not possible.
If I attempted to labour this point, I should perhaps but obscure it. Show me your idea of an Other, not a part of experience, and I will show you at once that it is, throughout and wholly, nothing else at all. But an effort to anticipate, and to deal in advance with every form of self-delusion, would, I think, hardly enlighten us. I shall therefore assume this main principle as clearly established, and shall endeavour merely to develope it and to free it from certain obscurities.
I will recur first to the difficult subject of Solipsism. This has been discussed perhaps sufficiently in Chapter xxi., but a certain amount of repetition may be useful here. It may be objected that, if Reality is proved to be one experience, Solipsism follows. Again, if we can transcend the self at all, then we have made our way, it may be urged, to something perhaps not experience. Our main conclusion, in short, may be met not directly but through a dilemma. It may be threatened with destruction by a self-contradictory development of its own nature.
Now my answer to this dilemma is a denial of that which it assumes. It assumes, in the first place, that my self is as wide as my experience. And it assumes, in the second place, that my self is something hard and exclusive. Hence, if you are inside you are not outside at all, and, if you are ​outside, you are at once in a different world. But we have shown that these assumptions are mistaken (Chapters xxi. and xxiii.); and, with their withdrawal, the dilemma falls of itself.
Finite centres of feeling, while they last, are (so far as we know) not directly pervious to one another. But, on the one hand, a self is not the same as such a centre of experience; and, on the other hand, in every centre the whole Reality is present. Finite experience never, in any of its forms, is shut in by a wall. It has in itself, and as an inseparable aspect of its own nature, the all-penetrating Reality. And there never is, and there never was, any time when in experience the world and self were quite identical. For, if we reach a stage where in feeling the self and world are not yet different, at that stage neither as yet exists. But in our first immediate experience the whole Reality is present. This does not mean that every other centre of experience, as such, is included there. It means that every centre qualifies the Whole, and that the Whole, as a substantive, is present in each of these its adjectives. Then from immediate experience the self emerges, and is set apart by a distinction. The self and the world are elements, each separated in, and each contained by experience. And perhaps in all cases the self—and at any rate always the soul—involves and only exists through an intellectual construction. The self is thus a construction based on, and itself transcending, immediate experience. Hence to describe all experience ​as the mere adjective of a self, taken in any sense, is indefensible. And, as for transcendence,—from the very first the self is transcended by experience. Or we may in another way put this so. The self is one of the results gained by transcending the first imperfect form of experience. But experience and Reality are each the same thing when taken at full, and they cannot be transcended.
I may be allowed to repeat this. Experience in its early form, as a centre of immediate feeling, is not yet either self or not-self. It qualifies the Reality, which of course is present within it; and its own finite content indissolubly connects it with the total universe. But for itself—if it could be for itself—this finite centre would be the world. Then through its own imperfection such first experience is broken up. Its unity gives way before inner unrest and outer impact in one. And then self and Ego, on one side, are produced by this development, and, on the other side, appear other selves and the world and God. These all appear as the contents of one finite experience, and they really are genuinely and actually contained in it. They are contained in it but partially, and through a more or less inconsiderable portion of their area. Still this portion, so far as it goes, is their very being and reality; and a finite experience already is partially the universe. Hence there is no question here of stepping over a line from one world to another. Experience is already in both worlds, and is one thing with their being; and the question is merely to what extent this common being can be carried out, whether in practice or in knowledge. In other words the total universe, present imperfectly in finite experience, would, if completed, be merely the completion of this experience. And to speak of transcendence into another world is therefore mistaken.
For certain purposes what I experience can be ​considered as the state of my self, or, again, of my soul. It can be so considered, because in one aspect it actually is so. But this one aspect may be an infinitesimal fragment of its being. And never in any case can what I experience be the mere adjective of my self. My self is not the immediate, nor again is it the ultimate, reality. Immediate reality is an experience either containing both self and not-self, or containing as yet neither. And ultimate reality, on the other hand, would be the total universe.
In a former chapter we noticed the truths contained in Solipsism. Everything, my self included, is essential to, and is inseparable from, the Absolute. And, again, it is only in feeling that I can directly encounter Reality. But there is no need here to dwell on these sides of the truth. My experience is essential to the world, but the world is not, except in one aspect, my experience. The world and experience are, taken at large, the same. And my experience and its states, in a sense, actually are the whole world; for to this slight extent the one Reality is actually my self. But it is less misleading to assert, conversely, that the total world is my experience. For it appears there, and in each appearance its single being already is imperfectly included.
Let us turn from an objection based on an irrational prejudice, and let us go on to consider a point of some interest. Can the Absolute be said to consist and to be made up of souls? The question is ambiguous, and must be discussed in several senses. Is there—let us ask first—in the universe any sort of matter not contained in finite centres of experience? It seems at first sight natural to point at once to the relations between these centres. But such relations, we find on reflection, have been, so far, included in the ​perception and thought of the centres themselves. And what the question comes to is, rather, this, Can there be matter of experience, in any form, which does not enter as an element into some finite centre?
In view of our ignorance this question may seem unanswerable. We do not know why or how the Absolute divides itself into centres, or the way in which, so divided, it still remains one. The relation of the many experiences to the single experience, and so to one another, is, in the end, beyond us. And, if so, why should there not be elements experienced in the total, and yet not experienced within any subordinate focus? We may indeed, from the other side, confront this ignorance and this question with a doubt. Has such an unattached element, or margin of elements, any meaning at all? Have we any right to entertain such an idea as rational? Does not our ignorance in fact forbid us to assume the possibility of any matter experienced apart from a finite whole of feeling? But, after consideration, I do not find that this doubt should prevail. Certainly it is only by an abstraction that I can form the idea of such unattached elements, and this abstraction, it may seem, is not legitimate. And, if the elements were taken as quite loose, if they were not still inseparable factors in a whole of experience, then the abstraction clearly would lead to an inconsistent idea. And such an idea, we have agreed, must not be regarded as possible. But, in the present case, the elements, unattached to any finite centre, are still subordinate to and integral aspects of the Whole. And, since this Whole is one experience, the position is altered. The abstraction from a finite centre does not lead visibly to self-contradiction. And hence I cannot refuse to regard its result as possible.
But this possibility, on the other side, seems to have no importance. If we take it to be fact, we ​shall not find that it makes much difference to the Whole. And, again, for so taking it there appears to be almost no ground. Let us briefly consider these two points. That elements of experience should be unattached would (we saw) be a serious matter, if they were unattached altogether and absolutely. But since in any case all comes together and is fused in the Whole, and since this Whole in any case is a single experience, the main result appears to me to be quite unaffected. The fact that some experience-matter does not directly qualify any finite centre, is a fact from which I can draw no further conclusion. But for holding this fact, in the second place, there is surely no good reason. The number of finite centres and their diversity is (we know) very great, and we may fairly suppose it to extend much beyond our knowledge. Nor do the relations, which are “between” these centres, occasion difficulty. Relations of course cannot fall somewhere outside of reality; and, if they really were “between” the centres, we should have to assume some matter of experience external and additional to these. The conclusion would follow; and we have seen that, rightly understood, it is possible. But, as things are, it seems no less gratuitous. There is nothing, so far as I see, to suggest that any aspect of any relation lies outside the experience-matter contained in finite centres. The relations, as such, do not and cannot exist in the Absolute. And the question is whether that higher experience, which contains and transforms the relations, demands any element not experienced somehow within the centres. For assuming such an element I can myself perceive no ground. And since, even if we assume this, the main result seems to remain unaltered, the best course is, perhaps, to discard it as unreal. It is better, on the whole, to conclude that no element of Reality falls outside the experience of finite centres. ​Are we then to assert that the Absolute consists of souls? That, in my opinion, for two reasons would be incorrect. A centre of experience, first, is not the same thing as either a soul or, again, a self. It need not contain the distinction of not-self from self; and, whether it contains that or not, in neither case is it, properly, a self. It will be either below, or else wider than and above, the distinction. And a soul, as we have seen, is always the creature of an intellectual construction. It cannot be the same thing with a mere centre of immediate experience. Nor again can we affirm that every centre implies and entails in some sense a corresponding soul. For the duration of such centres may perhaps be so momentary that no one, except to save a theory, could call them souls. Hence we cannot maintain that souls contain all the matter of experience which fills the world.
And in any case, secondly, the Absolute would not consist of souls. Such a phrase implies a mode of union which we can not regard as ultimate. It suggests that in the Absolute finite centres are maintained and respected, and that we may consider them, as such, to persist and to be merely ordered and arranged. But not like this (we have seen) is the final destiny and last truth of things. We have a re-arrangement not merely of things but of their internal elements. We have an all-pervasive transfusion with a re-blending of all material. And we can hardly say that the Absolute consists of finite things, when the things, as such, are there transmuted and have lost their individual natures. ​Reality then is one, and it is experience. It is not merely my experience, nor again can we say that it consists of souls or selves. And it cannot be a unity of experience and also of something beside; for the something beside, when we examine it, turns out always to be experience. We verified this above (Chapters xxii. and xxvi.) in the case of Nature. Nature, like all else, in a sense remains inexplicable. It is in the end an arrangement, a way of happening coexistent and successive, as to which at last we clearly are unable to answer the question Why. But this inability, like others, does not affect the truth of our result. Nature is an abstraction from experience, and in experience it is not co-ordinate with spirit or mind. For mind, we have seen, has a reality higher than Nature, and the essence of the physical world already implies that in which it is absorbed and transcended. Nature by itself is but an indefensible division in the whole of experience.
This total unity of experience, I have pointed out, cannot, as such, be directly verified. We know its nature, but in outline only, and not in detail. Feeling, as we have seen, supplies us with a positive idea of non-relational unity. The idea is imperfect, but is sufficient to serve as a positive basis. And we are compelled further by our principle to believe in a Whole qualified, and qualified non-relationally, by every fraction of experience. But this unity of all experiences, if itself not experience, would be meaningless. The Whole is one experience then, and such a unity higher than all relations, a unity which contains and transforms them, has positive meaning. Of the manner of its being in detail we are utterly ignorant, but of its general nature we ​possess a positive though abstract knowledge. And, in attempting to deny or to doubt the result we have gained, we find ourselves once more unconsciously affirming it.
The Absolute, though known, is higher, in a sense, than our experience and knowledge; and in this connection I will ask if it has personality. At the point we have reached such a question can be dealt with rapidly. We can answer it at once in the affirmative or negative according to its meaning. Since the Absolute has everything, it of course must possess personality. And if by personality we are to understand the highest form of finite spiritual development, then certainly in an eminent degree the Absolute is personal. For the higher (we may repeat) is always the more real. And, since in the Absolute the very lowest modes of experience are not lost, it seems even absurd to raise such a question about personality.
And this is not the sense in which the question is usually put. “Personal” is employed in effect with a restrictive meaning; for it is used to exclude what is above, as well as below, personality. The super-personal, in other words, is either openly or tacitly regarded as impossible. Personality is taken as the highest possible way of experience, and naturally, if so, the Absolute cannot be super-personal. This conclusion, with the assumption on which it rests, may be summarily rejected. It has been, indeed, refuted beforehand by previous discussions. If the term “personal” is to bear anything like its ordinary sense, assuredly the Absolute is not merely personal. It is not personal, because it is personal and more. It is, in a word, super-personal.
I intend here not to enquire into the possible meanings of personality. On the nature of the self and of self-consciousness I have spoken already, and ​I will merely add here that for me a person is finite or is meaningless. But the question raised as to the Absolute may, I think, be more briefly disposed of. If by calling it personal you mean only that it is nothing but experience, that it contains all the highest that we possibly can know and feel, and is a unity in which the details are utterly pervaded and embraced—then in this conclusion I am with you. But your employment of the term personal I very much regret. I regret this use mainly not because I consider it incorrect—that between us would matter little—but because it is misleading and directly serves the cause of dishonesty.
For most of those who insist on what they call “the personality of God,” are intellectually dishonest. They desire one conclusion, and, to reach it, they argue for another. But the second, if proved, is quite different, and serves their purpose only because they obscure it and confound it with the first. And it is by their practical purpose that the result may here be judged. The Deity, which they want, is of course finite, a person much like themselves, with thoughts and feelings limited and mutable in the process of time. They desire a person in the sense of a self, amongst and over against other selves, moved by personal relations and feelings towards these others—feelings and relations which are altered by the conduct of the others. And, for their purpose, what is not this, is really nothing. Now with this desire in itself I am not here concerned. Of course for us to ask seriously if the Absolute can be personal in such a way, would be quite absurd. And my business for the moment is not with truth but with intellectual honesty.
It would be honest first of all to state openly the conclusion aimed at, and then to enquire if this conclusion can be maintained. But what is not honest is to suppress the point really at issue, to desire the personality of the Deity in one sense, and then to ​contend for it in another, and to do one’s best to ignore the chasm which separates the two. Once give up your finite and mutable person, and you have parted with everything which, for you, makes personality important. Nor will you bridge the chasm by the sliding extension of a word. You will only make a fog, where you can cry out that you are on both sides at once. And towards increasing this fog I decline to contribute. It would be useless, in such company and in such an atmosphere, to discuss the meaning of personality—if indeed the word actually has any one meaning. For me it is sufficient to know, on one side, that the Absolute is not a finite person. Whether, on the other side, personality in some eviscerated remnant of sense can be applied to it, is a question intellectually unimportant and practically trifling.
With regard to the personality of the Absolute we must guard against two one-sided errors. The Absolute is not personal, nor is it moral, nor is it beautiful or true. And yet in these denials we may be falling into worse mistakes. For it would be far more incorrect to assert that the Absolute is either false, or ugly, or bad, or is something even beneath the application of predicates such as these. And it is better to affirm personality than to call the Absolute impersonal. But neither mistake should be necessary. The Absolute stands above, and not below, its internal distinctions. It does not eject them, but it includes them as elements in its fulness. To speak in other language, it is not the indifference but the concrete identity of all extremes. But it is better in this connection to call it super-personal.
We have seen that Reality is one, and is a single experience; and we may pass from this to consider a difficult question. Is the Absolute happy? This might mean, can pleasure, as such, be predicated of the Absolute? And, as we have seen in the ​preceding chapter, this is not permissible. We found that there is a balance of pleasure over and above pain, and we know from experience that in a mixed state such a balance may be pleasant. And we are sure that the Absolute possesses and enjoys somehow this balance of pleasure. But to go further seems impossible. Pleasure may conceivably be so supplemented and modified by addition, that it does not remain precisely that which we call pleasure. Its pleasantness certainly could not be lost, but it might be blended past recognition with other aspects of the Whole. The Absolute then, perhaps, strictly, does not feel pleasure. But, if so, that is only because it has something in which pleasure is included.
But at this point we are met by the doubt, with which already we have partly dealt (Chapter xiv.). Is our conclusion, after all, the right one? Is it not possible, after all, that in the Absolute there is a balance of pain, or, if not of pain, of something else which is at all events no better? On this difficult point I will state at once the result which seems true. Such a balance is possible in the lowest sense of barely possible. It does not seem to me unmeaning, nor can I find that it is self-contradictory. If we try to deny that the Absolute is one and is experience, our denial becomes unmeaning, or of itself turns round into an assertion. But I do not see that this is the case with a denial of happiness.
It is true that we can know nothing of pain and pleasure except from our experience. It is true that in that experience well-nigh everything points in one direction. There is, so far as I know, not one special fact which suggests that pain is compatible with unity and concord. And, if so, why should we not insist, “Such is the nature of pain, and hence to deny this nature is to fall into self-contradiction”? What, in short, is the other possibility which has not been included? I will endeavour to state it.
The world that we can observe is certainly not ​all the universe; and we do not know how much there may be which we cannot observe. And hence everywhere an indefinite supplement from the unknown is possible. Now might there not be conditions, invisible to us, which throughout our experience modify the action of pleasure and pain? In this way what seems to be essential to pain may actually not be so. It may really come from unseen conditions which are but accidental. And so pain, after all, might be compatible with harmony and system. Against this it may be contended that pain itself, on such a hypothesis, would be neutralised, and that its painfulness also would now be gone. Again it may be urged that what is accidental on a certain scale has become essential, essential not less effectively because indirectly. But, though these contentions have force, I do not find them conclusive. The idea of a painful universe, in the end, seems to be neither quite meaningless nor yet visibly self-contradictory. And I am compelled to allow that, speaking strictly, we must call it possible.
But such a possibility, on the other side, possesses almost no value. It of course rests, so far as it goes, on positive knowledge. We know that the world’s character, within certain limits, admits of indefinite supplementation. And the supplementation, here proposed, seems in accordance with this general nature of known reality. That is all it has in its favour, an abstract compliance with a general character of things; and beyond this there seems to be not one shred of particular evidence. But against it there is everything which in particular we know about the subject. And the possibility is thus left with a value too small to be estimated. We can only say that it exists, and that it is hardly worth considering further.
But we have, with this, crossed the line which separates absolute from conditional knowledge. ​That Reality is one system which contains in itself all experience, and, again, that this system itself is experience—so far we may be said to know absolutely and unconditionally. Up to this point our judgment is infallible, and its opposite is quite impossible. The chance of error, in other words, is so far nothing at all. But outside this boundary every judgment is finite, and so conditional. And here every truth, because incomplete, is more or less erroneous. And because the amount of incompleteness remains unknown, it may conceivably go so far, in any case, as to destroy the judgment. The opposite no longer is impossible absolutely; but, from this point downwards, it remains but impossible relatively and subject to a condition.
Anything is absolute when all its nature is contained within itself. It is unconditional when every condition of its being falls inside it. It is free from chance of error when any opposite is quite inconceivable. Such characters belong to the statement that Reality is experience and is one. For these truths are not subordinate, but are general truths about Reality as a whole. They do not exhaust it, but in outline they give its essence. The Real, in other words, is more than they, but always more of the same. There is nothing which in idea you can add to it, that fails, when understood, to fall under these general truths. And hence every doubt and all chance of error become unmeaning. Error and doubt have their place only in the subordinate and finite region, and within the limits prescribed by the character of the Whole. And the Other has no meaning where any Other turns out to be none. It is useless again to urge that an Other, though not yet conceived, may after all prove conceivable. It is idle to object that the impossible means no more than what you have not yet found. For we have ​seen that privation and failure imply always an outlying field of reality; and such an outlying field is here unmeaning. To say “you might find it” sounds modest, but it assumes positively a sphere in which the thing might be found. And here the assumption contradicts itself, and with that contradiction the doubt bodily disappears.
The criterion of truth may be called inconceivability of the opposite, but it is essential to know what we mean by such inability. Is this absolute or relative, and to what extent is it due to privation and mere failure? We have in fact, once more here, to clear our ideas as to the meaning of impossibility (Chapters xxiv. and xxvi.). Now the impossible may either be absolute or relative, but it can never be directly based on our impotence. For a thing is impossible always because it contradicts positive knowledge. Where the knowledge is relative, that knowledge is certainly more or less conditioned by our impotence. And hence, through that impotence, the impossibility may be more or less weakened and made conditional. But it never is created by or rests upon simple failure. In the end one has to say “I must not,” not because I am unable, but because I am prevented.
The impossible absolutely is what contradicts the known nature of Reality. And the impossible, in this sense, is self-contradictory. It is indeed an attempt to deny which, in the very act, unwittingly affirms. Since here our positive knowledge is all-embracing, it can rest on nothing external. Outside this knowledge there is not so much as an empty space in which our impotence could fall. And every inability and failure already presupposes and belongs to our known world.
The impossible relatively is what contradicts any subordinate piece of knowledge. It cannot be, unless something which we hold for true is, as such, given up. The impossibility here will vary in degree, ​according to the strength of that knowledge with which it conflicts. And, once more here, it does not consist in our failure and impotence. The impossible is not rejected, in other words, because we cannot find it. It is rejected because we find it, and find it in collision with positive knowledge. But what is true on the other side is that our knowledge here is finite and fallible. It has to be conditional on account of our inability and impotence.
Before I return to this last point, I will repeat the same truth from another side. A thing is real when, and in so far as, its opposite is impossible. But in the end its opposite is impossible because, and in so far as, the thing is real. And, according to the amount of reality which anything possesses, to that extent its opposite is inconceivable. The more, in other words, that anything exhausts the field of possibility, the less possible becomes that which would essentially alter it. Now, in the case of such truth as we have called absolute, the field of possibility is exhausted. Reality is there, and the opposite of Reality is not privation but absolute nothingness. There can be no outside, because already what is inside is everything. But the case is altered when we come to subordinate truths. These, being not self-subsistent, are conditioned by what is partly unknown, and certainly to that extent they are dependent on our inability. But, on the other hand, our criterion of their truth and strength is positive. The more they are coherent and wide—the more fully they realize the idea of system—so much the more at once are they real and true. And so much the more what would subvert them becomes impossible. The opposite is inconceivable, according and in proportion as it conflicts with positive reality.
We have seen now that some truth is certain ​beyond a doubt, and that the rest—all subordinate truth—is subject to error in various degrees. Any finite truth, to be made quite true, must more or less be modified; and it may require modification to such an extent that we must call it utterly transformed. Now, in Chapter xxiv., we have already shown that this account holds good, but I will once more insist on our fallibility in finite matters. And the general consideration which I would begin by urging, is this. With every finite truth there is an external world of unknown extent. Where there is such an indefinite outside, there must be an uncertain world of possible conditions. But this means that any finite truth may be conditioned so as to be made really quite otherwise. I will go on briefly to apply this.
Wherever a truth depends, as we say, upon observation, clearly in this case you cannot tell how much is left out, and what you have not observed may be, for all you know, the larger part of the matter. But, if so, your truth—it makes no difference whether it is called “particular” or “general”—may be indefinitely mistaken. The accidental may have been set down as if it were the essence; and this error may be present to an extent which cannot be limited. You cannot prove that subject and predicate have not been conjoined by the invisible interposition of unknown factors. And there is no way in which this possibility can be excluded.
But the chance of error vanishes, we may be told, where genuine abstraction is possible. It is not present at least, for example, in the world of mathematical truth. Such an objection to our general view cannot stand. Certainly there are spheres where abstraction in a special sense is possible, and where we are able, as we may say, to proceed a priori. And for other purposes this difference, I agree, may be very important; but I am not concerned here with its importance or generally with its ​nature and limits. For, as regards the point in question, the difference is wholly irrelevant. No abstraction (whatever its origin) is in the end defensible. For they are, none of them, quite true, and with each the amount of possible error must remain unknown. The truth asserted is not, and cannot be, taken as real by itself. The background is ignored because it is assumed to make no difference, and the mass of conditions, abstracted from and left out, is treated as immaterial. The predicate, in other words, is held to belong to the subject essentially, and not because of something else which may be withdrawn or modified. But an assumption of this kind obviously goes beyond our knowledge. Since Reality here is not exhausted, but is limited only by our failure to see more, there is a possibility everywhere of unknown conditions on which our judgment depends. And hence, after all, we may be asserting anywhere what is but accidental.
We may put this otherwise by stating that finite truth must be conditional. No such fact or truth is ever really self-supported and independent. They are all conditioned, and in the end conditioned all by the unknown. And the extent to which they are so conditioned, again is uncertain. But this means that any finite truth or fact may to an indefinite extent be accidental appearance. In other words, if its conditions were filled in, it, in its own proper form, might have disappeared. It might be modified and transformed beyond that point at which it could be said, to any extent, to retain its own nature. And however improbable in certain cases this result may be, in no case can it be called impossible absolutely. Everything finite is because of something else. And where the extent and nature of this “something else” cannot be ascertained, the “because” turns out to be no better than “if.” There is nothing finite which is not at the mercy of unknown conditions. ​Finite truth and fact, we may say, is throughout “hypothetical.” But, either with this term or with “conditional,” we have to guard against misleading implications. There cannot (from our present point of view) be one finite sphere which is real and actual, or which is even considered to be so for a certain purpose. There can be here no realm of existence or fact, outside of which the merely supposed could fall in unreality. The Reality, on one hand, is no finite existence; and, on the other hand, every predicate—no matter what—must both fall within and must qualify Reality. They are applicable, all subject to various degrees of alteration, and as to these degrees we, in the end, may in any case be mistaken. In any case, therefore, the alteration may amount to unlimited transformation. This is why the finite must be called conditional rather than conditioned. For a thing might be conditioned, and yet, because of its conditions, might seem to stand unshaken and secure. But the conditions of the finite, we have seen, are otherwise. They in any case may be such as indefinitely to dissipate its particular nature.
Every finite truth or fact to some extent must be unreal and false, and it is impossible in the end certainly to know of any how false it may be. We cannot know this, because the unknown extends illimitably, and all abstraction is precarious and at the mercy of what is not observed. If our knowledge were a system, the case would then undoubtedly be altered. With regard to everything we should then know the place assigned to it by the Whole, and we could measure the exact degree of truth and falsehood which anything possessed. With such a system there would be no outlying region of ignorance; and hence of all its contents we could have a complete and exhaustive ​knowledge. But any system of this kind seems, most assuredly, by its essence impossible.
There are certain truths about the Absolute, which, for the present at least, we can regard as unconditional. In this point they can be taken to differ in kind from all subordinate truths, for with the latter it is a question only of more or less fallibility. They are all liable to a possible intellectual correction, and the amount of this possibility cannot be certainly known. Our power of abstraction varies widely with different regions of knowledge, but no finite truth (however reached) can be considered as secure. Error with all of them is a matter of probability, and a matter of degree. And those are relatively true and strong which more nearly approach to perfection.
It is this perfection which is our measure. Our criterion is individuality, or the idea of complete system; and above, in Chapter xxiv., we have already explained its nature. And I venture to think that about the main principle there is no great difficulty. Difficulty is felt more when we proceed to apply it in detail. We saw that the principles of internal harmony and of widest extent in the end are the same, for they are divergent aspects of the one idea of concrete unity. But for a discussion of such points the reader must return to our former chapter.
A thing is more real as its opposite is more inconceivable. This is part of the truth. But, on the other hand, the opposite is more inconceivable, or more impossible, because the thing itself is more real and more probable and more true. The test (I would repeat it once more here) in its essence is positive. The stronger, the more systematic and more fully organised, a body of knowledge becomes, so ​much the more impossible becomes that which in any point conflicts with it. Or, from the other side, we may resume our doctrine thus. The greater the amount of knowledge which an idea or fact would, directly or indirectly, subvert, so much the more probably is it false and impossible and inconceivable. And there may be finite truths, with which error—and I mean by error here liability to intellectual correction—is most improbable. The chance may fairly be treated as too small to be worth considering. Yet after all it exists.
Finite truths are all conditional, because they all must depend on the unknown. But this unknown—the reader must bear in mind—is merely relative. Itself is subordinate to, and is included in, our absolute knowledge; and its nature, in general, is certainly not unknown. For, if it is anything at all, it is experience, and an element in the one Experience. Our ignorance, at the mercy of which all the finite lies, is not ignorance absolute. It covers and contains more than we are able to know, but this “more” is known beforehand to be still of the self-same sort. And we must now pass from the special consideration of finite truth. ​It is time to re-examine a distinction which we laid down above. We found that some knowledge was absolute, and that, in contrast with this, all finite truth was but conditional. But, when we examine it more closely, this difference seems hard to maintain. For how can truth be true absolutely, if there remains a gulf between itself and reality? Now in any truth about Reality the word “about” is too significant. There remains always something outside, and other than, the predicate. And, because of this which is outside, the predicate, in the end, may be called conditional. In brief, the difference between subject and predicate, a difference essential to truth, is not accounted for. It depends on something not included within the judgment itself, an element outlying and, therefore, in a sense unknown. The type and the essence, in other words, can never reach the reality. The essence realized, we may say, is too much to be truth, and, unrealized and abstract, it is assuredly too little to be real. Even absolute truth in the end seems thus to turn out erroneous.
And it must be admitted that, in the end, no possible truth is quite true. It is a partial and inadequate translation of that which it professes to give bodily. And this internal discrepancy belongs ​irremoveably to truth’s proper character. Still the difference drawn between absolute and finite truth must none the less be upheld. For the former, in a word, is not intellectually corrigible. There is no intellectual alteration which could possibly, as general truth, bring it nearer to ultimate Reality. We have seen that any suggestion of this kind is but self-destructive, that any doubt on this point is literally senseless. Absolute truth is corrected only by passing outside the intellect. It is modified only by taking in the remaining aspects of experience. But in this passage the proper nature of truth is, of course, transformed and perishes.
Any finite truth, on the other side, remains subject to intellectual correction. It is incomplete not merely as being confined by its general nature, as truth, within one partial aspect of the Whole. It is incomplete as having within its own intellectual world a space falling outside it. There is truth, actual or possible, which is over against it, and which can stand outside it as an Other. But with absolute truth there is no intellectual outside. There is no competing predicate which could conceivably qualify its subject, and which could come in to condition and to limit its assertion. Absolute knowledge may be conditional, if you please; but its condition is not any other truth, whether actual or possible.
The doctrine, which I am endeavouring to state, is really simple. Truth is one aspect of experience, and is therefore made imperfect and limited by what it fails to include. So far as it is absolute, it does however give the general type and character of all that possibly can be true or real. And the universe in this general character is known completely. It is not known, and it never can be known, in all its details. It is not known, and it never, as a whole, can be known, in such a sense that knowledge would be the same as experience or reality. ​For knowledge and truth—if we suppose them to possess that identity—would have been, therewith, absorbed and transmuted. But on the other hand the universe does not exist, and it cannot possibly exist, as truth or knowledge, in such a way as not to be contained and included in the truth we call absolute. For, to repeat it once more, such a possibility is self-destructive. We may perhaps say that, if per impossibile this could be possible, we at least could not possibly entertain the idea of it. For such an idea, in being entertained, vanishes into its opposite or into nonsense. Absolute truth is error only if you expect from it more that mere general knowledge. It is abstract, and fails to supply its own subordinate details. It is one-sided, and cannot give bodily all sides of the Whole. But on the other side nothing, so far as it goes, can fall outside it. It is utterly all-inclusive and contains beforehand all that could ever be set against it. For nothing can be set against it, which does not become intellectual, and itself enter as a vassal into the kingdom of truth. Thus, even when you go beyond it, you can never advance outside it. When you take in more, you are condemned to take in more of the self-same sort. The universe, as truth, in other words preserves one character, and of that character we possess infallible knowledge.
And, if we view the matter from another side, there is no opposition between Reality and truth. Reality, to be complete, must take in and absorb this partial aspect of itself. And truth itself would ​not be complete, until it took in and included all aspects of the universe. Thus, in passing beyond itself and in abolishing the difference between its subject and predicate, it does but carry out the demands of its proper nature. But I may perhaps hope that this conclusion has been sufficiently secured (Chapters xv., xxiv., xxvi.). To repeat—in its general character Reality is present in knowledge and truth, that absolute truth which is distinguished and brought out by metaphysics. But this general character of Reality is not Reality itself, and again it is not more than the general character even of truth and knowledge. Still, so far as there is any truth and any knowledge at all, this character is absolute. Truth is conditional, but it cannot be intellectually transcended. To fill in its conditions would be to pass into a whole beyond mere intellect.
The conclusion which we have reached, I trust, the outcome of no mere compromise, makes a claim to reconcile extremes. Whether it is to be called Realism or Idealism I do not know, and I have not cared to enquire. It neither puts ideas and thought first, nor again does it permit us to assert that anything else by itself is more real. Truth is the whole world in one aspect, an aspect supreme in philosophy, and yet even in philosophy conscious of its own incompleteness. So far again as our conclusion has claimed infallibility, it has come, I think, into no collision with the better kind of common sense. That metaphysics should approve itself to common sense is indeed out of the question. For neither in its processes nor in its results can it expect, or even hope, to be generally intelligible. But it is no light thing, except for the thoughtless, to advocate metaphysical results which, if they were understood by common sense, would at once be rejected. I do not mean that on subordinate points, such as the personality of the Deity or or a ​continuance of the individual after death—points on which there is not any general consent in the world—philosophy is bound to adopt one particular view. I mean that to arrange the elements of our nature in such a way that the system made, when understood, strikes the mind as one-sided, is enough of itself to inspire hesitation and doubt. On this head at least, our main result is, I hope, satisfactory. The absolute knowledge that we have claimed is no more than an outline. It is knowledge which seems sufficient, on one side, to secure the chief interests of our nature, and it abstains, on the other side, from pretensions which all must feel are not human. We insist that all Reality must keep a certain character. The whole of its contents must be experience, they must come together into one system, and this unity itself must be experience. It must include and must harmonize every possible fragment of appearance. Anything which in any sense can be more than and beyond what we possess, must still inevitably be more of the self-same kind. We persist in this conclusion, and we urge that, so far as it goes, it amounts to absolute knowledge. But this conclusion on the other side, I have pointed out, does not go very far. It leaves us free to admit that what we know is, after all, nothing in proportion to the world of our ignorance. We do not know what other modes of experience may exist, or, in comparison with ours, how many they may be. We do not know, except in vague outline, what the Unity is, or, at all, why it appears in our particular forms of plurality. We can even understand that such knowledge is impossible, and we have found the reason why it is so. For truth can know only, we may say, so far as itself is. And the union of all sides of our nature would not leave them, in any case, as they are. Truth, when made adequate to Reality, would be so supplemented as to have become something else—something other ​than truth, and something for us unattainable. We have thus left due space for the exercise of doubt and wonder. We admit the healthy scepticism for which all knowledge in a sense is vanity, which feels in its heart that science is a poor thing if measured by the wealth of the real universe. We justify the natural wonder which delights to stray beyond our daylight world, and to follow paths that lead into half-known half-unknowable regions. Our conclusion, in brief, has explained and has confirmed the irresistible impression that all is beyond us.
Everything is error, but everything is not illusion. It is error where, and in so far as, our ideas are not the same as reality. It is illusion where, and in so far as, this difference turns to a conflict in our nature. Where experience, inward or outward, clashes with our views, where there arises thus disorder confusion and pain, we may speak of illusion. It is the course of events in collision with the set of our ideas. Now error, in the sense of one-sided and partial truth, is necessary to our being. Indeed nothing else, so to speak, could be relative to our needs, nothing else could answer the purpose of truth. And, to suit the divergent aspects of our inconsistent finite lives, a variety of error in the shape of diverse partial truths is required. And, if things could be otherwise, then, so far as we see, finite life would be impossible. Therefore we must have error present always, and this presence entails some amount of illusion. Finite beings, themselves not self-consistent, have to realize their various aspects in the chance-world of temporal events. And hence ideas and existence cannot precisely correspond, while the want of this correspondence must to some extent mean illusion. There are finite souls, we must admit sadly, to whom, on the whole, life has proved a disappointment and cheat. There is perhaps no one to whom, at certain moments and ​in some respect, this conclusion has not come home. But that, in general and in the main, life is illusory cannot be rationally maintained. And if, in general and in the rough, our ideas are answered by events, that is all surely which, as finite beings, we have a right to expect. We must reply then, that, though illusions exist here and there, the whole is not an illusion. We are not concerned to gain an absolute experience which for us, emphatically, could be nothing. We want to know, in effect, whether the universe is concealed behind appearances, and is making a sport of us. What we find here truer and more beautiful and better and higher—are these things really so, or in reality may they be all quite otherwise? Our standard, in other words, is it a false appearance not owned by the universe? And to this, in general, we may make an unhesitating reply. There is no reality at all anywhere except in appearance, and in our appearance we can discover the main nature of reality. This nature cannot be exhausted, but it can be known in abstract. And it is, really and indeed, this general character of the very universe itself which distinguishes for us the relative worth of appearances. We make mistakes, but still we use the essential nature of the world as our own criterion of value and reality. Higher, truer, more beautiful, better and more real—these, on the whole, count in the universe as they count for us. And existence, on the whole, must correspond with our ideas. For, on the whole, higher means for us a greater amount of that one Reality, outside of which all appearance is absolutely nothing.
It costs little to find that in the end Reality is inscrutable. It is easy to perceive that any appearance, not being the Reality, in a sense is fallacious. These truths, such as they are, are within the reach of any and every man. It is a simple matter to ​conclude further, perhaps, that the Real sits apart, that it keeps state by itself and does not descend into phenomena. Or it is as cheap, again, to take up another side of the same error. The Reality is viewed perhaps as immanent in all its appearances, in such a way that it is, alike and equally, present in all. Everything is so worthless on one hand, so divine on the other, that nothing can be viler or can be more sublime than anything else. It is against both sides of this mistake, it is against this empty transcendence and this shallow Pantheism, that our pages may be called one sustained polemic. The positive relation of every appearance as an adjective to Reality, and the presence of Reality among its appearances in different degrees and with diverse values—this double truth we have found to be the centre of philosophy. It is because the Absolute is no sundered abstraction but has a positive character, it is because this Absolute itself is positively present in all appearance, that appearances themselves can possess true differences of value. And, apart from this foundation, in the end we are left without a solid criterion of worth or of truth or reality. This conclusion—the necessity on one side for a standard, and the impossibility of reaching it without a positive knowledge of the Absolute—I would venture to press upon any intelligent worshipper of the Unknown.
The Reality itself is nothing at all apart from appearances. It is in the end nonsense to talk of realities—or of anything else—to which appearances could appear, or between which they somehow could hang as relations. Such realities (we have seen) would themselves be appearances or nothing. For there is no way of qualifying the Real except by appearances, and outside the Real there remains no space in which appearances could live. Reality ​appears in its appearances, and they are its revelation; and otherwise they also could be nothing whatever. The Reality comes into knowledge, and, the more we know of anything, the more in one way is Reality present within us. The Reality is our criterion of worse and better, of ugliness and beauty, of true and false, and of real and unreal. It in brief decides between, and gives a general meaning to, higher and lower. It is because of this criterion that appearances differ in worth; and, without it, lowest and highest would, for all we know, count the same in the universe. And Reality is one Experience, self-pervading and superior to mere relations. Its character is the opposite of that fabled extreme which is barely mechanical, and it is, in the end, the sole perfect realisation of spirit. We may fairly close this work then by insisting that Reality is spiritual. There is a great saying of Hegel’s, a saying too well known, and one which without some explanation I should not like to endorse. But I will end with something not very different, something perhaps more certainly the essential message of Hegel. Outside of spirit there is not, and there cannot be, any reality, and, the more that anything is spiritual, so much the more is it veritably real.
* ↑ On this point compare my Principles of Logic, pp. 519-20.
* ↑ Ibid. p. 187. The reader should compare the treatment of Possibility above in this volume (Chapter xxiv.), and again in Mr. Bosanquet’s Logic.
* ↑ Ibid. p. 517.
* ↑ For, if it did, it would split internally, as well as pass beyond itself externally.
* ↑ Ibid. pp. 112-115, 511-517. And see, above, Chapter xxiv.
* ↑ Compare here Chapter xix.
* ↑ These terms must not be taken as everywhere equivalent. There certainly is no self or soul without a centre of feeling. But there may be centres of feeling which are not selves, and again not souls (see below). Possibly also some selves are too fleeting to be called souls, while almost certainly there are souls which are not properly selves. The latter term should not be used at all where there is in no sense a distinction of self from not-self. And it can hardly always be used in precisely the same sense (Chapter ix.).
* ↑ For this reason Humanity, or an organism, kingdom, or society of selves, is not an ultimate idea. It implies an union too incomplete, and it ascribes reality in too high a sense to finite pieces of appearance. These two defects are, of course, in principle one. An organism or society, including every self past present and future—and we can hardly take it at less than this—is itself an idea to me obscure, if not quite inconsistent. But, in any case, its reality and truth cannot be ultimate. And, for myself, even in Ethics I do not see how such an idea can be insisted on. The perfection of the Whole has to realise itself in and through me; and, without question, this Whole is very largely social. But I do not see my way to the assertion that, even for Ethics, it is nothing else at all (pp. 415, 431).
* ↑ See Chapters ix. and x. Compare xxi. and xxiii.
* ↑ This statement will be modified lower down.
* ↑ Throughout this discussion the reader is supposed to be acquainted with the doctrine of Chapter xxiv.
* ↑ Cp. here Chapter xxiv.
* ↑ For a further statement see below.
* ↑ It is impossible here to deal fully with the question how, in case of a discrepancy, we are able to correct our knowledge. We are forced indefinitely to enlarge experience, because, as it is, being finite it cannot be harmonious. Then we find a collision between some fact or idea, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, some body of recognised truth. Now the self-contradictory cannot be true; and the question is how to rearrange it so as to make it harmonious. What is it in any given case, we have to ask, which has to be sacrificed? The conflict itself may perhaps be apparent only. A mere accident may have been taken for what is essential, and, with the correction of this mistake, the whole collision may cease. Or the fresh idea may be found to be untenable. It contains an error, and is therefore broken up and resolved; or, if that is not possible, it may be provisionally set on one side and disregarded. This last course is however feasible only if we assume that our original knowledge is so strong as to stand fast and unshaken. But the opposite of this may be the case. It may be our former knowledge which, on its side, has to give way, and must be modified and over-ruled by the fresh experience. But, last of all, there is a further possibility which remains. Neither of our conflicting pieces of knowledge may be able to stand as true. Each may be true enough to satisfy and to serve, for some purposes, and at a certain level; and yet both, viewed from above, can be seen to be conflicting errors. Both must therefore be resolved to the point required, and must be rearranged as elements in a wider whole. Separation of the accidents from the essence must here be carried on until the essence itself is more or less dissolved. I have no space to explain, or to attempt to illustrate, this general statement.
* ↑ The essential inconsistency of truth may, perhaps, be best stated thus. If there is any difference between what it means and what it stands for, then truth is clearly not realized. But, if there is no such difference, then truth has ceased to exist.
* ↑ It is not abstract in the way in which we have seen that all finite truth is abstract. That was precarious intellectually, since, more or less, it left other truth outside and over against it. It was thus always one piece among other pieces of the world of truth. It could be added to, intellectually, so as to be transformed. Absolute truth, on the other hand, cannot be altered by the addition of any truth. There is no possible truth which does not fall under it as one of its own details. Unless you presuppose it, in short, no other truth remains truth at all.
* ↑ For the meaning of appearance see, in particular, Chapter xxvi.