Jacques Maritain Center :
Theories of Knowledge / by Leslie J. Walker, S.J.
§ 171. In this chapter I propose to consider Absolutism from a metaphysical standpoint as a theory which must stand or fall according as it succeeds or fails to explain the universe, and, in particular, the fact of cognition. The cognition with which we are concerned is clearly human cognition; and the universe which has to be explained our universe, the universe which is revealed to us, or which, at any rate, appears to be revealed to us, in the data of our experience. For from these data alone is it possible to make a start, since these alone are immediately given.
That absolutists in general accept this position and this criterion is, I think, clear. Professor Mackenzie remarks that we can only prove a philosophic theory by showing it to be the only one which makes the universe intelligible;{1} and Green is of the same opinion. Speaking of his own theory of the immanent presence and activity of God within us, he says:
Proof of such a doctrine, in the ordinary sense of the word, from the nature of the case there cannot be. It is not a truth deducible from other established or conceded truths. It is not a statement of an event or a matter of fact that can be the object of experiment or observation. It represents a conception to which no perceivable or imaginable object can possibly correspond, but one that affords the only means by which, reflecting on our moral and intellectual experience conjointly, taking the world and ourselves into account, we can put the whole thing together, and understand how (not why, but how) we are and do, what we consciously are and do.{2}
§ 172. Mr. Bradley's view of the function of theory and its relation to fact seems to me to vary somewhat according to whether it is his own or somebody else's theory that is in question. Referring to the doctrine of the reality of the self, he thus addresses his adversaries
Present your doctrine (whatever it is) in a form which will bear criticism, and which will enable me to understand this confused mass of facts which I encounter on all sides. Do this, and I will follow you, and I will worship the source of such a true revelation. But I will not accept nonsense for reality, though it be vouched for by miracle, and proceed from the mouth of a psychological monster.{3}
Observe, however, the change of tone which takes place immediately we get into Book II. Speaking of his own theory, Mr. Bradley says:
We have not to choose between accounting for everything on one side aud on the other admitting it as a disproof of our doctrine of the Absolute. Such an alternative is not logical. If you wish to refute a wide theory based on general grounds, it is idle merely to produce facts which upon it are not explained. The facts become an objection only when they are incompatible with some part of it; while, if they merely remain outside, that points to incompleteness in detail and not falsity in principle. A general doctrine is not destroyed by what we fail to understand. It is destroyed only by that which we actually do understand, and can show to be inconsistent and discrepant with the theory adopted.{4}
By this ingenious argument Mr. Bradley has completely reversed the position which he took up in regard to disagreeable doctrines. He has not to explain "the confused mass of facts which we encounter on all sides," but just as many or as few of them as suits his convenience. The rest are irrelevant and fall outside as details. Should you produce a 'fact' which seems to be relevant and yet to contradict his theory, he has an answer ready. The fact needs interpretation, and the ordinary and commonly accepted interpretation of it is wrong, or at least inadequate. Mr. Bradley is quite willing to accept any facts which we "really do understand;" but when it comes to the issue there are none. We assume knowledge where really there is ignorance. "I maintain," he says, "that we know nothing of those various forms of the finite which shows them incompatible with that Absolute, for the accepting of which we have general ground."{5}
§ 173. Such a position is, of course, practically unassailable, unless internal contradiction can be proved. But is it logical and rational? What is the use of a theory unless it is to explain facts? And how are we to judge whether it explains facts, unless the facts themselves are understood? Surely a theory which is consistent with itself may be, as Dr. Schiller says, wholly irrelevant and useless. If the metaphysician is to be allowed to disregard facts at will on the ground that they are never rightly understood; if he is to be allowed dogmatically to assert that no fact can contradict his theory as Mr. Bradley does when he states that "we cannot know that the finite is in collision with the Absolute if he "can respect no element of experience except on compulsion," and "can reverence nothing but what by criticism and denial the more unmistakably asserts itself,"{6} it is small wonder that metaphysics is treated by other sciences with scant courtesy, and small wonder either that on these principles innumerable Absolutisms should have grown up, each contradictory of the others. I fail to see what possible use there can be in a metaphysic which is neither to explain How nor Why, and yet we are repeatedly assured by Mr. Bradley that his metaphysic claims to do neither.
§ 174. Mr. Bradley will reply that he does admit facts. Has he not told us that "the 'given' of course is given; it must be recognised, and it cannot be ignored"?{7} True, this much is conceded, but the sentence in which the concession is made is surrounded by qualifications Immediately before it we are informed that
It is a mere superstition to suppose that an appeal to experience can prove reality. That I find something in existence in the world or in my self, shows that that something exists, and it cannot show more. Any deliverance of consciousness -- whether original or acquired -- is but a deliverance of consciousness. It is in no case an oracle and a revelation which we have to accept.{8}
Now, what possible use there can be in appealing to consciousness if all that we are going to allow to the deliverance of consciousness is 'existence,' I am at a loss to understand. What is the good of admitting that something exists, if you do not know anything at all about what that something is? And if you are not going to accept the deliverances of consciousness, content and all, what are you going to accept? I quite agree that a deliverance of consciousness may sometimes be an illusion and I agree also that there is 'a very wide interval between recognising a datum and receiving blindly (i.e., Without careful examination) its content as reality;' but we must accept facts if we are to reason at all, and to accept a fact as a mere datum of consciousness, while at the same time denying the reality of what is given as a fact, is surely not to accept it.
§ 175. But must we accept facts as reality? Can they, as Mr. Bradley says, exist without being real? Most people would say that they cannot. Indeed, were it not that my 'facts' seem to have been surreptitiously removed I should be inclined to assert that Mr. Bradley's denial of the reality of facts is the first point in which his Absolutism conflicts with facts. To me the distinctions he makes between Appearance and Reality and Existence and Reality are invalid, and rest upon a confusion.
Appearances exist and yet are fraught with internal contradiction. The whole of Mr. Bradley's First Book is taken up with attempts to prove the contradictory nature of appearances; and the whole of his Second Book (after the first two Chapters in which the 'General Nature of Reality' is established) is taken up with attempts to prove that all appearances, precisely because of their 'self-discrepancy,' transcend themselves and so lead us on to a Reality, which they qualify somehow or other without contradiction. -- All facts or nearly all facts, for there are one or two exceptions, as we saw in a previous chapter, are for Mr. Bradley, appearances; and the passages quoted above are really part of a protest of his against an appeal to the fact of 'change' as a disproof of his Absolute.
§ 176. "Change," he says, "is a fact, and, further, this fact, as such, is not reconcilable with the Absolute. And if we could not in any way perceive how the fact can he unreal, we should be placed, I admit, in a hopeless dilemma."{9} The escape from the dilemma is easy, however. "For time has been shown to contradict itself, and so to be appearance. With this, its discord, we see at once, may pass as an element into a wider harmony. And with this, the appeal to fact at once becomes worthless."{10} For the proof that 'time' is a contradiction we are referred back, of course, to Book I, where this is supposed to have been proved. Before discussing this proof, however, there is in the passage quoted above one thing to which I should like to call attention. It is this, that while the fact which Mr. Bradley has admitted is the fact of 'change' the appearance which he declares to be contradictory is the appearance of 'time.' Now I do not wish to quibble about the use of terms, nor do I wish to insinuate that Mr. Bradley's escape from the dilemma is barred by the substitution of 'time' for 'change,' since as a matter of fact change also has been found by him to be self-contradictory; but the transition which Mr. Bradley has made, unquestionably illicit as it stands, is characteristic of many of his attempts to reduce 'facts' to mere appearances. Again and again does he substitute in place of 'facts' philosophical constructions, and it is these constructions, and not the facts, that are shown to be contradictory.
§ 177. His criticism of 'time' itself affords us an illustration of this process, for we are told that "if you take it 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 are found to possess it; and they thus cease to be units."{11} Now, is 'time,' conceived as 'a relation between units without duration,' a fact of our experience or a philosophical construction? Clearly it is the latter, and a bad one at that; since, as Mr. Bradley says, it destroys 'duration,' which is the very foundation upon which that construction is built. It is duration, not time, which is a fact; and it is duration which has to be proved a contradiction. The alternative definition, however, keeps closer to the facts. Common-sense believes in time and attributes to it as a whole duration. Hence, as Mr. Bradley points out, the units must also have duration. But why not? Are there no durable units? Of course if you abstract altogether from all the means by which units can be marked off, you have no units at all; but then neither have you got time. You have merely an empty abstraction, viz., the unbroken duration of nothing at all. But concrete, enduring things are facts, and the duration of some exists together with change and succession among others. Hence we have the means by which to mark off units of time. And because these units themselves have duration, it by no means follows that they cease to be units, any more than it follows that the yard-rule which a tailor uses to mark off his cloth has no length because it is his unit of length. That 'time' as such is not real, I grant, because it is a philosophic abstraction into which a human element, viz., measurement, has been introduced; but I cannot allow that it is not founded on fact; nor that, if properly defined, it involves a contradiction.
§ 178. Change, however, is more to our purpose, since upon duration amid change the notion of time is based, and upon the factual existence of change we are all agreed. But, says Mr. Bradley, change is only appearance, for it involves a contradiction.
Something, A, changes, and therefore it cannot be permanent. On the other hand, if A is not permanent, what is it that changes? It will no longer be A, but something else. In other words, let A be free from change in time, and it does not change. But let it contain change, and at once it becomes Al, A2, A3. Then what becomes of A, and of its change, for we are left with something else?{12}
Now change, as I understand it, is predicable only of the concrete finite thing, a thing consisting of substance and accidents; of unity of ground amid structural differences.{13} Let us, then, substitute for A, a(a, b, c, . . .) (m,n,o, . . .); where a stands for the unity of ground or substance; a, b, c, . . . for the accidents essential to A; and m, n, o. for accidents which are not essential. What, then, do we mean when we say that A changes? We mean that one of these unessential accidents or differences is modified or gives place to some other accident or difference; that a (a, b, c . . .) (m, n, o, . . .) has become a (a, b, c, . . .), (m, n, o, . . .). And what do we mean when we say that A is permanent? We mean that the substance a remains the same, and also that the accidents, a, b, c, which are essential to A, remain the same, but nothing more. Of course, if A be taken as a structureless and formless unit, it cannot both be permanent and yet be subject to change. But concrete things are not formless and structureless units; and, recognising this, when we predicate of them permanence, we do not predicate it of the whole thing, but only of its essential nature; so that it is still possible to predicate change of the same thing without contradiction, since the predicated changes ex hypothesi do not affect its essential nature.{14}
§ 179. If my solution of the difficulty is valid, change does not imply contradiction; and if change does not imply contradiction, it is not appearance and if it is not appearance it is reality, in which case Mr. Bradley's Absolute is not the one and only reality. It will be obvious, however, to those who are familiar with Appearance and Reality that I have but pushed the difficulty further back; and I shall be asked to read again the chapters on Substantive and Adjective, Relation and Quality. In regard to the argument used in the first of these two chapters, I shall have more to say later;{15} but I may here remark that if my conception of Substantive and Adjective, or rather Substance and Accident, is intrinsically contradictory, so also is Mr. Bradley's conception of the universe as a 'Unity in difference.' In fact, the Aristotelian conception of Substance and Accident and the Hegelian conception of Unity in difference are one and the same; but the Aristotelian applies it to the concrete individual thing, while the Hegelian applies it to the universe at large. Hence the real question at issue is whether the Hegelian is right or wrong in asserting that Reality is one; and, as underlying this doctrine in most modern Absolutisms is a peculiar theory of relation, to this theory we must now give our attention.
§ 180. There is a certain amount of truth in Green's dictum that all knowledge is knowledge of relations. To a large extent definition does consist in the predication of relations. Dr. Caird puts the matter thus:
The beginning of knowledge is the reference of a sensation to an object, of which it is interpreted as the quality. This object is determined merely as object in general: it is like all other objects, yet it is conceived as completely individual and independent. The simple quality attributed to it, is conceived as belonging to it in itself, apart from all relations to other objects. In the advance of knowledge, however, this simple individual object becomes progressively defined and determined. And not only is quality added to quality in an indefinite series, but its isolation is taken from the object. It is found that qualities are but relations in disguise, and that, therefore, completely to define the object in itself, is the same thing as to put it in relation to all other objects.{16}
At first sight there seems to be little the matter with this straightforward description of the growth of human knowledge. Yet it requires but a step to pass from this position to that of Green and Renouvier, in which the world -- or, at any rate, the inorganic world -- is identified with a system of relations. Dr. Caird's apparently accurate description, in fact, contains two assumptions -- (1) that qualities are but relations in disguise, and (2) that by relations isolation is taken away from the object.
§ 181. The statement that all qualities are at bottom relations in disguise, if taken literally, and of real qualities, is absurd. For we cannot have a relation unless there is something which it relates; and that something, since it cannot be a bare identity, must involve difference and so quality. Relations presuppose qualities for their very existence. Their nature depends upon the objects which they relate or connect, and when those objects are changed, the relations themselves are changed. It is true that we often know a relation without knowing precisely the nature of the objects related; and this is so particularly when the relation is one of cause and effect. For in producing an effect many causes may co-operate, and the re-action of the object in which the effect is produced, itself may have played a part. Unless, therefore, we can analyse the effect and attribute it, part for part, to the various causes concerned in its production, the effect tells us little about the causes except that somehow or other they have been active in relation to that effect. Nevertheless, each cause has its own nature, and the relation to which its activity gives rise depends upon that nature, whether the latter be known by us or not.
Further, to know a relation implies that we know something at any rate of the objects or qualities related. For even if the relation be merely one of difference, it implies that we know something of what is different, otherwise we could not know that it was different. But many relations imply more than this. We cannot know that one object is bigger than another unless we know what it is to be 'big,' i.e., to have size or quantity. And the fact that mathematics and geometry are possible, presupposes that about the nature of quantity and the nature of figure we have considerable knowledge.
§ 182. While granting, then, that much of our knowledge of qualities comes through a knowledge of their relations, and that sometimes what is predicated as a quality is in truth a relation in disguise, I cannot grant that all our knowledge of qualities is at bottom a knowledge of their relations, still less that qualities in rerum natura are merely relations in disguise. For if it is true that we sometimes know a relation before we know the precise nature of its terms, it is also true that we often know the terms before we know the relation between them, and that in every case the knowledge of a relation implies some knowledge of the objects related. Hence from the psychology of our knowledge of relations we can draw no conclusion as to the priority of a relation and of the objects it relates.
This fact is of considerable importance; for all absolutist theories of relations seem to be based on psychology, owing, I suppose, to the absolutist doctrine that thought, or at any rate some form of psychical activity, is identical with reality itself. Green, for instance, assumes that relations are prior q to, or at least are frequently a condition of, our knowledge of the terms. Yet, as I have pointed out, it does not follow, because we often define a term by its relations, that we have no knowledge of that term apart from its relations, for if this be so it is difficult to see how we could define it at all. Again, Dr. Caird's statement that 'completely to define an object is to put it in relation to all other objects' seems to be based upon the psychological fact that our knowledge of an object often consists largely in a knowledge of its relations. But though it is true that, if by 'knowing an object completely' we mean 'knowing all about it,' to completely know an object would be to know all its relations, it does not follow that the nature of the thing itself depends upon the nature of its relations, nor yet that an object is unknowable apart from its relations. Indeed, Dr. Caird grants that first of all we conceive simple qualities which belong to objects apart from their relations to other objects; so that not only are the inferences which absolutists draw from the psychology of relations illegitimate, but those inferences are based upon certain psychological facts to the exclusion of other facts which, if taken into consideration, would make a considerable difterence to the absolutist theory.
§ 183. This last point may be illustrated from Mr. Bradley's doctrine of relations. He, too, seems to regard the latter from a psychological standpoint but, observing that the knowledge of a relation and of its terms often seems to arise simultaneously in consciousness, he infers not that the relation is prior to its terms, but that the relation and its terms mutually presuppose one another, and at the same time imply in the background a unity or whole from which they have emerged or in which they have broken out. Take, for instance, the following passage: "Their plurality (i.e., the plurality of qualities) depends on relations, and without that relation they are not distinct. But if not distinct, then not different, and therefore not qualities."{17} To what does this passage refer? To the distinguishing and relating of qualities by the thinking mind, or to the qualities themselves which it is said to distinguish and relate? From the context it would appear that it refers to the act of thought. But if so, how does the fact (if it is a fact) that qualities distinguished in consciousness are always related in consciousness, prove that qualities are not really distinct in the objective world? And, again, by what kind of logical process can you pass from the simultaneous appearance of distinction and relation in consciousness to the objective interdependence of the relation and its terms? Mr. Bradley's argument is valid only provided we grant (1) that reality and sentient experience are one -- a hypothesis which I have already shown to be false, and which certainly should not be assumed at this early stage of the argument -- and (2) that in sentient experience qualities, afterwards distinguished, are really one -- which also is false or at best is a gratuitous assumption -- and (3) that product (thought distinctions and relations) and process (unknown, but supposed to connect thought and sentience) are not separable -- which adds but one more to the other assumptions Mr. Bradley has to make in order to prove his point.{18}
§ 184. The absolutist theory of relations, then, cannot be established on the basis of psychological fact, and it is to the attempt so to establish it that we must attribute the contradiction which exists between Green's theory and the theory of Mr. Bradley. But when we seek for some more metaphysical foundation for what is obviously a metaphysical theory, it does not seem to be forthcoming. We are told that by its relations the isolation of an object is taken away -- a statement which is indisputable if it mean merely that an object conceived in relation to something else is not conceived in isolation, as it is also indisputable if isolation mean isolation from interaction; but more than this is meant. For the absolutist the negation of isolation means the negation of independent existence, and upon this rests his doctrine that reality is really and substantially one, and not merely one as proceeding from a common source, or one as a systematic logical whole. No proof, however, is given of the statement that relations deprive objects of their 'isolation,' i.e., their individuality or independent existence. We are assured that objects which are held together in an act of thought are really held together by unity of ground in rerum natura, but the validity of this transition from the psychological to the real order has never been demonstrated. We are told that there are no external relations, and that every relation must modify intrinsically both its terms but we are not told why this is so. Mr. Bradley, who admits that relations imply qualities, asserts also that qualities imply relations. Relations and qualities are to be found, so to speak, upon the same level of existence. Qualities are no more and no less prior to their terms than terms are prior to their relations, and apart from one another they cannot exist. But except for the psychological argument above discussed, no positive proof of this theory of relations is given, nor does Mr. Bradley tell us definitely what he understands a relation to be. His arguments are almost wholly negative. His aim is to show that the notion of relations and of qualities is contradictory, and that hence relations and qualities are mere appearances which are self-discrepant and lead to something beyond, viz., to an Absolute Ground. But though his discussion of this question in the first part of his book purports to be a criticism of the position of the realist, the theory of relations which he discusses is not that of the realist, or at any rate not that of the Aristotelian realist.
§ 185. The Aristotelian does not conceive a relation as a kind of physical nexus or bond which joins two objects together and so makes them one. A relation is merely a pros ti schesis (an esse ad aliquid) which arises from the rational plan or order that is manifested in the universe. It is an attribute which is said to belong to an object on account of some one of its qualities (called by the scholastics the fundamentum of the relation), but which requires for its existence a 'term' to which its whole essence as a relation is to refer. That 'term,' if the relation is real, ordinarily belongs to some object other than that of which the relation is predicated. But the relation itself does not belong to the two objects at once. If there is only one relation, it belongs to that object which possesses the fundamentum on account of which the relation is predicated; while if the relation is reciprocal or mutual, there are in reality two relations belonging respectively to the two objects related. Hence, while for Mr. Bradley the truth about relations is better expressed by saying that A and B are related, the truth for Aristotle was better expressed by saying that A is related to B, and (if the relation is mutual) that B is related to A.
The arguments upon which Mr. Bradley bases his doctrine that relations and qualities are merely appearances, break down entirely when applied to this theory of relations.
The qualities A and B are to be different from each other, and, if so, that difference must fall somewhere. If it falls, in any degree or to any extent, outside A or B, we have relation at once. But, on the other hand, how can difference and otherness fall inside? If we have in A any such otherness, then inside A we must distinguish its own quality and its otherness. And, if so, then the unsolved problem breaks out inside each quality, and separates each into two qualities in relation.{19}
'A difference must fall somewhere.' What is this difference? Is it an increment in quantity or quality which makes A different from B? If so, the difference itself is an integral part either of A or of B, and so falls within one or the other. Or is the nature of A wholly different from the nature of B? If this be so, the difference is A plus B, and while part of it coincides with A, the other part coincides with B. Or, again, is this difference simply the 'otherness' of A in regard to B? If this be what is meant, then 'otherness' as such falls only within the mind of the rational percipient, whose judgment on this account is none the less true. For objectively and in fact A has a certain definite nature, and B also; and the nature of A and the nature of B are ex hypothesi not the same. This fact the percipient apprehends, and expresses it by saying that A is different or other than B. To perceive a relation is to apprehend two facts in the same mental act; and to predicate of one a relation of 'otherness' in respect of the other is our way of saying that we have apprehended two different facts.
§ 186. Mr. Bradley further objects that since qualities are related there must be
a diversity which falls inside each quality. It has a double character, as both supporting and as being made by the relation. It may be taken as at once condition and result, and the question is as to how it can combine this variety. For it must combine the diversity, and yet it fails to do so. . . [Hence] the diversity is fatal to the internal unity of each (quality); and it demands a new relation, and so on without limit.{20}
Again, Mr. Bradley's objection is based upon a misconception of the nature of a relation. The quality is not made by the relation, but the relation arises from the quality as its cause or ground. The relation is the quality considered in respect to something other than itself. And though a relation should always have a fundamentum in re, the relation itself may be due merely to our way of considering things, and may not imply any real ordo in the quality or object of which the relation is predicated. Thus Aquinas says
Those entities which are called ad aliquid signify, according to their proper nature, only a respectus ad aliud; which respectus is sometimes in the nature of things, as when certain things are according to their very nature 'ordered' to one another and have a mutual 'inclination' toward one another; and relations of this kind must be real. But sometimes the respectus signified by that which is called ad aliquid, is only in the apprehension of the intellect which relates (conferre) one to another and then there is a relatio rationis tantum.{21}
For instance, whenever one thing is referred to another on account of some change which has taken place in it owing to the action of that other thing, there is a real relation, as when an effect is referred to a cause, or again when a cause is referred to its effect (provided some change takes place in the object which produces that effect), for in both cases there is a real ordo of one thing to the other.{22} On the other hand, the relation of God to His creatures is not a real relation, because the act of creation implies no change on the part of God; and similarly the relation of the knowable to knowledge is not real, because the knowable does not change by the fact that it becomes known. Yet both these relations have a fundamentum in re, and, if predicated of the creature and of the knower respectively, are real, since a real ordo is involved. In neither case, however, is real diversity introduced into the quality on account of the relation that is predicated of it, for the relation itself nihil est aliud quam ordo unius creaturae ad aliam. Hence the relation "in quantum est accidens, habet quod sit in subjecto; non autem in quantum est relatio vel ordo; sed solum quod ad aliud sit quasi in aliud transiens, et quodammodo rei relatac assiste us. Et ita relatio est aliquid inhaerens licet non ex hoc ipso quod est relatio."{23} A relation, then, even when real, is only another aspect of the fundamentum which on account of the rational plan of the universe has a certain ordo ad other things. No relation, therefore, is required in order to bring together what are not really distinct. And if you tell me that at any rate the ordo and its fundamentum are different and so introduce diversity into the thing, my reply is that, though in a certain sense a real relation may be regarded as the 'difference' of a concrete thing, it does not destroy the individuality or isolation of that thing, any more than the differences of the Absolute destroy its individuality or its isolation, for every concrete thing is essentially a unity amid differences, and the differences are brought together in the unity of the ground.{24}
§ 187. Two more objections may be briefly discussed. Mr. Bradley does not believe in merely external relations, and tells us that he cannot understand "the leaving by the terms of one set of relations and their adoption of another fresh set if relations are merely external and if the result, therefore, makes no difference to the terms. For, he asks us, if the change of relation does not make a difference to the terms, to what does it make a difference? Professor James' answer to this question is that it makes "a difference to us onlookers at least;"{25} which is true, but I think we may go further than this. For, if the relations are real, the change of relations implies a real change in some one or other of the qualities which constitute the fundamenta of the relations concerned, and it implies also a change in the rational plan of the universe, or in the ordo of things one to another. In other words, the relation, in so far as it is real, is not external to the thing of which it is predicated, though it is external to the 'term' of that relation, and to that other thing to which the term belongs. The absolutist assumes that a change of relation must, in every case, make an intrinsic difference to both the objects related, and indirectly to all other objects and all other relations existing in the universe. But this is almost inconceivable; for it is difficult to see how an increase of .001 inches in my height can possibly affect the height of millions of other people in different parts of the globe. It may be that this is the case; but if it is, the intrinsic modification which has taken place in them is infinitesimal and can be neglected. Moreover, such a modification, if it really does take place, is certainly not due directly to the change which has taken place in me, or to the change in my relations to other men but is brought about by intricate and circuitous paths unknown to either scientist or metaphysician. It is my relation to other men that has changed, because it is in me that the change itself has taken place. It is only per accidens that the relations of other men to me have changed their real relations (i.e., their relations to a given standard or unit of height) remaining ex hypothesi the same. Thus a change of relation implies a change in the fundamentum upon which the relation is based, and so in the ordo of the things which exist in the universe; but no other real change is involved except in so far as other fundamenta are affected.
§ 188. Lastly, we are asked how comparison can reveal the truth about things if relations are merely external. In regard to real relations, there is no difficulty on this point, for they are not external to the thing of which they are predicated. And in regard to a relatio rationis such as one of mere difference or otherness, comparison may still be valid and true, provided the relation has, as it should have, foundation in reality. For, as I have said, when we perceive or apprehend a difference, what happens is that we perceive in the same mental act two things, one of which has a quality A which the other has not. And provided this is de facto the case, the relation of otherness which we predicate on account of our act of perception has, in a real sense, objective validity.
§ 189. Mr. Bradley, then, has failed to show that the Aristotelian theory of relations involves a contradiction, and so has failed to prove that relations and qualities are mere appearances. And as the absolutist theory is acknowledged, to be self-contradictory and is based on an illicit transition from the psychological to the real order, the thesis that reality is one and individual certainly cannot be established on these grounds.
On the other hand, the arguments by which Green seeks to establish that thesis contain much that a realist would readily grant. He would grant that the universe consists in a system of relations in the sense that all created things are related to one another; and that the order of those relations is unalterable in that past, present and future are determinate in nature, whether or not they could have been or could be other than what they were, are, or will be; and, again, that upon the determinate character of these things and their relations the possibility of knowledge depends, though whether unalterableness is of much practical utility as a test of truth might be questioned.{26} Further, the partial consciousness of the world of 'relations' implies an intelligence in man which cannot be accounted for by any natural history, i.e., a spiritual principle or rational soul which cannot, as such, have been produced by generation, and which is simple, inasmuch as it can apprehend the many in the one. But from this one can hardly infer that man's intelligence is 'out of time,'{27} for though different stages of a change must be present at once to a consciousness of change, and though again that consciousness, if considered as a single act in isolation from its antecedents and consequents, would itself be free from change, it does not follow that it has no duration, nor yet that consciousness in man is not subject to change. Indeed, to admit that man may 'pass into a state of consciousness of change and pass out of it' seems to be practically an admission that man's consciousness does change. Green's argument here is very far from conclusive. In fact, the nearer we get to the central doctrine of his metaphysic the less conclusive and the more ambiguous do his arguments become, though there is still much that may be conceded without prejudice to Realism. 'A plurality of things cannot of themselves unite in one relation, nor can a single thing of itself bring itself into a multitude of relations. Hence there must be something other than the manifold things themselves which combines them without effacing their severalty.' And, again, 'as the system is one, so must be the principle which constitutes them and is the condition of their existence.'
§ 190. So far, so good. But in what way is this single active self-conscious principle the condition and source of the cosmos which we know? Are the objects which it not only relates, but produces, objects existing merely in the consciousness of that being, or have these each their own real, though dependent, existence? And is the act by which these objects are produced better described as an act of intelligence or an act of creation? And this unity which characterises the cosmos. Is it a real concrete unity like that which is predicable of the divine principle producing it? Is the world we experience one as we ourselves or any other organic being is one, or is it one only because it proceeds from a single cause and because its manifold complexity is ordered to a single end? In a word, is God immanent within the cosmos and the cosmos immanent within God, or is the existence of the former distinct from, though dependent in all respects upon, the existence of the latter? Here lies the crux of the difficulty. The key to the position of the absolutist lies in the doctrine of Immanence, and yet the doctrine, as interpreted by Absolutism, is a mere assumption, unverifiable in experience and in violent antagonism with commonsense belief. That the content of thought or the object as known is immanent within the mind is obvious; but that the real objects about which we think are immanent is a gratuitous assertion made, in the first instance, by Fichte, with a view to getting rid of noumenal things-in-themselves and so saving the Kantian theory from Subjectivism. And this assertion every absolutist from Hegel to Green and Bradley repeats, but always without proof or confirmation. Doubtless, no object is unrelated to consciousness, otherwise it would be unknowable. And doubtless also, knowledge, in a sense, is only of phenomena, i.e., of things as they appear to us, scil., to our senses and intellect functioning in cognitive harmony. But why assume that real objects, if distinct from ourselves, cannot appear to us as they really are? Green tells us that they cannot, or at least he says that if the knowable world and the subject capable of knowing it are 'independent,' knowledge is inexplicable. But he does not support this statement by an examination of other theories of knowledge which claim to account for the reproduction by mind of relations existing in the outside world. No, the true reason for the doctrine of Immanence is not the bankruptcy of Realism, but the fact that Kant's Apriorism forced him to postulate noumenal things which, by man, could never be known because their appearances are not manifestations of their nature, are not their appearances, but constructions due to the minds which seek to know them. Hence the rational way to reform Kant's error would have been to get rid of unknowable things, not by denying their existence, but by denying their noumenal character. The absolutist, instead of abolishing real and independent things altogether from philosophy, should have abolished Apriorism.
§ 191 Yet this is not the method Absolutism has chosen. Regardless of the consequences of such a procedure, it has extended the doctrine of Immanence so as to include the real as well as the so-called phenomenal object of knowledge. True, in some sort of way Green's theory is an explanation of the origin of human knowledge, but what a cost its acceptance would entail! The personality of man disappears. In so far as he becomes the vehicle of an eternal consciousness, he is identical with that consciousness, and his human character is gone. His thoughts and actions are not his at all, but the thoughts and actions -- whether true or false, moral or immoral, it does not matter -- of the Supreme Being who, for a longer or shorter time, actuates his so-called organism. And in so far as he is not the vehicle of that consciousness, what is he? Nothing but a conglomeration of relations which have no existence of their own or of his, but exist merely for some other consciousness. Nor are these merely two ways of regarding the same thing, for it is not the same but a different thing that is regarded. Man's body and his consciousness or soul in any other theory but Green's are one being, but in Green's theory they are wholly different and unconnected, in so far as things can be different and unconnected in Absolutism. Man's consciousness in so far as it rises above the sentient level is a very partial and inadequate edition of the eternal consciousness; but his body and his sensations, in so far as they are not the instruments or objects of his thoughts -- and for the most part they are not, are not his at all, but are merely "names for substantiated relations between phenomena, relations to which an existence on their own account is fictitiously ascribed, but which, in truth, only exist for, or through the action of, the unifying and self-distinguishing spiritual subject,"{28} and apparently of any other finite self-distinguishing subject which happens momentarily to be conscious of them. Thus not only the personality and humanity, but also the unity of man is destroyed.
§ 192. I have said that Green's theory in some way explains the origin of knowledge. That is an exaggeration. It merely states that knowledge is due to a mysterious reproduction of the Absolute in a finite vehicle. It explains nothing. The manner of this reproduction, its intermittence, its apparent development and growth, are left entirely to the reader's imagination. About the relation of organisms to the eternal consciousness we are told nothing except that they are its 'vehicles.' Whatever judgment, then, we may pass upon the epistemology of Realism, Green's epistemology certainly does not explain the growth of knowledge. It does not even explain the ordinary facts which everybody knows; why things appear to be external, individual, distinct from one another and from ourselves, and, except for interaction, independent. Yet that they are so is an ordinary and almost intuitive 'deliverance' of every man's consciousness. As I have said before, this may be an illusion, but if it is an illusion it must be proved to be an illusion; and a theory which asserts that it is an illusion must also show how that illusion arises. It would be beside the point here to plead that no theory is bound to take account of all the facts, for these are facts which Absolutism does take account of, since it declares them to be illusory appearances. How, then, are these facts to be explained?
§ 193. T. H. Green makes no attempt to explain 'objectivity' and 'otherness.' Objectivity, in his view, is due to the nature of thought; and this is the solution which is given by all absolutists who identify Reality with Thought -- a solution which reminds one of the scholastic who is supposed to have said that engines move because they have vis locomotiva. The ego posits an alter ego because it is its nature so to do. Mr. Bradley finds this simple solution hardly satisfactory, since thought can never equate itself with reality, and so cannot be reality. It is in sentient experience that we meet with and become one with reality, and it is the sensuous infinitude of this which, in his theory, accounts for the otherness of thought
The apparent 'independence' of the external world is also difficult to account for in Absolutism. In Green's theory it arises, I suppose, from the fact that the eternal consciousness, objectified as the cosmos, is immanent within our minds, and yet is only partly immanent, for we do not know the whole of reality and our efforts to know it are constantly thwarted. In Mr. Bradley's theory also reality is, to some extent, independent (i.e., relatively independent) of 'finite centres of experience,' and still more independent, of course, of the 'self ' which is but a construction arising from within these finite centres. The link, however, which connects the 'finite centre of experience' with reality itself is to be found, not above, as with Green, but below, in the 'this' in which reality is given, and in which it is on the sentient level one with the centre it produces.
§ 194. Thus in some sort of way independence and objectivity may be accounted for in Absolutism but the independence and objectivity there conceded being essentially relative and to a large extent illusory, it is impossible for Absolutism to explain how it comes about that things appear to be external, individual and material, since they are at bottom immanent, one, and spiritual. The analytic character of thought cannot account for the externality which seems to belong to perceived objects, if, in reality, those objects are one with ourselves and are given as one in the felt-wholes of sentient experience. The relative independence of finite selves and of finite centres of experience cannot account for our belief in their individuality and self-subsistence, if, as Green seems to hold, in so far as we think the same thing we are really not many but one; or if, as Mr. Bradley affirms, all souls live and move by "real identity of ideal content." 'Degrees of reality,' again, cannot account for the apparent difference between ourselves and what we call the material world, if at bottom that world is the immanent effect of spiritual thought-activity, and, therefore, really spiritual and psychical like thought itself. In short, between the philosophical theory of Absolutism and the facts of our experience there is a contradiction; and that contradiction is fatal to Absolutism, unless it can be proved to be merely apparent, and unless its origin can be satisfactorily explained.
§ 195. In Green's theory there is also internal contradiction. For the thoughts and the rational acts of men are really the thoughts and rational acts of one supreme Intelligence, which is thus responsible for all the errors, illusions, contradictions, false theories, and corrupt moral doctrine and practice of which man has ever been guilty -- a hypothesis that is wholly incompatible with the moral rectitude which is held to be the first among the attributes of that supreme and all-wise Intelligence.
Mr. Bradley does his best to escape this contradiction. Indeed, it is a general principle with him from first to last that internal contradictions must be avoided at all costs. But the costs are very serious. Not only are facts completely ignored if it is inconvenient to recognise them; not only is God, like everything else in which the ordinary man believes, declared to be mere appearance; but Mr. Bradley's theory is riddled with mysteries and insoluble problems, almost all of his own making, and is, perhaps, of all Absolutisms the most inadequate and incomplete. At the end of almost every chapter Mr. Bradley confesses that he has failed to explain how appearances are to he reconciled in the unity of the Absolute to which they are supposed to belong. Error is a fact; it is not merely a partial truth, but a positive mistake; yet we are assured that the. Absolute has, without subtraction
every arrangement which we seem to confer upon it by our mere mistake. [Even] the one-sided emphasis of error, its isolation as positive and as not dissoluble in a wider connection will contribute we know not how to the harmony of the Absolute.{29} [Space again has to be] absorbed in a non-spatial consummation; [and though] how in particular this can be, we are unable to lay down, [we are asked to believe that] our ignorance in detail is no objection against the general possibility.{30} The incomplete diversity of various systems, the perplexing references of each same feature to many ideal wholes, and again that positive special feeling [which is characteristic of the 'this' and the 'mine'], -- all this detail is not made one in any way which we can verify.{31}
Yet it is made one somehow or other, because Reality ex hypothesi is one, and therefore it must be so. Good and evil, beauty and ugliness, pleasure and pain, in spite of their being admittedly contradictions, are all 'to conduce to the ultimate good, and to be somehow reconciled in the unity of the Absolute.'
§ 196. Mr. Bradley freely acknowledges that he cannot explain how these reconciliations take place; for, as we have pointed out, he differs from Green in that he does not consider himself bound to explain either 'how' or 'why.' He does claim, however, to have shown that, in general, these reconciliations are not impossible. Yet even in this I cannot admit that his efforts have been successful. As for Green, so for Bradley and for all absolutists, evil and error prove particularly obstinate and impossible to manage, for they seem to make the Absolute contradict itself. It is easy enough to say that error is due to a one-sided and partial point of view; but if it is the Absolute which differentiates itself and acts through and in finite centres, it is the Absolute which makes mistakes and contradicts its own assertions. It is the Absolute which says that things are what they are not, and that they are real when they only appear; and these are positive errors which seem to be incompatible with an Absolute which has as another of its differences 'truth.' Again, the explanation of pleasure and pain as counterbalancing or neutralising one another in the Absolute is far from satisfactory; for apart from the hedonistic tone of this solution, pain, if really neutralised by pleasure, would seem to have ceased to exist altogether. Lastly, the finite and the infinite are, to my mind, wholly incompatible, and cannot be reconciled in any concrete unity or whole. For finites, no matter how many you take or how you arrange them, or harmonise them, or mix them up, are still, in the end, finite as before. And to assert dogmatically that we know so little about the infinite and the finite that we cannot prove them to be contradictory hardly answers this difficulty) since, in that case, they cannot be proved to be one.
It is useless, however, to urge these difficulties further; for Mr. Bradley acknowledges that they can never be explained by a human mind. Nevertheless, space, time, individuality, personality evil, error and pain are not details; and until they have been explained Absolutism can hardly be called even a working hypothesis. The thesis that Reality is One and Individual cannot he proved directly, nor can any satisfactory answer be given to the numerous objections that may be urged against it. Hence, though Appearance and Reality does not pretend to give "a systematic account of all the regions of appearances, which would be required for 'a genuine proof' of the principles it asserts," it seems to me to have failed even in its primary object of stating consistently 'a general view about Reality' and of answering 'more obvious objections.'
§ 197. Absolutism as a philosophy is essentially incomplete, and whatever form of Absolutism we may consider its incompleteness can hardly escape our notice, especially if we compare it with the philosophy of Kant, which, in spite of its inconsistencies, was comparatively free from those irritating somehows which meet us in Absolutism at every turn. Absolutism is a standpoint, not a systematic philosophy; and as soon as it tries to become systematic, it at once gives rise to divergencies and contradictions, and is forced to declare that most things are insoluble mysteries. There must be some reason for this characteristic incompleteness; and the explanation is to be found, I think, in the fact that Absolutism tries to work with too few ideas. The absolutist, like the pragmatist, gets a firm grasp of one or two conceptions which he attempts to apply everywhere regardless of consequences. One knows what is the result of this in the world of common-sense. The man who is obsessed by a fixed idea loses his balance of mind. A similar result ensues in the philosophic world. To allow oneself to be fascinated by one or two ideas and to try to explain everything by these alone is to take a one-sided view of the universe and to lose, so to speak, one's philosophic balance of mind. The point is worth illustrating, perhaps, for it seems to explain at once the incompleteness and the inadequacy of Absolutism.
§ 198. The ideas which fascinate the absolutist are clearly those of 'Immanence,' 'Organic Whole,' and 'Unity in Difference.' These he regards as conceptions applicable to all conceivable objects, and by them all things are to be explained. Now, that there are such things as 'unities in difference' and 'organic wholes' cannot be denied. Both concepts are valid in regard to living things, and it seems probable, at any rate, that they are valid also of material things. 'Immanence' also is valid when applied to the object of thought as apprehended in a psychical act of the mind. This much we learn from common-sense and introspection. The absolutist is right, then, so far in regard to his facts. His conception of Immanence, of an Organic Whole, and of Unity in Difference, each has its foundation in the data of experience. But when he seeks to apply these concepts to the universe at large, he is attempting to apply them beyond the sphere within which alone they have validity. With what results? If the universe is an organism the individuals which were formerly held to constitute its parts now become merely its differences. Hence a contradiction. For the notion of an 'organism' is derived not from a study of the universe as a whole, but from the study of its parts or 'differences.' And it is found in these parts or 'differences' only in so far as they are real unities having each a nature and existence of its own which does not belong, as such, to the rest of the universe. An organism, it is true, may, and indeed must, itself have parts. But its parts are not real organisms (though they may be organic), since their nature and their activities are dominated and controlled by the formal principle of the whole. Hence an organism, being a real unity, is something different from the rest of the universe, so that to apply this notion to the universe at large involves a contradiction, for whatever else the universe is it is certainly not a difference or part of itself. Or, to put the argument in another way, if the universe is a real whole, organisms are among its differences; but it is illicit to identify the whole with any of its differences; hence, either the concept organism does not apply to the differences of the universe, and so is invalid (since it is from these differences that the concept has been derived), or else the universe is not an organism.
§ 199. A similar argument may be used, it seems to me, against the doctrine that thought and its real object are immanent within the universe as within a concrete living whole. For the notion of Immanence is, like that of organism, derived from our knowledge of finite living things, i.e., from ourselves and from other rational and individual beings. But if the thoughts of each individual thinker are immanent within his own mind, they are ex hypothesi not immanent within the minds of other thinkers. I call my thoughts immanent because they are peculiar and intrinsic to me and are not identical with your thoughts; and, if they were not really my thoughts but were common to us both, I should certainly have no right to call them immanent in me. Hence either thought is not immanent within the universe, but is centred exclusively in individual minds; or else, if thought is immanent, there are strictly no individual thinkers, and the fact upon which the notion of immanent thought was based is declared to he an illusion. In other words, everyone is aware that the objects of his thoughts are, as ideas, immanent within his own mind, and for that very reason distinguishes his ideas from the objects which are known by those ideas, since no one imagines that the objects of his thoughts, as realities, are immanent within his mind. Absolutism, however, in order to apply the doctrine of Immanence to the universe as a whole is forced to deny that there are any realities distinct from ideas. Hence a trilemma. For either (1) my ideas embrace all reality and I as an individual am identical with the universe; or (2) there are other thinkers besides me of which I know not, and ought not to be able to conceive, in which case the universe becomes an aggregate of individual thinking beings, each of whom has his own world of immanent ideas; or else (3) -- and this is the alternative Absolutism adopts -- my mind and your mind are not strictly individual and my thoughts and your thoughts are not strictly immanent within us, hut are immanent really within an Absolute which somehow diversifies itself and centres itself in each of us. But on this latter hypothesis there are no longer any individual minds. Hence the data upon which the doctrine of Immanence was based (viz., that the ideas of each one of us are immanent within our own minds) has been cut away beneath our feet and the concept of Immanence thereby rendered invalid.
§ 200. Lastly. the concept of Unity in Difference is, like the rest of our concepts, based upon our knowledge of finite and individual things. In particular, I recognise that I myself am a unity-in-difference, and that my intellect, my will and my emotions are differences of me. Such a conception gives us an excellent idea of the unity of man but it can only be applied to the universe at large, provided its applicability to man is denied. For, once again, if man is really a unity, the universe is an aggregate; while, if the universe is not an aggregate but a unity, man's unity is not real, but only relative, and the foundation of the notion of real unities-in-difference is gone. This difficulty is especially serious for those who assert that all concepts are relative, for the conception of Unity in Difference is itself relative in that case, and so is inapplicable to what is affirmed to be absolute. And, similarly, in Mr. Bradley's theory Unity in Difference, which is due to thought distinctions, must be mere appearance; whence it follows that either the notion cannot be applied to the Absolute or else the Absolute, like everything else, is only an appearance.
§ 201. It seems to me that there is only one way of avoiding these difficulties, and that is to hold fast to our finite organisms, to our finite unities-in-difference and to our finite minds in which thought is really immanent, since these alone are known with comparative immediacy and certainty. Then, if our theory of an organic universe can be squared with the facts, well and good. But if it cannot, we must still abide by our facts, and in regard to theories must either attempt a modification or renounce them altogether. For Absolutism to adopt the latter alternative would perhaps be a mistake, since there are many ideas in Absolutism the value of which for human thought is very great. Nevertheless, its theory of the Universe as an Organic Whole cannot stand in its present literal form. It leads not merely to inconsistencies, as I have endeavoured to show; but it makes error, evil, pain, and man himself a hopeless mystery. It claims to be a regress upon the presuppositions of knowledge; yet it neglects altogether to take account of some of the most characteristic of our commonsense beliefs, dismissing them without a word of explanation as illusions. We may say of Absolutism, in fact, what Mr. Bradley has said of Phenomenalism This view " either makes a claim to take account of all the facts, or it makes no such claim and in the latter case there is an end of its pretensions." Perhaps we ought to place Absolutism under the second category; but in any case it certainly has not as yet taken account of all the facts, and were it to do so the modifications involved would be very considerable. The bald, bold way in which the characteristics of human cognition are transferred to the Absolute would have to be given up. The concepts of Organic life, Unity in Difference and Immanence would be found to apply only in an analogous, if not merely in a metaphorical, sense to the universe at large. Of the possibility of thus reconciling Absolutism with the data of experience I shall have something to say in the concluding chapter of this volume. We must now consider the rival claims of the philosophy of Pure Experience.
{1} Mind, N.S. 59, p. 323.
{2} Prolegomena to Ethics, § 174.
{3} Appearance and Reality. p. 113.
{4} Ibid., pp. 184, 185.
{5} Appearance and Reality, p. 185.
{6} Ibid. pp. 185, 207.
{7} Ibid., p. 207.
{8} Ibid., pp. 206, 207.
{9} Ibid., p. 206.
{10} Ibid.
{11} Ibid., p. 39.
{12} Appearance and Reality, p. 46.
{13} cf. chap. xiv., for a fuller explanation of this.
{14} For an account of the Aristotelian doctrine of change, vide chap. xiii.
{15} Vide chap. xiii.
{16} The Philosophy of Kant, p. 329.
{17} Appearance and Reality, p. 28.
{18} cf. chap. v.
{19} Appearance and Reality, p. 29.
{20} Ibid., p. 31.
{21} Summa, I, 9, 27 @ 1.
{22} De Potentia, 7 9 and cf. Arist. Metaph. Delta.. 1021a 2°, bk. v. c. 15, § 2.
{23} Ibid., ad. 7.
{24} cf. chap. xiii.
{25} A Pluralistic Universe, p. 362.
{26} cf. supra. 151.
{27} cf. supra, § 152 and Prolegomena to Ethics, § 65.
{28} Prolegomena to Ethics, § 40.
{29} Appearance and Reality, pp. 192, 195. (Italics mine).
{30} Ibid., p. 222.
{31} Ibid., p. 239.