STUDIES IN THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC - Table of Contents
CHAPTER V: THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME
140. ONE of the most interesting and important questions which can arise in
connexion with Hegel's philosophy is the question of the relation between the
succession of the categories in the dialectic and the succession of events in
time. Are we to regard the complex and concrete Absolute Idea, in which alone
true reality is to be found, as gradually growing up in time by the evolution
of one category after another? Or are we to regard the Absolute Idea as
existing eternally in its full completeness, and the succession of events in
time as something which has no part as such in any ultimate system of the
universe?
The succession of categories in Hegel's Logic is, of course, not primarily a
temporal succession. We pass from one to another because the admission of
the first as valid requires logically the admission of the second as valid. At
the same time there are various reasons for accepting the view that one
category succeeds another in time. One of the facts of the universe which
requires explanation is the existence of time, and it seems at first sight a
simple and satisfactory explanation to account for it by the gradual
development of the Notion from Pure Being to the Absolute Idea. And Hegel
certainly explains the past to some extent by bringing the successive events
under successive categories.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that such a view is incompatible with the
system. There are doubtless difficulties in either interpretation of Hegel's
meaning, but there seems no doubt that we must reject the development of the
process in time. In the first place, the theory that time is an ultimate
reality would lead to insoluble difficulties as to the commencement of the
process. Secondly, the Absolute Idea must be held to be the presupposition
and the logical prius of the lower categories. It follows that a theory which
makes the appearance of the lower category the presupposition of the
appearance of the higher one, cannot fully represent the ultimate reality of
the process. And, finally, Hegel's language seems to be decisively on the side
of the interpretation that the Absolute Idea exists eternally in its full
perfection, and the movement from the lower to the higher is reconstruction
and not construction.
141. Let us consider the first of these points. Hegel, of course, maintains
that the universe is fully rational. Can we regard as fully rational a universe
in which a process in time is fundamentally real? The theory before us
maintains that the universe starts with a minimum of reality, corresponding
only to the category of Pure Being. From this point it develops by the force
of the dialectic. Gradually each of the higher categories becomes real, and
this gradual evolution of logical completeness makes the process which
constitutes the life of the universe. All the facts around us are to be
attributed to the gradually developing idea, and when the development is
complete, and reality has become an incarnation of the Absolute Idea, then
the process will end in perfection. The spiritual character of the universe, up
till then explicit and partial, will have become complete and explicit. The
real will be completely rational, and the rational will be completely real.
On this we must remark, in the first place, that the process in time by
which the dialectic develops itself must be regarded as finite and not as
infinite. Neither in experience nor in à priori criticism can we find any
reason to believe that infinite time really exists, or is anything more than
an illegitimate inference from the infinite extensibility of time. Nor, if it
did exist, could it form part of an ultimate rational explanation of the
universe. An unending regress, whether it is true or not, is certainly not a
solution which meets the demands of reason. More especially is it impossible
that it should be accepted as part of an Hegelian theory. For infinite time
would be the strongest possible example of the "false infinite" of endless
aggregation, which Hegel invariably condemns as a mere mockery of
explanation.
And, independently of this, it is clear that an infinite series in time would
not be an embodiment of the dialectic. For the dialectic is most
emphatically a process with a beginning and an end, and any series which
embodies it must have a beginning and an end also. If the dialectic has any
truth, there can be no steps before Pure Being, nor any steps after the
Absolute Idea. As the number of steps is finite, either the time taken by each
of them is infinite,--and in that case there would be no process at all--or
the time taken by the whole series must be finite.
We may consider, then, that any theory which imagines the dialectic to
develop itself in time at all, will regard it as doing so in a limited time.
What follows from this hypothesis?
142. The first difficulty which arises is that every event in time requires a
previous event as its cause. How then shall we be able to explain the first
event of the complete series? The first event, like all the others, is an event
in time, that is, it had a beginning, before which it did not exist. What
determined the change which brought it into existence? Whatever determined it
must be itself an event in time, for if the cause had not a definite place in
the time series it could not account for its effect having one. But in this
case it will itself need a determining cause, which will also be an event, and
we have thus lost our finite series with a definite beginning, and embarked on
an infinite series, which cannot, as we have seen, be of any assistance to us in
our present purpose.
On the other hand, to deny that the first term of such a series requires a
determining cause is impossible. It is perhaps not impossible that our minds
should form the conception of something on which other things depend, while
it depends itself on nothing. But an event in time could never hold such a
place. For an event in time has always before it a time when it was not, and
this coming into existence deprives it of the possibility of being self-
subsistent. Time, as Hegel says, is still outside itself.<Note: Enc. Section
257.> It has no principle of unity or coherence. It can only be limited by
something external to it. Our finite series in time can only have the definite
beginning which it requires by means of further time beyond it. To fix any
point in time is to imply the existence of time upon both sides of it. And
thus no event in time could be accepted as an ultimate beginning. On the
other hand, some such event would have to be accepted as the ultimate
beginning, if a finite series were to be accepted as an ultimate explanation.
If we apply this to the particular problem before us, we shall find that the
theory that the Absolute Idea develops in time lands us in a hopeless
difficulty. Let us suppose that all the phenomena of the universe have been
accounted for as the manifestations of the gradually developing Idea, and let
us suppose that each of these manifestations of the Idea has been shown to be
the logical consequence of the existence of the previous manifestation. Then
the final and ultimate fact upon which our explanation will depend will be
that, at the beginning of time, the first of the categories--the category of
Pure Being--manifested itself in reality. And for this fact itself an external
explanation is required. No such explanation, indeed, would be required for the
deduction of the universe from the idea of Pure Being. If the system is
correct, the categories are so inseparably connected that the existence of one
stage in the dialectic process implies the existence of all, and the existence
of any reality, again, implies the existence of the categories. The category of
Pure Being can thus be deduced from the fact that the universe exists, and the
fact that the universe exists does not require, as it does not admit, any
outside cause. But here, to account for the existence of the universe in time,
we have taken as our ultimate fact the realisation of the first category at a
particular time. Time is in itself quite empty and indifferent to its content.
No possible reason could be given why the process should not have begun a
hundred years later than it did, so that we should be at the present moment
in the reign of George III. The only way of fixing an event to a particular
time is by connecting it with some other event which happened in a particular
time. This would lead here to an infinite regress, and, independently of this,
would be impracticable. For, by the hypothesis, the dialectic development was
to account for the entire universe, and there can, therefore, be no event
outside it to which it can be referred in order that it can be accounted for
itself. And yet the question--why it happened now and not at another time--is
one which we cannot refrain from asking, since time must be regarded as
infinitely extensible.
143. Various attempts have been made to evade this difficulty. It has been
suggested that the temporal process has its root in a timeless state. If we
ask what determined the first event, we are referred to the timeless state. If
we ask what caused the latter, we are answered that it had no beginning,
and consequently required no cause.
But how could a timeless reality be the cause of a succession in time? It
could, no doubt, be the cause of everything else in a series of successive
events, except of the fact that they did take place in time. But how are we to
account for that? No reconciliation and no mediation is possible upon the
hypothesis with which we are here dealing. According to some views of the
question, time might be regarded as nothing but a form assumed by eternity,
or time and the timeless might be regarded as forms of a higher reality. But
such a view is impossible here. The theory which we are here considering had
to explain the fact of a succession in the universe, and did so by making the
central principle of the universe to be the realisation of the dialectic in
time. The realisation in time, according to this theory, is as much part of
the ultimate explanation of the universe as the dialectic itself. By making
time ultimate we certainly get rid of the necessity for explaining it. But, on
the other hand, we lose the possibility of treating time as a distinction
which can be bridged over, or explained away, when we wish to make a
connection between time and the timeless. If time is an ultimate fact, then
the distinction between that which does, and that which does not, happen in
time must be an ultimate distinction; and how are we to make, if this is so, a
transition from the one to the other?
So far as a thing is timeless, it cannot change, for with change time comes
necessarily. But how can a thing which does not change produce an effect in
time? That the effect was produced in time implies that it had a beginning.
And if the effect begins, while no beginning can be assigned to the cause, we
are left to choose between two alternatives. Either there is something in the
effect--namely, the quality of coming about as a change--which is altogether
uncaused. Or the timeless reality is only a partial cause, and is determined to
act by something which is not timeless. In either case, the timeless reality
fails to explain the succession in time, and we are no better off than we were
before. It would be equally available as an explanation if the process had
begun at any point besides the one at which it actually did begin, and a cause
which can remain the same while the effect varies, is obviously
unsatisfactory.
144. It may be objected to this that, if the dialectic process is the
ultimate truth of all change, the point in time at which it is to begin is
determined by the nature of the case. For time only exists when change
exists. The changeless would be the timeless. Therefore the beginning of the
change must come at the beginning of time, and there can be no question why
it should come at one moment rather than another.
This, however, will not remove one difficulty. Actual time, no doubt, only
began with actual change. But possible time stretches back indefinitely beyond
this. It is part of the essential nature of time that, beyond any given part of
it, we can imagine a fresh part--that, indeed, we must do so. We cannot
conceive time as coming to an end. And with this indefinite stretch of
possible time the question again arises--what determined the timeless to
first produce change at the point it did, and not in the previous time, which
we now regard as possible only, but which would have become actual by the
production of change in it? And again there is no reason why the series of
actual time should not have been placed later in the series of possible time
than it actually was. Actual time begins whenever change begins, and so cannot
be regarded as a fixed point, by which the beginning of change can be
determined. A certain amount of the dialectic process has now been realised
in time. Can we give any reason why the amount should not have been greater
or less? Yet, if no such reason can be given, the present state of the universe
is left unaccounted for by our system.
The difficulty lies in the fact that we are compelled by the nature of time
to regard the time series as indefinitely extended and to regard each member
of it as, in itself, exactly like each other member. We may call that part of
the series which is not occupied by actual change, possible time, but the very
name implies that there is no reason why it should not have been occupied by
events, as much as the actual time which really is occupied by them. And, as
possible time is indefinite, it is indefinitely larger than any finite time.
The question we have been discussing will then take the form--why is this
particular part of the time series filled with reality rather than any other
part? And since, apart from its contents, one moment of time is exactly like
another, it would seem that the question is insoluble.
145. It has sometimes been attempted to ignore on general grounds all
endeavours to show that development throughout a finite period in time
cannot be accepted. Time, it has been said, must be either finite or infinite.
If we accept the objections to taking finite time as part of our ultimate
explanation, it can only be because we are bound to an infinite regress. An
infinite regress involves infinite time. But infinite time is impossible--an
unreal abstraction, based on the impossibility of limiting the regress in
thought. Any argument which involves its real existence is thereby reduced to
an absurdity. And, since the objections to finite time as part of our ultimate
explanation do involve the real existence of infinite time, we may, it is
asserted, safely ignore the objections and accept the principle.
The answer which we must make to this, in the first place, is that the
argument might as well be reversed. If the difficulties in the way of infinite
time are to be taken as a reason for ignoring all difficulties in the way of
finite time, why should we not make the difficulties in the way of finite time
a ground for accepting with equally implicit faith the existence of infinite
time?
Nor can we escape by saying that we do know finite time to exist, and that
therefore we are entitled to ignore the objections to it, while we must accept
the objections to infinite time. For we have no more experience of finite
time, in the sense in which the phrase is used in this argument, than we have
of infinite time. What we meet in experience is a time series, extending
indefinitely both before and after our immediate contact with it, out of which
we can cut finite portions. But for a theory which makes the development of
the Notion in time part of its ultimate formula, we require a time which is
not merely limited in the sense of being cut off from other time, but in the
sense of having none before it and none after it. Of this we have no more
experience than we have of infinite time, and if there are difficulties in the
way of both, we have no right to prefer the one to the other.
146. Since either hypothesis as to the extension of time leads us into
equal difficulties, our course should surely be, not to accept either, but to
reject both. Time must, we are told, be either finite or infinite. But there is
a third alternative. There may be something wrong in our conception of time,
or rather, to speak more precisely, there may be something which renders it
unfit, in metaphysics, for the ultimate explanation of the universe, however
suited it may be to the finite thought of every-day life. If we ask whether
time, as a fact, is finite or infinite, we find hopeless difficulties in the way
of either answer. Yet, if we take time as an ultimate reality, there seems no
other alternative. Our only resource is to conclude that time is not an
ultimate reality.
This is the same principle which is at work in the dialectic itself. When we
find that any category, if we analyse it sufficiently, lands us, in its
application to reality, in contradictions, we do not accept one contradictory
proposition and reject the other. We conclude the category in question to be
an inadequate way of looking at reality, and we try to find a higher
conception, which will embrace all the truth of the lower one, while it will
avoid the contradictions. This is what we ought, it would seem, to do with the
idea of time. If it only presents us with a choice between impossibilities, we
must regard it as an inadequate way of looking at the universe. And in this
case we cannot accept the process in time as part of our ultimate solution.
147. We now come to the second objection to the development of the
dialectic in time. That which we have just been discussing would equally
perplex any other idealistic system which should adopt a time process as an
original element. The new difficulty belongs specially to the dialectic. It
appears, as we have seem,<Note: Chap. I. Section 6.> to be essential to the
possibility of a dialectic process that the highest term, in which the process
ends, should be taken as the presupposition of all the lower terms. The
passage from category to category must not be taken as an actual advance,
producing that which did not previously exist, but as an advance from an
abstraction to the concrete whole from which the abstraction was made--
demonstrating and rendering explicit what was before only implicit and
immediately given, but still only reconstructing, and not constructing
anything fresh.
This view of Hegel's system becomes inevitable when we consider, on the one
hand, that his conclusion is that all that is real is rational, and, on the
other hand, that his method consists in proving that each of the lower steps
of the dialectic, taken by itself, is not rational. We cannot then ascribe
reality to any of these steps, except in so far as they lose their independence
and become moments of the Absolute Idea.
We are compelled, according to Hegel, to pass from each thesis and
antithesis to their synthesis, by discovering that the thesis and antithesis,
while incompatible with one another, nevertheless involve one another. This
produces a contradiction, and this contradiction can only be removed by
finding a term which reconciles and transcends them.
Now if we suppose that the dialectic process came into existence gradually
in time, we must suppose that all the contradictions existed at one time or
another independently, and before reconciliation, i.e., as contradictions.
Indeed, as the time process is still going on, all the reality round us at the
present day must consist of unreconciled contradictions.
Such an assertion, however, would, it is clear, be absolutely untenable. To
say that the world consists of reconciled contradictions would produce no
difficulty, for it means nothing more than that it consists of things which
only appear contradictory when not thoroughly understood. But to say that a
contradiction can exist as such would plunge us in utter confusion. All
reasoning, and Hegel's as much as anybody else's, involves that two
contradictory propositions cannot both be true. It would be useless to reason,
if, when you had demonstrated your conclusion, it was as true to assert the
opposite of that conclusion. And, again, if contradictory propositions could both
be true, the special
line of argument which Hegel follows would have lost all its force. We are
enabled to pass on from the thesis and antithesis to the synthesis just
because a contradiction cannot be true, and the synthesis is the only way out
of it. But if contradictions are true, there is no necessity to find a way out
of it, and the advance of the dialectic is no longer valid. If the
contradictions exist at all, there seems no reason that they should not
continue to do so. We should not be able to avoid this by saying that they are
real, but that their imperfection made them transitory. For the dialectic
process, even if we suppose it to take place in time, is not a mere succession
in time, but essentially a logical process. Each step has to be proved to
follow from those before it by the nature of the latter. It is clear that it
would be impossible, by consideration of the nature of a logical category, to
deduce the conclusion that for some time it could exist independently, but
that, after that, its imperfection would drive it on to another stage.
148. It is, too, only on the supposition that reality always corresponds to
the Absolute Idea, and is not merely approximating to it, that we can meet
another difficulty which is propounded by Trendelenburg. Either, he says, the
conclusion of the whole process can be obtained by analysis of the original
premise, or it cannot. The original premise of the whole process is nothing
but the validity of the idea of Pure Being. If the whole conclusion can be got
out of this, we learn nothing new, and the whole dialectic process is futile. If,
on the other hand, we introduce anything not obtained from our original
premise, we fail in our object--which was to prove that the whole system
followed, when that premise was admitted.
We considered this difficulty above,<Note: Chap. II. Section 32.> and came
to the conclusion that the answer was contained in Mr Bradley's statement of
the true nature of dialectic. The passage in which he dealt with the matter
was, it will be remembered, as follows, "An idea prevails that the Dialectic
Method is a sort of experiment with conceptions in vacuo. We are supposed to
have nothing but one single isolated abstract idea, and this solitary monad
then proceeds to multiply by gemmation from or by fission of its private
substance, or by fetching matter from the impalpable void. But this is a mere
caricature, and it comes from confusion between that which the mind has got
before it and that which it has within itself. Before the mind there is a
single conception, but the whole mind itself, which does not appear, engages
in the process, operates on the datum, and produces the result. The opposition
between the real, in that fragmentary character in which the mind possesses
it, and the true reality felt within the mind, is the moving cause of that
unrest which sets up the dialectical process." And again: "The whole, which is
both sides of this process, rejects the claim of a one-sided datum, and
supplements it by that other and opposite side which really is implied--so
begetting by negation a balanced unity. This path once entered on, the process
starts afresh with the whole just reached. But this also is seen to be the one-
sided expression of a higher synthesis; and it gives birth to an opposite
which co-unites with it into a second whole, a whole which in its turn is
degraded into a fragment of truth. So the process goes on till the mind,
therein implicit, finds a product which answers its unconscious idea; and here,
having become in its own entirety a datum to itself, it rests in the activity
which is self-conscious in its object."<Note: Logic; Book III. Part I. Chap. II.
Sections 20 and 21.>
If we hold, according to this view, that the dialectic process depends on
the relation between the concrete whole and the part of it which has so far
become explicit, it is clear that we cannot regard the concrete whole as
produced out of the incomplete and lower category by means of the dialectic
process, since the process cannot possibly produce its own presupposition.
149. And finally Hegel's own language appears to be clearly incompatible
with the theory that the dialectic is gradually evolved in time. It is true
that, in the Philosophy of Religion, the Philosophy of History, and the
History of Philosophy, he explains various successions of events in time as
manifestations of the dialectic. But this proves nothing as to the
fundamental nature of the connection of time with the universe. The dialectic
is the key to all reality, and, therefore, whenever we do view reality under the
aspect of time, the different categories will appear as manifesting themselves
as a process in time. But this has no bearing on the question before us--
whether they first came into being in time, or whether they have a timeless
and eternally complete existence.
Even in this part of his work, too, Hegel's adherence to the eternal nature
of the dialectic becomes evident in a manner all the more significant,
because it is logically unjustifiable. In several places he seems on the point
of saying that all dissatisfaction with the existing state of the universe, and
all efforts to reform it, are futile and vain, since reason is already and
always the sole reality. This conclusion cannot be fairly drawn from the
eternity of the dialectic process. For if we are entitled to hold the universe
perfect, the same arguments lead us to consider it also timeless and
changeless. Imperfection and progress, then, may claim to share whatever
reality is to be allowed to time and change, and no conclusion can be drawn,
such as Hegel appears at times to suggest, against attempting to make the
future an improvement on the past. Neither future and past, nor better and
worse, can be really adequate judgments of a timeless and perfect universe,
but in the sense in which there is a future it may be an improvement on the
past. But the very fact that Hegel has gone too far in his application of the
idea that reality is timeless, makes it more clear that he did hold that idea.
There are not, I believe, any expressions in the Logic which can be fairly
taken as suggesting the development of the dialectic in time. It is true that
two successive categories are named Life and Cognition, and that science
informs us that life existed in this world before cognition. But the names of
the categories must be taken as those of the facts in which the idea in
question shows itself most clearly, and not as indicating the only form in
which the idea can show itself at all. Otherwise we should be led to the
impossible result that Notions, Judgments, and Syllogisms existed before
Cognition.
A strong assertion of the eternal nature of the process is to be found in
the Doctrine of the Notion. "Die Vollführung des unendlichen Zwecks ist so
nur die Täuschung aufzuheben, als ob er noch nicht vollführt sey. Das Gute, das
absolute Gute, vollbringt sich ewig in der Welt und das Resultat ist, class es
schon an und für sich vollbracht ist und nicht erst auf uns zu warten
braucht."<Note: Enc. Section 212, lecture note.>
Another important piece of evidence is his treatment of his own maxim:
"All that is real is rational." To the objections to this he replies by saying
that reality does not mean the surface of things, but something deeper behind
them. Besides this he admits occasionally, though apparently not always, that
contingency has rights within a sphere of its own, where reason cannot demand
that everything should be explained. But he never tries to meet the attacks
made on his principle by drawing a distinction between the irrational reality
of the present and the rational reality of the future. Such a distinction would
be so natural and obvious, and would, for those who could consistently make
use of it, so completely remove the charge of a false optimism about the
present, that we can scarcely doubt that Hegel's neglect of it was due to the
fact that he saw it to be incompatible with his principles. Hegel's treatment of
time, moreover, confirms this view. For he considers
it merely as a stage in the Philosophy of Nature, which is only an application
of the Logic. Now if the realisation of the categories of the Logic only took
place in time, time would be an element in the universe correlative with
those categories, and of equal importance with them. Both would be primary
elements in a concrete whole. Neither could be looked on as an application of,
or deduction from, the other. But the treatment of time as merely one of the
phenomena which result from the realisation of the Logic, is incompatible
with such a theory as this, and we may fairly conclude that time had not for
Hegel this ultimate importance.
150. We have thus arrived at the conclusion that the dialectic is not for
Hegel a process in time, but that the Absolute Idea must be looked on as
eternally realised. We are very far, however, from having got rid of our
difficulties. It looks, indeed, as if we were brought, at this point, to a
reductio ad absurdum. For if the other theory was incompatible with Hegel,
this seems to be incompatible with the facts.
The dialectic process is one from incomplete to complete rationality. If
it is eternally fulfilled, then the universe must be completely rational. Now,
in the first place, it is certain that the universe is not completely rational
for us. We are not able to see everything round us as a manifestation of the
Absolute Idea. Even those students of philosophy who believe on general
grounds that the Absolute Idea must be manifested in everything are as unable
as the rest of us to see how it is manifested in a table or a thunder-storm.
We can only explain these things--at present, at any rate--by much lower
categories, and we cannot, therefore, explain them completely. Nor are we by
any means able, at present, to eliminate completely the contingency of the
data of sense, which are an essential element in reality, and a universe which
contains an ultimately contingent element cannot be held to be completely
rational. It would seem, too, that if we are perfectly rational in a perfectly
rational universe, there must always be a complete harmony between our
desires and our environment. And this is not invariably the case.
But if the universe appears to us not to be perfect, can it be so in reality?
Does not the very failure to perceive the perfection destroy it? In the first
place, the Absolute Idea, as defined by Hegel,<Note: Enc. Section 236.> is one
of self-conscious rationality--the Idea to which the Idea itself is
"Gegenstand" and "Objekt." If any part of reality sees anything, except the
Absolute Idea, anywhere in reality, this ideal can scarcely be said to have
been fulfilled.
And, more generally, if the universe appears to us to be only imperfectly
rational, we must be either right or wrong. If we are right, the world is not
perfectly rational. But if we are wrong, then it is difficult to see how we can
be perfectly rational. And we are part of the world. Thus it would seem that
the very opinion that the world is imperfect must, in one way or another,
prove its own truth.
151. If this is correct, we seem to be confronted with a difficulty as
hopeless as those which encountered us when we supposed the dialectic to
develop itself in time. These, we saw, were due to our hypothesis being found
incompatible with the system, while our present view appears untenable
because, though a logical development from the system, it is incompatible
with the facts. The result with regard to the first is that we come to the
conclusion that the development in time cannot be part of Hegel's
philosophy. The result of the second would at first sight seem to be that
Hegel's philosophy must be abandoned, since it leads to such untenable
conclusions.
We rejected the hypothesis of the development of the Absolute Idea in time
upon two grounds. The first was that we had to choose between a false infinite
and an uncaused beginning. Each of these hypotheses left something
unexplained and contingent, and was consequently incompatible with a system
which demanded above all things that the universe should be completely
rationalised, and which believed itself to have accomplished its aim. Our
second objection was due to the fact that the development of the dialectic at
all, upon Hegel's principles, presupposed the existence of its goal, which
could not therefore be supposed to be reached for the first time by the
process. But our difficulty now is not at all incompatible with the system. It
is one which must arise from it, and which must, in some form or another,
arise in any system of complete idealism. Every such system must declare
that the world is fundamentally rational and righteous throughout, and every
such system will be met by the same difficulty. How, if all reality is
rational and righteous, are we to explain the irrationality and
unrighteousness which are notoriously part of our every-day life? We must now
consider the various attempts which have been made to answer this question.
152. Hegel's answer has been indicated in the passage quoted above.<Note:
Enc. Section 212, lecture note.> The infinite end is really accomplished
eternally. It is only a delusion on our part which makes us suppose otherwise.
And the only real progress is the removal of the delusion. The universe is
eternally the same, and eternally perfect. The movement is only in our minds.
They trace one after another in succession the different categories of the
Logic, which in reality have no time order, but continually co-exist as
elements of the Absolute Idea which transcends and unites them.
This solution can, however, scarcely be accepted, for the reasons given
above. How can we account for the delusion that the world is partially
irrational, if, as a matter of fact, it is completely rational? How, in
particular, can we regard such a delusion as compatible with our own complete
rationality?
To this it may be possibly objected that our argument is based on a
confusion. That a thought is a delusion need not imply that it, or the being
who thinks it, is irrational. Everything which, like a thought, is used as a
symbol, can be viewed in two aspects--firstly as a fact, and secondly as
representing, as a symbol, some other fact. In the first aspect we say that it
is real or unreal; in the second that it is true or false. These two pairs of
predicates have no intrinsic connection. A false judgment is just as really a
fact as a true one.
Now the conclusion from the Hegelian dialectic was that whatever was real
was rational. We are, therefore, compelled to assert that every thought, and
every thinking being, is completely rational--can be explained in a way which
gives entire rest and satisfaction to reason. But, it may be said, this is not
in the least interfered with by the fact that many real thoughts are defective
symbols of the other reality which they profess to represent. The false can
be, and, indeed, must be, real, for a thought cannot misrepresent reality
unless it is itself real. Till it is real it can do nothing. And if the false can
be real, why can it not be rational? Indeed we often, in every-day life and in
science, do find the false to be more or less rational. It is as possible to
account, psychologically, for the course of thought which brings out an
erroneous conclusion as for the course of thought which brings out a correct
one. We can explain our failures to arrive at the truth as well as our
successes. It would seem then that there is nothing to prevent ourselves and
our thoughts being part of a completely rational universe, although our
thoughts are in some respects incorrect symbols.
153. But it must be remembered that the rationality which Hegel requires
of the universe is much more than complete determination under the category
of cause and effect--a category which the dialectic maintains to be quite
insufficient, unless transcended by a higher one. He requires, among other
things, the validity of the idea of final cause. And if this is brought in, it is
difficult to see how delusions can exist in a rational world. For a delusion
involves a thwarted purpose. If a man makes a mistake, it means that he
wishes to know the truth, and that he does not know it. Whether this is the
case or not, with regard to simple perception of the facts before us, it
cannot be denied that wherever there is a long chain of argument, to which the
mind is voluntarily kept attentive, there must be a desire to know the truth.
And if this desire is unsuccessful, the universe could not be, in Hegel's sense,
completely rational.
This becomes more evident if we look at Hegel's definition of complete
rationality, as we find it in the Absolute Idea. The essence of it is that
reality is only completely rational in so far as it is conscious of its own
rationality. The idea is to be "Gegenstand" and "Objekt" to itself. If this is
the case, it follows that the rationality of Spirit, as an existent object,
depends upon its being a faithful symbol of the rationality expressed in other
manifestations of Spirit. The delusion by which Hegel explains all
imperfection will of course prevent its being a faithful symbol of that
rationality, and will therefore destroy the rationality itself. In so far as we
do not see the perfection of the universe, we are not perfect ourselves. And as
we are part of the universe, that too cannot be perfect. And yet its perfection
appears to be a necessary consequence of Hegel's position.
154. Hegel's attempt to make the imperfection which is evident round us
compatible with the perfection of the universe must, then, be rejected. Can we
find any other solution which would be more successful? One such solution
suggests itself. It was the denial of the ultimate reality of time which caused
our difficulty, since it forced us to assert that the perfect rationality, which
idealism claims for the universe, cannot be postponed to the future, but must
be timelessly and eternally present. Can the denial of the reality of time be
made to cure the wound, which it has itself made? Would it not be possible, it
might be said, to escape from our dilemma as follows? The dialectic itself
teaches us that it is only the concrete whole which is completely rational,
and that any abstraction from it, by the very fact that it is an abstraction,
must be to some extent false and contradictory. An attempt to take reality
moment by moment, element by element, must make reality appear imperfect.
The complete rationality is only in the whole which transcends all these
elements, and any one of them, considered as more or less independent, must
be false. Now, if we look at the universe as in time, it will appear to be a
succession of separate events, so that only part of it is existing at any given
instant, the rest being either past or future. Each of these events will be
represented as real in itself, and not merely a moment in a real whole. And
in so far as events in time are taken to be, as such, real, it must follow that
reality does not appear rational. If an organic whole is perfect, then any one
of its parts, taken separately from the whole, cannot possibly be perfect. For
in such a whole all the parts presuppose one another, and any one, taken by
itself, must bear the traces of its isolation and incompleteness. Now the
connection of the different parts of the universe, viewed in their ultimate
reality, is, according to the dialectic, even closer than the connection of the
parts of an organism. And thus not only each event, but the whole universe
taken as a series of separate events, would appear imperfect. Even if such a
series could ever be complete, it could not fully represent the reality, since
the parts would still, by their existence in time, be isolated from one
another, and claim some amount of independence. Thus the apparent
imperfection of the universe would be due to the fact that we are regarding it
sub specie temporis--an aspect which we have seen reason to conclude that
Hegel himself did not regard as adequate to reality. If we could only see it
sub specie aeternitatis, we should see it in its real perfection.
155. It is true, I think, that in this way we get a step nearer to the goal
required than we do by Hegel's own theory, which we previously considered. Our
task is to find, for the apparent imperfection, some cause whose existence
will not interfere with the real perfection. We shall clearly be more likely
to succeed in this, in proportion as the cause we assign is a purely negative
one. The appearance of imperfection was accounted for by Hegel as a delusion
of our own minds. Now a delusion is as much a positive fact as a true
judgment is, and requires just as much a positive cause. And, as we have seen,
we are unable to conceive this positive cause, except as something which will
prevent the appearance from being a delusion at all, since it will make the
universe really imperfect. On the theory just propounded, however, the cause
of the imperfection is nothing but the fact that we do not see everything at
once. Seen as we see things now, reality must be imperfect. But if we can
attain to the point of looking at the whole universe sub specie aeternitatis,
we shall see just the same subject-matter as in time; but it will appear
perfect, because seen as a single concrete whole, and not as a succession of
separated abstractions. The only cause of the apparent imperfection will be
the negative consideration that we do not now see the whole at once.
156. This theory would be free from some of the objections which are fatal
to a rather similar apology for the universe which is often found in systems
of optimism. It is admitted in such apologies that, from the point of view of
individuals, the world is imperfect and irrational. But, it is asserted, these
blemishes would disappear if we could look at the world as a whole. The part
which, taken by itself, is defective, may we are told, be an element in a
perfect harmony. Such a theory, since it declares that the universe can be
really perfect, although imperfect for individuals, implies that some
individuals, at any rate, can be treated merely as means, and not as ends in
themselves. Without enquiring whether such a view is at all tenable, it is at
any rate clear that it is incompatible with what is usually called optimism,
since it would permit of many--indeed of all--individuals being doomed to
eternal and infinite misery. We might be led to the formula in which Mr
Bradley sums up optimism:--"The world is the best of all possible worlds,
and everything in it is a necessary evil."<Note: Appearance and Reality,
Preface, p. xiv.> For if the universal harmony can make any evil to individuals
compatible with its own purposes, there is no principle upon which we can
limit the amount which it can tolerate. It is more to our present purpose to
remark that such a view could not possibly be accepted as in any way
consistent with Hegel's system. It would be in direct opposition to its whole
tendency, which is to regard the universal as only gaining reality and validity
when, by its union with the particular, it becomes the individual. For Hegel
the ideal must lie, not in ignoring the claims of individuals, but in seeing in
them the embodiment of the universal.
Mr Bradley's own treatment of the problem is, as far as I can see, of a
rather similar type. He has to reconcile the harmony which he attributes to
the Absolute, with the disharmony which undoubtedly prevails, to some extent,
in experience. This he does by taking the finite individual to be, as such, only
appearance and not reality, from which it follows that it must distort the
harmony of the Absolute, and cannot adequately manifest it. It may be doubted
whether we do not fall into more difficulties than we avoid by this low
estimate of the conscious individual. But, at any rate, such a solution would
be impracticable for anyone who accepted Hegel's version of the Absolute Idea,
to which the individual is the highest form that the universal can take. Some of
the objections which apply to such attempts to save the perfection
of the Absolute by ignoring the claims of individuals will not hold against
our endeavour to escape from our difficulty by ignoring, so to speak, the
claims of particular moments of time. None of those considerations which
make us consider each separate person as an ultimate reality, whose claims to
self-realisation must be satisfied and cannot be transcended, lead us to
attribute the same importance to separate periods of time. Indeed the whole
drift of Hegel's system is as much against the ultimate reality of a
succession of phenomena, as such, as it is in favour of the ultimate reality of
individual persons, as such. To deny any reality in what now presents itself to
us as a time-series would indeed be suicidal. For we have no data given us for
our thought, except in the form of a time-series, and to destroy our data
would be to destroy the super-structure. But while philosophy could not start
if it did not accept its data, it could not proceed if it did not alter them.
There is then nothing obviously impossible in the supposition that the whole
appearance of succession in our experience is, as such, unreal, and that
reality is one timeless whole, in which all that appears successive is really
co-existent, as the houses are co-existent which we see successively from the
windows of a train.
157. It cannot, however, be said that this view is held by Hegel himself. In
the Philosophy of Nature he treats time as a stage in the development of
nature, and not as a cause why there is any appearance of successive
development at all. Indeed he says there that things are not finite because
they are in time, but are in time because they are finite.<Note: Enc. Section
258, lecture note.> It would be thus impossible, without departing from Hegel,
to make time the cause of the apparent imperfection of the universe.
Everything else in the Hegelian philosophy may indeed be considered as of
subordinate importance to the Dialectic, and to its goal, the Absolute Idea. If
it were necessary, we might, to save the validity of the Dialectic, reject
Hegel's views even on a subject so important as time, and yet call ourselves
Hegelians. But we should not gain much by this reconstruction of the system.
For it leaves the problem no more solved than it was before. The difficulty
which proved fatal to Hegel's own attempt to explain the imperfection comes
back as surely as before, though it may not be quite so obvious. However much
we may treat time as mere appearance, it must, like all other appearance,
have reality behind it. The reality, it may be answered, is in this case the
timeless Absolute. But this reality will have to account, not merely for the
facts which appear to us in time, but for the appearance of succession which
they do undoubtedly assume. How can this be done? What reason can be given
why the eternal reality should manifest itself in a time process at all? If we
tried to find the reason outside the nature of the eternal reality, we should
be admitting that time had some independent validity, and we should fall back
into all the difficulties mentioned in the earlier part of this chapter. But if
we try to find the reason inside the nature of the eternal reality, we shall
find it to be incompatible with the complete rationality which, according to
Hegel's theory, that reality must possess. For the process in time is, by the
hypothesis, the root of all irrationality, and how can it spring from anything
which is quite free of irrationality? Why should a concrete and perfect whole
proceed to make itself imperfect, for the sake of gradually getting rid of the
imperfection again? If it gained nothing by the change, could it be completely
rational to undergo it? But if it had anything to gain by the change, how could
it previously have been perfect?
158. We have thus failed again to solve the difficulty. However much we may
endeavour to make the imperfection of the universe merely negative, it is
impossible to escape from the fact that, as an element in presentation, it
requires a positive ground. If we denied this, we should be forced into the
position that not only was our experience of imperfection a delusion, but
that it was actually non-existent. And this, as was mentioned above, is an
impossibility. All reasoning depends on the fact that every appearance has a
reality of which it is the appearance. Without this we could have no possible
basis upon which to rest any conclusion.
Yet, on the other hand, so long as we admit a positive ground for the
imperfection, we find ourselves to be inconsistent with the original position
from which we started. For that position asserted that the sole reality was
absolutely perfect. On this hangs the appearance of imperfection, and to this
real perfection as cause we have to ascribe apparent imperfection as effect.
Now it is not impossible, under certain circumstances, to imagine a cause as
driven on, by a dialectic necessity, to produce an effect different from itself.
But in this case it does seem impossible. For any self-determination of a
cause to produce its effect must be due to some incompleteness in the former
without the latter. But if the cause, by itself, was incomplete, it could not,
by itself, be perfect. If, on the other hand, it was perfect, it is impossible
to see how it could produce anything else as an effect. Its perfection makes it
in complete harmony with itself. And, since it is all reality, there is nothing
outside it with which it could be out of harmony. What could determine it to
production?
Thus we oscillate between two extremes, each equally fatal. If we endeavour
to treat evil as absolutely unreal, we have to reject the one basis of all
knowledge--experience. But in so far as we accept evil as a manifestation of
reality, we find it impossible to avoid qualifying the cause by the nature of
the effect which it produces, and so contradicting the main result of the
dialectic--the harmony and perfection of the Absolute.
159. We need not, after all, be surprised at the apparently insoluble
problem which confronts us. For the question has developed into the old
difficulty of the origin of evil, which has always baffled both theologians and
philosophers. An idealism which declares that the universe is in reality
perfect, can find, as most forms of popular idealism do, an escape from the
difficulties of the existence of evil, by declaring that the world is as yet
only growing towards its ideal perfection. But this refuge disappears with the
reality of time, and we are left with an awkward difference between what our
philosophy tells us must be, and what our life tells us actually is.
The aim of the dialectic was to prove that all reality was completely
rational. And Hegel's arguments led him to the conclusion that the universe
as a whole could not be rational, except in so far as each of its parts found
its own self-realisation. It followed that the universe, if harmonious on the
theoretical side, would be harmonious also in a practical aspect--that is,
would be in every respect perfect. This produces a dilemma. Either the evil
round us is real, or it is not. If it is real, then reality is not perfectly
rational. But if it is absolutely unreal, then all our finite experience--and
we know of no other--must have an element in it which is absolutely
irrational, and which, however much we may pronounce it to be unreal, has a
disagreeably powerful influence in moulding the events of our present life.
Nor can we even hope that this element is transitory, and comfort ourselves,
in orthodox fashion, with the hope of a heaven in which the evil shall have
died away, while the good remains. For we cannot assure ourselves of such a
result by any empirical arguments from particular data, which would be
hopelessly inadequate to support such a conclusion. The only chance would be
an à priori argument founded on the essential rationality of the universe,
which might be held to render the imperfection transitory. But we should have
no right to use such an argument. To escape the difficulties involved in the
present coexistence of rationality and irrationality, we have reduced the
latter to such complete unreality that it is not incompatible with the
former. But this cuts both ways. If the irrationality cannot interfere with
the rationality so as to render their present coexistence impossible, there
can be no reason why their future coexistence should ever become impossible.
If the irrational is absolutely unreal now, it can never become less real in
the future. Thus our ascription of complete rationality to the universe leads
us to a belief that one factor in experience, as it presents itself to us, is
fundamentally and permanently irrational--a somewhat singular conclusion
from such a premise.
To put the difficulty from a more practical point of view, either the
imperfection in experience leaves a stain on the perfection of the Absolute,
or it does not. If it does, there is no absolute perfection, and we have no
right to expect that the imperfection around us is a delusion or a transitory
phase. But if it does not, then there is no reason why the perfection should
ever feel intolerant of it, and again we have no right to hope for its
disappearance. The whole practical interest of philosophy is thus completely
overthrown. It asserts an abstract perfection beyond experience, but that is
all. Such a perfection might almost as well be a Thing-in-itself, since it is
unable to explain any single fact of experience without the aid of another
factor, which it may call unreal, but which it finds indispensable. It entirely
fails to rationalise reality or to reconcile it with our aspirations.
160. The conclusion we have reached is one which it certainly seems
difficult enough to reconcile with continued adherence to Hegelianism. Of the
two possible theories as to the relation of time to the dialectic process, we
have found that one, besides involving grave difficulties in itself, is quite
inconsistent with the spirit of Hegel's system. The other, again, while
consistent with that system, and, indeed, appearing to be its logical
consequence, has landed us in what seems to be a glaring contradiction to the
facts. Is it not inevitable that we must reject a system which leads us to
such a result?
Before deciding on such a course, however, it might be wise to see if we can
really escape from the difficulty in such a way. If the same problem, or one
of like nature, proves equally insoluble in any possible system, we may be
forced to admit the existence of an incompleteness in our philosophy, but we
shall no longer have any reason to reject one system in favour of another.
Now, besides the theory which has brought us into this trouble--the theory
that reality is fundamentally rational--there are, it would seem, three other
possibilities. Reality may be fundamentally irrational. (I shall use
"irrational" here to signify anything whose nature and operation are not
merely devoid of reason, but opposed to it, so that its influence is always in
the opposite direction to that exercised by reason.) Or reality may be the
product of two independent principles of rationality and irrationality. Or it
may be the work of some principle to which rationality and irrationality are
equally indifferent--some blind fate, or mechanical chance.
These possibilities may be taken as exhaustive. It is true that, on Hegelian
principles, a fifth alternative has to be added, when we are considering the
different combinations in which two predicates may be asserted or denied of a
subject. We may say that it is also possible that the two predicates should be
combined in a higher unity. This would leave it scarcely correct to say,
without qualification, that either is asserted or either denied of the subject.
But synthesis is itself a process of reasoning, and unites its two terms by a
category in which we recognise the nature of each extreme as a subordinate
moment, which is harmonised with the other. The harmony involves that,
wherever a synthesis is possible, reason is supreme. And so, if the truth were
to be found in a synthesis of the rational and irrational, that synthesis would
itself be rational--resolving, as it would, the whole universe into a unity
expressible by thought. Thus we should have come round again to Hegel's
position that the world is fundamentally rational.
161. We need not spend much time over the supposition that the world is
fundamentally irrational--not only regardless of reason, but contrary to
reason. To begin with, such a hypothesis refutes itself. The completely
irrational cannot be real, for even to say that a thing is real implies its
determination by at least one predicate, and therefore its comparative
rationality. And our hypothesis would meet with a difficulty precisely
analogous to that which conflicts with Hegel's theory. In that case the
stumbling-block lay in the existence of some irrationality, here it lies in
the existence of some rationality. We can no more deny that there are signs
of rationality in the universe, than we can deny that there are signs of
irrationality. Yet it is at least as impossible to conceive how the
fundamentally irrational should manifest itself as rationality, as it is to
conceive the converse process. We shall gain nothing, then, by deserting Hegel
for such a theory as this.
162. It might seem as if a dualistic theory would be well adapted to the
chequered condition of the actual world. But as soon as we try to construct
such a theory, difficulties arise. The two principles, of rationality and
irrationality, to which the universe is referred, will have to be absolutely
separate and independent. For if there were any common unity to which they
should be referred, it would be that unity, and not its two manifestations,
which would be the ultimate explanation of the universe, and the theory,
having become monistic, resolves itself into one of the others, according to
the attitude of this single principle towards reason, whether favourable,
hostile, or indifferent.
We must then refer the universe to two independent and opposed forces. Nor
will it make any important difference if we make the second force to be, not
irrationality, but some blind force not in itself hostile to reason. For, in
order to account for the thwarted rationality which meets us so often in the
universe, we shall have to suppose that the result of the force is, as a fact,
opposed to reason, even if opposition to reason is not its essential nature.
In the first place can there be really two independent powers in the
universe? Surely there cannot. As Mr Bradley points out: "Plurality must
contradict independence. If the beings are not in relation, they cannot be
many; but if they are in relation, they cease forthwith to be absolute. For, on
the one hand, plurality has no meaning, unless the units are somehow taken
together. If you abolish and remove all relations, there seems no sense left
in which you can speak of plurality. But, on the other hand, relations destroy
the real's self-dependence. For it is impossible to treat relations as
adjectives, falling simply inside the many beings. And it is impossible to
take them as falling outside somewhere in a sort of unreal void, which makes
no difference to anything. Hence . . . the essence of the related terms is
carried beyond their proper selves by means of their relations. And, again,
the relations themselves must belong to a larger reality. To stand in a
relation and not to be relative, to support it and yet not to be infected and
undermined by it, seem out of the question. Diversity in the real cannot be
the plurality of independent beings. And the oneness of the Absolute must
hence be more than a mere diffused adjective. It possesses unity, as a whole,
and is a single system."<Note: Appearance and Reality, Chap. 13, p. 141.>
The argument has additional strength in this case. For the two forces which
we are asked to take as absolutely opposed are, by the hypothesis which
assumed them, indissolubly united. Both forces are regarded as all-pervading.
Neither can exist by itself anywhere. Every fact in the universe is due to the
interaction of the two. And, further, they can only be described and defined in
relation to one another. If the dualism is between the rational and the
irrational as such, it is obvious that the latter, at any rate, has only
meaning in relation to its opposite. And if we assume that the second
principle is not directly opposed to rationality, but simply indifferent to it,
we shall get no further in our task of explaining the imperfect rationality
which appears in our data, unless we go on to assume that its action is
contrary to that of a rational principle. Thus a reference to reason would be
necessary, if not to define our second principle, at any rate to allow us to
understand how we could make it available for our purpose.
We cannot, besides, describe anything as irrational, or indifferent to
reason, without ascribing to it certain predicates--Being, Substance,
Limitation, for example. Nor can we refer to a principle as an explanation of
the universe without attributing to it Causality. These determinations may be
transcended by higher ones, but they must be there, at least as moments. Yet
anything to which all these predicates can be ascribed cannot be said to be
entirely hostile or indifferent to reason, for it has some determinations
common to it and to reason, and must be, therefore, in more or less harmony
with the latter. But if this is so, our complete dualism has been surrendered.
The two principles then can scarcely be taken as absolutely independent.
But if they cannot our dualism fails to help us, and indeed vanishes. We
weretempted to resort to it because the two elements in experience--the
rationality and the want of rationality--were so heterogeneous as to defy
reduction to a single principle. And if we cannot keep our two principles
distinct, but are compelled to regard them as joined in a higher unity, we
might as well return explicitly to monism.
163. But, even if we could keep the two principles independent, it seems
doubtful if we should be able to reach, by means of this theory, a solution of
our difficulty. The forces working for and against the rationality of the
universe must either be in equilibrium or not. If they are not in equilibrium,
then one must be gaining on the other. The universe is thus fundamentally a
process. In this case we shall gain nothing by adopting dualism. For the
difficulties attendant on conceiving the world as a process were just the
reason which compelled us to adopt the theory that the universe was at
present perfectly rational, and so produced the further difficulties which are
now driving us to look round for a substitute for idealism. If we could have
taken development in time as ultimately real, we should have found no
hindrance in our way when we endeavoured to conceive the universe as the
product of a single rational principle. But we could not do so then, and we
shall find it as impossible now. The process must be finite in length, since
we can attach no meaning to an actual infinite process. And, since it is still
continuing, we shall have to suppose that the two principles came into
operation at a given moment, and not before. And since these principles are,
on the hypothesis, ultimate, there can be nothing to determine them to begin
to act at that point, rather than any other. In this way we shall be reduced,
as before, to suppose an event to happen in time without antecedents and
without cause--a solution which cannot be accepted as satisfactory.
164. Shall we succeed any better on the supposition that the forces which
work for and against rationality are exactly balanced? In the first place we
should have to admit that the odds against this occurring were infinity to
one. For the two forces are, by the hypothesis, absolutely independent of one
another. And, therefore, we cannot suppose any common influence acting on
both of them, which should tend to make their forces equal, nor any
relationship between them, which should bring about this result. The
equilibrium could only be the result of mere chance, and the probability of
this producing infinitely exact equilibrium would be infinitely small. And the
absence of any à priori reason for believing in such an equilibrium could not,
of course, be supplied by empirical observation. For the equilibrium would
have to extend over the whole universe, and we cannot carry our observations
so far.
Nor can we support the theory by the consideration that it, and no other,
will explain the undoubted co-existence of the rational and irrational in our
present world. For it fails to account for the facts. It fails to explain the
existence of change--at any rate of that change which leaves anything more or
less rational, more or less perfect, than it was before. It is a fact which
cannot be denied that sometimes that which was good becomes evil, and
sometimes that which was evil becomes good. Now, if the two principles are
exactly balanced, how could such a change take place? Of course we cannot
prove that the balance between the two forces does not remain the same, if we
consider the whole universe. Every movement in the one direction, in one part
of the whole, may be balanced by a corresponding move in the other direction
somewhere else. As we do not know the entire universe in detail it is
impossible for us to refute this supposition. But even this supposition will
not remove the difficulty. We have two principles whose relations to one
another are constant. Yet the facts around us, which are manifestations of
these two principles, and of these two principles only, manifest them in
proportions which constantly change. How is this change to be accounted for?
If we are to take time and change as ultimate facts, such a contradiction
seems insuperable. On the other hand, to deny the ultimate validity of time
and change, commits us to the series of arguments, the failure of which first
led us to doubt Hegel's position. If time could be viewed as a manifestation
of the timeless, we need not have abandoned monism, for the difficulty of
imperfection could then have been solved. If, however, time cannot be viewed
in this way, the contradiction between the unchanging relation of the
principles and the constant change of their effects appears hopeless.
165. There remains the theory that the world is exclusively the product of
a principle which regards neither rationality nor irrationality, but is
directed to some aim outside them, or to no aim at all. Such a theory might
account, no doubt, for the fact that the world is not a complete and perfect
manifestation either of rationality or irrationality. But it is hardly
exaggerated to say that this is the only fact about the world which it would
account for. The idea of such a principle is contradictory. We can have no
conception of its operation, of its nature, or even of its existence, without
bringing it under some predicates of the reason. And if this is valid, the
principle is, to some extent at least, rational.
166. So far indeed, the rationality would be but slight. And it might be
suggested that the solution of the difficulty would be found in the idea that
reality was, if we might so express it, moderately rational. Up to this point
we have supposed that our only choice was between a principle manifesting the
complete and perfect rationality, which is embodied in Hegel's Absolute Idea,
and a principle entirely hostile or indifferent to reason. But what if the
ultimate principle of the universe was one of which, for example, the
categories of Being and Essence were valid, while those of the Notion remained
unjustified ideals? This would account, it might be said, at once for the fact
that the universe was sufficiently in accord with our reason for us to perceive
it and attempt to comprehend it, and also for the fact that we fail to
comprehend it completely It would explain the judgment that the world, as we
see it, might be better and might also be worse, which common sense
pronounces, and which philosophy, whether it accepts it or not, is bound to
explain somehow.
The supporters of such a theory, however, would have a difficult task before
them. They might claim to reject Hegel's general theory of the universe on
the ground that, on this question of imperfection, it was hopelessly in
conflict with the facts. But when they, in their turn, set up a positive
system, and asserted the earlier categories to be valid of reality, while the
later ones were delusions, they would have to meet in detail Hegel's arguments
that the earlier categories, unless synthesised by the later ones, plunge us in
contradictions. The dialectic, being now merely negative and critical of
another system, could not be disposed of on the ground that its own system
broke down as a whole. Its arguments against the independent validity of the
earlier categories would have to be met directly. What the issue of the
conflict would be cannot be considered here, as considerations of space have
prevented me from including in this book any discussion of the steps of the
dialectic in detail. It may be remarked in passing, however, that several of
the commentators, who unhesitatingly reject the system as a whole, admit the
cogency of the argument from step to step in the Logic--which is all that is
wanted here.
This, at any rate, is certain, that the possibility of explaining the
existence of imperfection by such a theory as we have been considering, can
give us no grounds for rejecting Hegel's system which we did not possess
before. For if the deduction of the categories is defective, Hegelianism must
be rejected as unproved, independently of its success or failure in
interpreting the facts. And if the deduction of the categories is correct, then
the theory of the partial rationality of reality must be given up. For, in that
case, to assert the validity of the lower categories without the higher would
be to assert a contradiction, and to do this is to destroy all possibility of
coherent thought.
167. It would seem then that any other system offers as many obstacles to
a satisfactory explanation of our difficulty as were presented by Hegel's
theory. Is the inquirer then bound to take refuge in complete scepticism, and
reject all systems of philosophy, since none can avoid inconsistencies or
absurdities on this point? This might perhaps be the proper course to pursue,
if it were possible. But it is not possible. For every word and every action
implies some theory of metaphysics. Every assertion or denial of fact--
including the denial that anything is certain--implies that something is
certain; and a doubt, also, implies our certainty that we doubt. Now to admit
this, and yet to reject all ultimate explanations of the universe, is a
contradiction at least as serious as any of those into which we were led by
our attempt to explain away imperfection in obedience to the demands of
Hegel's system.
We find then as many, and as grave, difficulties in our way when we take up
any other system, or when we attempt to take up no system at all, as met us
when we considered Hegel's theory, and our position towards the latter must be
to some degree modified. We can no longer reject it, because it appears to
lead to an absurdity, if every possible form in which it can be rejected
involves a similar absurdity. At the same time we cannot possibly acquiesce
in an unreconciled contradiction. Is there any other course open to us?
168. We must remark, in the first place, that the position in which the
system finds itself, though difficult enough, is not a reductio ad absurdum.
When an argument ends in such a reduction, there can never be any hesitation
or doubt about rejecting the hypothesis with which it started. It is desired to
know if a certain proposition is true. The assumption is made that the
proposition is true, and it is found that the assumption leads to a
contradiction. Thus there is no conflict of arguments. The hypothesis was
made, not because it had been proved true, but to see what results would
follow. Hence there is nothing to contradict the inference that the hypothesis
must be false, which we draw from the absurdity of its consequences. On the
one side is only a supposition, on the other ascertained facts.
This, however, is not the case here. The conclusion, that the universe is
timelessly perfect, which appears to be in conflict with certain facts, is not
a mere hypothesis, but asserts itself to be a correct deduction from other
facts as certain as those which oppose it. Hence there is no reason why one
should yield to the other. The inference that the universe is completely
rational, and the inference that it is not, are both deduced by reasoning from
the facts of experience. Unless we find a flaw in one or the other of the
chains of deduction, we have no more right to say that Hegel's dialectic is
wrong because the world is imperfect, than to deny that the world is
imperfect, because Hegel's dialectic proves that it cannot be so.
It might appear at first sight as if the imperfection of the world was an
immediate certainty. But in reality only the data of sense, upon which, in the
last resort, all propositions must depend for their connection with reality,
are here immediate. All judgments require mediation. And, even if the
existence of imperfection in experience was an immediate certainty, yet the
conclusion that its existence was incompatible with the perfection of the
universe as a whole, could clearly only be reached mediately, by the
refutation of the various arguments by means of which a reconciliation has
been attempted.
It is, no doubt, our first duty, when two chains of reasoning appear to lead
to directly opposite results, to go over them with the greatest care, that we
may ascertain whether the apparent discrepancy is not due to some mistake of
our own. It is also true that the chain of arguments, by which we arrive at the
conclusion that the world is perfect, is both longer and less generally
accepted than the other chain by which we reach the conclusion that there is
imperfection in the world, and that this prevents the world from being
perfect. We may, therefore, possibly be right in expecting beforehand to find
a flaw in the first chain of reasoning, rather than in the second.
This, however, will not entitle us to adopt the one view as against the
other. We may expect beforehand to find an error in an argument, but if in
point of fact we do not succeed in finding one, we are bound to continue to
accept the conclusion. For we are compelled to yield our assent to each step
in the argument, so long as we do not see any mistake in it, and we shall in
this way be conducted as inevitably to the end of the long chain as of the
short one.
169. We may, I think, assume, for the purposes of this paper, that no
discovery of error will occur to relieve us from our perplexity, since we are
endeavouring to discuss here, not the truth of the Hegelian dialectic, but the
consequences which will follow from it if it is true. And we have now to
consider what we must do in the presence of two equally authoritative
judgments which contradict one another.
The only course which it is possible to take appears to me that described
by Mr Balfour. The thinker must "accept both contradictories, thinking
thereby to obtain, under however unsatisfactory a form, the fullest measure of
truth which he is at present able to grasp."<Note: Defence of Philosophic
Doubt, p. 313.> Of course we cannot adopt the same mental attitude which we
should have a right to take in case our conclusions harmonised with one
another. We must never lose sight of the fact that the two results do not
harmonise, and that there must be something wrong somewhere. But we do not
know where. And to take any step except this, would imply that we did know
where the error lay. If we rejected the one conclusion in favour of the other,
or if we rejected both in favour of scepticism, we should thereby assert, in
the first case, that there was an error on the one side and not on the other,
in the second case that there were errors on both sides. Now, if the case is as
it has been stated above, we have no right to make such assertions, for we
have been unable to detect errors on either side. All that we can do is to
hold to both sides, and to recognise that, till one is refuted, or both are
reconciled, our knowledge is in a very unsatisfactory state.
At the same time we shall have to be very careful not to let our
dissatisfaction with the conflict, from which we cannot escape, carry us into
either an explicit avowal or a tacit acceptance of any form of scepticism. For
this would mean more than the mere equipoise of the two lines of argument.
It would mean the entire rejection, at least, of the one which asserts that
the universe is completely rational. And, as has been said, we have no right to
reject either side of the contradiction, for no flaw has been found in either.
170. The position in which we are left appears to be this: If we cannot
reject Hegel's dialectic, our system of knowledge will contain an unsolved
contradiction. But that contradiction gives us no more reason for rejecting
the Hegelian dialectic than for doing anything else, since a similar
contradiction appears wherever we turn. We are merely left with the
conviction that something is fundamentally wrong in knowledge which all
looks equally trustworthy. Where to find the error we cannot tell. Such a
result is sufficiently unsatisfactory. Is it possible to find a conclusion not
quite so negative?
We cannot, as it seems to us at present, deny that both the propositions
are true, nor deny that they are contradictory. Yet we know that one must be
false, or else that they cannot be contradictory. Is there any reason to hope
that the solution lies in the last alternative? This result would be less
sceptical and destructive than any other. It would not involve any positive
mistake in our previous reasonings, as far as they went, such as would be
involved if harmony was restored by the discovery that one of the two
conclusions was fallacious. It would only mean that we had not gone on far
enough. The two contradictory propositions--that the world was fundamentally
perfect, and that imperfection did exist--would be harmonised and reconciled
by a synthesis, in the same way that the contradictions within the dialectic
itself are overcome. The two sides of the opposition would not so much be
both false as both true. They would be taken up into a higher sphere where the
truth of both is preserved.
Moreover, the solution in this case would be exactly what might be expected
if the Hegelian dialectic were true. For, as has been said, the dialectic always
advances by combining on a higher plane two things which were contradictory
on a lower one. And so, if, in some way now inconceivable to us, the eternal
realisation of the Absolute Idea were so synthesised with the existence of
imperfection as to be reconciled with it, we should harmonise the two sides
by a principle already exemplified in one of them.
171. It must be noticed also that the contradiction before us satisfies at
any rate one of the conditions which are necessary if a synthesis is to be
effected. It is a case of contrary and not merely of contradictory opposition.
The opposition would be contradictory if the one side merely denied the
validity of the data, or the correctness of the inferences, of the other. For it
would not then assert a different and incompatible conclusion, but simply
deny the right of the other side to come to its own conclusion at all. But it
is a contrary opposition, because neither side denies that the other is, in
itself, coherent and valid, but sets up against it another line of argument,
also coherent and valid, which leads to an opposite and incompatible
conclusion. We have not reasons for and against a particular position, but
reasons for two positions which deny one another.
If the opposition had been contradictory, there could have been no hope of
a synthesis. We should have ended with two propositions, one of which was a
mere denial of the other--the one, that the universe is eternally rational,
the other, that this is not the case. And between two merely contradictory
propositions, as Trendelenburg points out, there can be no possible
synthesis.<Note: Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. I. p. 56.> One only affirms, and
the other only denies. And, between simple affirmation and simple negation,
we can find nothing which will succeed in reconciling them. For their whole
meaning is summed up in their denial of one another, and if, with their
reconciliation, the reciprocal denial vanished, the whole meaning would vanish
also, leaving nothing but a blank. Instead of having equally strong grounds to
believe two different things, we should have no grounds to believe either. Any
real opposition may conceivably be synthesised. But it is as impossible to
get a harmony out of an absolute blank, as it is to get anything else.
Here, however, when we have two positive conclusions, which appear indeed
to be incompatible, but have more in them than simple incompatibility, it is
not impossible that a higher notion could be found, by which each should be
recognised as true, and by which it should be seen that they were really not
mutually exclusive.
The thesis and antithesis in Hegel's logic always stand to one another in a
relation of contrary opposition. In the higher stages, no doubt, the antithesis
is more than a mere opposite of the thesis, and already contains an element
of synthesis. But the element of opposition, which is always there, is always
an opposition of contraries. Hence it does not seem impossible that this
further case of contrary opposition should be dealt with on Hegel's principle.
Incompatible as the two terms seem at present, they can hardly seem more
hopelessly opposed than many pairs of contraries in the dialectic seem,
before their syntheses are found.
172. It is possible, also, to see some reasons why such a solution, if
possible at all, should not be possible yet, and why it would be delayed till
the last abstraction should be removed as the dialectic process rebuilds
concrete realities. Our aim is to reconcile the fact that the Absolute Idea
exists eternally in its full perfection, with the fact that it manifests itself
as something incomplete and imperfect. Now the Absolute Idea only becomes
known to us through a process and consequently as something incomplete and
imperfect. We have to grasp its moments successively, and to be led on from
the lower to the higher. And, in like manner, all our knowledge of its
manifestations must come to us in the form of a process, since it must come
gradually. We cannot expect to see how all process should only be an element
in a timeless reality, so long as we can only think of the timeless reality by
means of a process. But, sub specie aeternitatis, it might be that the
difficulty would vanish.
I am not, of course, trying to argue that there is such a reconciliation of
these two extremes, or that there is the slightest positive evidence that a
reconciliation can exist. As we have seen above, the eternal realisation of the
Absolute Idea, and the existence of change and evil, are, for us as we are,
absolutely incompatible, nor can we even imagine a way in which they should
cease to be so. If we could imagine such a way we should have solved the
problem, for, as it would be the only chance of rescuing our knowledge from
hopeless confusion, we should be justified in taking it.
All I wish to suggest is that it is conceivable that there should be such a
synthesis, although we cannot at present conceive what it could be like, and
that, although there is no positive evidence for it, there is no evidence
against it. And as either the incompatibility of the two propositions, or the
evidence for one of them, must be a mistake, we may have at any rate a hope
that some solution may lie in this direction.
173. If indeed we were absolutely certain that neither the arguments for the
eternal perfection of the Absolute Idea, nor the arguments for the existence
of process and change, were erroneous, we should be able to go beyond this
negative position, and assert positively the existence of the synthesis,
although we should be as unable as before to comprehend of what nature it
could be. We could then avail ourselves of Mr Bradley's maxim, "what may be
and must be, certainly is." That the synthesis must exist would, on the
hypothesis we are considering, be beyond doubt. For if both the lines of
argument which lead respectively to the eternal reality of the Absolute Idea,
and to the existence of change, could be known, not merely to be at present
unrefuted, but to be true, then they must somehow be compatible. That all
truth is harmonious is the postulate of reasoning, the denial of which would
abolish all tests of truth and falsehood, and so make all judgment unmeaning.
And since the two propositions are, as we have seen throughout this chapter,
incompatible as they stand in their immediacy, the only way in which they can
possibly be made compatible is by a synthesis which transcends them and so
unites them.
Can we then say of such a synthesis that it may be? Of course it is only
possible to do so negatively. A positive assertion that there was no reason
whatever why a thing should not exist could only be obtained by a complete
knowledge of it, and, if we had a complete knowledge of it, it would not be
necessary to resort to indirect proof to discover whether it existed or not.
But we have, it would seem, a right to say that no reason appears why it
should not exist. If the Hegelian dialectic is true (and, except on this
hypothesis, our difficulty would not have arisen), we know that predicates
which seem to be contrary can be united and harmonised by a synthesis. And
the fact that such a synthesis is not conceivable by us need not make us
consider it impossible. Till such a synthesis is found, it must always appear
inconceivable, and that it has not yet been found implies nothing more than
that the world, considered as a process, has not yet worked out its full
meaning.
174. But we must admit that the actual result is rather damaging to the
prospects of Hegelianism. We may, as I have tried to show, be sure, that, if
Hegel's dialectic is true, then such a synthesis must be possible, because it is
the only way of harmonising all the facts. At the same time, the fact that
the dialectic cannot be true, unless some synthesis which we do not know, and
whose nature we cannot even conceive, relieves it from an obstacle which
would otherwise be fatal, certainly lessens the chance that it is true, even if
no error in it has yet been discovered. For our only right to accept such an
extreme hypothesis lies in the impossibility of finding any other way out of
the dilemma. And the more violent the consequences to which an argument
leads us, the greater is the antecedent probability that some flaw has been
left undetected.
Not only does such a theory lose the strength which comes from the
successful solution of all problems presented to it, but it is compelled to
rely, with regard to this particular proposition, on a possibility which we
cannot at present fully grasp, even in imagination, and the realisation of
which would perhaps involve the transcending of all discursive thought. Under
these circumstances it is clear that our confidence in Hegel's system must be
considerably less than that which was possessed by its author, who had not
realised the tentative and incomplete condition to which this difficulty
inevitably reduced his position.
The result of these considerations, however, is perhaps on the whole more
positive than negative. They can scarcely urge us to more careful scrutiny of
all the details of the dialectic than would be required in any case by the
complexity of the subjects with which it deals. And, on the other hand, they
do supply us, as it seems to me, with a ground for believing that neither time
nor imperfection forms an insuperable objection to the dialectic. If the
dialectic is not valid in itself, we shall any way have no right to believe it.
And if it is valid in itself, we shall not only be entitled, but we shall be
bound, to believe that one more synthesis remains, as yet unknown to us,
which shall overcome the last and most persistent of the contradictions
inherent in appearance.
175. NOTE.--After this chapter, in a slightly different form, had appeared
in Mind, it was criticised by Mr F. C. S. Schiller, in an article entitled `The
Metaphysics of the Time Process.' (Mind, N.S. Vol. IV. No. 14.) I have
endeavoured to consider his acute and courteous objections to my view with
that care which they merit, but I have not succeeded in finding in them any
reason for changing the position indicated in the preceding sections. I have
already discussed one of Mr Schiller's objections,<Note: Chap. III. Section
96.> and there are some others on which I will now venture to make a few
remarks.
Mr Schiller complains that I overlook "the curious inconsistency of
denying the metaphysical value of Time, and yet expecting from the Future the
discovery of the ultimate synthesis on which one's whole metaphysics
depends."<Note: op. cit. p. 37.> It was not, of course, from the advance of
time as such, but from the more complete manifestation through time of the
timeless reality that I ventured to expect a solution. But it is, no doubt,
true that I did express a hope of the discovery of a synthesis which has not
yet been discovered, so that its discovery must be an event in time. I fail,
however, to see the inconsistency. Time is certainly, on the theory which I
have put forward, only an appearance and an illusion. But then, on the same
theory, the inconsistency which requires a synthesis is also an illusion. And
so is the necessity of discovering a synthesis for two aspects of reality which
are really eternally moments in a harmonious whole.
Sub specie aeternitatis, the temporal process is not, as such, real, and can
produce nothing new. But then, sub specie aeternitatis, if there is an ultimate
synthesis, it does not require to be produced, for it exists eternally. Nor
does the contradiction require to be removed, for, if there is a synthesis, the
contradiction never, sub specie aeternitatis, existed at all. Sub specie
temporis, on the other hand, the contradiction has to be removed, and the
synthesis discovered. But, sub specie temporis, the time process exists, and
can produce something new.
The inconsistency of which Mr Schiller accuses me comes only from
combining the assertions that a change is required, and that no change is
possible, as if they were made from the same stand-point. But, on the theory
in question, the first is only true when we look at things from the stand-
point of time, and the second when we look at them from the stand-point of
the timeless idea. That the possible solution is incomprehensible, I have
fully admitted. But I cannot see that it is inconsistent.
176. Mr Schiller further says, if I understand him rightly, that it is
obviously impossible that Hegel could have accounted for time, since he
started with an abstraction which did not include it. Without altogether
adopting Mr Schiller's explanations of the motives of idealist philosophers
we may agree with him when he says that their conceptions "were necessarily
abstract, and among the things they abstracted from was the time-aspect of
Reality."<Note: op. cit. p. 38.> He then continues, "Once abstracted from, the
reference to Time could not, of course, be recovered." And, a little later on,
"You must pay the price for a formula that will enable you to make assertions
that hold good far beyond the limits of your experience. And part of the price
is that you will in the end be unable to give a rational explanation of those
very characteristics, which had been dismissed at the outset as irrelevant to a
rational explanation."
I have admitted that Hegel has failed, not indeed to give a deduction of
time, but to give one which would be consistent with the rest of his system.
But this is a result which, as it seems to me, can only be arrived at by
examining in detail the deduction he does give, and cannot be settled
beforehand by the consideration that the abstraction he starts from excludes
time. Such an objection would destroy the whole dialectic. For Hegel starts
with pure Being, precisely because it is the most complete abstraction
possible, with the minimum of meaning that any term can have. And if nothing
which was abstracted from could ever be restored, the dialectic process, which
consists of nothing else than the performance of this operation, would be
completely invalid.
I have endeavoured to show in the earlier chapters that there is nothing
unjustified in such an advance from abstract to concrete. Of course, if we
make an abstraction, as we do in geometry, with the express intention of
adhering to it uncritically throughout our treatment of the subject, and
ignoring any inaccuracy as irrelevant for our present purposes,--then, no
doubt, our final conclusions must have the same abstractness as our original
premises. But this is very unlike the position of the dialectic. Here we begin
with the most complete abstraction we can find, for the express purpose of
seeing how far we can, by criticism of it, be forced to consider it inadequate,
and so to substitute for it more concrete notions which remedy its
incompleteness. Right or wrong, this can scarcely be disposed of as obviously
impossible.
Nor does it seem quite correct to say that Hegel's philosophy was
"constructed to give an account of the world irrespective of Time and
Change,"<Note: op. cit. p. 38.> if, as appears to be the case, "constructed to
give" implies a purpose. Hegel's purpose was not to give any particular
account of the universe, but to give one which should be self-consistent, and
he declared time and change to be only appearances, because he found it
impossible to give a consistent account of the universe if he treated time and
change as ultimate realities. He may have been wrong, but his decision was the
result of argument, and not a preconceived purpose.
177. Mr Schiller suggests that the whole device of using abstract laws and
generalisations at all in knowledge is one which is justified by its success,
and which may be discarded, in whole or in part, for another, if another
should promise better. "Why should we want to calculate the facts by such
universal formulas? The answer to this question brings us to the roots of the
matter. We make the fundamental assumption of science, that there are
universal and eternal laws, i.e. that the individuality of things together with
their spatial and temporal context may be neglected, not because we are
convinced of its theoretic validity, but because we are constrained by its
practical convenience. We want to be able to make predictions about the
future behaviour of things for the purpose of shaping our own conduct
accordingly. Hence attempts to forecast the future have been the source of
half the superstitions of mankind. But no method of divination ever invented
could compete in ingenuity and gorgeous simplicity with the assumption of
universal laws which hold good without reference to time; and so in the long
run it alone could meet the want or practical necessity in question.
"In other words that assumption is a methodological device and ultimately
reposes on the practical necessity of discovering formulas for calculating
events in the rough, without awaiting or observing their occurrence. To assert
this methodological character of eternal truths is not, of course, to deny
their validity,--for it is evident that unless the nature of the world had lent
itself to a very considerable extent to such interpretation, the assumption of
`eternal' laws would have served our purposes as little as those of astrology,
chiromancy, necromancy, and catoptromancy. What however must be asserted is
that this assumption is not an ultimate term in the explanation of the
world.
"That does not, of course, matter to Science, which is not concerned with
such ultimate explanation, and for which the assumption is at all events
ultimate enough. But it does matter to philosophy that the ultimate
theoretic assumption should have a methodological character."<Note: op. cit.
p. 42.>
178. But, I reply, our habit of abstracting and generalising (and all
universal laws are nothing more than this) is not a tool that we can take up
or lay down at pleasure, as a carpenter takes up or lays down a particular
chisel, which he finds suited or unsuited to the work immediately before him.
It is rather the essential condition of all thought--perhaps it would be
better to say an essential moment in all thought. All thought consists in
processes which may be described as abstractions and generalisations. It is
true, of course, that we could have no thought unless the complex and the
particular were given to us. But it is no less true that everything which
thought does with what is given to it involves abstraction and generalisation.
If we had merely unrelated particulars before us we should not be
conscious. And even if we were conscious, unrelated particulars could certainly
give us no knowledge. We can have no knowledge without, at the lowest,
comparison. And to compare--to perceive a similar element in things
otherwise dissimilar, or the reverse--is to abstract and to generalise. Again
to find any relation whatever between two particulars is to abstract and to
generalise. If we say, for example, that a blow causes a bruise, this is to
separate and abstract one quality from the large number which are connoted
by the word blow, and it is also to generalise, since it is to assert that a
blow stands in the same relation to a bruise, as, let us say, friction to heat.
Without abstraction and generalisation, then, we can have no knowledge, and
so they are not a methodological device but a necessity of our thought. It is,
indeed, not certain beforehand that the laws which are the result of
generalisation and abstraction will be, as Mr Schiller says, "eternal," that is,
will disregard time. But if the result of the criticism of reality does lead us
to laws which do not accept time as an ultimate reality, and if these laws do,
as I have admitted they do, plunge us into considerable difficulties, still we
cannot, as Mr Schiller seems to wish, reject the process of generalisation and
abstraction if, or in as far as, it does not turn out well. For it is our only
mode of thought, and the very act of thought which rejected it would embody
it, and be dependent on it.
There remain other points of high interest in Mr Schiller's paper--his
conception of metaphysics as ultimately ethical, and his view of what may be
hoped for from time, regarded as real and not as merely appearance. But he is
here constructive and no longer critical, and it would be beyond the purpose
of this note to attempt to follow him.