I presume we shall be answered in this way. Even though, we shall be told, qualities proper can not be discovered apart from relations, that is no real disproof of their separate existence. For we are well able to distinguish them and to consider them by themselves. And for this perception certainly an operation of our minds is required. So far, therefore, as you say, what is different must be distinct, and, in consequence, related. But this relation does not really belong to the reality. The relation has existence only for us, and as a way of our getting to know. But the distinction, for all that, is based upon differences in the actual; and these remain when our relations have fallen away or have been removed.
But such an answer depends on the separation of product from process, and this separation seems indefensible. The qualities, as distinct, are always made so by an action which is admitted to imply relation. They are made so, and, what is more, they are emphatically kept so. And you cannot ever get your product standing apart from its process. Will you say, the process is not essential? But that is a conclusion to be proved, and it is monstrous to assume it Will you try to prove it by analogy? It is possible for many purposes to accept and employ the existence of processes and relations which do not affect specially the inner nature of objects. But the very possibility of so distinguishing in the end between inner and outer, and of setting up the inner as absolutely independent of all relation, is here in question. Mental operations such as comparison, which presuppose in the compared qualities already existing, could in no case prove that these qualities depend on no relations at all. But I cannot believe that this is a matter to be decided by analogy, for the whole case is briefly this. There is an operation which, removing one part of what is given, presents the other part in abstraction. This result is never to be found anywhere apart from a persisting abstraction. And, if we have no further information, I can find no excuse for setting up the result as being fact without the process. The burden lies wholly on the assertor, and he fails entirely to support it. The argument that in perception one quality must be given first and before others, and therefore cannot be relative, is hardly worth mentioning. What is more natural than for qualities always to have come to us in some conjunction, and never alone?
We may go further. Not only is the ignoring of the process a thing quite indefensible — even if it blundered into truth — but there is evidence that it gives falsehood. For the result bears internally the character of the process. The manyness of the qualities cannot, in short, be reconciled with their simplicity. Their plurality depends on relation, and, without that relation, they are not distinct. But, if not distinct, then not different, and therefore not qualities.
I am not urging that quality without difference is in every sense impossible. For all I know, creatures may exist whose life consists, for themselves, in one unbroken simple feeling; and the arguments urged against such a possibility in my judgment come short. And, if you want to call this feeling a quality, by all means gratify your desire. But then remember that the whole point is quite irrelevant. For no one is contending whether the universe is or is not a quality in this sense; but the question is entirely as to qualities. And a universe con- RELATION AND QUALITY. 20, fined to one feeling would not only not be qualities, but it would fail even to be one quality, as different from others and as distinct from relations. Our question is really whether relation is essential to differences.
We have seen that in fact the two are never found apart We have seen that the separation by abstraction is no proof of real separateness. And now we have to urge, in short, that any separateness implies separation, and so relation, and is therefore, when made absolute, a self-discrepancy. For consider, the qualities A and B are to be different from each other; and, if so, that difference must fall somewhere. If it falls, in any degree or to any extent, outside A or B, we have relation at once. But, on the other hand, how can difference and otherness fall inside? If we have in A any such otherness, then inside A we must distinguish its own quality and its otherness. And, if so, then the unsolved problem breaks out inside each quality, and separates each into two qualities in relation. In brief, diversity without relation seems a word without meaning. And it is no answer to urge that plurality proper is not in question here. I am convinced of the opposite, but by all means, if you will, let us confine ourselves to distinctness and difference. I rest my argument upon this, that if there are no differences, there are no qualities, since all must fall into one. But, if there is any difference, then that implies a relation. Without a relation it has no meaning; it is a mere word, and not a thought; and no one would take it for a thought if he did not, in spite of his protests, import relation into it. And this is the point on which all seems to turn, Is it possible to think of qualities without thinking of distinct characters? Is it possible to think of these without some relation between them, either explicit, or else unconsciously supplied by the mind that tries only to apprehend? Have qualities without relation any meaning for thought? For myself, I am sure that they have none.
And I find a confirmation in the issue of the most thorough attempt to build a system on this' ground. There it is not too much to say that all the content of the universe becomes something very like an impossible illusion. The Reals are secluded and simple, simple beyond belief if they never suspect that they are not so. But our fruitful life, on the other hand, seems due to their persistence in imaginary recovery from unimaginable perversion. And they remain guiltless of all real share in these ambiguous connections, which seem to make the world. They are above it, and fixed like stars in the firmament—if there only were a firmament.
2. We have found that qualities, taken without relations, have no intelligible meaning. Unfortunately, taken together with them, they are equally unintelligible. They cannot, in the first place, be wholly resolved into the relations. You may urge, indeed, that without distinction no difference is left; but, for all that, the differences will not disappear into the distinction. They must come to it, more or less, and they cannot wholly be made by it. I still insist that for thought what is not relative is nothing. But I urge, on the other hand, that nothings cannot be related, and that to turn qualities in relation into mere relations is impossible. Since the fact seems constituted by both, you may urge, if you please, that either one of them constitutes it. But if you mean that the other is not wanted, and that relations can somehow make the terms upon which they seem to stand, then, for my mind, your meaning is quite unintelligible. So far as I can see, relations must depend upon terms, just as much as terms upon relations. And the partial failure, now manifest, of the Dialectic Method seems connected with some misapprehension on this point.
Hence the qualities must be, and must also be related. But there is hence a diversity which falls inside each quality. Each has a double character, as both supporting and as being made by the relation. It may be taken as at once condition and result, and the question is as to how it can combine this variety. For it must combine the diversity, and yet it fails to do so. A is both made, and is not made, what it is by relation; and these different aspects are not each the other, nor again is either A. If we call its diverse aspects a and a, then A is partly each of these. As a it is the difference on which distinction is based, while as a it is the distinctness that results from connection. A is really both somehow together as A (a — a). But (as we saw in Chapter ii.) without the use of a relation it is impossible to predicate this variety of A. And, on the other hand, with an internal relation As unity disappears, and its contents are dissipated in an endless process of distinction. A at first becomes a in relation with a, but these terms themselves fall hopelessly asunder. We have got, against our will, not a mere aspect, but a new quality a, which itself stands in a relation; and hence (as we saw before with A) its content must be manifold. As going into the relation it itself is a*, and as resulting from the relation it itself is a*. And it combines, and yet cannot combine, these adjectives. We, in brief, are led by a principle of fission which conducts us to no end. Every quality in relation has, in consequence, a diversity within its own nature, and this diversity cannot immediately be asserted of the quality. Hence the quality must exchange its unity for an internal relation. But, thus set free, the diverse aspects, because each something in relation, must each be something also beyond. This diversity is fatal to the internal unity of each; and it demands a new relation, and so on without limit. In short, qualities in a relation have turned out as unintelligible as were qualities without one. The problem from both sides has baffled us.
3. We may briefly reach the same dilemma from the side of relations. They are nothing intelligible, either with or without their qualities. In the first place, a relation without terms seems mere verbiage; and terms appear, therefore, to be something beyond their relation. At least, for myself, a relation which somehow precipitates terms which were not there before, or a relation which can get on somehow without terms, and with no differences beyond the mere ends of a line of connection, is really a phrase without meaning. It is, to my mind, a false abstraction, and a thing which loudly contradicts itself; and I fear that I am obliged to leave the matter so. As I am left without information, and can discover with my own ears no trace of harmony, I am forced to conclude to a partial deafness in others. And hence a relation, we must say, without qualities is nothing.
But how the relation can stand to the qualities is, on the other side, unintelligible. If it is nothing to the qualities, then they are not related at all; and, if so, as we saw, they have ceased to be qualities, and their relation is a nonentity. But if it is to be something to them, then clearly we now shall require a new connecting relation. For the relation hardly can be the mere adjective of one or both of its terms; or, at least, as such it seems indefensible.1 And, being something itself, if it does not itself bear a relation to the terms, in what intelligible way will it succeed in being anything to them? But here 1 The relation is not the adjective of one term, for, if so, it does not relate. Nor for the same reason is it the adjective of each term taken apart, for then again there is no relation between them. Nor is the relation their common property, for then what keeps them apart? They are now not two terms at all, because not separate. And within this new whole, in any case, the problem of inherence would break out in an aggravated form. But it seems unnecessary to work this all out in detail.
again we are hurried off into the eddy of a hopeless process, since we are forced to go on finding new relations without end. The links are united by a link, and this bond of union is a link which also has two ends; and these require each a fresh link to connect them with the old. The problem is to find how the relation can stand to its qualities; and this problem is insoluble. If you take the connection as a solid thing, you have got to show, and you cannot show, how the other solids are joined to it. And, if you take it as a kind of medium or unsubstantial atmosphere, it is a connection no longer. You find, in this case, that the whole question of the relation of the qualities (for they certainly in some way are related) arises now outside it, in precisely the same form as before. The original relation, in short, has become a nonentity, but, in becoming this, it has removed no element of the problem.
I will bring this chapter to an end. It would be easy, and yet profitless, to spin out its argument with ramifications and refinements. And for me to attempt to anticipate the reader's objections would probably be useless. I have stated the case, and I must leave it. The conclusion to which I am brought is that a relational way of thought — any one that moves by the machinery of terms and relations — must give appearance, and not truth. It is a makeshift, a device, a mere practical compromise, most necessary, but in the end most indefensible. We have to take reality as many, and to take it as one, and to avoid contradiction. We want to divide it, or to take it, when we please, as indivisible; to go as far as we desire in either of these directions, and to stop when that suits us. And we succeed, but succeed merely by shutting the eye, which if left open would condemn us; or by a perpetual oscillation and a shifting of the ground, so as to turn our back upon the aspect we desire to ignore. But when these inconsistencies are forced together, as in metaphysics they must be, the result is an open and staring discrepancy. And we cannot attribute this to reality; while, if we try to take it on ourselves, we have changed one evil for two. Our intellect, then, has been condemned to confusion and bankruptcy, and the reality has been left outside uncomprehended. Or rather, what is worse, it has been stripped bare of all distinction and quality. It is left naked and without a character, and we are covered with confusion.
The reader who has followed and has grasped the principle of this chapter, will have little need to spend his time upon those which succeed it. He will have seen that our experience, where relational, is not true; and he will have condemned, almost without a hearing, the great mass of phenomena. I feel, however, called on next to deal very briefly with Space and Time.
CHAPTER IV.
The object of this chapter is far from being an attempt to discuss fully the nature of space or of time. It will content itself with stating our main justification for regarding them as appearance. It will explain why we deny that, in the character which they exhibit, they either have or belong to reality. I will first show this of space.
We have nothing to do here with the psychological origin of the perception. Space may be a product developed from non-spatial elements; and, if so, its production may have great bearing on the question of its true reality. But it is impossible for us to consider this here. For, in the first place, every attempt so to explain its origin has turned out a clear failure.1 And, in the second place, its reality would not be necessarily affected by the proof of its development Nothing can be taken as real because, for psychology, it is original; or, again, as unreal, because it is secondary. If it were a legiti- 1 I do not mean to say that I consider it to be original. On the contrary, one may have reason to believe something to be secondary, even though one cannot point out its foundation and origin. What has been called "extensity" appears to me (as onYred) to involve a confusion. When you know what you mean by it, it seems to turn out to be either spatial at once and downright, or else not spatial at all. It seems useful, in part, only as long as you allow it to be obscure. Docs all j>erception of more \ and less (or all which docs not involve degree in the strict sense) imply space, or not? Any answer to this question would, I think, depose of "extensity" as otfered. But see Mind, iv. pp. 232-5.
mate construction from elements that were true, then it might be derived only for our knowledge, and be original in fact. But so long as its attempted derivation is in part obscure and in part illusory, it is better to regard this whole question as irrelevant.
Let us then, taking space or extension simply as it is, enquire whether it contradicts itself. The reader will be acquainted with the difficulties that have arisen from the continuity and the discreteness of space. These necessitate the conclusion that space is endless, while an end is essential to its being. Space cannot come to a final limit, either within itself or on the outside. And yet, so long as it remains something always passing away, internally or beyond itself, it is not space at all. This dilemma has been met often by the ignoring of one aspect, but it has never been, and it will never be, confronted and resolved. And naturally, while it stands, it is the condemnation of space.
I am going to state it here in the form which exhibits, I think, most plainly the root of the contradiction, and also its insolubility. Space is a relation — which it cannot be; and it is a quality or substance — which again it cannot be. It is a peculiar form of the problem which we discussed in the last chapter, and is a special attempt to combine the irreconcilable. I will set out this puzzle antithetically.
i. Space is not a mere relation. For any space must consist of extended parts, and these parts clearly are spaces. So that, even if we could take our space as a collection, it would be a collection of solids. The relation would join spaces which would not be mere relations. And hence the collection, if taken as a mere inter-relation, would not be space. We should be brought to the proposilion that space is nothing but a relation of spaces. And this proposition contradicts itself.
Again, from the other side, if any space is taken as a whole, it is evidently more than a relation. It is a thing, or substance, or quality (call it what you please), which is clearly as solid as the parts which it unites. From without, or from within, it is quite as repulsive and as simple as any of its contents. The mere fact that we are driven always to speak of its parts should be evidence enough. What could be the parts of a relation?
2. But space is nothing but a relation. For, in the first place, any space must consist of parts; and, if the parts are not spaces, the whole is not space. Take then in a space any parts. These, it is assumed, must be solid, but they are obviously extended. If extended, however, they will themselves consist of parts, and these again of further parts, and so on without end. A space, or a part of space, that really means to be solid, is a selfcontradiction. Anything extended is a collection, a relation of extendeds, which again are relations of extendeds, and so on indefinitely. The terms are essential to the relation, and the terms do not exist. Searching without end, we never find anything more than relations; and we see that we cannot. Space is essentially a relation of what vanishes into relations, which seek in vain for their terms. It is lengths of lengths of— nothing that we can find.
And, from the outside again, a like conclusion is forced on us. We have seen that space vanishes internally into relations between units which never can exist. But, on the other side, when taken itself as a unit, it passes away into the search for an illusory whole. It is essentially the reference of itself to something else, a process of endless passing beyond actuality. As a whole it is, briefly, the r l.ition of itself to a non-existent other. For take spac;e and as complete as you possibly can.
Still, if it has not definite boundaries, it is not space; and to make it end in a cloud, or in nothing, is mere blindness and our mere failure to perceive. A space limited, and yet without space that is outside, is a self-contradiction. But the outside, unfortunately, is compelled likewise to pass beyond itself; and the end cannot be reached. And it is not merely that we fail to perceive, or fail to understand, how this can be otherwise. We perceive and we understand that it cannot be otherwise, at least if space is to be space. We either do not know what space means; and, if so, certainly we cannot say that it is more than appearance. Or else, knowing what we mean by it, we see inherent in that meaning the puzzle we are describing. Space, to be space, must have space outside itself. It for ever disappears into a whole, which proves never to be more than one side of a relation to something beyond. And thus space has neither any solid parts, nor, when taken as one, is it more than the relation of itself to a new self. As it stands, it is not space; and, in trying to find space beyond it, we can find only that which passes away into a relation. Space is a relation between terms, which can never be found.
It would not repay us to dwell further on the contradiction which we have exhibited. The reader who has once grasped the principle can deal himself with the details. I will refer merely in passing to a supplementary difficulty. Empty space — space without some quality (visual or muscular) which in itself is more than spatial — is an unreal abstraction. It cannot be said to exist, for the reason that it cannot by itself have any meaning. When a man realizes what he has got in it, he finds that always he has a quality which is more than extension (cp. Chapter i.). But, if so, how this quality is to stand to the extension is an insoluble problem. It is a case of " inherence," which we saw (Chapter ii.) was in principle unintelligible. And, without further delay, I will proceed to consider time. I shall in this chapter confine myself almost entirely to the difficulties caused by the discretion and the continuity of time. With regard to change, I will say something further in the chapter which follows.
Efforts have been made to explain time psychologically— to exhibit, that is to say, its origin from what comes to the mind as timeless. But, for the same reason which seemed conclusive in the case of space, and which here has even greater weight, I shall not consider these attempts. I shall inquire simply as to time's character, and whether, that being as it is, it can belong to reality.
It is usual to consider time under a spatial form. It is taken as a stream, and past and future are regarded as parts of it, which presumably do not coexist, but are often talked of as if they did. Time, apprehended in this way, is open to the objection we have just urged against space. It is a relation — and, on the other side, it is not a relation; and it is, again, incapable of being anything beyond a relation. And the reader who has followed the dilemma which was fatal to space, will not require much explanation. If you take time as a relation between units without duration, then the whole time has no duration, and is not time at all. But, if you give duration to the whole time, then at once the units themselves are found to possess it; and they thus cease to be units. Time in fact is " before " and " after " in one; and without this diversity it is not time. But these differences cannot be asserted of the unity; and, on the other hand and failing that, time is helplessly dissolved. Hence they are asserted under a relation. " Before in relation to after " is the character of time; and here the old difficulties about relation and quality recommence. The relation is not a unity, and yet the terms are nonentities, if left apart. Again, to import an independent character into the terms is to make each somehow in itself both before and after. But this brings on a process which dissipates the terms into relations, which, in the end, end in nothing. And to make the relation of time an unit is, first of all, to make it stationary, by destroying within it the diversity of before and after. And, in the second place, this solid unit, existing only by virtue of external relations, is forced to expand. It perishes in ceaseless oscillation, between an empty solidity and a transition beyond itself towards illusory completeness.
And, as with space, the qualitative content — which is not merely temporal, and apart from which the terms related in time would have no character — presents an insoluble problem. How to combine this in unity with the time which it fills, and again how to establish each aspect apart, are both beyond our resources. And time so far, like space, has turned out to be appearance.
But we shall be rightly told that a spatial form is not essential to time, and that, to examine it fairly, we should not force our errors upon it. Let us then attempt to regard time as it stands, and without extraneous additions. We shall only convince ourselves that the root of the old dilemma is not torn up.
If we are to keep to time as it comes, and are to abstain at first from inference and construction, we must confine ourselves, I presume, to time as presented. But presented time must be time present, and we must agree, at least provisionally, not to go beyond the " now." And the question at once before us will be as to the " now's " temporal contents. First, let us ask if they exist. Is the " now" simple and indivisible? We can at once reply in the negative. For time implies before and after, and by consequence diversity; and hence the simple is not time. We are compelled then, so far, to take the present as comprehending diverse aspects.
How many aspects it contains is an interesting question. According to one opinion, in the " now " we can observe both past and future; and, whether these are divided by the present, and, if so, precisely in what sense, admits of further doubt. In another opinion, which I prefer, the future is not presented, but is a product of construction; and the " now " contains merely the process of present turning into past. But here these differences, if indeed they are such, are fortunately irrelevant. All that we require is the admission of some process within the " now." l For any process admitted destroys the " now " from within. Before and after are diverse, and their incompatibility compels us to use a relation between them. Then at once the old wearisome game is played again. The aspects become parts, the "now" consists of " nows," and in the end these " nows " prove undiscoverable. For, as a solid part of time, the u now " does not exist. Pieces of duration may to us appear not to be composite; but a very little reflection lays bare their inherent fraudulence. If they are not duration, they do not contain an after and before, and they have, by themselves, no begin ning or end, and are by themselves outside of time. But, if so, time becomes merely the relation between them; and duration is a number of relations of the timeless, themselves also, I suppose, related somehow so as to make one duration. But how a relation is to be a unity, of which these differences are predicable, we Have seen is incomprehensible. And, if it fails to be a unity, time is forthwith dissolved. But why should I weary the reader by developing in detail the impossible consequences of either alternative? If he has understood the principle, he is with us; and, otherwise, the uncertain argumentum ad homincm would too certainly pass into argumcn* turn ad nauseam.
1 On the different meanings of the *prefeni I have said something in my Princip cs of Lugiel pp. 51, foil.
I will, however, instance one result which follows from a denial of time's continuity. Time will in this case fall somehow between the timeless, as A — C — E. But the rate of change is not uniform for all events; and, I presume, no one will assert that, when we have arrived at our apparent units, that sets a limit to actual and possible velocity. Let us suppose then another series of events, which, taken as a whole, coincides in time with A — C — E, but contains the six units a — b — c — d — e— f. Either then these other relations (those, for example, between a and b, c and d) will fall between A and C, C and E, and what that can mean I do not know; or else the transition a — b will coincide with A, which is timeless and contains no possible lapse. And that, so far as I can perceive, contradicts itself outright. But I feel inclined to add that this whole question is less a matter for detailed argument than for understanding in its principle. I doubt if there is any one who has ever grasped this, and then has failed to reach one main result. But there are too many respectable writers whom here one can hardly criticise. They have simply never got to understand.
Thus, if in the time, which we call presented, there exists any lapse, that time is torn by a dilemma, and is condemned to be appearance. But, if the presented is timeless, another destruction awaits us. Time will be the relation of the present to a future and past; and the relation, as we have seen, is not compatible with diversity or unity. Further, the existence, not presented, of future and of past seems ambiguous. But, apart from that, time perishes in the endless process beyond itself. The unit will be for ever its own relation to something beyond, something in the end not discoverable. And this process is forced on it, both by its temporal form, and again by the continuity of its content, which transcends what is given.
Time, like space, has most evidently proved not to be real, but to be a contradictory appearance. I will, in the next chapter, reinforce and repeat this conclusion by some remarks upon change.
CHAPTER V MOTION AND CHANGE AND ITS PERCEPTION I am sensible that this chapter will repeat much of the former discussion. It is not for my own pleasure that I write it, but as an attempt to strengthen the reader. Whoever is convinced that change is a self- contradictory appearance, will do well perhaps to pass on towards something which interests him.
Motion has from an early time been criticised severely, and it has never been defended with much success. I will briefly point to the principle on which these criticisms are founded. Motion implies that what is moved is in two places in one time; and this seems not possible. That motion implies two places is obvious; that these places are successive is no less obvious. But, on the other hand, it is clear that the process must have unity. The thing moved must be one; and, again, the time must be one. If the time were only many times, out of relation, and not parts of a single temporal whole, then no motion would be found. But if the time is one, then, as we have seen, it cannot also be many.
A common " explanation " is to divide both the space and the time into discrete corresponding units, taken literally ad libitum. The lapse in this case is supposed to fall somehow between them. But, as a theoretical solution, the device is childish. Greater velocity would in this case be quite impossible; and a lapse, falling between timeless units, has really, as we have seen, no meaning. And where the unity of these lapses, which makes the one duration, is to be situated, we, of course, are not, and could not be, informed. And how this inconsistent mass is related to the identity of the body moved is again unintelligible. What becomes dear is merely this, that motion in space gives no solution of the problem of change. It adds, in space, a further detail which throws no light on the principle. But, on the other side, it makes the discrepancies of change more palpable; and it forces on all but the thoughtless the problem of the identity of a thing which has changed. But change in time, with all its inconsistencies, lies below motion in space; and, if this cannot be defended, motion at once is condemned.
The problem of change underlies that of motion, but the former itself is not fundamental. It points back to the dilemma of the one and the many, the differences and the identity, the adjectives and the thing, the qualities and the relations. How anything can possibly be anything else was a question which defied our efforts. Change is little beyond an instance of this dilemma in principle. It either adds an irrelevant complication, or confuses itself in a blind attempt at compromise. Let us, at the cost of repetition, try to get clear on this head.