Before I return to this last point, I will repeat the same truth from another side. A thing is real when, and in so far as, its opposite is impossible. But in the end its opposite is impossible because, and in so far as, the thing is real. And, according to the amount of reality which anything possesses, to that extent its opposite is inconceivable. The more, in other words, that anything exhausts the field of possibility, the less possible becomes that which would essentially alter it. Now, in the case of such truth as we have called absolute, the field of possibility is exhausted. Reality is there, and the opposite of Reality is not privation but absolute nothingness. There can be no outside, because already what is inside is everything. But the case is altered when we come to subordinate truths. These, being not self-subsistent, are conditioned by what is partly unknown, and certainly to that extent they are dependent on our inability. But, on the other hand, our criterion of their truth and strength is positive. The more they are coherent and wide — the more fully they realize the idea of system — so much the more at once are they real and true.1 And so much the more what would subvert them becomes impossible. The opposite is inconceivable, according and in proportion as it conflicts with positive reality.
We have seen now that some truth is certain 1 Throughout this discussion the reader is supposed to be acquainted with the doctrine of Chapter xxiv.
beyond a doubt, and that the rest — all subordinate truth — is subject to error in various degrees. Any finite truth, to be made quite true, must more or less be modified; and it may require modification to such an extent that we must call it utterly transformed. Now, in Chapter xxiv., we have already shown that this account holds good, but I will once more insist on our fallibility in finite matters. And the general consideration which I would begin by urging, is this. With every finite truth there is an external world of unknown extent. Where there is such an indefinite outside, there must be an uncertain world of possible conditions. But this means that any finite truth may be conditioned so as to be made really quite otherwise. I will go on briefly to apply this.
Wherever a truth depends, as we say, upon observation, clearly in this case you cannot tell how much is left out, and what you have not observed may be, for all you know, the larger part of the matter. But, if so, your truth — it makes no difference whether it is called " particular " or "general " — may be indefinitely mistaken. The accidental may have been set down as if it were the essence; and this error may be present to an extent which cannot be limited. You cannot prove that subject and predicate have not been conjoined by the invisible interposition of unknown factors. And there is no way in which this possibility can be excluded.
But the chance of error vanishes, we may be told, where genuine abstraction is possible. It is not present at least, for example, in the world of mathematical truth. Such an objection to our general view cannot stand. Certainly there are spheres where abstraction in a special sense is possible, and where we are able, as we may say, to proceed a priori. And for other purposes this difference, I agree, may be very important; but I am not concerned here with its importance or generally with its nature and limits. For, as regards the point in question, the difference is wholly irrelevant. No abstraction (whatever its origin) is in the end defensible. For they are, none of them, quite true, and with each the amount of possible error must remain unknown. The truth asserted is not, and cannot be, taken as real by itself. The background is ignored because it is assumed to make no difference, and the mass of conditions, abstracted from and left out, is treated as immaterial. The predicate, in other words, is held to belong to the subject essentially, and not because of something else which may be withdrawn or modified. Put an assumption of this kind obviously goes beyond our knowledge. Since Reality here is not exhausted, but is limited only by our failure to see more, there is a possibility everywhere of unknown conditions on which our judgment depends. And hence, after all, we may be asserting anywhere what is but accidental.
We may put this otherwise by stating that finite truth must be conditional. No such fact or truth is ever really self-supported and independent. They are all conditioned, and in the end conditioned all by the unknown. And the extent to which they are so conditioned, again is uncertain. But this means that any finite truth or fact may to an indefinite extent be accidental appearance. In other words, if its conditions were filled in, it, in its own proper form, might have disappeared. It might be modified and transformed beyond that point at which it could be said, to any extent, to retain its own nature. And however improbable in certain cases this result may be, in no case can it be called impossible absolutely. Everything finite is because of something else. And where the extent and nature of this " something else " cannot be ascertained, the " because " turns out to be no better than " if." There is nothing finite which is not at the mercy of unknown conditions.
ULTIMATE DOUBTS. 54 I Finite truth and fact, we may say, is throughout " hypothetical." But, either with this term or with " conditional," we have to guard against misleading implications. There cannot (from our present point of view) be one finite sphere which is real and actual, or which is even considered to be so for a certain purpose. There can be here no realm of existence or fact, outside of which the merely supposed could fall in unreality. The Reality, on one hand, is no finite existence; and, on the other hand, every predicate — no matter what — must both fall within and must qualify Reality.1 They are applicable, all subject to various degrees of alteration, and as to these degrees we, in the end, may in any case be mistaken. In any case, therefore, the alteration may amount to unlimited transformation. This is why the finite must be called conditional rather than conditioned. For a thing might be conditioned, and yet, because of its conditions, might seem to stand unshaken and secure. But the conditions of the finite, we have seen, are otherwise. They in any case may be such as indefinitely to dissipate its particular nature.
Every finite truth or fact to some extent must be unreal and false, and it is impossible in the end certainly to know of any how false it may be. We cannot know this, because the unknown extends illimitably, and all abstraction is precarious and at the mercy of what is not observed. If our knowledge were a system, the case would then undoubtedly be altered. With regard to everything we should then know the place assigned to it by the Whole, and we could measure the exact degree of truth and falsehood which anything possessed. With such a system there would be no outlying region of ignorance; and hence of all its contents we could have a complete and exhaustive know- 1 Cp. here Chapter xxiv.
ledge. But any system of this kind seems, most assuredly, by its essence impossible.
There are certain truths about the Absolute, which, for the present at least,1 we can regard as unconditional. In this point they can be taken to differ in kind from all subordinate truths, for with the latter it is a question only of more or less fallibility. They are all liable to a possible intellectual correction, and the amount of this possibility cannot be certainly known. Our power of abstraction varies widely with different regions of knowledge, but no finite truth (however reached) can be considered as secure. Error with all of them is a matter of probability, and a matter of degree. And those are relatively true and strong which more nearly approach to perfection.
It is this perfection which is our measure. Our criterion is individuality, or the idea of complete system; and above, in Chapter xxiv., we have already explained its nature. And I venture to think that about the main principle there is no great difficulty. Difficulty is felt more when we proceed to apply it in detail. We saw that the principles of internal harmony and of widest extent in the end are the same, for they are divergent aspects of the one idea of concrete unity. But for a discussion of such points the reader must return to our former chapter.
A thing is more real as its opposite is more inconceivable. This is part of the truth. But, on the other hand, the opposite is more inconceivable, or more impossible, because the thing itself is more real and more probable and more true. The test (1 would repeat it once more here) in its essence is positive. The stronger, the more systematic and more fully organised, a body of knowledge becomes, so 1 For a iurther statement see below.
much the more impossible becomes that which in any point conflicts with it. Or, from the other side, we may resume our doctrine thus. The greater the amount of knowledge which an idea or fact would, directly or indirectly, subvert, so much the more probably is it false and impossible and inconceivable. And there may be finite truths, with which error — and I mean by error here liability to intellectual correction — is most improbable. The chance may fairly be treated as too small to be worth considering. Yet after all it exists.
Finite truths are all conditional, because they all must depend on the unknown. But this unknown — the reader must bear in mind — is merely relative. Itself is subordinate to, and is included in, our absolute knowledge; and its nature, in general, is certainly not unknown. For, if it is anything at all, it is experience, and an element in the one Experience. Our ignorance, at the mercy of which all the finite lies, is not ignorance absolute. It covers and contains more than we are able to know, but this M more " is known beforehand to be still of the self- same sort. And we must now pass from the special consideration of finite truth.1 1 It is impossible here to deal fully with the question how, in case of a discrepancy, we are able to correct our knowledge. We are forced indefinitely to enlarge experience, because, as it is, being finite it cannot be harmonious. Then we find a collision between some fact or idea, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, some body of recognised truth. Now the self-contradictory cannot be true; and the question is how to rearrange it so as to make it harmonious. What is it in any given case, we have to ask, which has to be sacrificed? The conflict itself may perhaps be apparent only. A mere accident may have been taken for what is essential, and, with the correction of this mistake, the whole collision may cease. Or the fresh idea may be found to be untenable. It contains an error, and is therefore broken up and resolved; or, if that is not possible, it may be provisionally set on one side and disregarded. This last course is however feasible only if we assume that our original knowledge is so strong as to stand fast and unshaken. But the opposite of this may be the case. It may be our former knowledge which, on its side, hns It is time to re-examine a distinction which we laid down above. We found that some knowledge was absolute, and that, in contrast with this, all finite truth was but conditional. But, when we examine it more closely, this difference seems hard to maintain. For how can truth be true absolutely, if there remains a gulf between itself and reality? Now in any truth about Reality the word " about " is too significant. There remains always something outside, and other than, the predicate. And, because of this which is outside, the predicate, in the end, may be called conditional. In brief, the difference between subject and predicate, a difference essential to truth, is not accounted for.1 It depends on something not included within the judgment itself, an element outlying and, therefore, in a sense unknown. The type and the essence, in other words, can never reach the reality. The essence realized, we may say, is too much to be truth, and, unrealized and abstract, it is assuredly too little to be real. Even absolute truth in the end seems thus to turn out erroneous.
And it must be admitted that, in the end, no possible truth is quite true. It is a partial and inadequate translation of that which it professes to give bodily. And this internal discrepancy belongs to give way, and must be modified and over-ruled by the fresh experience. But, last of all, there is a further possibility which remains. Neither of our conflicting pieces of knowledge may be able to stand as true. Each may be true enough to satisfy and to serve, for some purposes, and at a certain level; and yet both, viewed from above, can be seen to be conflicting errors. Both must therefore be resolved to the point required, and must be rearranged as elements in a wider whole. Separation of the accidents from the essence must here be carried on until the essence itself is more or less dissolved. I have no space to explain, or to attempt to illustrate, this general statement.
1 The essential inconsistency of truth may, perhaps, be best stated thus. If there is any difference between what it means and what it stands for, then truth is clearly not realized. But, if there is no such difference, then truth has ceased to exist.
irremoveably to truth's proper character. Still the difference drawn between absolute and finite truth must none the less be upheld. For the former, in a word, is not intellectually corrigible. There is no intellectual alteration which could possibly, as general truth, bring it nearer to ultimate Reality. We have seen that any suggestion of this kind is but selfdestructive, that any doubt on this point is literally senseless. Absolute truth is corrected only by passing outside the intellect It is modified only by taking in the remaining aspects of experience. But in this passage the proper nature of truth is, of course, transformed and perishes.
Any finite truth, on the other side, remains subject to intellectual correction. It is incomplete not merely as being confined by its general nature, as truth, within one partial aspect of the Whole. It is incomplete as having within its own intellectual world a space falling outside it. There is trutn, actual or possible, which is over against it, and which can stand outside it as an Other. But with absolute truth there is no intellectual outside. There is no competing predicate which could conceivably qualify its subject, and which could come in to condition and to limit its assertion. Absolute knowledge may be conditional, if you please; but its condition is not any other truth, whether actual or possible.
The doctrine, which I am endeavouring to state, is really simple. Truth is one aspect of experience, and is therefore made imperfect and limited by what it fails to include. So far as it is absolute, it does however give the general type and character of all that possibly can be true or real. And the universe in this general character is known completely. It is not known, and it never can be known, in all its details. It is not known, and it never, as a whole, can be known, in such a sense that knowledge would be the same as experience or reality.
For knowledge and truth — if we suppose them to possess that identity — would have been, therewith, absorbed and transmuted. But on the other hand the universe does not exist, and it cannot possibly exist, as truth or knowledge, in such a way as not to be contained and included in the truth we call absolute. For, to repeat it once more, such a possibility is self-destructive. We may perhaps say that, if per impossibile this could be possible, we at least could not possibly entertain the idea of it. For such an idea, in being entertained, vanishes into its opposite or into nonsense. Absolute truth is error only if you expect from it more that mere general knowledge. It is abstract,1 and fails to supply its own subordinate details. It is one-sided, and cannot give bodily all sides of the Whole. But on the other side nothing, so far as it goes, can fall outside it. It is utterly all-inclusive and contains beforehand all that could ever be set against it. For nothing can be set against it, which does not become intellectual, and itself enter as a vassal into the kingdom of truth. Thus, even when you go beyond it, you can never advance outside it. When you take in more, you are condemned to take in more of the self-same sort. The universe, as truth, in other words preserves one character, and of that character we possess infallible knowledge.
And, if we view the matter from another side, there is no opposition between Reality and truth. Reality, to be complete, must take in and absorb this partial aspect of itself. And truth itself would 1 It is not abstract in the way in which we have seen that all finite truth is abstract. That was precarious intellectually, since, more or less, it left other truth outside and over against it. It was thus always one piece among other pieces of the world of truth. It could be added to, intellectually, so as to be transformed. Absolute truth, on the other hand, cannot be altered by the addition of any truth. There is no possible truth which docs not fall under it as one of its own details. Unless you presuppose it, in short, no other truth remains truth at all.
not be complete, until it took in and included all aspects of the universe. Thus, in passing beyond itself and in abolishing the difference between its subject and predicate, it does but carry out the demands of its proper nature. But I may perhaps hope that this conclusion has been sufficiently secured (Chapters xv., xxiv., xxvi.). To repeat — in its general character Reality is present in knowledge and truth, that absolute truth which is distinguished and brought out by metaphysics. But this general character of Reality is not Reality itself, and again it is not more than the general character even of truth and knowledge. Still, so far as there is any truth and any knowledge at all, this character is absolute. Truth is conditional, but it cannot be intellectually transcended. To fill in its conditions would be to pass into a whole beyond mere intellect.
The conclusion which we have reached, I trust, the outcome of no mere compromise, makes a claim to reconcile extremes. Whether it is to be called Realism or Idealism I do not know, and I have not cared to enquire. It neither puts ideas and thought first, nor again does it permit us to assert that anything else by itself is more real. Truth is the whole world in one aspect, an aspect supreme in philosophy, and yet even in philosophy conscious of its own incompleteness. So far again as our conclusion has claimed infallibility, it has come, I think, into no collision with the better kind of common sense. That metaphysics should approve itself to common sense is indeed out of the question. For neither in its processes nor in its results can it expect, or even hope, to be generally intelligible. But it is no light thing, except for the thoughtless, to advocate metaphysical results which, if they were understood by common sense, would at once be rejected. I do not mean that on subordinate points, such as the personality of the Deity or or a continu-.
'Vance of the individual after death — points on which there is not any general consent in the world — philosophy is bound to adopt one particular view. I mean that to arrange the elements of our nature in such a way that the system made, when understood, strikes the mind as one-sided, is enough of itself to inspire hesitation and doubt. On this head at least, our main result is, I hope, satisfactory. The absolute knowledge that we have claimed is no more than an outline. It is knowledge which seems sufficient, on one side, to secure the chief interests of our nature, and it abstains, on the other side, from pretensions which all must feel are not human. We insist that all Reality must keep a certain character. The whole of its contents must be experience, they must come together into one system, and this unity itself must be experience. It must include and must harmonize every possible fragment of appearance. Anything which in any sense can be more than and beyond what we possess, must still inevitably be more of the self-same kind. We persist in this conclusion, and we urge that, so far as it goes, it amounts to absolute knowledge. But this conclusion on the other side, I have pointed out, does not go very far. It leaves us free to admit that what we know is, after all, nothing in proportion to the world of our ignorance. We do not know what other modes of experience may exist, or, in comparison with ours, how many they may be. We do not know, except in vague outline, what the Unity is, or, at all, why it appears in our particular forms of plurality. We can even understand that such knowledge is impossible, and we have found the reason why it is so. For truth can know only, we may say, so far as itself is. And the union of all sides of our nature would not leave them, in any case, as they are. Truth, when made adequate to Reality, would be so supplemented as to have become something else — something other than truth, and something for us unattainable. We have thus left due space for the exercise of doubt and wonder. We admit the healthy scepticism for which all knowledge in a sense is vanity, which feels in its heart that science is a poor thing if measured by the wealth of the real universe. We justify the natural wonder which delights to stray beyond our daylight world, and to follow paths that lead into half-known half-unknowable regions. Our conclusion, in brief, has explained and has confirmed the irresistible impression that all is beyond us.
Everything is error, but everything is not illusion. It is error where, and in so far as, our ideas are not the same as reality. It is illusion where, and in so far as, this difference turns to a conflict in our nature. Where experience, inward or outward, clashes with our views, where there arises thus disorder confusion and pain, we may speak of illusion. It is the course of events in collision with the set of our ideas. Now error, in the sense of one-sided and partial truth, is necessary to our being. Indeed nothing else, so to speak, could be relative to our needs, nothing else could answer the purpose of truth. And, to suit the divergent aspects of our inconsistent finite lives, a variety of error in the shape of diverse partial truths is required. And, if things could be otherwise, then, so far as we see, finite life would be impossible. Therefore we must have error present always, and this presence entails some amount of illusion. Finite beings, themselves not self-consistent, have to realize their various aspects in the chance- world of temporal events. And hence ideas and existence cannot precisely correspond, while the want of this correspondence must to some extent mean illusion. There are finite souls, we must admit sadly, to whom, on the whole, life has proved a disappointment and cheat There is perhaps no one to whom, at certain moments and in some respect, this conclusion has not come home. But that, in general and in the main, life is illusory cannot be rationally maintained. Arid if, in general and in the rough, our ideas are answered by events, that is all surely which, as finite beings, we have a right to expect. We must reply then, that, though illusions exist here and there, the whole is not an illusion. We are not concerned to gain an absolute experience which for us, emphatically, could be nothing. We want to know, in effect, whether the universe is concealed behind appearances, and is making a sport of us. What we find here truer and more beautiful and better and higher — are these things really so, or in reality may they be all quite otherwise? Our standard, in other words, is it a false appearance not owned by the universe? And to this, in general, we may make an unhesitating reply. There is no reality at all anywhere except in appearance, and in our appearance we can discover the main nature of reality. This nature cannot be exhausted, but it can be known in abstract. And it is, really and indeed, this general character of the very universe itself which distinguishes for us the relative worth of appearances.
We make mistakes, but still we use the essential nature of the world as our own criterion of value and reality. Higher, truer, more beautiful, better and more real — these, on the whole, count in the universe as they count for us. And existence, on the whole, must correspond with our ideas. For, on the whole, higher means for us a greater amount of that one Reality, outside of which all appearance is absolutely nothing.
It costs little to find that in the end Reality is inscrutable. It is easy to perceive that any appearance, not being the Reality, in a sense is fallacious. These truths, such as they are, are within the reach of any and every man. It is a simple matter to ULTIMATE DOUBTS. 55 I conclude further, perhaps, that the Real sits apart, that it keeps state by itself and does not descend into phenomena. Or it is as cheap, again, to take up another side of the same error. The Reality is viewed perhaps as immanent in all its appearances, in such a way that it is, alike and equally, present in all. Everything is so worthless on one hand, so divine on the other, that nothing can be viler or can be more sublime than anything else. It is against both sides of this mistake, it is against this empty transcendence and this shallow Pantheism, that our pages may be called one sustained polemic. The positive relation of every appearance as an adjective to Reality, and the presence of Reality among its appearances in different degrees and with diverse values — this double truth we have found to be the centre of philosophy. It is because the Absolute is no sundered abstraction but has a positive character, it is because this Absolute itself is positively present in all appearance, that appearances themselves can possess true differences of value. And, apart from this foundation, in the end we are left without a solid criterion of worth or of truth or reality. This conclusion— the necessity on one side for a standard, and the impossibility of reaching it without a positive knowledge of the Absolute — I would venture to press upon any intelligent worshipper of the Unknown.
The Reality itself is nothing at all apart from appearances.1 It is in the end nonsense to talk of realities — or of anything else — to which appearances could appear, or between which they somehow could hang as relations. Such realities (we have seen) would themselves be appearances or nothing. For there is no way of qualifying the Real except by appearances, and outside the Real there remains no space in which appearances could live. Reality 1 For the meaning of appearance see, in particular, Chapter xxvi.
5,52 REALITY.
appears in its appearances, and they are its revelation; and otherwise they also could be nothing whatever. The Reality comes into knowledge, and, the more we know of anything, the more in one way is Reality present within us. The Reality is our criterion of worse and better, of ugliness and beauty, of true and false, and of real and unreal. It in brief decides between, and gives a general meaning to, higher and lower. It is because of this criterion that appearances differ in worth; and, without it, lowest and highest would, for all we know, count the same in the universe. And Reality is one Experience, self-pervading and superior to mere relations. Its character is the opposite of that fabled extreme which is barely mechanical, and it is, in the end, the sole perfect realisation of spirit. We may fairly close this work then by insisting that Reality is spiritual. There is a great saying of Hegel's, a saying too well known, and one which without some explanation I should not like to endorse. But I will end with something not very different, something perhaps more certainly the essential message of Hegel. Outside of spirit there is not, and there cannot be, any reality, and, the more that anything is spiritual, so much the more is it veritably real.
APPENDIX APPENDIX Instead of attempting a formal reply in detail to a number of criticisms, I have thought it more likely to assist the reader if I offer first some brief explanations as to the main doctrines of my book, and then follow these by a more particular notice of certain difficulties. My selection of the points discussed is, I fear, to some extent arbitrary, but I will ask my critics not to assume, where they fail to find a recognition of their objections, that I have treated these with disrespect.
I. With regard to the arrangement of my work I offer no defence. It was not in my power to write a systematic treatise, and, that being so, I thought the way I took was as good as any other. The order of the book seemed to myself a matter of no great importance. So far as I can see, whatever way I had taken the result would have been the same, and I must doubt if any other way would have been better for most readers. From whatever point we had begun we should have found ourselves entangled in the same puzzles, and have been led to attempt the same way of escape. The arrangement of the book does not correspond to the order of my thoughts, and the same would have been true of any other arrangement which it was in my power to adopt. I might very well, for instance, have started with the self as a given unity, and have asked how far any other things are real otherwise, and how far again the self satisfies its own demands on reality. Or I might have begun with the fact of knowledge and have enquired what in the end that involves, or I could once more readily have taken my departure from the ground of volition or desire. None of these ways would to myself have been really inconvenient, and they would all have led to the same end.