But, if so, then self-consciousness will not solve our former difficulties. For these distinctions, of self and of not-self in one whole, are not presented as the reality even of my self. They are. given as found within it, but not as exhausting it But even if the self did, what it cannot do, and guaranteed this arrangement as its proper reality, that would still leave us at a loss. For unless we could think the arrangement so as to be consistent with itself we could not admit it as being the truth about reality. It would merely be an experience, unintelligible or deceptive. And it is an experience which, we have now seen, has no existence in fact.
(c) We found the self, as mere feeling, gave us no key to our puzzles, and we have not had more success in our attempt with self-consciousness. So far as that transcends mere feeling, it is caught in, and is dissipated by, the old illusory play of relations and qualities. It repeats this illusion, without doubt, at a higher level than before; the endeavour is more ambitious, but the result is still the same. For we have not been taught how to understand diversity in unity. And though, in my judgment, the further task should now be superfluous, I will briefly touch upon some other claims made for the self. The first rests on the consciousness of personal identity.
This may be supposed to have some bearing on the reality of the self, but to my mind it appears to be almost irrelevant. Of course the self, within limits and up to a certain point, is the same; and I will leave to others the attempt to fix those limits by a principle. For, in my opinion, there is none which at bottom is not arbitrary. But what I fail to perceive is the metaphysical conclusion which comes from a consciousness of self-sameness. I quite understand that this fact disproves any doctrine of the selfs mere discreteness. Or, more correctly, it is an obvious instance against a doctrine which evidently contradicts itself in principle. The self is not merely discrete; and therefore (doubtless by some wonderful alternative) we are carried to a positive result about its reality. But the facts of the case seem merely to be thus. As long as there remains in the self a certain basis of content, ideally the same, so long may the self recall anything once associated with that basis. And this identity of content, working by redintegration and so bringing THE REALITY OF SELF. II3 up the past as the history of one self — really this is all which we have to build upon. Now this, of course, shows that self-sameness exists as a fact, and that hence somehow an identical self must be real. But then the question is how? The question is whether we can state the existence and the continuity of a real self in a way which is intelligible, and which is not ruined by the difficulties of previous discussions. Because, otherwise, we may have found an interesting fact, but most assuredly we have not found a tenable view about reality. That tenable view, if we got sight of it, might show us that our fact had been vitally misapprehended. At all events, so long as we can offer only a bundle of inconsistencies, it is absurd to try to believe that these are the true reality. And, if any one likes to fall back upon a miraculous faculty which he discovers in memory, the case is not altered. For the issue is as to the truth either of the message conveyed, or of our conclusion from that message. And, for myself, I stand on this. Present your doctrine (whatever it is) in a form which will bear criticism, and which will enable me to understand this confused mass of facts which I encounter on all sides. Do this, and I will follow you, and I will worship the source of such a true revelation. But I will not accept nonsense for reality, though it be vouched for by miracle, or proceed from the mouth of a psychological monster.
And I am compelled to adopt the same attitude towards another supposed fact. I refer to the unity in such a function as, for instance, Comparison. This has been assumed to be timeless, and to serve as a foundation for metaphysical views about the self. But I am forced to reject alike both basis and result, if that result be offered as a positive view. It is in the first place (as we have seen in Chapter v.) psychologically untenable to take any mental fact as free from duration. And, apart from that, what 114 APPEARANCE, 114 APPEARANCE, works in any function must be something concrete and specially relevant to that function. In comparison it must be, for instance, a special basis of identity in the terms to be compared.1 A timeless self, acting in a particular way from its general timeless nature, is to me, in the first place, a psychological monster. And, in the second place, if this extraordinary fact did exist, it would indeed serve to show that certain views were not true; but, beyond that, it would remain a mere extraordinary fact. At least for myself I do not perceive how it supplies us with a conclusion about the self or the world, which is consistent and defensible. And here once again we have the same issue. We have found puzzles in reality, besetting every way in which we have taken it. Now give me a view not obnoxious to these mortal attacks, and combining differences in one so as to turn the edge of criticism — and then I will thank you. But I cannot be grateful for an assertion which seems to serve merely as an objecttion to another doctrine, otherwise known to be false; an assertion, which, if we accepted it as we cannot, would leave us simply with a very strange fact on our hands. Such a fact is certainly no principle by which we could solve the riddle of the universe.
(d) I must next venture a few words on an embarrassing topic, the supposed revelation of reality within the self as force or will. And the difficulty comes, not so much from the nature of the subject, as from the manner of its treatment. If we could get a clear statement as to the matter revealed, we could at this stage of our discussion dispose of it in a few words, or rather point out that it has been already disposed of. But a clear statement is precisely that which (so far as my experience goes) is not to be had.
1 There are some further remarks in Mind, Nos. 41 and 43.
THE REALITY OF SELF. II5 The reader who recalls our discussions on activity, will remember how it literally was riddled by contradictions. All the puzzles as to adjectives and relations and terms, every dilemma as to time and causation, seemed to meet in it and there even to find an addition. Far from reducing these to harmony, activity, when we tried to think it, fell helplessly asunder or jarred with itself. And to suppose that the self is to bring order into this chaos, after our experience hitherto of the self's total impotence, seems more sanguine than rational.
If now we take force or cause, as it is revealed in the self, to be the same as volition proper, that clearly will not help us. For in volition we have an idea, determining change in the self, and so producing its own realization.1 Volition perhaps at first sight may seem to promise a solution of our metaphysical puzzles. For we seem to find at last something like a self-contained cause with an effect within itself. But this surely is illusory. The old difficulties about the beginning of change and its process in time, the old troubles as to diversity in union with sameness— how is any one of these got rid of, or made more tractable? It is bootless to enquire whether we have found a principle which is to explain the universe. For we have not even found anything which can bear its own weight, or can endure for one moment the most superficial scrutiny. Volition gives us, of course, an intense feeling of reality; and we may conclude, if we please, that in this lies the heart of the mystery of things. Yes, perhaps; here lies the answer — for those who may have understood; and the whole question turns on whether we have reached an understanding. But what you offer me appears much more like an experience, not understood but interpreted into hopeless confusion. It is with you as with the man who, transported by his 1 I have discussed the nature of will psychologically in Mind, Il6 APPEARANCE.
passion, feels and knows that only love gives the secret of the universe. In each case the result is perfectly in order, but one hardly sees why it should be called metaphysics.
And we shall make no advance, if we pass from will proper where an idea is realized, and fall back on an obscurer revelation of energy. In the experience of activity, or resistance, or will, or force (or whatever other phrase seems most oracular), we are said to come at last down to the rock of reality. And I am not so ill-advised as to offer a disproof of the message revealed. It is doubtless a mystery, and hence those who could inform the outer world of its meaning, are for that very reason compelled to be silent and to seem even ignorant. What I can do is to set down briefly the external remarks of one not initiated.
In the first place, taken psychologically, the revelation is fraudulent. There is no original experience of anything like activity, to say nothing of resistance. This is quite a secondary product, the origin of which is far from mysterious, and on which I have said something in the preceding chapter.1 You may, doubtless, point to an outstanding margin of undetermined sensations, but these will not contain the essence of the matter. And I do not hesitate to say this: Where you meet a psychologist who takes this experience as elementary, you will find a man who has not ever made a serious attempt to decompose it, or ever resolutely faced the question as to what it contains. And in the second place, taken metaphysically, these tidings, given from whatever source, are either meaningless or false. And here once again we have the all- important point. I do not care what your oracle is, and your 1 I have touched the question only in its general form. As to the special source from which come the elements of this or that perception of activity, I have not said anything. This is a matter for psychology.
THE REALITY OF SELF. 117 preposterous psychology may here be gospel if you please; the real question is whether your response (so far as it means anything) is not appearance and illusion. If it means nothing, that is to say, if it is merely a datum, which has no complex content that can be taken as a principle — then it will be much what we have in, say, pleasure or pain. But if you offered me one of these as a theoretical account of the universe, you would not be even mistaken, but simply nonsensical. And it is the same with activity or force, if these also merely are, and say nothing. But if, on the other hand, the revelation does contain a meaning, I will commit myself to this: either the oracle is so confused that its signification is not discoverable, or, upon the other hand, if it can be pinned down to any definite statement, then that statement will be false. When we drag it out into the light, and expose it to the criticism of our foregoing discussions, it will exhibit its helplessness. It will be proved to contain mere unsolved discrepancies, and will give us therefore, not truth, but in the end appearance. And I intend to leave this matter so without further remark.
(e) I will in conclusion touch briefly on the theory of Monads. A tenable view of reality has been sought in the doctrine that each self is an independent reality, substantial if not simple. But this attempt does not call for a lengthy discussion. In the first place, if there is more than one self in the universe, we are met by the problem of their relation to each other. And the reply, " Why there is none," we have already seen in Chapter iii., is no sufficient defence. For plurality and separateness without a relation of separation seem really to have no meaning. And, from the other side, without relations these poor monads would have no process and would serve no purpose. But relations admin* d, again, are fatal to the monads' independence. The substances clearly become adjectival, and mere Il8 APPEARANCE.
elements within an all-comprehending whole. And hence there is left remaining for their internal contents no solid principle of stability.1 And in the second place, even if this remained, it would be no solution of our difficulties. For consider: we have found, so far, that diversity and unity can not be reconciled. Both in the existence of the whole self in relation with its contents, and in the various special forms which that existence takes, we have encountered everywhere the same trouble. We have had features which must come together, and yet were willing to do so in no way that we could find. In the self there is a variety, and in » the self there is a unity; but, in attempting to understand how, we fall into inconsistencies which, therefore, cannot be truth. And now in what way is the monadic character of the self — with whatever precise meaning (if with any) we take this up — about to assist us? Will it in the least show us how the diversity can exist in harmony with the oneness? If it can do this, then I would respectfully suggest that it should do it. Because, otherwise, the unity seems merely stated and emphasized; and the problem of its diverse content is either wholly neglected or hidden under a confusion of fictions and metaphors. But if more than an emphasis on the unity is meant, that more is even positively objectionable. For while the diversity is slurred over, instead of being explained, there will be a negative assertion as to the limits within which the self's true unity falls. And this assertion cannot stand criticism. And lastly the relation of the self to its contents in time will tend to become a new insoluble enigma. Monadism, on the whole, 1 The attentive reader of Lotze must, I think, have found it hard to discover why individual selves with him are more than phenomenal adjectives. For myself I discern plainly his resolve that somehow they have got to be more. But 1 do not find that he is ever willing to face this question fairly.
THE REALITY OF SELF. I 1 9 will increase and will add to the difficulties which already exist, and it will not supply us with a solution of any single one of them. It would be strange indeed if an explanation of all sides of our puzzle were found in mere obstinate emphasis upon one of those sides.
And with this result I will bring the present chapter to a close. The reader who has followed our discussions up to this point, can, if he pleases, pursue the detail of the subject, and can further criticise the claims made for the self's reality. But if he will drive home the objections which we have come to know in principle, the conclusion he will reach is assured already. In whatever way the self is taken, it will prove to be appearance. It cannot, if finite, maintain itself against external relations. For these will enter its essence, and so ruin its independency. And, apart from this objection in the case of its finitude, the self is in any case unintelligible. For, in considering it, we are forced to transcend mere feeling, itself not satisfactory; and yet we cannot reach any defensible thought, any intellectual principle, by which it is possible to understand how diversity can be comprehended in unity. But, if we cannot understand this, and if whatever way we have of thinking about the self proves full of inconsistency, we should then accept what must follow. The self is no doubt the highest form of experience which we have, but, for all that, is not a true form. It does not give us the facts as they are in reality; and, as it gives them, they are appearance, appearance and error.
And one of the reasons why this result is not admitted on all sides, seems to lie in that great ambiguity of the self which our previous chapter detailed. Apparently distinct, this phrase wavers from one meaning to another, is applied to various objects, and in argument is used too seldom in a well-defined sense. But there is a still more fundamental aid to obscurity. The end of metaphysics is to understand the universe, to find a way of thinking about facts in general which is free from contradiction. But how few writers seem to trouble themselves much about this vital issue. Of those who take their principle of understanding from the self, how few subject that principle to an impartial scrutiny. But it is easy to argue from a foregone alternative, to disprove any theory which loses sight of the self, and then to offer what remains as the secret of the universe — whether what remains is thinkable or is a complex which refuses to be understood. And it is easy to survey the world which is selfless, to find there vanity and illusion, and then to return to one's self into congenial darkness and the equivocal consolation of some psychological monster. But, if the object is to understand, there can be only one thing which we have to consider. It does not matter from what source our principle is derived. It may be the refutation of something else — it is no worse for that. Or it may be a response emitted by some kind of internal oracle, and it is no worse for that. But for metaphysics a principle, if it is to stand at all, must stand absolutely by itself. While wide enough to cover the facts, it must be able to be thought without jarring internally.
It is this, to repeat it once more, on which everything turns. The diversity and the unity must be brought to the light, and the principle must be seen to comprehend these. It must not carry us away into a maze of relations, relations that lead to illusory terms, and terms disappearing into endless relations. But the self is so far from supplying such a principle, that it seems, where not hiding itself in obscurity, a mere bundle of discrepancies. Our search has conducted us again not to reality but mere appearance.
CHAPTER XI.
PHENOMENALISM.
Our attempts, so far, to reduce the world's diverse contents to unity have ended in failure. Any sort of group which we could find, whether a thing or a self, proved unable to stand criticism. And, since it seems that what appears must somewhere certainly be one, and since this unity is not to be discovered in phenomena, the reality threatens to migrate to another world than ours. We have been driven near to the separation of appearance and reality; we already perhaps contemplate their localization in two different hemispheres — the one unknown to us and real, and the other known and mere appearance. But, before we take this step, I will say a few words on a proposed alternative, stating this entirely in my own way and so as to suit my own convenience. " Why," it may be said, " should we trouble ourselves to seek for a unity? Why do things not go on very well as they are? We really want no substance or activity, or anything else of the kind. For phenomena and their laws are all that science requires." Such a view may be called Phenomenalism. It is superficial at its best, and it is held of course with varying degrees of intelligence. In its most consistent form, I suppose, it takes its phenomena as feelings or sensations. These with their relations are the elements; and the laws somewhere and somehow come into this view. And against its opponents Phenomenalism would urge, What else exists? " Show me anything real," it would argue, " and I will show you mere presentation; more is not to be discovered, and really more is meaningless. Things and selves are not unities in any sense whatever, except as given collections or arrangements of such presented elements. What appears is, as a matter of fact, grouped in such and such manners. And then, of course, there are the laws. When we have certain things given, then certain other things are given too; or we know that certain other occurrences will or may take place. There is hence nothing but events, appearances which happen, and the ways which these appearances have of happening. And how, in the name of science, can any one want any more? " The last question suggests a very obvious criticism. The view either makes a claim to take account of all the facts, or it makes no such claim. In the latter case there is at once an end of its pretensions. But in the former case it has to meet this fatal objection. All the ways of thinking which introduce an unity into things, into the world or the self — and there clearly is a good deal of such thinking on hand — are of course illusory. But, none the less, they are facts entirely undeniable. And Phenomenalism is invited to take some account of these facts, and to explain how on its principles their existence is possible. How, for example, with only such elements and their laws, is the theory of Phenomenalism itself a possible fact? The theory seems a unity which, if it were true, would be impossible. And an objection of this sort has a very wide range, and applies to a considerable area of appearance. But I am not going to ask how Phenomenalism is prepared to reply. I will simply say that this one objection, to those who understand, makes an end of the business. And if there ever has been so much as an attempt to meet this fairly, it has escaped my notice. We may be sure beforehand that such an effort must be wholly futile.
PHENOMENALISM. 1 23 PHENOMENALISM. 1 23 Thus, without our entering into any criticism on the positive doctrine, a mere reference to what it must admit, and yet blindly ignores, is a sufficient refutation. But I will add a few remarks on the inconsistencies of that which it offers us.
What it states, in the first place, as to its elements and their relations, is unintelligible. In actual fact, wherever you get it, these distinctions appear and seem even to be necessary. At least I have no notion of the way in which they could be dispensed with. But if so, there is here at once a diversity in unity; we have somehow together, perhaps, several elements and some relations; and what is the meaning of " together," when once distinctions have been separated? And then what sort of things are relations? Can you have elements which are free from them even internally? And are relations themselves not given elements, another kind of phenomena? But, if so, what is the relation between the first kind and the second (Cf. Chapter iii.)? Or, if that question ends in sheer nonsense, who is responsible for the nonsense? Consider, for instance, any fact of sense, it does not matter what; and let Phenomenalism attempt to state clearly what it means by its elements and relations; let it tell us whether these two sides are in relation with one another, or, if not that, what else is the case. But I will pass to another point.
An obvious question arises as to events past and future. If these, and their relations to the present, are not to be real and in some sense to exist — then difficulties arise into which I will not enter. But, if past and future (or either of them) are in any sense real, then, in the first place, the unity of this series will be something inexplicable. And, in the second place, a reality, not presented and not given (and even the past is surely not given), was precisely that against which Phenomenalism set its face. This is another inconsistency.
Let us go on to consider the question as to identity. This Phenomenalism should deny, because identity is a real union of the diverse. But change is not to be denied, for obviously it must be there when something happens. Now, if there is change, there is by consequence something which changes. But if it changes, it is the same throughout a diversity. It is, in other words, a real unity, a concrete universal. Take, for example, the fact of motion; evidently here something alters its place. Hence a variety of places, whatever that means — in any case a variety — must be predicated of one something. If so, we have at once on our hands the One and the Many, and otherwise our theory declines to deal with ordinary fact.
In brief, identity — being that which the doctrine excluded — is essential to its being. And now how far is this to go? Is the series of phenomena, with its differences, one series? If it is not one, why treat it as if it were so? If it is one, then here indeed is a unity which gives us pause. Again, are the elements ever permanent and remaining identical from one time to another? But, whether they are or are not identical, how are facts to be explained? Suppose, in the first place, that we do have identical elements, surviving amid change and the play of variety. Here are metaphysical reals, raising the old questions we have been discussing through this Book. But perhaps nothing is really permanent except the laws. The problem of change is given up, and we fall back upon our laws, persisting and appearing in successions of fleeting elements. If so, phenomena seem now to have become temporal illustrations of laws.
And it is perhaps time to ask a question concerning the nature of these last-mentioned creatures. Are they permanent real essences, visible from time to time in their fleeting illustrations? If so, once more Phenomenalism has adored blindly what it PHENOMENALISM. 1 25 rejected. And, of course, the relations of these essences — the one to the other, and each to the phenomena which in some way seem its adjectives— take us back to those difficulties which proved too hard for us. But I presume that the reality of the laws must be denied, or denied, that is, not quite, but with a reservation. The laws are hypothetical; they are in themselves but possibilities, and actual only when found in real presentation. Apart from this, and as mere laws, they are connections between terms which do not exist; and, if so, as connections, they are not strictly anything actual. In short, just as the elements were nothing outside of presentation, so again, outside of presentation, the laws really are nothing. And in presentation then — what is either side, the elements or the laws, but an unreal and quite indefensible thought? It seems that we can say of them only that we do not know what they are; and all that we can be certain of is this, that they are not what we know, namely, given phenomena.
And here we may end. The view has started with mere presentation. It, of course, is forced to transcend this, and it has done so ignorantly and blindly. A little criticism has driven it back, and has left it with a universe, which must either be distinctions within one presentation, or else mere nonsense. And then these distinctions themselves are quite indefensible. If you admit them, you have to deal with the metaphysical problem of the Many in One; and you cannot admit them, because clearly they are not given and presented, but at least more or less made. And what it must come to is that Phenomenalism ends in this dilemma. It must either keep to the moment's presentation, and must leave there the presented entirely as it is given — and, if so, then surely there could be no more science; or it must " become transcendent " (as the phrase goes), and launch out into a sea of more preposterous inconsistencies than are perhaps to be found in any other attempt at metaphysics. As a working point of view, directed and confined to the ascertainment of some special branch of truth, Phenomenalism is of course useful and is indeed quite necessary. And the metaphysician who attacks it when following its own business, is likely to fare badly. But when Phenomenalism loses its head and, becoming blatant, steps forward as a theory of first principles, then it is really not respectable. The best that can be said of its preten sions is that they are ridiculous.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
THINGS IN THEMSELVES.
We have found, so far, that we have not been able to arrive at reality. The various ways, in which things have been taken up, have all failed to give more than mere appearance. Whatever we have tried has turned out something which, on investigation, has been proved to contradict itself. But that which does not attain to internal unity, has clearly stopped short of genuine reality. And, on the other hand, to sit down contented is impossible, unless, that is, we are resolved to put up with mere confusion. For to transcend what is given is clearly obligatory, if we are to think at all and to have any views whatever. But, the deliverance of the moment once left behind, we have succeeded ip meeting with nothing-that holds together. Every view has been seen only to furnish appearance, and the reality has escaped. It lias baffled us so constantly, so persistently retreated, that in the end we are forced to set it down as unattainable. It seems to have been discovered to reside in another world than ours.
We have here reached a familiar way of regarding the universe, a doctrine held with very different degrees of comprehension. The universe, upon this view (whether it understands itself or not), falls apart into two regions, we may call them two hemispheres. One of these is the world of experience and knowledge — in every sense without reality. The other is the kingdom of reality — without either knowledge or experience. Or we have on one side phenomena, in other words, things as they are to us, and ourselves so far as we are anything to ourselves; while on the other side are Things as they are in themselves and as they do not appear; or, if we please, we may call this side the Unknowable. And our attitude towards such a divided universe varies a good deal. We may be thankful to be rid of that which is not relative to our affairs, and which cannot in any way concern us; and we may be glad that the worthless is thrown over the wall. Or we may regret that Reality is too good to be known, and from the midst of our own confusion may revere the other side in its inaccessible grandeur. We may even naively felicitate ourselves on total estrangement, and rejoice that at last utter ignorance has removed every scruple which impeded religion. Where we know nothing we can have no possible objection to worship.1