si;-- 
 
 
REESE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 , IQO . 
 Accession No. 83596 . Class No. 
 
 
ff 
 
A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 IX 
 
 METAPHYSICAL SYSTEM UPON THE BASIS 
 
 OF 
 
 HUMAN COGNITIVE EXPERIENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD 
 
 ii 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1899 
 
B145- 
 , T 
 
 Copyright, 1899, 
 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 
 
 JOHK WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
TO 
 
 THOSE 
 
 WHO HAVE THE FAITH 
 
 OF REASON IN ITS STRIVINGS 
 
 TO KNOW THE DEEPER TRUTH OF THINGS 
 
 THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY 
 
 AND AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 83596 
 
" Endure 
 
 For consciousness the motions of Thy Will : 
 For apprehension those transcendent truths 
 Of the pure Intellect that stand as Laws." 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The prefatory explanations which I wish to make with respect 
 to the aims and the conclusions of this book are so few and 
 obvious that they may be very briefly dispatched. The problem 
 which it attempts, and the method which it employs, are stated 
 at some length in the first chapter. Its main conclusions the 
 " Theory of Reality " it advocates are reiterated and en- 
 forced in connection with the critical discussion of each topic ; 
 they are given synthetic treatment and summarized in the 
 concluding portions of the book. The faithfulness of its 
 appeal to recognized facts and to the positive sciences has 
 been emphasized by the frequency with which the conceptions 
 and phrases defining man's " cognitive experience " are 
 employed. 
 
 There are, however, two or three considerations to which 
 I should like to call attention in this Preface. The first of 
 these concerns the relation in which this book stands to a 
 work published in 1897 and entitled " Philosophy of Knowl- 
 edge." That work dealt with the problem of man as a 
 knower ; and this deals with the problem of the reality known. 
 These two problems, although admitting of a certain amount 
 of relatively independent discussion, are really not unlike two 
 aspects of one and the same all-inclusive object of human 
 critical and reflective thinking. The doctrine of knowledge, 
 then, which was -elaborated in the earlier book, is assumed 
 and trusted throughout in the discussions of this book. And, 
 on the other hand, the theory of reality which was discovered 
 
Vlil PREFACE 
 
 in germinal form by the earlier book is the conclusion 
 elaborated into a system of metaphysics by the studies which 
 this book contains. While I then felt the need, through lack 
 of predecessors among modern English writers on philosophy 
 in the definite line of epistemological research (as I understood 
 it), of the charitable consideration due to the " pioneer," or 
 struggler with the more primitive obstacles in the path, I now 
 ask that this attempt at a theory of reality should be con- 
 sidered in the light of the positions taken by its predecessor 
 and yet companion volume. 
 
 I ask also and surely the request is reasonable that 
 this book should be credited with making only such claims as 
 its title and whole construction indicate. It is avowedly 
 speculative ; it puts itself forward only as affording a tenable 
 theory for the solution of those profound problems touching 
 the ultimate Nature of Reality, with which human thought has 
 always contended, and will continue to contend until the end 
 of human existence. It is not necessary here to renew 
 discussion upon the relations in which " theory " especially 
 of the kind to which systematic metaphysics leads stands 
 to knowledge, or to faith, or to the life of conduct. I have 
 been chiefly concerned in this book to fulfil the conditions 
 which belong to the establishment of a valid speculative result 
 upon a basis of fact and of science. If obscurities and other 
 faults of style, that are separable from the theoretical handling 
 of such themes, are found abundant here, the author can only 
 say that he has tried to avoid them ; and that no one will 
 welcome more than he all improvements by others, both of 
 method and of result. 
 
 There is only one other point to which I wish to call 
 attention. The field of general and systematic metaphysics 
 has been so long and so thoroughly cultivated by the pro- 
 foundest and keenest thinkers that for any writer now to 
 claim, either expressly or implicitly, a considerable share of 
 originality would be unworthy ; even the attempt at originality 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 would be likely either to depreciate the result or to defeat it- 
 self. In my preparatory studies for this book, as for all my 
 previous essays in psychology and philosophy, I have faith- 
 fully tried to keep my mind in genial communion with the 
 best both of the past and of the present time. The " Theory of 
 Reality" here advocated is, of course, not essentially new ; on 
 the contrary, its most important features have been drawn, 
 although with varying details, again and again. None the 
 less this theory is peculiarly my own ; and this is because I 
 have made it my own by going to the sources of all defensible 
 metaphysics in the cognitive experience of the race both 
 that which appertains to the " plain man's consciousness " and 
 that which has been gathered into the different positive 
 sciences. It is, therefore, a not wholly unwarranted hope that 
 the readers of this book will find in it something fresh and 
 new, as respects the way in which the critical analysis of the 
 categories is conducted, and also as respects the manner of 
 making and expounding its final, speculative synthesis. 
 
 The few references made to other works give no indication 
 of my obligations to the great number of workmen who have 
 preceded me in the same attempt at a " Theory of Reality." 
 Neither is the fact of reference to any particular author an 
 indication of the extent of my obligations. For some of the 
 names mentioned in the notes are relatively unimportant ; 
 others are among the great personages in the history of 
 philosophy. References in metaphysics have little or no value 
 as authority ; and no man need feel wronged because he has 
 held and published opinions in this field identical with those 
 of any other author, and yet has not been quoted in support 
 or elucidation of them. I wish, however, to say that the 
 chapters in this book which come into closest relations with 
 the physical sciences have, in general, been submitted to 
 friends and colleagues who are experts in these sciences ; and 
 that I have been both assisted and reassured by their kindly 
 comments and criticisms. But to mention names here would 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 create false impressions regarding both their part and tfeat of 
 the author in constructing the views of these chapters. 
 
 How preceding works of mine on psychology and philoso- 
 phy have led up to this volume, and how it stands in the 
 system of philosophical thoughts with the elaboration of 
 which I am concerned, as an important part of my life-work, 
 I have ventured to explain at some length in the closing 
 chapter. 
 
 GEOKGE TKUMBULL LADD. 
 
 YALE UNIVERSITY, April, 1899. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ON METAPHYSICS ; ITS NATURE J ITS METHOD J AND THE PRO- 
 PRIETY OF IT 
 
 The Rights of Metaphysics Necessary Part of all Philosophy 
 Agnostic Position untenable The Objections of Science and 
 of Literature or Religion The Nature of Metaphysics Re- 
 lations to Science and to Epistemology Metaphysics as Inter- 
 pretation As a Discussion of the Categories The Propriety of 
 Metaphysics 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 
 
 The Distinction involved Psychological Origin of the Distinction 
 Impossibility of mere Appearance Application to the Nature of 
 the Self as belonging to all Self-consciousness Correlation of 
 the two Terms The Trans-subjective always involved The 
 Distinction accepted 34 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 
 
 Meaning of the word " Reality " Its Emotional Effects Its Wealth 
 of Content Reality as actual Thing Not wholly a Product of 
 Thought Reality as Will Negative Definitions of the Concep- 
 tion Positive Definitions of the same Conception 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 REALITY AS AN ACTUAL HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 
 
 The Relations of all the Categories They are inseparable in Reality 
 Analysis of "Being in Space" All Categories implicate in 
 Each Reality Yet None analyzable into Any Other Special 
 Pairs and Groups The Unity of the Categories Criticism of 
 different Systems Proofs of this Unity 84 
 
xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Conception of Substance Testimony of Sensuous Experience 
 
 The Usages of Science Genesis of the Conception of Substance 
 
 - The Logician's View Idea of Activity involved Related to 
 
 the Category of Force Particular Existence The Conception 
 
 of Quality The Analogy of the Self Ill 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHANGE AND BECOMING 
 
 The View of Heraclitus Genesis of the Conception of Change The 
 Conception as realized by the Self Impossibility of discrediting 
 the Conception Change as a System of Changes Necessity for 
 Principles of Becoming Reality not mere Mechanism of Change 140 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 RELATION 
 
 Relation as itself related to other Categories Kant's Treatment of It 
 
 Origin of, in Cognitive Judgment The Kinds of Relation 
 This Category without Limits Meaning of, as applied to Self 
 The Absolute not the Unrelated 160 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TIME 
 
 Special Character of Time and Space The Formal Categories 
 Negative Criticism of these Categories Psychological Origin of 
 Time Scientific Conception of Time Time both Relative and 
 Real The Conception of the World's Time The Infinity of 
 Time Kantian View of Time as a priori Transcendental Real- 
 ity of this Category Time and the Absolute 1 78 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SPACE AND MOTION 
 
 Space as a Principle of Differentiation Difficulties of the true Con- 
 ception Negative Attitude insufficient The Assumptions in- 
 volved Essential Nature of the Space-Function The Category 
 as an Active Principle Genesis of Space Consciousness 
 Scientific Conception of Space Motion both Relative and Real 
 
 Witness of Physics, and of Chemistry Final Metaphysical 
 Problem The Being of the World in Space " 214 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 FORCE AND CAUSATION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Dynamical View of the World Force necessary in the Realiza- 
 tion of all the Categories Genesis of the Conception Psycho- 
 logical Objections answered Force as Substantial Cause The 
 Conception of Modern Physics Substitution of the Conception 
 of Energy Problem of Actio in Distans Energy as Potential 
 and Kinetic Conservation and Correlation of Energy The 
 World not a mere Sum in Quantity Qualitative Character of the 
 Atoms Bearing of the View upon the Nature of Reality . . . 253 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 MEASURE AND QUANTITY 
 
 Dependence of Science on these Categories Implied that Nature is 
 really measurable Gene'sis of the Conception of Quantity Ap- 
 plication of the Category to Things Realitivity of all Measure- 
 ment The Conceptions of the Euclidean and of the Modern 
 Geometry Nature of Geometrical Axioms Hints as to the 
 Nature of Reality 294 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 NUMBER AND UNITY 
 
 Nature of the Category of Number Counting the Essence of all 
 Numbering Genesis and Development of the Conception 
 Numerable Construction of Objects The Metaphysical Truth 
 implied Criticism of the Kantian View The Conception of 
 Unity The World as a Unity 318 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FORMS AND LAWS 
 
 Universality of these Categories Reduction to the Conception of 
 " Immanent Ideas " " Pure Form " and " Pure Law " unmean- 
 ing These Conceptions transcendental The Analogy of the 
 Self implied Anthropomorphism of Natural Science Meaning 
 of the term " Immanent " Indisputable Nature of this Category 
 Review of the Meaning of Causality The Reality of Forms 
 and Laws in the Being of the World 337 
 
XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 TELEOLOGY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Importance of the Discussion Difference of Positions Psychological 
 Origin of the Conception Application to the Self Objection 
 as Anthropomorphism Kant's Treatment of Final Purpose 
 The Biological View Illustrations Objections examined Re- 
 lation to Principle of Mechanism Idea of an " Ultimate Aim " 
 Unity of the World's Course implied 363 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 SPHERES OF REALITY 
 
 Results of preceding Analysis Significance of the Conception jf Self- 
 hood Can a Self be Absolute? Answer by the Theory of 
 " Spheres of Reality " Things as imperfect Selves History of 
 the Conception of Self Spirit as. Will and Idea Conclusions 
 as to Reality of an Absolute Self , . 394 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MATTER 
 
 Nature of this Conception The Physicist's View examined Experi- 
 mental Genesis of the Conception Matter as Mass Matter as. 
 Substrate for Energy Necessity of Union of the Two Matter 
 as having Inertia Metaphysical Conception of Matter Chemical 
 Conception of Matter The Atomic Theory Mystical Concep- 
 tion of Matter . , 419 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 NATURE AND SPIRIT 
 
 Need of the Conception of " Nature " Personification of Nature 
 Two-foldness of this Asolute Whole Nature as the Source of 
 Life Theory of Evolution examined Nature as a Life Nature 
 as Will and Idea 452 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 
 
 Necessity of admitting Ideas All Reality an Actualization of Ideas 
 This true of Things The Self actualizes its own Ideas The 
 Actualization of Ideals The Ideal Nature of the Absolute . 473 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Position of Different Metaphysical Systems General Considerations 
 stated The Absolute not unrelated but the Source of all Rela- 
 tions Relations to the World as Subject to its Object The 
 Absolute not mere Unity of Force The Absolute as World- 
 Ground and as the Principle of all Becoming Bearing of the 
 Doctrine on Ethics and Religion The Absolute as the Ground 
 and the Source of Ideals Ethical Objections to Monism answered 
 
 Theory of Identity denied 493 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 Conclusions of Scientific Psychology from the Physiological Point of 
 View and as Descriptive History of Mind Metaphysical Treat- 
 ment of the Same Subject Problems raised as to the Being of 
 the World Possibility and Postulates of Knowledge Examined 
 
 All Conclusions summarized in a " Theory of Reality "... 529 
 
 INDEX .553 
 
A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON METAPHYSICS: ITS NATURE; ITS METHOD; AND THE 
 PROPRIETY OF IT 
 
 THE right to attempt a systematic and detailed treatment 
 of metaphysical problems is, at present, undoubtedly among 
 the most difficult both to maintain and to exercise. And yet 
 the reasons given to justify this difficulty are not, as is often 
 assumed, convincing; nor are its true causes altogether 
 obvious. The use, to their fullest extent, of his powers of 
 reflection is conceded to be one of the most inalienable rights 
 and highest privileges of rational man ; there is, indeed, 
 scarcely any other obligation which the thoughtful feel to be 
 so inherently sacred and even imperative. And surely the 
 problems offered by the real existences and actual events 
 known to his common, work-a-day experiences, as well as to 
 the particular sciences, have not the lowest claims to make 
 upon man's powers of reflection. But these are the distinc- 
 tively metaphysical problems. 
 
 If we inquire into the particular objections with which the 
 very proposal to establish a metaphysical system is now cus- 
 tomarily met, they appear to be partly inherent in the subject, 
 and partly the effect of our modern environment. The 
 weakness and pettiness, the errors and limitations of the 
 human intellect, have always, since philosophy began, been 
 remarked upon ; what wonder that they are emphasized anew, 
 
A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 if not exaggerated, in the mind of an age that so eagerly seeks 
 the practical advantages and assured results of the positive 
 sciences ? And do we not all feel, in a manner quite blase', 
 the weight of those burdens which belong to the very consti- 
 tution of humanity ? Who of us has not at some time ex- 
 claimed over the arrogance of assuming that it is possible to 
 treat the insoluble riddles of existence to a critical analysis 
 and a complete and authoritative synthesis ? Besides, have 
 not certain most distinguished students of philosophy pro- 
 nounced against the possibility of metaphysics as a system of 
 ontology ? The impossibility of extending human cognition 
 so as to have a valid conception of Reality not to claim more 
 was the demonstrated conclusion of the incomparable 
 author of the Critique of Pure Reason. Undoubtedly this 
 agnostic negation of knowledge has been much more widely 
 received by his followers than the ethical and religious faith 
 which Kant hoped to establish by his use of the critical 
 method. Nor can we forget that his immediate predecessor 
 in the same method, the keenly analytic Hume, held so poor 
 an opinion of human nature, when employed in ontological 
 speculation, as to commend to the flames all treatises on 
 " school metaphysics." 
 
 One may accept or reject the current depreciation of the 
 human intellect either wholly or partially, and more or 
 less intelligently without once noticing several of the most 
 important points at issue. As to the more complete justifica- 
 tion of any particular view of the nature and limits of man's 
 cognitive powers, we have little or nothing to say at present. 
 The question of justification is, after all, an epistemological 
 question ; it must be fought to an issue, on grounds of a 
 theory of knowledge. But, if the epistemological problems 
 be set aside for the time being, there are two or three rather 
 remarkable eccentricities of opposition which the attempt at 
 a systematic solution of the metaphysical problems is com- 
 pelled to encounter. These eccentricities may be brought to 
 
METAPHYSICS: MATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 3 
 
 the surface by asking somewhat abruptly the following 
 question : Granted that the mind of man is finite, weak, liable 
 to error, limited in capacity ; but what of it, in any especial 
 way, so far as the student of systematic metaphysics is 
 concerned ? Why select the few thinkers whose unhappy 
 destiny impels them to make the effort to bring into more 
 scientific form the results of profound reflection over the 
 problems of existence, and load upon them the entire odium 
 of that restriction of rationality which is the universal lot of 
 humanity ? In many instances they are of all men most keenly 
 sensitive to the inherent and stubborn resistance which meta- 
 physical studies offer to him who pursues them ardently. 
 How limited and relatively helpless the reflecting mind is in 
 the presence of some of the mysteries of Reality, no one else 
 knows so indubitably as he who has done his best to explore 
 these mysteries. Poets and novelists and essayists may speak 
 freely on these problems ; why not avowed metaphysicians " of 
 the school " also ? Must they alone be weighted down into 
 silence and darkness by that " fear of erring " which, as Hegel 
 so sagaciously says, may be the essence of " error itself " ? 
 
 The insincerity of that scorn of systematic metaphysics 
 which alleges in its own justification the limitations of human 
 reason is made apparent by two lines of thinking. Both of 
 these lead in pursuit of an explanation for facts of observation. 
 The first of them comes to the conclusion that the rights of 
 philosophizing cannot be admitted and the rights of that branch 
 of philosophy which is properly called metaphysics be denied. 
 In order to show this it is not necessary to repeat here what 
 has been said elsewhere in detail as to the nature of phil- 
 osophy and of its divisions. Nor is it necessary to pass in 
 review the history of speculative thought, although this entire 
 history illustrates and enforces our contention. Whatever 
 conception one holds of the nature of philosophy, it is not pos- 
 sible to exclude from the sphere of philosophy the critical and 
 systematic treatment of those concrete realities which are 
 
4 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 somehow brought to an ideal Unity by all of man's development 
 in knowledge. Let us admit that to philosophize is but to 
 think reflectively as profoundly and thoroughly as one can. 
 In its more sceptical and critical forms, such thinking subjects 
 to analysis all the assumptions and beliefs, as well as the 
 alleged positive cognitions of ordinary experience and of the 
 particular sciences. As synthetic and constructive, it aims at 
 the harmony of all our particular experiences in some view of 
 the world and of human life that shall be freed from internal 
 contradictions, and that shall interpret and illumine them all. 
 But that we are, and that things are this is the fundamental 
 fact, or net-work of facts, which, with its beliefs and assump- 
 tions, challenges our reflective powers. And what we are, 
 and what things are, what is the being which we and they 
 share in common, to tell this in a way that is truthful, rich 
 in content, aesthetically inspiring, and morally helpful, is the 
 goal of philosophical synthesis. But this is also the aim of 
 metaphysical system. 
 
 And, in fact, no one has ever philosophized to any extent, 
 whether in the more technical and scholastic fashion or as the 
 most timid and self-distrustful of laymen, without involving in 
 his own reflections some attempt at a theory of reality. 
 Pure positivism is impossible for any mind that reflects. 
 Scepticism and criticism that both begin and end in merely 
 being sceptical and critical are intolerable for the human in- 
 tellect. By this it is not meant simply that they are aesthet- 
 tically distasteful or ethically unsatisfying; although they are, 
 in fact, both. But the rather is it obvious that positivism puts 
 a strain of self-reservation and distrust upon human reason 
 which cannot be borne for any length of time. Neither is it 
 possible to cultivate epistemology without metaphysics, any 
 more than it is to develop metaphysics without epistemologi- 
 cal views or assumptions. We know, indeed, that Kant 
 thought he had proved metaphysics, as ontology, forever 
 impossible. Thus, in his opinion, after the entire task of 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 5 
 
 Critique was performed, in the three branches of speculative 
 reason, philosophy of conduct, and principles controlling 
 judgments of taste, nothing remained to represent the ancient 
 discipline of ontological philosophy but a collection of those 
 concepts which had survived the critical process. For a vital 
 theory of reality there had been substituted a logical co- 
 ordination of mere forms of thinking. All the life, the 
 power, the interest, of reflective effort had gone into criticism. 
 For metaphysics there remained only a collection of fossils. 
 The bones, carefully cleansed from all the decay of empir- 
 icism, well polished with long continued friction from dialec- 
 tics, and firmly and skilfully articulated, are put on exhibition 
 by the metaphysical systematizer. But where is the man, 
 with his life-blood, and nervous energy, and entire dynamic 
 outfit ready for commerce with the wilful and baffling 
 concrete realities of daily experience ? 
 
 Kant did not live to complete his scheme for a systematic 
 display of the results reached by the critical method, as he 
 himself conceived of metaphysics, its nature, and its possibility. 
 He evidently regarded this work as light and relatively unim- 
 portant after the task of criticism had been thoroughly done. 
 But if he had accomplished what he, to the last, kept it in 
 mind to do for metaphysical system, his real opinions as to 
 the nature of the transcendental world would not have 
 been a whit clearer or more defensible. For this " school 
 metaphysics" this classified arrangement of concepts that 
 had been shown to furnish the a priori forms for all objective 
 cognition would not have coincided with his own heartfelt 
 theory of reality. Who that has studied the critical philos- 
 sophy thoroughly does not know that its whole structure is 
 pervaded with ontological cognitions, beliefs, and opinions ? 
 The private emotional and practical metaphysics of Kant 
 so to speak is the very warp of the texture into which he 
 weaves with such astonishing intricacy the woof of his critical 
 tenets. This warp is not a critical doctrine of the categories^ 
 
6 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 but a collection of sesthetical and ethical sentiments, of threads 
 that mark the projections of a noble and strenuous personality 
 into the being of things, and of unanalyzed assumptions or 
 cognitions. Kant's unrecognized or half-concealed tenets as 
 to the real Being of the World are at once more acceptable to 
 reason and better to live and to die by than his completed 
 catalogue of the categories would have been. For the " faith " 
 which Kant made " room for " has no less of defensible 
 knowledge in it than the " knowledge " he aimed to remove 
 had of rational faith. 
 
 And what is. true of the results of reflection in the case of 
 the founder of modern critical philosophy is true of the 
 results of all human reflection. Hegel may perhaps justly be 
 charged with a certain " arrogance of reason," which, it is 
 assumed, has of late properly fallen into disrepute. But if 
 the charge be just, it does not lie against this thinker simply 
 because he believed in the possibility of metaphysics as a valid 
 theory of reality, or because he made the attempt to realize 
 this possibility in a systematic way. The weaknesses and limi- 
 tations of human reason in general no more discredit the 
 Logik and the ReligionspTiilosophie of Hegel than they discredit 
 the Kritik der reinen Vernunft of Kant, or the reflections of 
 the most prominent advocate of agnosticism at the present 
 time. Mr. Herbert Spencer's philosophy, for example, is ono- 
 logical from centre to circumference and from beginning to 
 end. It is, indeed, one of the most stupendous and self-confi- 
 dent systems of metaphysics which have ever been evolved. 
 
 In a word, we cannot consistently maintain and defend the 
 right of man to think reflectively without including in this also 
 the right to attempt a systematic metaphysics, that is, some 
 preferred rational and unifying view of the world of real 
 beings and actual events. The mere critic in philosophy, like 
 the mere critic in art or in literature, may be quite as 
 arrogant in self-confidence, and as inconsistent in his distrust 
 of other human faculty than his own, as the most pronounced 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 7 
 
 dogmatist. Indeed, criticism in philosophy without a meta- 
 physical standpoint is impossible. All philosophical scepticism 
 and agnosticism is necessarily ontological. The moment the 
 phenomenalist, the positivist, becomes genuinely philosophical, 
 he indulges himself in metaphysics. It would seem, then, that 
 the place for the consistent scorner of all attempts at a theory 
 of reality lies wholly outside the boundaries of philosophy. 
 
 But now the second class of those eccentricities of behavior 
 which characterize certain deniers of the rights of metaphysics 
 becomes apparent. For there are many facts of observation 
 which lead to the following somewhat startling conclusion: 
 voluntarily to abandon philosophy and openly to renounce all 
 the rights of reflective thinking does not relieve one from a 
 certain inescapable obligation to be metaphysical. And here 
 it seems most strange that the real intent and the valid con- 
 clusion if we accept it at all of the Kantian criticism 
 has been so lost out of the regard of the modern objector to 
 systematic metaphysics. This intent was not to enhance the 
 objections to a rational faith in God and in the freedom and 
 immortality of the human soul. It was, the rather, to render 
 these objections permanently hors du combat in the battle 
 that is forever being waged between certain kinds of Idealism, 
 or Supernaturalism, and a common-sense or scientific Natural- 
 ism. All the way through the Critique of Pure Reason 
 Kant's sceptical and agnostic positions bear most heavily 
 against the ontological metaphysics of natural science and 
 of the man whose horizon is confined to the things of sense. 
 It is not the believer in God, freedom, and immortality, 
 but the hard-headed denier of these realities on grounds of 
 confidence in his theoretical construction of a system of 
 mere things, whose vitals are pierced with the sword of the 
 Kantian criticism. 
 
 It is just here that an unprejudiced survey of the facts 
 becomes especially instructive. For the " plain man's " con- 
 sciousness is always and inevitably metaphysical ; it is 
 
A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 generally not sceptical and agnostic. Besides the merit of 
 suggesting a point in the psychological theory of vision, 
 which has already been transcended, this was the only con- 
 tribution made to human thinking by the Berkeley an idealism ; 
 it insisted upon the truth that, for the ordinary consciousness, 
 the concrete reality is just this sensuously envisaged object, 
 and no " thing-in-itself " that must be reached by some pro- 
 cess of inference, or by intermediation of some idea. The 
 later Scottish realism did not improve upon, but rather 
 travestied, the view of Berkeley when it began to identify this 
 known reality of the object with the excited sensorium. Nor 
 did Kant better matters on this point when he covered up the 
 whole inquiry by taking " data " of sense for granted, and 
 obscurely referring to some dumb and unmeaning " thiug-in- 
 itself " as the giver of these data. For, twist the facts as 
 psychology without metaphysics may, it cannot get rid of the 
 truth : there is a ivhole system of ontological doctrine concealed 
 in every man's work-a-day experience with things. Experi- 
 ence itself is transcendent of the subject of experience, 
 truly ontological. To tell how such experience is possible, 
 this was the problem of the Critique of Pure Reason. 
 But because its answer laid all the emphasis on the analysis 
 of the subject, the knower, and did not share the undy- 
 ing confidence of men that the object, that which is known, 
 belongs in all its complicated structure to the world of reality, 
 this Critique failed to satisfy the demands of consciousness. 
 
 That our experience with ourselves and with things is 
 complexly ontological, and cannot even be described, much 
 less explained, in terms of subjective idealism, we have shown 
 elsewhere l both from the psychological and the epistemologi- 
 cal points of view. The more detailed description and specu- 
 lative treatment of experience as thus ontological constitutes 
 the very warp and woof of any system of metaphysics. What, 
 however, it is now desirable to insist upon is this : in the 
 
 1 In " The Philosophy of Knowledge," passim. 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 9 
 
 very having of cognitive experience, the knower is consciously 
 metaphysical. The knower envisages, or infers, or believea 
 in, his little sphere of realities. It is for him somewhat of a 
 genuine cosmos, an orderly whole. The " World " man 
 knows is made up of real things and real minds that stand in 
 actual relations, that change these relations, that come to be,, 
 and continue in being, in space and time ; and these present 
 realities constantly influence each other, and they pass 
 away to give place to other realities. To reflect upon all 
 this, or upon any part of it, is to indulge in ontological specu- 
 lation. For the trans- subjective does not lie in the invisible 
 and the unknown, where Kant placed it ; nor is experience 
 with concrete realities to be resolved into a series of ap- 
 pearances, as Mr. Bradley would seem to have us believe. 
 To understand, as fully as man's powers may, the things of 
 human work-a-day experience, the realities cognized by the 
 plain man's consciousness. this is the endeavor of system- 
 atic metaphysics. What strange inconsistency, then, is in- 
 volved in the enforced acceptance of a half-developed onto- 
 logical consciousness when it denies the right to attempt the 
 free expansion and more harmonious development of the 
 same ontological consciousness ! 
 
 Yet more eccentric do ceutain objections to systematic meta- 
 physics appear to one who observes the facts of modern 
 science. Speculation about the real nature of things, and the 
 insensible causes of events, is nowhere so abundant or so 
 daring as within the domain of modern science. But the 
 proper name for all such theorizing is " metaphysics." In 
 the circles where such speculation is most rife, it is also most 
 honored, but only if it be not called by its legitimate name. 
 Consider, for example, how many "theories" of evolution 
 have arisen and are still advocated among the most advanced 
 of the biologists ; or again, how many " theories " have been 
 put forward and are still defended by chemists and physicists 
 as to the ultimate constitution of matter, and as to the forces 
 
10 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 and laws which have secured its differentiation into the 
 things of ordinary experience. These theories are by no 
 means wary, not to say modest, in their demands for " Space," 
 " Time," and " Force," and even for a great variety of most 
 curiously and intricately constructed entities. No equivocal 
 theory of cognition disturbs the average speculator upon 
 these subjects, in the boldest flights of his imagination. 
 Few rebukes for excessive trust in the ontological insights or 
 inferences of faulty human reason are awakened among the 
 learned brotherhood in the scientific society before which his 
 speculations are discussed. 
 
 It would seem, then, that the objections felt to systematic 
 metaphysics must find some other justification than the imma- 
 nent and irremovable weakness of man's faculties of reflection. 
 For this reason, consistently carried through, would not only 
 limit unduly philosophical speculation, but would discredit all 
 reflection upon the facts of every-day experience and check 
 all scientific hypothesis and theorizing. And, indeed, no 
 fixed distinction can be made between ordinary knowledge 
 and scientific knowledge, or between scientific knowledge and 
 philosophical knowledge. Every attempt at every kind of 
 knowledge assumes to start on terms of good faith with human 
 reason. All alleged knowledge implies ontological judgment 
 and ontological inference. All actual knowledge is pene- 
 trated with fragments of metaphysics, is based upon and shot 
 through and through with some theory of reality. Systematic 
 metaphysics is indeed a difficult, and, in its perfection, an 
 impossible attainment. The reasons for this difficulty un- 
 doubtedly lie, in part, in the inherent weakness and inescap- 
 able limitations of the human mind. But these reasons do 
 not afford sufficient causes why any attempt at thorough and 
 comprehensive ontological speculation should be distrusted, 
 much less derided. 
 
 If now attention be turned to certain causes in the present 
 environment of the intending metaphysician, the explanation 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 11 
 
 of the reception awarded him becomes more obvious. Thor- 
 ough and painstaking discussion of the problems of existence 
 has never been popular. It is probably not to be expected, 
 even if it were to be desired, that it ever will be popular. It 
 is not sinister or ungenerous to observe, with Eucken, 1 that the 
 common understanding feels toward every system of phi- 
 losophy that concealed hatred which it feels toward all the 
 higher products of reason. The contempt for metaphysics in 
 the popular mind is akin to the contempt for fine art and 
 refined conduct. This "common understanding" finds no 
 problems and no mysteries in most of the concrete beings and 
 actual events of life. But some of these beings, and not a 
 few of these events, force themselves upon the attention of 
 the untutored man as pregnant with a meaning he cannot com- 
 prehend, or as bearing a message from the invisible to which 
 he cannot find the key. If this common understanding is 
 superstitious it bows itself before the fellow-man who professes 
 to have solved such profound problems, to have unlocked the 
 door that leads inward to such mysterious secrets. The well- 
 trained and reverential mind receives with a cautious gratitude 
 every well-meant attempt to throw any light of truth upon 
 man's pathway. In this day and in our Occidental civiliza- 
 tion, however, the common understanding is not consciously 
 superstitious ; nor are the minds of the multitude yet trained 
 into a reverential attitude toward those problems of existence 
 which modern science has rendered all the more mysterious 
 and profound. Is it not due to a lack of refinement and of a 
 reverent spirit, at least in part, that men generally have no 
 greater regard for the systematic study of such problems ? 
 
 We have already remarked upon certain eccentricities of 
 opposition to every attempt at a systematic metaphysics which 
 are met within the domain of the natural and physical sciences. 
 Yet here it often happens that special and extravagant meta- 
 physical theories are most abundant, and most highly prized. 
 
 1 See " Geschichte und Kritik der Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart," p. 38. 
 
12 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 The causes for this unfavorable attitude of the modern sci- 
 entific mind toward " school metaphysics " to borrow the 
 scornful term of Hume are chiefly historical. Impartially 
 estimated they may lead one to distribute the blame about 
 equally between the " scientists " and the metaphysicians. 
 On the one side are a very natural overestimate of the value 
 of mere collections of facts, a certain confusion as to the extent 
 to which the descriptive history of things affords a complete 
 satisfaction to our intellectual interests, an undervaluation of 
 the part which assthetical and quasi-ethical considerations are 
 entitled to play in all the growth of science, and, too often, a 
 pitiful lack of training to the faculties which impart true 
 insight, and which must be especially exercised in carrying 
 the race forward to the realization of its highest ideals. On 
 the other side are faults even more conspicuous and irritating, 
 because more opposed to the Zeitgeist, although perhaps not 
 less natural and pardonable. How much disregard of the 
 established truths of science, and how much shuffling and 
 playing fast and loose with facts, belongs to the past history 
 of u school metaphysics " ! What lack of scientific method 
 that most fundamental point of agreement between science 
 and philosophy has been shown by many of the most elab- 
 orate system-makers ! But who that has read the technical 
 " history of philosophy " needs to be reminded of all this ? 
 There is, indeed, little reason to wonder, then, that modern 
 physics, chemistry and biology, and systematic metaphysics, 
 have got into" an attitude of mutual distrust and depreciation. 
 But the causes of this attitude are not irremovable. And there 
 are some plain and grateful signs of an approaching reconcili- 
 ation and readjustment of these so disturbed relations. 
 
 The student of systematic metaphysics need not especially 
 take to heart the attitude toward his pursuit assumed by the 
 so-called " literary world." In these days all the froth and 
 scum of human life is rising to the surface in the stream of 
 what is called literature. Any serious reflection upon tho 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 13 
 
 problems of existence, of life and of mind, is rather to be 
 expected from the most uncultured of the men of sober spirit 
 than from the producers and the consumers of these myriads of 
 books. Of all men, perhaps, the genuine devotee to literature 
 most needs the help of a mind that has reflected profoundly 
 upon fundamental problems. On the other hand, the student 
 of metaphysics neglects his own choicest material if he does 
 not recognize the truth that in history and in literature the 
 Reality whose exposition he undertakes makes some of its 
 supreme revelations to attentive and sympathetic souls. For 
 the present, however, he who attempts such a systematic 
 exposition or theory of this reality must probably be content 
 with the neglect or the scorn of the litterateurs. And this he 
 can well enough afford to do. 
 
 Some of the most persistent difficulties that belong to the 
 present environment of the student of systematic metaphysics 
 are found on quasi-ethical or religious grounds. The long- 
 time subordination of the metaphysics of ethics and of reli- 
 gion to established systems of theology has now been virtually 
 overcome. That lofty patronage of the practical life of 
 morals and of religion which consists in claiming all assured 
 knowledge for science and for philosophy, and in leaving to 
 the practical life only the shifting drift of sentiment, is surely 
 destined, even in its more modern and revised form, to yield 
 unsatisfactory results. Nor can any of the so-called " recon- 
 ciliations " of science and religion which leave untouched the 
 ontological foundations of both hope to remain permanent. 
 Notwithstanding, the interests of philosophy, on the one hand, 
 and of the theory and practice of morals and of the religious 
 life on the other, can never be separated. Religion is, in its 
 very nature and essence, metaphysical. Its fundamental 
 assumptions arise out of the naive and undisciplined ontologi- 
 cal consciousness. Its faiths are, partially at least, to be 
 explained as the feeling-full and practical solution of some 
 of the profoundest problems of life and of mind. To reflect 
 
14 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 upon these assumptions and these faiths, and to attempt to 
 understand them in relation to all the other parts of our 
 complex human experience, is as inevitable a consequence of 
 the possession of rationality as is any other form of reflective 
 thinking. 
 
 We are far enough from holding that the study of system- 
 atic metaphysics will make men good or truly religious. Nor 
 do we cherish the expectation that, in the millennium, all 
 righteous and pious souls will properly appreciate a Fach- 
 pliilosopJde. But to think soberly and thoroughly deepens 
 and enriches the life of conduct and the development of char- 
 acter. It is indeed a species of conduct in which every mind 
 is obligated to take some share. It is also a most important 
 factor and disciplinary agent in the development of character. 
 And in estimating the influences which direct the evolution 
 of the mental and moral life of the race, and which color the 
 deeper-lying parts of the stream of human consciousness, it 
 is likely that the present age undervalues the reigning 
 systems of metaphysics. Ontological speculations are not 
 usually, at the first, impressive phenomena. Many of them, 
 indeed, disappear beneath the ongoing currents of human 
 life, the commercial, the political, the ecclesiastical, the so- 
 called practical interests, without leaving so much as a 
 single trace behind. But after all, they are not therefore 
 necessarily inoperative or wholly lost. And sometimes, when 
 they have fortunately found certain receptive minds, and have 
 succeeded in coloring all the thoughts of these minds, they 
 filter silently through a few first disciples into the popular 
 currents of opinion. Thus Plato and Aristotle swayed 
 mightily the lives of many thousands, in the Middle Ages, 
 who had never heard their names ; and they have not relin- 
 quished their grasp upon the views and conduct of men even 
 to the present day. Thus, too, myriads of the common people 
 are at this moment profoundly influenced by the philosopher 
 of Konigsberg, who have rarely or never heard the name of 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 15 
 
 Kant. And what is so largely true of these great reflective 
 thinkers is true in a lesser degree of all attempts to under- 
 stand the prof ounder problems of life and of mind. For such is 
 the relation between these attempts and the theory and prac- 
 tice of morals and religion that the two cannot be divorced. 
 
 It is not our present purpose to draw practical lessons from 
 what has just been declared true. Of all theoretical pursuits 
 theology is most dependent upon metaphysics. Of all kinds 
 of faiths the religious are 'most assuredly, either wholly 
 illusory or fundamentally ontological. Of all professions the 
 ministry can least afford to decry a just use of reason in the 
 pursuit of speculative philosophy. And in the last analysis, 
 ethics feels most keenly the need of a ground in some view of 
 the universe which shall make the sanctions and the issues of 
 conduct lie embedded in the heart of reality. We conclude, 
 then, that the causes of the present opposition to systematic 
 metaphysics which originate in circles whose chief interests 
 are in matters of morality and religion do not constitute a 
 justification. And this is true whether the opposition bears 
 the marks of an odium theologicum or of a no less bitter and 
 unreasoning odium antitheologicum. 
 
 We may now summarize this somewhat lengthy survey of 
 notable facts in the following expression of opinion. It is 
 not particularly difficult to discover some of the chief causes 
 in which originate the peculiar obstacles that must be met by 
 any attempt in the present day at a systematic treatment of 
 metaphysical problems. But these causes do not appear to 
 constitute valid reasons against making the attempt. The 
 right to have some ontological view that shall, at least, measur- 
 ably and in one's own opinion, unify and harmonize one's expe- 
 riences with the world of things and of minds is an essential 
 part of the rir/ht to subject experience to the process of reflective 
 thinking. Nor does there seem any good reason why this right 
 should be allowed to the particular sciences, in their own 
 peculiar domains, without claiming it also for the domain of 
 
16 A THEOKY OF REALITY 
 
 all those realities with the particular kinds of which these 
 sciences customarily deal. And when we turn from objections 
 which seem inherent in reason itself to objections which dif- 
 ferent sorts of people put forth to embarrass the would-be 
 metaphysician, we find even less of force and validity in them. 
 Indeed it is true that the very people who need metaphysics 
 most, often have least care and scantiest respect for it. 
 Nevertheless, it also remains forever true that scepticism and 
 criticism and history and encyclopaedia of philosophy do not 
 fully satisfy those cravings out of which philosophy grows; 
 nor do they fulfil all those functions in the exercise of which 
 philosophy consists. Ontological speculation is an essential 
 function of the human reason. 
 
 It appears, then, that systematic metaphysics may be 
 nay, must be indulged in for the satisfaction of reason 
 and for the support furnished by a ground of reflection to the 
 life of conduct, of art, and of religion. But it is, as we shall 
 see later, the spirit and the method of it which need most 
 careful scrutiny. And, as a matter of fact, it is against a 
 wrong spirit, either obvious or suspected, and against a false 
 or unsatisfactory method, that most of the sincere current 
 objections are raised. 
 
 Thus far much has been implied, but little said of a precise 
 sort about the nature of metaphysics. Nor does it seem as 
 though a lengthy disquisition on this subject were necessary, 
 even in a work proposing a systematic treatment of meta- 
 physical problems. Certainly, the philological, historical, 
 or discursive introductions which are common at the thresh- 
 old of such an attempt have little of real value. The name 
 employed for the thing (metaphysics = pera ra fyvo-iica) is 
 apparently of accidental origin, and is due to the fact that the 
 writings of Aristotle on " First Principles " were given a 
 local position following his writings on natural objects. But 
 before Aristotle, and indeed from the very beginnings of re- 
 flective thinking, philosophy was ontological ; although more 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 17 
 
 immediately preceding him, it took the form of a discur- 
 sive examination of the concepts which sum up, as it were, 
 men's knowledge of things, events, and relations. The im- 
 portant thing to notice in this connection is that metaphysics 
 should be based on experience with real things and actual events, 
 and that it should " follow," in docility and yet in free critical 
 spirit, " upon " the particular sciences which treat of real 
 things and actual events. But this is something which 
 philology can neither teach nor help us to attain. 
 
 The importance of taking in detail the opinions of others 
 as to the precise definition of metaphysics is also not great. 
 The expression of these opinions differs ; the real thing re- 
 mains the same. We may take our point of starting from 
 Ribot's remark : " Metaphysics is but a most noble and 
 elevated manner of conceiving things." Or we may confess 
 to the impulse of Matthew Arnold when he declares : " We 
 want first to know what being is." From these or similar 
 captivating and popular ways of stating the problem and the 
 method of metaphysics, we may pass to such carefully wrought 
 conceptions as that of Mr. Hodgson. According to this 
 author, 1 metaphysics most dependent and " unfixed " of 
 sciences, yet slowly and surely winning its way is " the 
 analysis of states of consciousness in connection with their 
 objects ; the objective aspect as a whole being summed up in 
 the word ' existence.' " Or if this seems to throw too much 
 emphasis on the psychological and epistemological approaches 
 to the problems of metaphysics, we may for the moment 
 adopt the definition of another author. " By metaphysics we 
 understand the scientific doctrine which, from the sensuously 
 perceptible appearance of things, draws conclusions as to 
 their conceptual essence, in order to gain a true insight into 
 the real being of things in the world, and of the world itself." 2 
 This definition is, indeed, somewhat too stilted ; and it intro- 
 
 1 See " Time and Space," L, pp. 3 f and 72 f. 
 
 2 Low, System der Universalphilosophie, p. 4. 
 
 o 
 
18 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 duces rather prematurely that distinction between appearance 
 and reality upon which another more recent treatise on meta- 
 physics has based itself. It may further be objected that we 
 are not as yet by any means sure whether an understanding 
 of the " conceptual essence " will, of itself, afford the de- 
 sirable insight into " the real being of things." But one can 
 well afford to be lenient in respect of such particulars. And 
 when the same writer expresses the intent of metaphysics to 
 be " a general investigation of that essential being which 
 belongs in common to all things," we clearly recognize the 
 same difficult task as that which is lying before us. Yet 
 again, we may say with Rosmini : l " Philosophy is the 
 science of ultimate grounds." It is " the work of reflection 
 carried forward to the discovery of ultimate grounds . . . 
 and things real must be treated in the doctrine of ultimate 
 grounds." 
 
 Breaking free for the moment from all historical and 
 technical definition, let us affirm : To get at reality this is 
 the aim of metaphysics. But this is as well the aim of all 
 knowledge, quoad knowledge. Yet each particular kind of 
 knowledge, or particular cognitive achievement, has an aim 
 beyond itself ; and this more ulterior aim may be expressed 
 as the right adjustment of the Self to the concrete real things 
 of experience. Both these aims the more distinctly cog- 
 nitive, and the more purely practical through the cognitive - 
 are pursued in their relations to each other by every man. 
 Men do not deal with " Reality " as an abstraction, a mere 
 idea; they concern themselves with the infinitely varied 
 realities of daily life. The value of these aims is as true of 
 systematic metaphysics as it is of every-day knowledge, or 
 of the more subtle and refined investigations of the particular 
 sciences. The plain man, the man of science, and the meta- 
 physician a la mode, are all trying to accomplish essentially 
 the same thing ; they are all trying to know reality, more 
 
 l Philosophical System : Translated by Thomas Davidson, p. 1 f. 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 19 
 
 assuredly that it is, and more fully what it is. They are all 
 also trying by means of this knowledge to get themselves 
 and others into more favorable adjustments to the infinitely 
 varied changes in,human relations to concrete realities. 
 
 For the basic experience of the plain man, of the man of 
 science, and of the metaphysician " of the school," is essen- 
 tially the same. With all three the data of experience and 
 the aims of life are essentially the same : Here am " I " ; 
 there art " thou " ; and over yonder, not to be identified 
 with either of us, are the " things " which determine our re- 
 lations and make for our weal and woe. You and I are con- 
 nected with each other ; the things are connected with one 
 another ; and both of us are connected with many, or with 
 all the things in an intricate net- work of changing and 
 inter-dependent states. I am real ; thou art real ; the things 
 are real ; and there do actually exist manifold relations 
 amongst these realities ; while infinitely varied changes are 
 taking place in all. What am I really ? What art thou ? 
 and what are they those things, that make up, together 
 with us, our known world of reality ? And what is this X 
 that somehow guarantees if we may so speak and en- 
 forces this system of changing relations? Whoever raises 
 any of these problems asks metaphysical questions. Who- 
 ever, whether by assumption, by theory, by so-called faith, or 
 by conduct, answers any of them is a metaphysician. He 
 who, having an acquaintance with the history of speculative 
 opinion and taking to his account the many sides of seeming 
 contradiction and the various lights and shadows of judgment, 
 pursues to some systematic conclusion the study of these 
 problems, is a metaphysician " of the school." Schopenhauer 
 is as truly scholastic as Hegel ; Herbert Spencer is no less 
 professional than was Immanuel Kant. 
 
 Systematic metaphysics is, then, the necessary result of 
 patient, orderly, well-informed, and prolonged study of those 
 ultimate problems which are proposed to every reflective 
 
20 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 mind by the real existences and actual transactions of selves 
 and of things. Thus considered it appears as the least ab- 
 stract and foreign to concrete realities of all the higher pur- 
 suits of reason. Mathematics is abstract ; logic is abstract ; 
 mathematical and so-called " pure " physics are abstract. 
 But metaphysics is bound by its very nature and calling 
 always to keep near to the actual and to the concrete. Dive 
 into the depths of speculation, it indeed may; and its ocean 
 is boundless in expanse and deep beyond all reach of human 
 plummets. But it finds its place of standing, for every new 
 turn of daring exploration, on some bit of solid ground. For 
 it is actuality which it wishes to understand although in 
 reflective and interpretative way. To quote from Professor 
 Royce : " The basis of our whole theory is the bare, brute fact 
 of experience which you have always with you, namely, the 
 fact : Something is real. Our question is : What is this 
 reality ? or, again, What is the ultimately real ? " 1 
 
 At this point, however, the true nature and legitimate 
 method of metaphysics cannot be understood without plac- 
 ing its speculations in right relations with two other domains 
 of thought. One of these is the domain covered in common by 
 the particular sciences ; the other is that provided by a closely 
 allied branch of philosophy. Each of the particular sciences 
 has, indeed, its own metaphysics. Its positive findings as to 
 what is real involve certain general assumptions and thought- 
 forms of a universal applicability. Physics and chemistry 
 both assume and demonstrate the truthfulness of certain 
 conceptions of space, time, number, force, relation, law, etc. 
 What the students of these sciences mean by the " truthful- 
 ness " of these conceptions is their legitimate and successful 
 application to the particular realities with which the sciences 
 deal. Under these conceptions they know the beings and 
 transactions which constitute their own data; and their growing 
 knowledge is the amplification and correction, in application 
 to concrete realities, of these same conceptions. 
 
 1 The Conception of God, p. 207. 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 21 
 
 What is true of the sciences which deal with things is 
 equally true of the sciences which deal with minds, or with 
 both minds and things. They all both assume and demon- 
 strate the truthfulness of certain conceptions, in their appli- 
 cation to the concrete realities with which they have to deal. 
 Now, then, if this is true of every one of the particular 
 sciences, what is left for metaphysics to accomplish, either 
 as a system of assured cognitions, or as a valid theory of 
 reality ? 
 
 It is just at the point where the inquiry now started makes 
 its appearance that the ministrations of metaphysics become 
 useful and even imperative. For metaphysics receives these 
 conceptions as they are assumed, applied, and expanded, by 
 the particular sciences, and makes them the objects of a 
 further reflective study. Such reflective study has its justi- 
 fication in the attempt to reach two important ends. One of 
 these is the end of harmony and of unification ; the other is 
 the end of insight and of interpretation. 
 
 It is natural, and on the whole conducive to the advance 
 of human knowledge, for each of the positive sciences to 
 define as precisely as possible its own leading conceptions, 
 and to endeavor so to extend the application of them, thus 
 defined, as to include larger and yet larger areas of phenom- 
 ena. As those many interrelations amongst the sciences 
 which are justified by the real connections of their phe- 
 nomena become more obvious, a certain theoretical unifica- 
 tion is inevitable. In this way the world of experience is 
 conceived of as a Unity as a system of related beings 
 that share in each other's essential characteristics and some- 
 how rest upon a common " World-Ground." But, in fact, 
 no one of the particular sciences, as such, is competent to 
 undertake the perfection of this work of unification. In 
 fact, also, the attempt at such unifying in terms of any one 
 science results in no little misrepresentation of facts, and in 
 the extension of science only falsely so-called. The attempt 
 
22 A THEOKY OF REALITY 
 
 to take the part of general metaphysics by the devotees of 
 any one of the particular sciences favors schemes for " pick- 
 ing and stealing " from each other ; or it results in gigantic 
 plans for the robbery of entire domains, after the fashion of 
 the barons of the Middle Ages. Is not the age familiar 
 enough, for example, with proposals for a mathematical theory 
 of the universe, which shall reduce all reality under the 
 categories of number and quantity, formulate the equations 
 which must avail between minds and spirits, and plot the 
 curve along which the Absolute is destined to move in its 
 endless round of self-creations and self-destructions ? Has 
 not physics repeatedly tried to reduce chemistry to the condi- 
 tion of a subject; and have not we psychologists only, 
 alas! too, persuasively been promised salvation from our 
 chronic irregularities of growth, if only we will become abso- 
 lutely dependent branches on the flourishing trunk of modern 
 evolutionary biology ? 
 
 The work of systematic metaphysics with the categories of 
 the particular sciences, is the work both of critic and of 
 arbiter. The facts admitted and proved by them all, it freely 
 admits. For its business is to reflect upon the world of fact. 
 The generalizations of the particular sciences, and the more 
 precise forms of the leading conceptions employed by them 
 all, it receives with caution and yet with the greatest docil- 
 ity. But to compare these generalizations, these more pre- 
 cise forms of the categories, with one another, to scrutinize 
 each in the light of all, and to subject them to further reflec- 
 tion in the interests of harmony and unification this is the 
 very essence of the life of metaphysics. 
 
 The work of systematic metaphysics is also a work of 
 interpretation. Concerning " Reality " that is, concerning 
 all real things and minds and all actual events we ask 
 not only to be assured that it is, and what it is, but we 
 should like to know its meaning. All cognition is, to a 
 greater or less extent, interpretative. I do not know you, 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 23 
 
 what you really are, unless I have known, and may 
 continue to know, what you mean. It is interpretation of 
 your past expressions which enables me to form the con- 
 ception of what you really are. And if I cannot interpret 
 the different successive impressions into terms of some con- 
 sistent theory, I can never know your real being. Your 
 being, so far forth, must remain an insoluble riddle to me. 
 And what is true of minds in their relations to one another 
 is also true of things in their relations to minds. I may state 
 what that chair over yonder really is, in terms of ordinary 
 knowledge or in terms of the sciences of mechanics, physics, 
 chemistry, and so on. But unless I interpret it as an invita- 
 tion to sit down, and as a promise of safety and of rest in 
 case I so make use of it, I do not know all that the chair 
 really is. In the event of anything coming into relations of 
 knowledge with me, or even being proposed as a possible 
 object of my knowledge, I am intellectually and practically 
 bound to ask the question : What does this particular thing 
 mean? What shall I understand by it? The answer to the 
 inquiry for interpretation, even if it come only in the form 
 of a rational guess or a promising surmise, always throws 
 some beam of light back upon the real nature of the object 
 of cognition. Indeed, man's whole world of reality and this 
 never means anything more than the complex of beings and 
 events which he knows, with all that seems to him impli- 
 cated in this complex is a problem for his interpretation 
 as well as for cognition of bare facts and mere laws. It, 
 too, the Reality which this world is needs to have the 
 inquiry as to its meaning raised. And so far forth as 
 this inquiry is raised, and can be answered, so far does 
 man know more essentially and completely what his total 
 world of experience really is. 
 
 Now we are far enough from being able to interpret com- 
 pletely the meaning of any single thing, or of any particular 
 event. That stone or clod beneath our feet, that wretched 
 
24 A THEORY OF EEALITY 
 
 and narrow mind just encountered on the street, that trifling 
 event of the door-bell ringing or of the snow sliding from the 
 roof, we can never know, under any of the categories or in 
 terms of any of the sciences, to perfection. Whatever it is, 
 and whatever it means, each thing and each event is, and 
 means, far too much for any human mind fully to compass it 
 with cognition or with conjectures. And, of course, the full 
 meaning of the whole world of beings and events, even as they 
 are caught and confined in the net-work of the categories, is far 
 beyond all human comprehension or all the most adroit and 
 daring of human hypotheses. Nevertheless, human knowledge 
 is increased, and human living is made higher and nobler, by 
 the judicious use of interpretation. Even man's guesses as to 
 what is the meaning of the world and of human life, if the 
 guesses are made in accordance with the demands of right 
 reason and in the interests of righteous conduct, may enable 
 him to know reality the better. And it is certain that where 
 the meaning of what is known as actual is even partially and 
 dubiously determined in accordance with the facts of experience, 
 the knowledge of the nature of what is actual is enhanced. 
 
 The positive sciences are wont to disclaim that method of 
 investigation which might be called " following the clue of the 
 interpretative idea." Nevertheless they have, in fact and as 
 their history abundantly shows, gained most of all they pos- 
 sess in this very way. But what the positive sciences do for 
 particular classes of facts, and without full consciousness of 
 either method or mission, metaphysics tries to do, with fuller 
 consciousness of both method and mission, for the whole 
 world of facts. This is, indeed, a bold venture. But when 
 it is said, " We want to know what being is" does not this 
 include, in part, " We want to know what being means " ? 
 
 The two considerations just brought forward enable us to 
 regard the problem of systematic metaphysics from a some- 
 what different point of view. Critical and speculative study 
 does, indeed, concern itself with realities, and with realities 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 25 
 
 only, that they are, what they are, and what they mean. 
 But its approach to these realities, in their concrete forms of 
 differentiation, their particular relations, their special signifi- 
 cances and uses, is not by any means so direct and immediate 
 as that which is demanded for the purposes of our daily living 
 or of the positive sciences. The " stuff " out of which the 
 structure of an ontological theory is to be built is not re- 
 ceived raw and at first hand, as it were. It is received after 
 being already worked over by the concurrent intellectual 
 processes of many generations, and after having long-time 
 ago entered into the entire life of man. The subject-matter 
 of metaphysical system is the so-called categories, as far as 
 they are universally applied to real beings and to actual 
 events ; it is the forms of human knowledge considered as the 
 forms of reality. This is, in part, what was meant when it 
 was pointed out that the conceptions which the common con- 
 sciousness and the particular sciences assume to be valid, and 
 find valid, for all concrete realities, need a subsequent work 
 of criticism, of unifying, and of interpretation. 
 
 It requires only a modicum of insight to discover that the 
 structure of every metaphysical system, like the work of every 
 individual cognition, no matter how insignificant and how 
 isolated the object of such individual act of knowing may 
 seem to be rests upon a foundation of assumption. Meta- 
 physics deals with the forms of all knowledge " considered as " 
 the forms of all reality ; ergo it is inevitably assumed that 
 the forms of knowledge are the forms of reality. To discover 
 this assumption, by a complete analysis of human cognitive 
 consciousness ; to discover its genesis, and to validate it, as 
 far as possible, for all experience ; to reduce the assumption 
 to such proportions that no attack from any quarter can lay 
 hold upon it for its destruction ; to exhibit in detail its signifi- 
 cance for the life of the knower and for the implied nature of 
 his object of knowledge all this, and more of the same sort 
 of philosophical discussion, belongs to epistemology. A theory 
 
26 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of knowledge is as agnostic as possible at the beginning ; it is 
 designedly and definitively sceptical and critical all the way 
 through. But the very proposal to frame a theory of reality 
 renders impossible and absurd the continuance in the agnostic 
 and sceptical attitude toward human cognition. Systematic 
 metaphysics must enter upon its attempt to treat the cate- 
 gories of reality in a critical and harmonizing and interpre- 
 tative way, by a complete abandonment of the persistently 
 sceptical and agnostic points of view. Its task is the critical 
 and constructive study of those universal conceptions under 
 which all concrete real beings and all actual events are known 
 'by all men ; but always in the good faith that its results are 
 entitled to a confidence which is proportioned to the range to 
 which such study can be extended, and to the fidelity with 
 which the obligations of such study can be discharged. 
 
 To keep epistemological and metaphysical discussions 
 wholly apart from each other is indeed a difficult, and per- 
 haps it is an impossible achievement. And all students of 
 the history of reflective thinking know what dispute has been 
 carried on as to the precedence of epistemology or meta- 
 physics. Shall one venture to construct an elaborate theory of 
 reality before one has thoroughly criticised the human cognitive 
 faculty to see whether so great an achievement is possible for 
 such faculty ? From the point of view of the Kantian criti- 
 cism this order of procedure is illusory and absurd. But to 
 insist upon settling questions of a critique of all reason before 
 making use of reason to extend to the utmost limit our knowl- 
 edge of reality, is, according to Hegel, like refusing to go 
 near the water until one has learned to swim. At present 
 we do not care which side of these distinguished contestants 
 is in the right upon the point of order. As a matter of fact, 
 we have discussed the epistemological problems in a previous 
 work ; and there we have fought it out with sceptical and 
 agnostic objections to the validity and limits of human knowl- 
 edge. The conclusions there reached render unassailable, in 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 27 
 
 our judgment, the soundness of that epistemological assumption 
 which is of the very essence of all knowledge, and which is 
 indispensable for every attempt at a systematic metaphysics. 
 The critical theory of knowledge justifies belief in the power 
 of the human mind to know reality, and even to give it a 
 measurably consistent, satisfying, and helpful theoretical deter- 
 mination. On the other hand, the fundamental assumption, 
 as respects its theory of knowledge, made by every attempt 
 at a system of metaphysics is the denial of the conclusion of 
 agnosticism. The necessary forms of human cognition are not 
 impotencies of understanding, but potencies of reason ; they are 
 not limitations of the sphere of vision, but insights into the 
 nature of Reality. 
 
 This right to employ, in courage and in good faith, the 
 reflective faculties so as to validate an attempt to grasp to- 
 gether and illumine all the concrete real things and actual 
 events and relations of human experience in some unifying 
 way, is not the special or exclusive possession of any thinker. 
 Neither is it limited in its application to systematic meta- 
 physics or to " school " philosophy. It is needed to convert 
 all science into something better than a logical arrangement 
 of mere ideas ; it is, indeed, the assumption which all positive 
 science makes when it virtually refuses to regard itself as 
 anything less important and a3sthetically impressive than a 
 system of cognitions and conjectures touching the nature of 
 reality. So, then, in assuming the positive standpoint of 
 faith in human reason which has been attained by previous 
 epistemological discussion, we are only defining the right which 
 belongs to metaphysics in general. The right we expect to 
 exercise is extended to all others ; for it belongs to all others. 
 It is the right to transcend the sceptical method, to leave 
 wholly behind the agnostic point of view ; and without further 
 reference to sceptical and agnostic objections and inquiries 
 whether legitimate or illegitimate, reasonable or absurd to 
 push reflection as far as possible toward a consistent and 
 satisfactory Theory of Reality. 
 
28 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Little beyond what has already been implied need now be 
 said concerning the method of metaphysics. Here as usual, 
 while method is of much importance, discussion of method is 
 of comparatively small value. Indeed, the method of system- 
 atic metaphysics is quite closely defined by the very concep- 
 tion of the nature of systematic metaphysics. All cognitive 
 experience is of, and about reality. It is real things, actual 
 events, and actual relations, of arid about which men have 
 and affirm knowledge. This is true whether such knowledge 
 is ordinary or scientific or philosophical. Inasmuch, then, 
 as systematic metaphysics aims at a theory of reality, it must 
 ever face this cognitive experience ; and as it faces experience, 
 metaphysics reflects upon that which it faces. Nothing can 
 easily be more false and misleading as to the proper way of 
 arriving at metaphysical truth than to follow literally the 
 injunctions of the German writer who declares: "Experience 
 must be subordinated to the concept. . . . Experience can give 
 us only perspective pictures ; and, therefore, only what belongs 
 to the inner world." l But metaphysics follows experience 
 with the reflective method, and in the full confidence that ex- 
 perience does give us something more than " perspective pict- 
 ures," namely, a trustworthy knowledge of the real world 
 both of things and of minds. In the use of its method it 
 recognizes, however, the pertinency of Boyle's way of stating 
 the case : u When we say experience corrects reason, 't is an 
 improper way of speaking ; since 't is reason itself that, upon 
 information of experience, corrects the judgment it had made 
 before." The recognition and the rationalizing of all our ex- 
 perience with reality is the method of metaphysical system. 
 
 The relation in which systematic metaphysics places itself 
 toward the particular sciences has already been indicated as 
 something belonging to its very nature. But the same relation 
 also determines the method of metaphysics. It is receptive 
 toward all the principles and conceptions of these sciences, so 
 
 1 Teichmuller, Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt, p. 233. 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 29 
 
 far as they deal with the particular kinds of reality. But it is 
 critical of all these principles and conceptions ; for its purpose 
 is to determine the limits, the rights, and the connections, of 
 each of them in its relation to all. And thus metaphysics 
 becomes in its aim and conclusions synthetic and constructive. 
 For it aims to harmonize and interpret the assumptions and 
 the conclusions of the particular sciences in the light of the 
 highest and most comprehensive reflection. 
 
 Metaphysics then employs the critical and constructive 
 method in its study of the universal forms of knowledge 
 the so-called " categories " in no merely formal way. It is 
 not its ultimate purpose simply to catalogue the categories, to 
 know what they are, and to attach more precise meanings to 
 them when their names are called. Its purpose is rather, by 
 accepting them as the universally recognized forms of concrete 
 realities, to reflect upon them so as to frame, if possible, a 
 consistent and satisfying theory of reality. 
 
 In concluding these introductory remarks it may be said 
 that the propriety of any particular attempt at systematic 
 metaphysics depends upon a number of particulars. That 
 such attempts will be made from time to time is as certain as 
 that men will continue to reflect upon the problems offered 
 by their own lives and by the environment of the universe in 
 which these lives arise and pass away. Some roots in human 
 nature which make metaphysics persist in spite of popular 
 neglect, and notwithstanding the pride of positive and definite 
 scientific knowledge, must certainly be allowed in order to 
 account for the recurrence of these attempts. Surely they 
 are not undertaken for the material profit which is in them. 
 Nor do we believe that the remark of Riehl goes very deep 
 into the truth when he ascribes metaphysics to " a natural 
 hankering of man after the measureless and the illimitable." 
 But whether any particular individual, with any measure of 
 propriety or success, shall undertake so thankless a task, it 
 depends upon himself to judge in the first instance, and in 
 
30 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the last upon his contemporaries and his successors. Above 
 all he should make up his mind to keep himself free from 
 what the Greeks called Kpoicv\ej^ (dealing in trifles) and 
 from ^v^porys (ambitious conceits). 
 
 The reflections just made may fitly lead to confession, to 
 apology, and to appeal for indulgence. The following attempt 
 at a sketch of an ontological theory does not pretend to be 
 either infallible, or complete, or even conclusive from every 
 point of view. It is, of course, nothing more important than 
 certain opinions, about a set of very profound and difficult 
 problems, expounded in an orderly way by an individual 
 thinker. That one's peculiar standpoints and views on 
 special problems, and especially one's ethical and religious 
 faiths and tendencies, should have an influence upon one's 
 general ontological theory, is probably inevitable. Indeed^ 
 although metaphysics professedly deals with the universal and 
 the unchanging, every particular instance of such dealing is 
 the product of the individual and of his age. Hence there is 
 peculiar need that every man who, anew and for himself 
 primarily, and then for his day and generation, approaches 
 these problems, should orientate himself intelligently and 
 self-consciously as it were. How conscientiously any author 
 has done this, it is not becoming for him to explain ; how 
 successfully, it is not becoming for him to judge. Enough 
 that the result be received as the contribution of a single 
 mind to the increase of the general stock of reflective 
 thinking. 
 
 But, however any thinker may resolve to be independent 
 and uninfluenced in his metaphysics by prevalent views, the 
 Zeitgeist will doubtless have certain conceptions to empha- 
 size and thoughts to express. Even the few teachers for all 
 ages are also the children of their own age. And for the 
 great multitude of students of metaphysics, what individuals 
 think about these universal and eternal problems is (however 
 deftly concealed, or expressed in idiosyncracies of language, 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 31 
 
 or " made over " for the season, like the black silks which our 
 grandmothers used to wear) little else than the thought that 
 is the current opinion of their age. We say of their age ; 
 and this may mean of the particular coterie to which they 
 belong, a selected specialization of the spirit of their time. 
 
 There are two comprehensive conceptions which seem to us 
 to be shaping the thought and the conduct of the present age. 
 These are, of course, not new, either in their total complexion 
 or in any of their most important factors ; otherwise they 
 could not be so comprehensive and influential as they are. 
 But they are receiving new and enlarged meanings ; they 
 are made to serve more extended and illumining uses. These 
 are the conception of Evolution, of the principle of becoming,, 
 and the conception of Self-hood, especially as having its roots 
 in, and its reaching out into, social connections. What 
 wonder, then, if our theory of reality finds itself compelled to 
 regard all the concrete being of things and of minds as a 
 process of becoming, somehow related (and we will wait to 
 choose our words, whether u creation," " manifestation," 
 "revelation," etc.) to the Being of an Absolute Self? 
 
 And now one can easily anticipate objections which it is of 
 little use at present trying to remove. Let it be confessed, at 
 once and for all, that our theory of reality is anthropomorphic. 
 But so is all science, and so is every form of philosophy. So 
 also, of course, is the most ordinary and yet most fundamental 
 cognitive experience. Metaphysics, we repeat, is severely 
 critical but not of the faculty, or power, of cognition ; it is 
 critical rather of the actual results of cognition. It is indeed 
 only of all things and transactions as known to us finite in- 
 tellects, prone to deception, groping in darkness, in restricted 
 commerce with things of sense that metaphysics can claim 
 to treat. But the only things that can exist for us are the 
 things known ly us, and the things somehow implied in them. 
 We will lay aside for the time any mixture of half-insane 
 scepticism, and take ourselves and our fellow-men with courage 
 
A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 and with good faith. We will study the universal and eter- 
 nal forms of man's knowledge of things as the universal and 
 eternal forms of the things known ; and we will see whether 
 we cannot in this way get a grasp upon some supreme and 
 ultimate truths to be learned about the universal and eternal 
 nature of Reality. We will begin and continue our search for 
 truth with confidence in theoretical reason ; all the way we 
 will not suffer ourselves to become mere critics of the cogni- 
 tive faculty. For from the sole standpoint of Kant's Kritik 
 der reinen Vernunft no man can so much as invest with any 
 satisfactory content the words all men agree in using to 
 express the indubitable common experience with the real 
 things and the actual events of the world. 
 
 ". Man is the measure of all things : " this is a very old 
 saying ; science has much impugned it of late ; its falsity or 
 truthfulness depends upon how it is understood. But if, 
 rightly understood, it is to be called rationalism, then no 
 dogmatism can be so little rationalistic and weakly critical as 
 to avoid being forced to this conclusion ; if, on the other 
 hand, it is to be called dogmatism, then no rationalism or 
 criticism can be so little dogmatic as to avoid taking refuge 
 however covertly in this assumption. The meaning in 
 which we accept the ancient dictum has been defined in detail 
 as a philosophy of knowledge. The way man does actually 
 measure all things and embody his measurements in a system 
 of cognitions must now conduct us to a theory of reality. The 
 traditional metaphysician to adopt Hegel's figure of speech 
 paints his entire picture in shades of gray (Grrau in 
 Ct-rau) ; and this, as he thinks, is because the metaphysician 
 has upon his palette only the " abstract essence of the cat- 
 egories" (das ganz Abstraote der Begriffe). If this our 
 metaphysical picture has in it a bit of vivid coloring here 
 and there, it will be because we hold that the categories 
 are significant as forms of life in both the subject and 
 the object; and that every concrete fragment and separate 
 
METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 33 
 
 event is a factor, and a pulsation, significant of something 
 more than a mere reign of law, and more than a logical 
 arrangement of ideas and thoughts. For the total interests of 
 humanity demand a Theory of Reality which shall be, on the one 
 hand, firmly founded in cognitive experience, and on the other 
 hand, well adapted to serve all man's practical needs. The 
 construction of a tenable and comforting philosophy is a work 
 of good-will ; it is a beneficent deed, a gift of blessing to 
 humanity. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 
 
 AT the very threshold of every ontological structure stands 
 a distinction which must somehow be recognized, but which, 
 by the precise form given to its significance, exercises an 
 important influence upon the structure itself. The terms in 
 which this distinction has been embodied are somewhat varia- 
 ble, while its essential relation to metaphysical system has 
 remained the same. In this way several pairs of words have 
 arisen and become more or less fixed in the terminology of 
 philosophy ; such are the Heraclitic and the Eleatic contrast 
 of Becoming and Being, the Platonic contrast of the sensible 
 thing with the Idea of which it is the shadow, the Kantian 
 thing as an object of knowledge and the " Thing-in-itself," or 
 the cognizable concrete realities and the unknown Real. In 
 similar manner has Mr. Spencer contrasted his one Unknown 
 Force, with its own multifarious " manifestations." From 
 Parmenides to Mr. Bradley, though with different shades of 
 meaning and with different conclusions drawn from the dis- 
 tinction, man's total experience has been customarily divided 
 between " Appearance " and " Reality." Noumenal and phe- 
 nomenal, actuality and manifestation, die wirkliche und die 
 scheinbare Welt these and similar expressions involve, in 
 differing ways and from different points of view, essentially 
 the same thought. 
 
 The philological and historical examination of the concep- 
 tions embodied in such terms as those just mentioned is 
 interesting, and may be made to throw some light upon the 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY Vo* 35 
 
 nature of metaphysical problems. A criticism of the various 
 shades to the distinction upon which the conceptions are 
 based is of more value. But to approach in either of these 
 ways the theme suggested by the title of this chapter would 
 not greatly further the main purpose of metaphysical discus- 
 sion. The end of such discussion is a theory of reality that 
 shall harmonize and give significance, so far as human powers 
 of reflection can, to all the work-a-day as well as to the 
 scientific cognitions of men respecting concrete real things 
 and actual events. But in the attempt to do this we are met 
 by opinions as old as philosophy itself which regard 
 this reality, about whose nature we are seeking a theoretical 
 construction, apart from, or in sharp contrast with, our work- 
 a-day and our scientific experience. It seems, then, as though 
 we could not get at " genuine " Reality, in order to examine 
 studiously its essence and its import, until we have separated 
 it from an admixture of mere appearance, an envelope or 
 shroud of the phenomenal. To avoid the distinction appears 
 to be equivalent to a dismissal of the entire problem of onto- 
 logical speculation, as this problem has been conceived and 
 cultivated during all the generations of thinkers in philos- 
 ophy. But to admit the distinction in the form customarily 
 given to it is likely to end in the virtual confession that this 
 problem is not only insoluble, but even profitless and illusory. 
 
 We accept, then, the distinction between Phenomenon and 
 Actuality (or whatever other pairs of terms one chooses for 
 the expression of a similar result of reflective thinking) as 
 essential to be observed for the student of systematic meta- 
 physics. But the way in which the distinction is to be made 
 and carried out must be critically examined. To determine 
 its psychological origin and its ontological import and value is 
 an indispensable part of an introduction to our further task. 
 
 The psychological origin of the distinction between phenom- 
 enon and actuality, or between " the apparent " and " the 
 real," is to be found in the process of knowledge itself as a 
 
36 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 development both in the life of the individual and of the 
 race. This distinction is, indeed, the necessary result of all 
 growth whatever in reflective thinking, and even of the exercise 
 of cognitive faculty. While the primary acts of knowledge 
 are forming in the infantile stream of consciousness no such 
 distinction is manifest or actually made. Only the Jcnower 
 heeds the difference between what is and what merely seems to 
 be. For the infant, the actual is only phenomenal and the 
 phenomenal is the only actual. We whose very life blood is 
 tinged with this distinction, who have so often been deceived 
 by ourselves and by others and by things, cannot put our- 
 selves in imagination back into that naive and trusting 
 infantile consciousness. But all our science of its states 
 shows us that it is impulsively active and indiscriminatingly 
 receptive. It does what it is psycho- physically moved to 
 do ; and it takes what of experience comes to it. It is neither 
 sceptical, nor critical, nor agnostic ; and so long as it knows 
 neither its Self nor any Thing, it is incapable of making any 
 distinction resembling that between appearance and reality. 
 With the development of the knowledge of self and the 
 knowledge of things, the distinction which philosophy has 
 so often misunderstood and abused becomes inevitable and 
 actual matter of fact in every human consciousness. This 
 distinction is probably first emphasized and worked into ex- 
 perience by commerce with external things. For these 
 objects are known to all men by various senses, under condi- 
 tions that are seldom twice precisely alike, and in an almost 
 infinite variety of aspects. But whenever and however 
 known, they are likely to be of important practical interest ; 
 and they mislead us in a practical way quite too often to per- 
 mit us to place an unwavering confidence in our knowledge of 
 them what they are and what they will do. The child who 
 expects pleasure from grasping the candle, or from tasting 
 the pepper, or from caressing the ill-natured dog, or from 
 snatching the older boy's toy, or from stuffing himself with 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 37 
 
 sweets, gets his early lessons in the distinction that things 
 are not always as they seem. 
 
 This same lesson in making distinctions between appear- 
 ances for practical ends, received in essentially the same way 
 and entitled to no less and no more of significance, is what 
 the particular sciences are learning from day to day. In 
 their learning of the lesson, however, the distinction becomes 
 something other than that which it is for the child ; it ceases 
 to be any longer merely the correction of one judgment 
 made upon a basis of one class of sensuous experiences by 
 another judgment resting upon another kind of sensuous 
 experiences. While it does not wholly lose its more childish 
 and practical significance, it becomes a distinction between 
 the obvious and sensible qualities and changes of things, 
 considered as effects, and those hidden, inferred powers and 
 changes which science investigates as the causes of these 
 effects. 
 
 In the one case, the thing or the event cognized in a judg- 
 ment made on grounds of observation by one sense may be 
 said to be only " apparent" as contrasted with the same thing 
 or event cognized in a judgment made on grounds of another 
 sense. In the other case, all judgments made on grounds of 
 observation by the senses may be called " apparent " as con- 
 trasted with those more general judgments which science 
 feels itself competent to pass upon the causes of all sensuous 
 judgments. From the one point of view, the stick which 
 seems bent in the water is the appearance; and the stick 
 which we plainly see not to be bent when it is taken out of 
 the water, is the actual stick. From the other point of view, 
 the flash of lightning or the spark which seems to pass, and 
 actually does pass, from A to It is the phenomenon ; the 
 rapid undulation of the ether, which is now electricity and 
 anon is light, is the cause in reality of the phenomenon. 
 
 But, plainly, man's reflective thinking cannot stop at this 
 point in its distinction between appearance and reality. It 
 
38 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 cannot continue uncritically to assign the data of sense-per- 
 ception to the former and limit the application of the latter 
 to the construction of rational hypotheses. To recur to 
 the example just mentioned : we must go on to inquire, 
 What is the superior actuality of this hypothetical entity 
 called ether, and of the theoretical movements which are 
 assumed to take place in it, but of which no direct witness by 
 the objective senses of touch or of sight can be obtained ? 
 Why must not ether, and waves in ether be considered as pure 
 conceptions, as only our human conjectures about what kind of 
 a being, if it existed and behaved in such a way, might well 
 enough explain to our intellects the phenomena witnessed by our 
 senses ? Let us, then, return to solid ground of standing ; and 
 is not such ground found only in the phenomena themselves, 
 the facts of actual sense-experience ? The things I perceive 
 are the realities ; the conceptual explanations given of them 
 by the man of science are only appearances made credible 
 for the time being by the conjectural activities of some human 
 intellect. The actual facts remain, for all time and all per- 
 sons, essentially the same ; but who knows what new kijid of 
 an entity, with novel but equally conjectural modes of behavior, 
 may some day be substituted for this nineteenth-century demi- 
 god the so-called " ether " ? 
 
 In relief from such see-sawing between the actuality of each 
 phenomenon, which is debased by calling it mere appearance, 
 and the conceptually correct seeming of that which gets its only 
 valid claim to reality by usurping the title from the phenome- 
 non, the reflective thinking of man may be driven in either of 
 two directions. One of these is the path of complete scep- 
 ticism leading to agnosticism. But our critical theory of 
 knowledge has already excluded us from this path ; and to 
 pursue it anew would bring us to no tenable theory of reality. 
 The other path seems to conduct the metaphysician where 
 phenomena and their conceptual explanations must both alike 
 be considered as mere appearances. To this condition of un- 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 39 
 
 trustworthy seeming all known things and all their scientific 
 explanations are then reduced. But over against them 
 grand, impressive, yet inscrutable and of little practical signi- 
 ficance stands the Unknown Real, the unchanging One that 
 is the foil of the ceaseless process of Becoming. Reality itself 
 now appears (sic) in the garb of an abstraction, an empty 
 apple of Sodom which is offered to man to appease his cease- 
 less hunger for an object of knowledge that is freed from the 
 limitations of the phenomenal. 
 
 It is of little use to seek further light on the distinction be- 
 tween " appearance " and " reality," as applied to external 
 objects, until we have also considered how a similar distinction 
 arises in the sphere of self-consciousness. In this sphere, too, the 
 growth of knowledge forces all men to distinguish between the 
 phenomenal and the real ; but the distinction is not precisely 
 the same, nor is it made on the same grounds, as when applied 
 to things. Touching the actuality of every phenomenon when 
 the reference implied in the question is to some conscious state 
 of its own, the mind is never in any doubt. From the point of 
 view held by this reference, phenomenon means nothing less 
 than a self-cognized fact, which " appears " at all only on the 
 condition that it is an actual event in the real life of the being 
 whose states are all similarly cognized facts. About this 
 form of a distinction also, to be sure, the infant does not con- 
 cern itself. For it there is no possible question as to what 
 merely seems to be, and what actually is its own. As yet no 
 cognitions of Self or of Things have taken place. But let the 
 development of self-consciousness, and the consequent growth 
 of self-knowledge, be supposed ; and even then the self-con- 
 scious states cannot be divided into two classes, into appear- 
 ances and realities, as the distinction indicated by these words 
 applies to things. 
 
 The conclusion just reached needs further attention. I may 
 doubt whether that particular tree which I seem to see over 
 yonder has any actual (or so-called " trans-subjective ") 
 
40 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 existence ; whether what it is color, extension, shape, loca- 
 tion in space, etc. be not merely as my object, an appearance 
 to me of that which is not itself real. The tree may certainly 
 be considered as an illusion, an hallucination, a phantom of 
 my brain, a figment of my imagination ; or it may for the 
 moment be regarded as a phenomenal real, the object con- 
 structed by the constitutive activity of my intellect, function- 
 ing after the forms of the twelve categories. But the moment 
 I take the point of view of self-consciousness toward this 
 object of mine all such distinction between " it " as phenome- 
 non and the same " it " as reality becomes impossible. Seem- 
 ing to see a tree and really seeing a tree are, from the point 
 of view of self -consciousness, alike actual and alike phenome- 
 nal. For the distinction between an actual tree and a merely 
 apparent tree is one which carries us beyond the point of 
 view assumed by the observer who stands in the stream of 
 his own consciousness. My object tree can be spoken of as 
 " mere " phenomenon only in this sense ; it can be regarded 
 as so completely dependent for its existence and its continu- 
 ance upon me as a knower as to have no existence in the form 
 of an object for any other self, and no influence or place in the 
 world of external things. But as my object, it is no more 
 phenomenal and no less real than are all things known to me. 
 Every object and every state is as really my object and as 
 much an actual event in my stream of consciousness as is any 
 other. 
 
 The distinction as to kind of state arises indeed, in self-con- 
 sciousness. But this, too, is a different distinction from that 
 between the phenomenal and the actual as applied to things. 
 I may mistake my hallucination for my perception, my imag- 
 ination for my memory, my involuntary impulse for my deed of 
 free will. I may be deceived as to the character of my motives, 
 as to the grounds for my conclusions, as to the sanity of my 
 hopes and aspirations. But all these actual events in my con- 
 sciousness, when regarded in respect of their claims to existence 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 41 
 
 as expressive of the reality of the being which I am, 
 stand on the same level of fact. The} 7 may all be regarded 
 as purely mental phenomena ; but they are all also parts of 
 the reality I call my Self ; because they are all actual events, 
 referable alike to the one subject of them all. In man's 
 experience with things, what is actual to one sense is mere 
 appearance to another sense, or to the same sense under other 
 conditions ; what is real to all the senses is properly spoken of 
 as mere appearance from the point of view of the explanatory 
 intellect ; and even the categories themselves those very 
 forms of the objectivization of sensuous impressions without 
 which no knowledge of concrete realities can take place may 
 be treated as belonging to the world of appearances only. So 
 Kant treated them. But the moment we enter the world 
 of self-contemplation the import of any such distinction is 
 changed. We reaffirm that all mental phenomena, as such r 
 are equally actual psychical events ; and that they all equally 
 belong to that reality I call my Self. 
 
 But further reflection soon reveals an important application 
 of the distinction between the phenomenal and the actual 
 which undoubtedly maintains itself in the sphere of self-con- 
 sciousness also. Indeed it is, in some sort only on the basis 
 of this distinction that self-knowledge develops. My con- 
 scious states so far at least as they fall under the Blick- 
 punkt of self-consciousness are phenomena to me. Every 
 act of self-consciousness means this : namely, that so qualified, 
 as it were, do I actually seem to myself to be. Sometimes it 
 is as having a pain, and sometimes as having a pleasure ; 
 sometimes as beholding an image of the past, and sometimes as 
 taking an outlook toward the future ; sometimes as forming a 
 plan touching my daily business, and sometimes as framing 
 a thought about some invisible and spiritual entity. Each 
 particular state passes quickly away and is succeeded by 
 another. And so I speak of them all as a life that is in a 
 constant flux, a succession of psychoses, a flowing stream of 
 
42 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 conscious states. Many of them I have forgotten; and of 
 those I remember, which were once so vivid and absorbing 
 of interest, how many are now like the pale, trooping shadows 
 of a more than half forgotten dream ! Surely my very being 
 is all, when taken together, and it is in each and every one of 
 its portions, a series of appearances not worthy the name of a 
 being truly real. 
 
 And yet my very ability to regard each and all of these 
 psychoses as phenomenal is dependent upon my consciousness 
 of something within the same sphere which must be thrown 
 into a marked contrast with the fleeting states. This some- 
 thing is I, my Self, as the saying goes, the one subject 
 of all the states. These self-conscious states are both real 
 as events, and are appearances as well, only because their 
 very nature consists in their being, so to speak, brought 
 under the eye of the Self, and appearing to it as its own states. 
 Their existence lasts only so long as their appearance lasts ; 
 when they cease to be in evidence before the subject of them 
 all, they cease really to be. In other words, the reality which 
 the conscious states have is not different from their actual 
 appearance as events in the stream of consciousness. But even 
 the lowest form of a genuine self-consciousness implies some- 
 thing more, and more permanent, which is characteristic of 
 every one of these self-conscious states. This something more 
 is the being which is the subject of the states. What further 
 this something is, and in what sense its existence is real, per- 
 manent, and universal, as belonging to all the phenomena, it 
 requires a scientific study of self-knowledge to say. It is 
 enough for our present purpose to call this something the 
 Ego, the Self, or the common subject of the conscious states. 
 
 This, then, is the distinction between phenomenon and act- 
 uality which is embodied and emphasized in every act of 
 self-consciousness. It is the distinction between the conscious 
 process or state, which exists only as it appears to the Self 
 or subject, and that same Self regarded as the subject of 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 43 
 
 all the conscious processes or states. They are, relative to 
 it, appearances or phenomena ; but IT is the one permanently 
 existing and real subject of all the phenomena. My con- 
 scious activities or states are mine ; they are actual events 
 appearing in that " stream of consciousness " I call my life ; 
 but I am the real being whose activities or states they are ; 
 and to whom speaking in a permissible and pregnant figure 
 of speech they all appear. And to no other being do they 
 appear ; to all other selves, if my conscious states are 
 made known at all, it is through certain physical signs which 
 appear to these other selves as phenomena of external things. 
 
 A study of the psychological origin of this group of philo- 
 sophical conceptions reveals, then, this important truth : In 
 the sphere of self-consciousness the distinction between reality 
 and appearance is valid only as a distinction between the Self 
 and its conscious states. 
 
 Further exposition of the psychological origin of this dis- 
 tinction between the phenomenal and the actual, both as 
 respects things and as respects the self, does not concern us 
 now. How it comes about that the total content of every 
 portion of the stream of consciousness which gets conscious 
 recognition divides itself into state or process and subject of 
 state or process, is a problem in introspective and speculative 
 psychology. What that can be justified by an appeal to experi- 
 ence is meant by speaking of the self as a real and permanent 
 being, which stands in such relation to its own individual ex- 
 periences as forbids its being identified with any one of these 
 experiences, and as requires that it should be regarded as in 
 some sort the possessor of them all, this belongs to the 
 metaphysics of mind to discuss. What has already been 
 shown is sufficient for our present purpose. The conclusion 
 may be summed up as follows : In its application to things the 
 distinction between the phenomenal and the real is fleeting, 
 evanescent, elusive ; but in its application to the self the 
 meaning and limits of the distinction are perfectly clear. 
 
44 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 The conclusion which has just been reached from the point 
 of view of psychological analysis is amply enforced by a 
 survey of the history of philosophy. In the metaphysics of 
 nature, and as to the valid conclusions of reflective thinking 
 about the essential being of things, the line of cleavage be- 
 tween the phenomenal and the real has been variously drawn 
 by different philosophers. With some, as with Parmenides 
 of old, the world of sensuous changes is throughout mere 
 seeming ; the unchanging One is the alone real. With others, 
 as with Heraclitus of old, the changes themselves, the sen- 
 suously known processes of Becoming, are the only actual ; 
 the conceptually fixed and unchanging has no real existence ; 
 it is the mere construct of the human mind. For one school 
 of thinkers, only the object of reason, the Idea, is entitled to- 
 be called actuality; for another, only the objects of sense. 
 All students of the great master of criticism know how pre- 
 eminently unsatisfying is the answer which Kant gives to 
 any attempt consistently to fix the meaning of this distinction, 
 so fundamental to his entire system of thinking. In the 
 Transcendental ^Esthetics the real is admitted into our sen- 
 suous experience as the unknown cause of our having sensa- 
 tions at all ; in the Transcendental Logic all the most assured 
 and scientific knowledge of real things is reduced to the 
 object-making activity of our understanding and so to the 
 phenomenally real ; in the Transcendental Dialectic the highest 
 ideas of reason are convicted of being nothing but a Logik des 
 Scheins. In many places in the Kantian writings, the very 
 thought of trans-subjective existence seems to be accused of in- 
 herent falsity ; Ding-an-Sich is a purely negative and limit- 
 ing conception, like the side of the pond against which the 
 blind fish strikes. And yet everywhere, in all three Critiques, 
 the author introduces glimpses of a Reality that is underneath 
 and behind all concrete and phenomenal realities. We may 
 not know what this Ding-an-Sich is ; but Kant himself is- 
 sure at least in a practical and aesthetical way and he is- 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 45 
 
 interested in revealing it to the man of faith. And finally 
 we are plainly told that we cannot be rational unless we 
 supply an " intelligible substrate " for nature, both external 
 and internal. 1 
 
 It is this inability to avoid the conviction that nature as 
 man knows it, is the manifestation of a transcendental reality, 
 coupled with the inability to define the latter or to fix clear 
 limits to the distinction involved in this way of looking at 
 nature, which offers one of its most interesting problems to 
 every metaphysical system. It is the same inability which 
 constitutes the pathos of the figurative and poetical ways of 
 applying to the external world the very conceptions of phe- 
 nomenon and actuality. But it is the conviction that this 
 world of appearances is, in this regard, of our own kindred, 
 which gives to such expressions the charm and the sublimity 
 they certainly possess. " Perhaps nothing more sublime was 
 ever said," remarks in a foot-note the author of the Critique 
 of Judgment, " and no sublimer thought ever expressed than 
 the famous inscription on the temple of Isis (Mother Nature) : 
 ' I am all that is, and that was, and that shall be, and no 
 mortal hath lifted my veil/ >: And the same note tells us 
 how a Professor of Natural Philosophy at Gottingen (Segner, 
 1704-1777) " availed himself of this idea in a suggestive 
 vignette " in order to inspire his pupils with a " holy awe." 
 Who does not recognize, with sesthetical emotion, the truth- 
 fulness of Goethe's series of exclamations with their following 
 inquiry ? 
 
 " How all one whole harmonious weaves, 
 Each in the other works and lives ! 
 
 Majestic show ! but ah ! a show alone ! 
 
 Nature ! where find I thee, immense, unknown ? " 
 
 For the solution of this problem offered by the distinction 
 between phenomenon and actuality, in a preliminary way and 
 
 1 Consider the course of the argument in solution of the "antinomy of 
 Taste," " Kritik d. Urtheilskraft," L, ii., 57 ff. 
 
46 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 so far as the distinction offers an obstacle to all attempts at 
 a positive and yet speculative treatment of the whole field of 
 external reality, two critical considerations are sufficient. 
 These concern the nature and the validity of this distinction 
 when it is regarded from the metaphysician's point of view. 
 This point of view is certainly an advance upon that from which 
 we have already surveyed the psychological genesis and appli- 
 cation, both to Things and to Self, of the same distinction. 
 This advanced point of view must, however, remain faithful to 
 the facts brought before it by psychological analysis. Onto- 
 logical doctrine, so far as it is dependent in any way upon this 
 distinction, requires some work of reflective thinking which 
 goes beyond psychology ; but it cannot contradict or neglect 
 the data of psychology. On the contrary, it must build upon 
 these facts as its own secure foundation. 1 
 
 As to the nature of the distinction between phenomenon and 
 actuality, so far as this distinction affects the problems and 
 the method of metaphysical system, the following critical con- 
 sideration is chiefly important. The two terms of the distinc- 
 tion are always correlative, mutually related, reciprocally 
 dependent for their significance and for their application to 
 every class of cognitions. A phenomenon that is not of and 
 to some real being is inconceivable. A reality that is not 
 phenomenon to itself, or to some other being^ is unthinkable. 
 Both " the apparent " and " the real " represent merely negative 
 conceptions, so long as we try to state them in terms which 
 do not involve each the other ; as positive conceptions, filled 
 in with a wealth of meaning derived from actual concrete ex- 
 periences, they necessarily implicate each other. Meaning 
 
 1 It seems strange, indeed, to the thoughtful student of history that, while the 
 distinction of " Appearance " and " Reality " is so old and so universal, the grounds, 
 nature, and validity of the distinction itself have received little attention. Sys- 
 tems of philosophy have been built up in the effort to justify it ; or they have 
 divided on fundamental doctrines according to that single conception of this couple 
 upon which the emphasis was laid. The distinction has given the title to meta- 
 physical treatises, both ancient and modern. It has itself received comparatively 
 little critical treatment. 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 47 
 
 can be given to neither of these conceptions, without involv- 
 ing the meaning which one finds one's self forced to give to 
 the other of the two. 
 
 It follows, then, that the phenomenal and the actual, or 
 the world of appearance and the world of reality, cannot 
 be distinguished as though they were mutually exclusive 
 spheres. We have already seen that the phenomena of the 
 entire mental life, regarded from the psychologist's point of 
 view, are all alike actual events in the one stream of con- 
 sciousness, all referable, as processes or states, to the one 
 real subject of them all. I am not to be set over against my 
 own conscious processes, as they appear to me, and thus made 
 more truly real by being separated from them. And strictly 
 speaking, the same statement is true of all objective and phys- 
 ical phenomena as related to that world of reality which is 
 recognized as " not-ourselves." Apparent things and real 
 things do not belong to two mutually exclusive kinds, or 
 spheres, of being. In the realm of so-called Nature, too, 
 the appearances are not something that can be drawn off and 
 wholly separated from the reality; and that which is real 
 cannot be construed as an unknown Ding-an-sich that never 
 to any one, nor in any manner, makes itself apparent. Or, 
 to follow up the figurative and poetic way of expressing the 
 truth, let us say : When men bow their heads at the temple of 
 Isis and hear their " Mother Nature " declare, " I am all 
 that is, and that was, and that shall be," so far as they 
 know anything " that is, or was, or shall be," so far has Nature 
 herself, with her own hand, already lifted her veil. 
 
 This general truth may be enforced and made clearer by 
 recurring for a moment to the epistemological point of view. 
 The distinction between the phenomenal and the actual is, of 
 course, a distinction which emerges in the development of 
 knowledge. It is a distinction which applies only to objects 
 of knowledge, whether to the self or to things that really 
 are not-the-self. But let it be considered from the 
 
48 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 point of view, and what is the meaning of the distinction 
 clearly found to be ? Phenomenon and appearance, 
 and all similar terms, mean that every object of knowledge 
 may, nay must, be considered as somebody's object known. 
 "Phenomenon" is any particular object of knowledge, re- 
 garded as " showing" itself in the stream of consciousness to 
 the being, the total manifestation of whose own existence is 
 this stream. " Appearance " is any particular object which 
 " presents " itself to the Self, before whom all objects pre- 
 sent themselves for cognition, for recognition, and for reflec- 
 tive treatment by the higher forms of thought. Without the 
 assumed presence of this real being, this conscious self, 
 neither showing nor appearing can be conceived of as taking 
 place. Nor can it properly be said that such an exposition of 
 the significance of knowledge is merely figurative ; and that to 
 be satisfied with it is to allow one's self to be deluded by 
 attractive figures of speech. The rather are we dealing here 
 with that actual and indubitable experience which itself re- 
 quires and admits of no figurative explanation or elucidation; 
 on the contrary, it is this experience itself which is the 
 source and the type of all similar figures of speech. Phenom- 
 enon and reality are words which refer to this experience. 
 Every manner of shining and of seeming takes itself back, for 
 all the meaning which it can claim for human thought, to 
 the same fundamental facts of cognition. Phenomenon and 
 reality are words totally without significance, unless they are 
 understood as descriptive of the terms on which all human 
 knowledge takes place. Nothing is known, or can be con- 
 ceived of as becoming known* except as it appears in con- 
 sciousness to some real knower. Or, to change somewhat 
 the customary meaning of the word, There is no phenom- 
 enon which is not made to be " phenomenon " ly relation to 
 the cognitive processes of a " noumenal " Self. Every phenom- 
 enon is to some mind ; every appearance is unto some real, 
 -cognitive being. 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 49 
 
 From the more metaphysical point of view (although this 
 also is an assumption without which knowledge itself is 
 impossible) we are equally compelled to say that every 
 appearance is of some real being Self or Thing. Other- 
 wise our very words are devoid of meaning when considered 
 from this point of view. For every particular phenomenon 
 some kind of correlated activity, which may be spoken about 
 as the manifestation of some particular agent or active being, 
 must be assumed. And just as no appearance terminates in 
 mid-air, or in a void, so no appearance arises from mid-air or 
 from a void. Phenomena do not issue from the womb of 
 non-reality. Every shining is of some sun, as surely as it is 
 into some eye ; if the total experience is the perception of 
 light. In other words, manifestations are of realities, to 
 cognizing selves. 
 
 Neither can the significance of that experience of mankind 
 in which originates the distinction of appearance and reality 
 be diminished by reminding ourselves that both physical and 
 psychical phenomena belong to the consciousness of the 
 lower animals. Nor do we succeed better when we consider 
 ourselves and one another as " but a moving-row of shadow- 
 shapes." The admission of a merely animal conscious- 
 ness, or of a human consciousness that is merely sensuous 
 and dream-like, does not make the distinction itself, when- 
 ever it emerges in consciousness, any less important. This 
 is, however, not the question now under discussion. For our 
 present inquiry does not concern the genesis of the distinc- 
 tion at any precise point of time, or in any grade of men- 
 tal development. Our present inquiry concerns the nature 
 and validity of the contrast involved in the distinction, partic- 
 ularly as applied to external things. Our present contention 
 in answer to the inquiry is this : the distinction between the 
 phenomenal and the actual is without meaning unless both 
 terms of the distinction be considered as involved in every 
 cognitive experience. Every such experience is a manifes- 
 
 4 
 
50 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 tation of reality to a reality. The reality to which the 
 manifestation is made is always, necessarily, the knower, 
 the cognizing self. And such manifestation the knower 
 always receives these are the very terms on which knowl- 
 edge is possible as coming to him from some reality. 
 
 This trans-subjective reference of all knowledge, this impli- 
 cate of actual being which is an inseparable moment of the 
 cognitive state, we have elsewhere discussed, in a critical 
 manner and at great length. The truth is referred to in this 
 connection in order to emphasize the correlate truth : 
 Appearance and Reality are never, even in thought, so to 
 be separated or contrasted as that each does not involve the 
 other. No appearance arises in human cognitive conscious- 
 ness without reality implicate ; no reality is cognized other- 
 wise than in terms of its appearance. For actuality does 
 not withdraw when the phenomenon occurs ; nor can the 
 phenomenon occur otherwise than as the announcer of the 
 presence of reality. And to throw the two into such a con- 
 trast as renders their spheres mutually exclusive is not only 
 to render them both unmeaning ; it is also to misinterpret 
 the most fundamental data of human cognitive experience. 
 
 An analysis of any individual thing known, whether in 
 terms of the plain man's consciousness or of the more 
 elaborate cognitions of science, enforces the conclusion so 
 important for systematic metaphysics : phenomenon and ac- 
 tuality must be regarded as inseparable correlates rather than 
 as mutually exclusive spheres. It is a trite saying and one 
 about which psychology and metaphysics have wrangled 
 much : " Things " are always known as real beings that 
 possess qualities and achieve results. To constitute a 
 " Thing " the phenomena must be supplied with a " that- 
 which " a kind of point of issue and of termination for 
 those events which are considered as answering our ques- 
 tioning after " what," and " why," and " what-for." Every 
 one knows what it is to be deceived and led into error in his 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 51 
 
 search for an answer to this questioning. Every one can be 
 made to stare at finding his cherished " core of reality " 
 vanishing into nothingness, if he responds to the invitation 
 to strip " the Thing " of all those qualifications which give 
 to him its " what," and its " why," and its " what-for." But 
 every one, no matter how often thus deceived and astonished, 
 continues virtually to make, and to enforce upon himself, 
 this same distinction as belonging of necessity to the real 
 existence of every object. If we may be pardoned so un- 
 couth yet convenient a word, the " Thing-hood " of everything 
 involves, in a kind of necessary unity, both phenomena and 
 actuality. This " Thing-hood " is the almost infinitely com- 
 plex appearance of some real being. It can never be either 
 mere appearance or pure unmanifested reality. 
 
 None of the wonderful discoveries of modern science, with 
 its improved instrumentation which reveals to sense the ex- 
 ceedingly small and the very remote, and which makes 
 apparent to imagination hitherto undreamed-of relations 
 and activities that lie beyond the reach of sense, alter this 
 truth in any respect. These new forms of appearance are of 
 the same actuality. The answers to the inquiry, What is 
 the nature of this actuality ? are indeed made indefinitely 
 more numerous by these improved methods of observation. 
 Each modern science has its rapidly extending list of answers 
 to the demand for qualifications that will actually apply to 
 every meanest thing. And the wonder of it all is that we 
 never find ourselves able to explicate the whole of the qual- 
 ities of any form of real being. We are constantly discov- 
 ering that each thing is really some " what " more than we 
 had hitherto known it to be. The answers to the inquiry, 
 Why does this particular thing behave thus and so ? by no 
 means keep pace with the discoveries that define its circle 
 of qualities in answer to the question, What ? Yet modern 
 science is constantly making its answers to the search after 
 explanatory causes more numerous and more precise. Nor 
 
52 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 is it wholly barren of fruit that satisfies the appetite to know 
 the teleology of particular things ; although science does not 
 consider its duty to lie chiefly in the effort to answer the 
 question, What for ? 
 
 In all the growth of modern science, however, reflective 
 thinking as to the hidden qualities and hitherto unnoticed 
 causes of external things is based upon observation. This is 
 of the very essence of science. But observation necessarily 
 keeps the phenomena as experienced, and the actuality as sci- 
 entifically defined, in constant living intercourse. Every cor- 
 rection of an error or of a partial statement is a fresh appeal 
 to the indissoluble character of this connection. For science 
 such correction never means the more extended separation of 
 the apparent and the real ; nor does it mean the confession 
 that what is now known to have been only apparent was not 
 also an appearance of the real. Science that is true to its 
 name and to its duty can never commit the almost stupid 
 blunder of a metaphysics which thinks to get at reality by 
 some tour de force of " pure" thinking separated from a basis 
 of actual commerce with observed facts. And observed facts 
 are, of course, phenomena. 
 
 To expound further the distinction between phenomenon 
 and actuality as applied to things, and to show the signifi- 
 cance and value of the distinction in the current conceptions 
 of particular beings, their qualities, their processes of becoming 
 and change, their relations, etc., is an important part of the 
 body of any theory of reality. What is meant that is impor- 
 tant for the shaping of a metaphysical system by such distinc- 
 tions as that between " apparent motion " and " real motion," 
 " apparent change " and " real change," etc., can be consid- 
 ered in its proper place. But no attempt at metaphysical 
 system can be conducted properly without abandoning from 
 the beginning the unmeaning and even absurd contrast of 
 appearance and reality, as though they were mutually ex- 
 clusive, or contradictory, conceptions. The introduction of 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 53 
 
 this contrast necessarily results in a perpetual vacillation 
 between two mutually exclusive and contradictory metaphysi- 
 cal positions. By emphasizing the phenomenal, it leads to 
 the conclusion that all actual human knowledge is illusory, 
 hopelessly confined to the realm of mere appearances. Such 
 a doctrine of Maya recommends suicide for the metaphysician, 
 as a coup de gr&ce inflicted at the very beginning of what 
 might, if he would only stay his hand, turn out a really bril- 
 liant career. But compelled to emphasize in turn the actual, 
 this doctrine finds satisfaction in positing the conception of a 
 mere Being, a Unity undefined and unknowable, a Ding-an- 
 Sich, hopelessly remote from all concrete and verifiable 
 experiences. And thus, indeed, the metaphysician saves his 
 own life, only to find that in the estimate of his fellow-men 
 and of himself, when the ethical and religious needs of life 
 are pressing, he might quite as well have lost it. 
 
 Inasmuch, then, as metaphysics, like every other methodical 
 and well-founded search for the extension of knowledge, 
 bases itself on cognitive experience, we accept the distinction 
 between phenomenon and actuality. It is a distinction em- 
 bodied in the essential nature of every cognition. It is a 
 distinction which characterizes the essence of the " Thing- 
 hood " of each particular thing. But it is a distinction, or, if 
 you please, a contrast, in which the two terms involve each 
 other. The true and all-inclusive reality must embrace them 
 both. And what is true of each particular object of knowl- 
 edge is true also of the world of objects. He who follows one 
 set of conclusions so far as to pronounce, with the ancient 
 philosophy of the Orient, all things to be illusory, to be Maya 
 indeed, must also adopt the statement with which this phi- 
 losophy itself supplemented so startling a conclusion. And 
 then he shall say with it, as he stands in the presence of every 
 particular and concrete real thing : " That, too, art thou." 
 
 The other preliminary conclusion with which we are to 
 meet on the threshold the distinction between phenomenon and 
 
54 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 actuality is no less important. It can, however, only receive a 
 simple statement at this point in our discussion. Its expan- 
 sion, exposition, and defence is a sort of central thesis in the 
 entire theory of reality. In a preliminary way the conclusion 
 may be stated as follows : The distinction of phenomenon and 
 actuality as applied to things in particular, and to the entire 
 world of external objects, has its meaning and its validity upon 
 the assumption that it is made after the analogy of the same 
 distinction as applied to ourselves. Things are real subjects of 
 those changing states, which become phenomena to us, in 
 somewhat the same way as that in which each Self is known 
 to be the subject of its own states. This phrase, " in some- 
 what the same way," is designedly made vague ; its further 
 definition is an important part of the problems of systematic 
 metaphysics. The clear and satisfactory definition of this, 
 and every similar phrase, may be quite impossible. The dis- 
 cussion of its meaning may often seem to end in the shadows 
 of conceptions that are inchoate, or even in a sort of dark 
 chaos of stirring emotions. But everywhere we shall find 
 ourselves obliged to return upon the position from which the 
 critical analysis of the distinction between phenomenon and 
 actuality sends us forth. For all things, too, whether as 
 experienced in particular or conceived of as together consti- 
 tuting a system, Reality is known as a being that is, after the 
 analogy of the Self, the subject of changing states. For 
 things in particular, and for the Cosmos in the large, pheno- 
 menon and actuality are. distinguished and contrasted only as 
 they are conceived of in terms of the Self and of its various 
 "moments" not divided in thought or in reality; but 
 united in each and every reality because both are given in 
 that cognitive experience which furnishes the problems of 
 metaphysics to thought. 
 
 If we were to undertake at this point a thorough criticism 
 of the proposition just made, we should only take time which 
 is needed for the same work in other connections. A few 
 
PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 55 
 
 words of general exposition must suffice. We have seen that 
 the distinction of phenomenon and actuality is itself realized 
 in every act of self-knowledge. In every such act I appear to 
 myself the phenomenon of a really existent self to itself. 
 In every act of perception by the senses, however, that appears 
 to me to the same self which is not a phenomenon of me, 
 but of some other really existent thing. 
 
 But now suppose that this " thing-like " appearance is 
 detected in actually being not what it seems to be ; and I then 
 call it a mere appearance, or more technically an illusion 
 or an hallucination. It is now a thing which has somehow 
 cheated me into recognizing it as the phenomenon of the 
 wrong subject. What must I do in order to maintain that 
 sanity of intellect which knowledge presupposes? Nothing 
 more than change the point of attachment from whfch the 
 phenomenon proceeds, the being of which my conscious state is 
 made a phenomenon. This I may do in either one of several 
 ways. I may attribute the phenomenon to another and differ- 
 ent kind of subject from that whose appearance to me I 
 originally thought it was. It seemed a ghost ; but it really is 
 the moonlight reflected from the folds of the curtain. It 
 seemed an ordinary man, but it really is a materialization of 
 a friend's departed spirit. It seemed a solid form, or a ship 
 upon the horizon ; but it really is an upright streak of floating 
 mist, or a mirage. Or again, I may take the unconsciously 
 or the scientifically psycho-physical point of view. Then the 
 subject of the phenomenon is my bodily self ; and the phenom- 
 enon is an appearance to me of some organ or condition of 
 this bodily self. It is a defect in my vision, a figment of my 
 brain, a disorder of my internal organism. But in this case, 
 since the phenomenon is not familiar to me as the phase or 
 condition of a thing, I must put in between it and its real 
 subject some intermediate link. And this link, too, must be 
 a phenomenon which would appear to me, or to some other 
 mind, as of the brain, or the liver, or spinal cord, if only we 
 
56 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 could get into the proper relations to the actual thing-like 
 subject. Or, finally, I may take the wholly subjective point 
 of view again ; I may turn, on grounds of practice or of theory, 
 to the solipsistic position. And then the phenomenon which 
 is an appearance to me is also an appearance of me ; it is 
 simply my conscious state, which I have somehow mistaken 
 for the state of some being other than myself. 
 
 But to whatever point of attachment in reality the phe- 
 nomenon is linked by our perception or by our thought, the 
 nature of the distinction implied remains essentially the same. 
 The ways of making the distinction change ; the nature of 
 the distinction itself is unchanged. From the epistemological 
 point of view, phenomenon and actuality mean, when applied 
 to things, a distinction between a being that is somehow the 
 permanent real subject of its changing states and these chang- 
 ing states themselves. The contrast and the unifying which 
 are both involved in the distinction belong to the essential 
 nature of all cognitive activity. And if knowledge is valid for 
 things, and this distinction really applies to things, then the 
 words "phenomenon" and "actuality " as applied to the ex- 
 ternal world signify the same fundamental truth. The contrast 
 and the unifying are both valid in the distinction as applied to 
 this external world. This world is known, and is known in a 
 trustworthy way, by a projection of the same distinction made 
 after the analogy of our cognitive experience with the self. 
 
 How fruitful this thought, with the assumptions it involves, 
 becomes for our understanding of the essential nature of 
 things, and indeed for the perfection of any attempt at a 
 systematic metaphysics, its future development must be left 
 to show. But having passed the threshold we may now bring 
 ourselves face to face with that conception in which all the 
 problems of metaphysics lie clearly or obscurely involved. 
 This conception is one which thoughtful men frame carefully 
 and hold before their imagination with open or suppressed 
 emotion. It is expressed by the one word reality. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 
 
 WHAT is it that gives to the word " Reality " the feeling-full 
 significance with which men so frequently employ it ? That 
 this term, and all other terms which convey meanings similar 
 to it, have an uncommon power over the mind, he cannot doubt 
 who has observed the language and conduct of men. The 
 explanation which answers, partially at least, the question just 
 raised would have to notice the following three classes of par- 
 ticulars. The search after what we feel ourselves entitled to 
 call actual, and our debate about the actuality of any partic- 
 ular being, event, or relation, is often a matter chiefly of 
 scientific and speculative interest. It is a search and a debate 
 which are forced upon the mind in all its keen pursuit of knowl- 
 edge for its own sake. For the terms employed by the knower 
 are meaningless unless they are understood as having an onto- 
 logical reference, an implicate of, or a hint toward the trans- 
 cendent. The truth is that the mind never affirms knowledge 
 whether the object of the cognitive activity be a fact, a 
 relation, a law, or what-not until it feels that it has some- 
 how obtained a grasp upon the transcendent. It is not con- 
 ceivable, therefore, that any being which desires knowledge, 
 as men are obliged to understand this term, should be other- 
 wise than interested, in a somewhat emotional way, in all that 
 is conveyed to thought by the word reality. 
 
 In this connection it may be noted that men feel a sort of 
 insult offered, and wrong done, to the cognitive faculties when 
 they arc accused, in particular instances, of inability to lay a 
 
8 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 grasp upon reality. The modern dilettante agnostic, indeed, 
 within his scholastic retreat or in the confidences of his club, 
 debates with indifference the question whether all human 
 knowledge be not illusory. He is perhaps moved to indigna- 
 tion by his opponent's claim to know anything about ultimate 
 ontological verities especially of the ethical and religious 
 order. His antagonism is perfervid ; but fervent faith or pre- 
 tence of knowledge seems despicable to him. Yet when it comes 
 to the application of his fundamental principle to any concrete 
 instance, the professed agnostic is as eager as another man to 
 know what the being " really " is, what the event which " actu- 
 ally " took place, or in what terms of a general formula we may 
 express " truthfully " the habitual transactions of things. And 
 to accuse him of not caring for the truth would be as unjust as 
 to bring the same accusation against the most honorable of 
 the dogmatists. But truth is a word which has no meaning 
 without the implicate of reality. And we need only to con- 
 sider the very nature of cognitive judgment in order to see 
 that it is always pronounced with that trans-subjective refer- 
 ence which is the fundamental tie between the subject's pass- 
 ing, state and the object's relatively permanent existence. 
 
 The emotional warmth, however, with which men somewhat 
 habitually clothe their use of the word reality is not by any 
 means a purely scientific affair. Its potency consists even 
 more obviously in its relation to our practical and ethical 
 interests. We want to know the reality of things because we 
 have got to act to conduct ourselves ill or worthily, safely 
 or harmfully in view of this reality. What that particular 
 thing is. what that alleged event actually was, on what habitual 
 mode of the behavior of things we may reckon under a certain 
 set of circumstances, it concerns us to know in a practical 
 way. For we must meet the thing, or use the thing ; we must 
 prepare for, or seek to thwart, the expected event. The stream 
 of human consciousness does not flow on as though man's 
 intellectual constitution, or affective disposition, or conative 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 59 
 
 effort, were its sole determining source. The rather is the 
 nature and direction of that stream dependent upon actual 
 relations with a system of trans-subjective realities. It is how- 
 it affects me, to change my " aesthesis," the pleasure-pain 
 series, and the realization of my conscious plans, that gives 
 its significance to the actuality of any particular thing. In a 
 poetical way and imaginative mood, I may speak of mind as 
 determining my interests and even as making a heaven or a hell 
 for me ; but, after all, I am constantly brought back to new 
 and more rational estimates of the importance of being in 
 certain relations to the environment of actual things. The 
 actuality that is in the environment, the reality of what cannot 
 be resolved into a mere mood or state of the self, is the 
 important practical consideration for the multitude of men. 
 
 Account must also be taken of the meaning of reality, if 
 one is to lead the life of a moral and social being. Such a 
 life is vaporous unless it be a part of a system of mutually re- 
 lated and interdependent realities. We cannot even conceive 
 of an ethical being which does not belong to such a system of 
 realities. However far solipsism and agnosticism may go in 
 satisfying our intellectual demands for an account of the 
 genesis and development of other experience, they both utterly 
 break down under the weight of ethical demands. In another 
 connection l we have shown in detail how the categorical im- 
 perative of Kant is in its structure and not to speak of its 
 applicability to the actual conditions of humanity self-con- 
 tradictory and absurd, without the admission of a system of 
 ontological implicates such as his own critique of cognition 
 has distinctly discredited. The Critique of Practical Reason 
 transcends or violates every conclusion of the Critique of 
 Pure Reason. Solipsism and agnosticism cannot furnish any 
 intelligible ground for ethics. Men always understand con- 
 
 1 See Introduction to Philosophy, p. 186 f . ; and Philosophy of Knowledge, 
 chap. xi. ("Experience and the Transcendent "), and chap. xii. ("The Impli- 
 cates of Knowledge"). 
 
60 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 duct as a transaction between self-existent but related reali- 
 ties, mediated by other thing-like realities. Strip off this 
 outfit of trans-subjective assumptions, references, and finished 
 cognitions, and there is nothing left to answer to the word 
 " conduct." Little wonder, then, that men regard the con- 
 ceptions embodied in the word Reality as of the highest 
 practical and moral import. 
 
 But we must also notice briefly a certain aesthetical potency 
 as belonging, by native right, to this same conception. There 
 is truth in Mr. Balfour's claim that a part of the equipment 
 of a metaphysician is an aesthetical mind. The subjective 
 ground upon which this claim rests, or to which it appeals, it 
 is the task of a theory of knowledge to investigate. The 
 ontological ground for the same claim will become it is 
 reasonable to hope somewhat clearer as our theory of reality 
 is developed. The claim certainly suggests that Reality itself 
 has, as a necessary part of its very conception, a3sthetical 
 "momenta," or factors, or subordinate conceptions. What 
 it is in place now to notice, however, is this : an awakening 
 of human aesthetical consciousness is a natural response to 
 any intelligent conception answering to this word. The mind 
 has a kind of respect, a feeling of awe and of mystery, for that 
 in every meanest thing which is real, which is not merely its 
 own subjective state of the apprehension or the conception of 
 the thing. The sources of these emotional stirrings are indeed 
 somewhat difficult to explore. But they lie deep, and they 
 persist throughout all changes in history. Nature, our 
 Mother, stands over against us in a measure ready to lend 
 herself to our wills, but in still larger measure independent 
 of our wills ; in a measure, too, capable of being understood 
 by, and taken into sympathy with ourselves, but in still larger 
 measure baffling our most determined efforts and our pro- 
 foundest reflections. If we perish, she persists; and from 
 her womb new and strange beings are ceaselessly produced. 
 Was it with something of this feeling that the gentle Spinoza 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 61 
 
 is said to have watched, with so great interest, the fierce 
 fighting of spiders ? Surely it is this feeling which furnishes, 
 in part, the source of wide-spreading nature-worship. And 
 how else shall we fully justify the metaphysician's tendency 
 in all times to make imposing, by capitals, or italics, or sono- 
 rous and often unmeaning phrases, the expression of this 
 conception in its most universal form ? Why otherwise 
 should men be moved before such mere words as the One 
 Being, the all-inclusive Becoming, the Reality, the Idea, the 
 Universal Substance ; or even Matter, Force, and the Un- 
 knowable ? 
 
 In this strange potency of terms, significant of the trans- 
 cendent Reality, to move the ethical and aesthetical feel- 
 ings of man do we find the partial justification of Goethe's 
 declaration : 
 
 "Wer Gott nicJitfullt in alien Lebenskreisen, 
 Dem werdet Ihr Ihn nicht beweisen mil Beweisen." 
 
 For in " all the spheres of life " we come face to face with 
 reality; and as we know it concretely and yet so very partially, 
 and mould it practically while being ourselves so completely 
 within its grasp, we feel what is a fact of cognition, but also 
 what lies beyond the reach of our cognitive powers. And 
 synthesizing this, man attains a conception that awakens his 
 aesthetical nature as well as guides and limits his practical 
 life. 
 
 We must be prepared, then, for what any attempt at an 
 analysis of the term " reality " makes perfectly obvious. 
 And this is, first, a certain surprising wealth of content which 
 rightly belongs to the most meagre conception answering to 
 this word ; and, second, a certain something over and beyond 
 all that can be stated as the result of merely reflective analy- 
 sis. That is to say : Every real being is known as real, because 
 it is presented in experience under a variety of thought-forms ; 
 but there also belongs to the reality of every being given in our 
 
62 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 cognitive experience, somewhat more than is obvious simply to 
 all thought-forms. Thus it comes about that every particular 
 thing, when it becomes an object of knowledge, seems to say 
 to us : " 1 am here ; look and you will know in part what I 
 am ; but only in part, for there is that in my being which 
 precedes and gives unavoidable conditions to your fleeting and 
 fragmentary act of knowledge ; and when this act of knowl- 
 edge is exhausted and has passed away, I shall still be 
 essentially unchanged." By repeated experiences of this 
 same sort the mind of man comes to hold a certain vague 
 yet comprehensive conception of reality, in general ; of what 
 it means to be real, and of what is the totality of real beings 
 as known to man. And this we perhaps try to gather to- 
 gether into some single pulse of thought, and to express in 
 few words to ourselves or to others. At this point the snare 
 of both the popular and the scientific and systematic meta- 
 physics is the attempt at an impossible simplicity. For 
 neither in the uncritical assumption that actuality is exhausted 
 by the " crude lumpishness " of things, nor in the most elab- 
 orate but merely logical arrangement of philosophical abstrac- 
 tions, can the mind describe all that its experience with every 
 particular reality implies. And when we try to gather into 
 one sentence all our experience with all realities we can 
 speaking reverently scarcely be more definite, and at the 
 same time comprehensive, than to say that they bring to us. 
 the message of the Infinite and the Eternal : " I am that I 
 am." 
 
 This somewhat too mystical way of expressing a funda- 
 mental truth of metaphysics is certainly in need of further 
 reflection and of restatement. We must, then, drop the more 
 vague general word, " Reality," and inquire : What do men 
 mean by calling any thing, event, or relation real ? On this 
 point the sentence with which Lotze opens his system of meta- 
 physics is not at all illumining : " Real (wirklich)" says he, " is 
 a term we apply to things that exist in contrast with those 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 6E 
 
 that do not exist ; to events that happen, in distinction from 
 those that do not happen ; and also to relations which obtain,, 
 in comparison with those that do not obtain." For this- 
 sentence does not even tell us how we may rightly use our 
 words ; much less does it aim to instruct us as to what is the 
 conception we should attach to these words. Nor does the 
 somewhat celebrated dictum which the same writer afterwards 
 proposes and defends " To be (i. e. really) is to stand re- 
 lated " advance us more than a single step upon our way. 
 For if we agree with Lotze that " pure being is an abstraction,"" 
 we must go on to show that " pure " relation is also an abstrac- 
 tion. And if we maintain that relation is a category, a form 
 of cognition under which all real beings fall, we must give an 
 almost untold wealth of meaning to the conception of " stand- 
 ing " under this category, in order to make the compound term 
 (" standing in relation") express our entire valid experience 
 in the cognition of any particular no matter how insignifi- 
 cant Thing. 
 
 To establish on a firm basis of incontestable experience 
 the statement just made, we have only to consider all that is 
 involved in our knowledge by the senses of any particular 
 thing or particular event. The question which is to be 
 answered by bringing it to the test of cognitive experience is 
 this : What is it really to be ? But there is no other way even 
 to begin the answer to this question than to make a study of 
 actually existing things as they are known to men. Neither 
 pure mathematics, nor formal logic, nor a metaphysical dialectics 
 that is aloof from concrete knowledge, can suggest the answer y 
 or even furnish any method of approach, to a problem like 
 this. Cognitive experience with concrete things contains at its 
 roots, if anywhere it is to be found, the beginnings to a true answer 
 of the metaphysical problem. When we examine any such 
 experience we find in it, as experience, a living contact with 
 reality, which relieves us, if we will only accept and deal 
 candidly and yet thoroughly with this proffer of relief, from 
 
- A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the results of two equally false assumptions : either that our 
 logical formulas can wholly compass reality, or that reality is 
 simply the unverifiable construct of our own thoughts. For, 
 when looked at from the epistemological point of view, this 
 knowledge given to us through our senses, but by no means 
 wholly in terms of sensation, implicates a being not-ourselves 
 that is limiting and opposing our wills and yet is ever enter- 
 ing into actual relations with us in manifold ways. With this 
 reality every cognitive experience with the senses puts us into 
 actual and vital relations. 
 
 When we turn from asking ourselves, What am /now doing 
 and suffering as I know this thing ? to asking ourselves, What 
 is this thing which, by my doing and suffering, I am coming 
 to know ? the answer to the latter question may be almost 
 indefinitely prolonged and varied. But each item posited in 
 answer to this question is required for its fullest answer ; and 
 when all the items have been handed in and estimated as fully 
 as possible, the answer is, in every case, by no means com- 
 plete. For every single thing, no matter what, whether 
 crystal or flower, stone or star, amoeba or human body, 
 really is essentially all that every other thing is, all indeed 
 that the known universe of things can claim to be. Its real 
 being is no bare simplicity of existence ; its real being has all 
 the variety of the universe concentrated in it. Its being is an 
 epitome of all things ; and it may be known as such to us. 
 
 Every real Thing is, then, an actualization, in an individual 
 way, of all the categories, or necessary and universal forms of 
 all existence. It is a concrete and harmonious unifying of 
 these categories. 
 
 Now it is not the part of the metaphysician, who is a candid 
 and thorough seeker for a valid answer to the question, 
 " What is it to be real as this Thing is ? " to play hocus-pocus 
 with the testimony of his own experience. It is not his part 
 to manufacture contradictions and collisions between his own 
 thoughts and then to objectify these unhappy conclusions in the 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 65 
 
 reality given to his experience. We repeat : The thing holds 
 in its being all the categories, in perfect harmony, and in 
 living consistency with its own continued existence. Its 
 being is the harmonizing and unifying of all those conceptions 
 with which the critique of metaphysics has to deal. In the 
 actual thing, as I and other men see, handle, and use it, and 
 learn about where it comes from and what it will do, attributes 
 are not divorced from substance (whatever we may mean by 
 this latter word). In the actual thing there is no contra- 
 diction set up between unity and variety, between motion and 
 rest, between being and becoming. These contrasts and con- 
 tradictions arise amongst the crude abstractions of the thinker 
 who has somehow gone astray in his thinking ; they are not 
 actually existent between the parts of the one reality as given 
 to the cognitive experience of men ; or between this particular 
 reality and other equally real things. Contrasts and con- 
 tradictions enough, of a certain sort, there are in that system (?) 
 of realities we call the World. But they are such as can- 
 not wholly be harmonized in any one concrete existence. 
 Whereas all the essential factors and forms of being which 
 belong to the conception of a " thing " are harmoniously pres- 
 ent, to our cognitive experience, in every concrete thing. 
 
 Our thought needs illustration from some example. And as 
 an example that is fit indeed to illustrate the truth of a whole 
 system of metaphysics, anything will do. Let us go into the 
 garden and stand before a rose-bush in full bloom. What is 
 the answer which this particular thing gives to the ontological 
 problem : What is it to be real ? To get any answer at all, 
 we must ask this particular thing, definitively and persistently : 
 What really art thou ? In the first " pulse of attention " with 
 which we regard the rose-bush its reality becomes only 
 vaguely defined in the consciousness of the observer. It is first 
 apprehended as something that is not-ourselves, there, out 
 of us and present before us, but needing further definition as 
 
 to size, shape, significance, and use, of itself as a whole and of 
 
 5 
 
66 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 its various parts. But persistent application of all our cogni- 
 tive faculties and these include all the forms of the living 
 existence of the knower progressively defines what this 
 being in particular is. The answer we get as we know more 
 about the rose-bush is a succession of cognitive experiences 
 in us which is interpreted as a simultaneous possession by the 
 thing, of its various qualities. The experiences are a suc- 
 cession of states in us ; but the thing possesses all the 
 qualities at the same time. We see that it is crimson, that 
 it has so many petals, sepals, etc. ; that it answers to our 
 memory-picture of such a species with such a name. We 
 know it as having these qualities and being of such a name. 
 But now we invoke our other senses to make the flower-bush 
 tell us what it really is ; and with the result that we are 
 affected by its odor, feel its soft, velvety leaves, suffer the 
 prick of its thorns, and are resisted in our -effort to break 
 through its stalks. This, then, is what it actually is to us, as 
 answering our metaphysical inquiry through the media of our 
 unaided senses. Let this thing thereupon be taken to the 
 physicist, the chemist, the botanist, the biologist, the 
 historian, or to the painter, the poet, or other student of 
 the aesthetical. And they shall all be made to contribute 
 volumes in answer to our questionings after information as to 
 what really is this so humble and so insignificant a thing. 
 
 When the various answers to the ontological problem from 
 the different preliminary points of view practical, scientific, 
 and aesthetical have been received, let the student of sys- 
 tematic metaphysics raise his peculiar form of inquiry. 
 What is this particular thing known to be, as possessing 
 those characteristics that connect it with the system of 
 things ? Its very reality consists in its having all the es- 
 sential characteristics common to all things ; and, as well, 
 in having them all in some sort of a harmonious and vital 
 unity. The rose-bush occupied, and yet could be moved about 
 in, space ; it endured, and yet changed in, time ; it supported 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 67 
 
 and evinced many qualities ; it suffered and did many things 
 to us and to other beings, in a great variety of relations ; it 
 could be weighed and measured and counted, as a whole or 
 in its separable parts ; it had a certain characteristic form 
 and fell under certain well-known or conjectural laws. In 
 brief but figurative language : It showed itself possessed of all 
 the categories. Quality, Relation, Change, Time, Space and 
 Motion, Force and Causation, Quantity and Measure, Unity 
 and Number, Form, Law, and Final Purpose they were all 
 present and harmoniously operative in this one single thing. 
 It was this unity effected in all the categories which made the 
 rose-bush a valid " specimen " of what an actual Thing is. 
 
 Considered as content for conception, every experience of 
 cognitive perception gives this same full meaning in answer to 
 the inquiry : What is it to be real ? No one conception, or class 
 of conceptions, to the exclusion of others, is sufficient to furnish 
 the satisfactory answer. The rather is every particular thing 
 known to be real according to the fulness of the answer with 
 which it actually satisfies all these forms of conception. And 
 further, the very nature of thinking is such that, for pur- 
 poses of thought, we may indeed render the different parts of. 
 our experience abstract; but if we render any part abstract, 
 by a separation of it in thought from the others, we fail to 
 take into account by our thinking all that our cognitive ex- 
 perience actually implies. Our theory of reality will thus 
 become too poor to embrace any meanest thing as it is known 
 to the weakest of really human intellects. In this respect the 
 nature of Reality is at variance with the nature of thought ; 
 the nature of Reality is rather in accord with the total nature 
 of our experience with our self and with things. The bearings 
 of this conclusion must now be left for future reconsideration 
 and further development. 
 
 Attention has already been called to the experience of man as 
 a knower, that every particular being actually answers the 
 metaphysical question, What is it to be real ? in a way that 
 
68 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 is not wholly exhausted by even the most complete analysis 
 of human thoughts. The evidences for this are found in the 
 cognitive experience itself, in all the language which men 
 employ to designate the garnered results of this experience, 
 and in the outspoken theories or covert admissions of meta- 
 physicians of every school. This " something more " is of two 
 kinds, which may be regarded from two quite different points 
 of view. In the first place, in our most complete knowledge of 
 every thing there is involved the consciousness of a present 
 limitation of cognition as to what the particular thing is, 
 with an added consciousness of the possibility of this thing 
 being known to myself or to others in manifold other ways 
 either conceivable or inconceivable by them and by me. I 
 can now indeed tell, on a basis of my own experience, only 
 a short but true story as to what I know this " thing " to be. 
 But the story " as-to-what " the thing really is admits of an 
 indefinite expansion. There is always, then, to imagination 
 and to thought, the suggestion of a more beyond, as possibly 
 belonging to the nature of the thing. This it is, in part, 
 which makes fetish worship so spontaneous in the ignorant ; 
 and it is this which spurs to ceaseless explorations the scien- 
 tific mind. 
 
 There is in every real Thing, moreover, another kind of 
 " something more " than that which can be stated in any 
 terms of thought. And this is the answer in our experience 
 which the object gives to the inquiry whether it is a reality 
 at all or not. Now this answer can never be completed by 
 a mere multiplication of qualities, activities, and relations, 
 that are without any " common point of attachment." This 
 answer is only to be completed by the positing, with convic- 
 tion, of some common point of attachment for all the par- 
 ticular qualities, activities, and relations. We add to our 
 knowledge as-to-what any particular thing is, only on the 
 basis of a knowledge, somehow already assumed or gained, 
 that just this particular thing really is. We qualify only that 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 69 
 
 which is experienced as actual. But the mental affirmation 
 of the actuality of any object of our cognitive experience has 
 somewhat different roots in this experience from those out of 
 which grow the different qualifications of the same object. 
 Knowledge of the qualities, changes, and relations of things 
 is the result of activities belonging to discriminating con- 
 sciousness, in which continual and indefinite growth is pos- 
 sible. But the real existence of any thing cannot be made 
 clear by a mere description of consciousness " content- wise ; " 
 nor can it be represented in terms of mental images merely, 
 or in the fuller terms of conception and reasoning. These 
 terms all need some " point of attachment," as it were, some 
 factor in the cognitive process which shall serve, on account 
 of its relative stability, to give to them the unity and solidar- 
 ity which belong to man's experience with what he calls real. 
 For the Self, such a factor in every act of self-knowledge is 
 not difficult to find. It is found in that immediately felt self- 
 activity which is the central element in each particular act 
 of self-knowledge. I know myself as actually existing, be- 
 cause in all knowledge of myself this felt self -activity is 
 present as a sort of point of attachment for the particular 
 forms of the experience which I know myself to have. Gen- 
 eralizing, and expressing the results of reflection in an ab- 
 stract way : I know that I am ; because, as the basis of all 
 discriminations as to what I am, and as the core of all such 
 self-knowledge, I immediately know myself as will. 
 
 In the growing knowledge of self, the knowledge of things 
 is interwoven ; and both in character and in amount, the two 
 kinds of knowledge are interdependent. For all my knowl- 
 edge is of my Self as a will that is impeded, checked, limited 
 by that which I cannot identify with this self. This " some- 
 thing-other-than-myself," which is confused and mingled with 
 myself in all the earliest stages of mental development and in 
 every subsequent pulse of attention that does not secure a 
 completed act of clear knowledge, becomes divided up into 
 
70 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 many points of attachment for the various qualifications of 
 so-called things. But what meaning shall be given to such 
 of these points of attachment as cannot, by the very terms 
 of the growth in knowledge, be identified with the active and 
 suffering Self ? What meaning can be given, other than to 
 regard them after the analogy of what is so immediately and 
 indubitably recognized in one's own existence ? These are 
 the points of attachment for the qualifications which are 
 " not-self." They are existences in reality ; but they are ex- 
 istences which I have come to know as not-me. They are 
 things ; and they could not be conceived of as real unless 
 I attributed to them a core of self-activity similar to that which 
 I feel in myself and call my will. That things actually are is, 
 then, a factor in my knowledge of them which springs from the 
 root of an experience with myself as a will, at once active and 
 inhibited, as an agent and yet opposed by another. That in 
 any thing which is the point of the attachment for all those 
 qualities which the growth of knowledge ascribes to this 
 particular thing, is identical in its being with what, in our- 
 selves, we call " will." 
 
 The further amplification and defence of the conclusion 
 just reached belongs to subsequent chapters. It is enough 
 at present to note that all cognitive experience with things 
 carries in itself the provision for such central points of 
 attachment; and that this provision is not made primarily 
 by any growth in the clearness and multitude of our 
 thoughts ; it is rather given in the fact that all knowing 
 involves the immediate experience of Self and of Things, as 
 our Will inhibited and limited by other will. The way that 
 popular and scientific language recognizes this characteris- 
 tic of all human cognitive experience with things is full of 
 suggestions for the metaphysician. In spite of objections 
 from psychologists and of sarcasms from idealistic metaphysi- 
 cians, the popular niind refuses to be satisfied with the doc- 
 trine that all of any reality is expressed by summing-up its 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 71 
 
 qualities ; nor is this refusal mitigated by the offer of psy- 
 chology or of metaphysics to add : " so far as we know " 
 things, or considered as things "for us," etc. 
 
 By various figures of speech the popular effort is made to 
 express the disbelief that the mind is itself a mere " stream 
 of consciousness ; " or that the external object which the mind 
 knows is a mere bundle of attributes a bundle somehow 
 got together by circumstances, or come together into a tem- 
 poral unity without unifying activity of its own. On the con- 
 trary, every Thing or Mind must be regarded as " that which " 
 has the qualities ; as " that to which " the properties belong. 
 The word u qualities " means, in the popular estimate, the vari- 
 ous answers which the reality gives to our inquiry as to the 
 sort, or lot (quails), among realities, to which this particular 
 thing belongs. Properties are the " very own " of the things ; 
 but the things are the owners of the properties. In vain does 
 the expert make common folk stare with his unanswerable 
 inquiry: And what would be left of any thing after all its 
 qualities have been removed ? or, What can you make clear 
 to thought regarding the being of the thing, that is not stat- 
 able in terms of its properties or its relations ? There can, 
 indeed, be no doubt about the answers to these inquiries : 
 No reality, but only an abstraction, is left after the qualities 
 are thought away ; and, of course, properties and relations 
 all imply the results of thought upon experience with reali- 
 ties. Yet men continue, and will continue, to believe that 
 there is somewhat more in every thing than can be defined 
 to thought by an enumeration of its properties and rela- 
 tions ; and this " somewhat more " is, even if the conceptions 
 of men regarding properties and relations be indefinitely 
 extended, necessary to the reality of the thing. Such a 
 necessity is laid in the very foundations of all human 
 knowledge. It is the self-felt life of a living Will. 
 
 It will subsequently be shown how inconsistently the physi- 
 cal sciences are accustomed to deal in referring to this 
 
72 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 " something " which is more than a mere enumeration of the 
 qualities and relations of things. But these sciences hold to 
 their belief in this " something more " as a central article of 
 their common creed. They all unite in generalizing upon the 
 basis of their experiences with individual things, and thus 
 frame an elaborate conception of "matter" in general. 
 They feel the necessity for a greater wealth of real exis- 
 tence than is covered by even this elaborate conception ; 
 and so they have recently posited another kind of being, or 
 active agent, to which the name of " ether " is customarily 
 given. And the achievements of nineteenth century physics 
 are largely summed up in the conception of ether. Now 
 that modern physics is provided with two great kinds of 
 entities, matter and ether, both of which may stand 
 as subjects for the manifold new qualities and relations of 
 things which it is discovering, this science feels itself much 
 better equipped for the handling of phenomena. It may 
 complacently go on in its work of defining matter, and de- 
 fining ether, by the very proper, specific method of telling 
 us what these beings can become and can do. 
 
 But the physical sciences keenly feel and frankly confess 
 the limitations of their knowledge as to the nature both of 
 matter and of ether. And they are wont to say, when 
 pressed, that we do not know, and probably never shall 
 know, the " essence " of either. They are ready to turn 
 over to metaphysicians further inquiry as to the real beings 
 which correspond to these conceptions. Still the physical 
 sciences, in telling us what particular things are and can 
 do, must always have nouns for their adjectives and their 
 verbs. They must also employ substantive terms in the 
 statement of their higher and their supreme generalizations. 
 This necessity is upon them, even when the modesty of the 
 scientific mind induces some such expression as an "un- 
 known and unknowable that-which" to substitute for the 
 more definite conceptions of matter and of ether. And not 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 73 
 
 infrequently the Samsons among the true Israel of science 
 give such a strong agnostic hug to the two pillars (matter 
 and ether) upon which the temple above them reposes, as to 
 be in danger of bringing it down upon their own heads. But 
 if these pillars were pulled down, men could never build 
 again the temple of the physical sciences as a system of 
 cognitions touching reality, without putting other substantive 
 existences, other entities, in their place. Now from the epis- 
 temological point of view all this manner of speech is but 
 testimony to that root of cognition which lies too deep down 
 in experience to be ever exposed merely by reflective think- 
 ing. And from the metaphysical point of view, the same 
 manner of speaking shows how the reality of any thing in- 
 volves that it is, as somewhat too deep in its significance to 
 be wholly disclosed by telling what it is to me and to other 
 minds. 
 
 All schools of philosophy, too, virtually recognize that ful- 
 ness of meaning to men's cognitive experience with the real- 
 ity of things, upon which we are insisting. The philosophical 
 uses of words like " substance," " substantiality," etc., have 
 perhaps happily gone by. The debate between realism and 
 phenomenalism, in any form assumed by either party to the 
 long contention, will scarcely again repeat the terminology of 
 Locke, or of Berkeley, or of the Wolfian school as it preceded 
 the critical thinking of Kant. Metaphysics to-day has little 
 more patience with the assumed Ding-an-sichheit of the great 
 critic of cognition himself. But the distinctions out of which 
 these terms arose, so far as they lie in that nature which we 
 are obliged to give to every object, because the distinctions 
 set the very terms on which we know it at all, remain essen- 
 tially unchanged. Without assuming some being which is 
 the subject of the phenomena, no philosophy can state either 
 its problem or its conclusions. With Mr. Spencer the dis- 
 tinctions find expression in such terms as the " Unknown 
 Force," which is the universal subject, and the varied known 
 
74 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 or as yet unknown forms of its " manifestation." Teich- 
 miiller to take another example would handle the prob- 
 lem of reality by starting out from the distinction between 
 Beziehungs-punkte and Beziehungs-formen. On beginning 
 the metaphysician's task one may signalize the same truth 
 by positing a perfectly indefinite being of all things, which 
 may as well be called an X. The nature of this X is thus 
 made the main ontological problem. But the presence, in 
 every particular thing known to us and in the whole world of 
 Reality, as a condition of its being known, of a " somewhat" 
 which shall serve as a point of attachment for the qualities 
 and relations, must be assumed as an obvious feature of 
 cognitive experience. And this truth as we have said 
 is proved by an analysis of this experience, by the meaning 
 of all popular and scientific language about things, and by 
 the admissions, if not the avowed doctrines, of every system 
 of philosophy. 
 
 It is out of this root of cognitive experience, which is a felt 
 activity belonging to the self, but is felt as inhibited and lim- 
 ited by that which cannot be identified with the self, that the 
 firm and abiding trunk of the tree of Reality has its growth. 
 Hence comes to borrow the language of Riehl 1 " the 
 compulsion to apprehend every sense-experience as the sense- 
 experience of Something, as the property of some subject 
 (-3T)." Otherwise the mind would never, by any amount of 
 development of reasoning faculty, reach beyond an internal 
 and subjective logical consistency. Universally valid forms 
 of cognition can never alone serve to validate cognition. Ex- 
 perience of a will in commerce with other will is necessary 
 for this. But every act of cognitive experience, since it is 
 something more than pure thinking or mere imagining, fur- 
 nishes the " that " of some reality to which our thinking and 
 our imagining may attach all that they can discover as to 
 " what " belongs to the same reality. And for every system 
 
 1 Der Philosophische Kriticismus, II. i. p. 42. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 75 
 
 of answers to the question, What is it really to be ? there 
 must be found an answer to the doubt whether we are entitled 
 to affirm : That something really is. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that every system of metaphysics may 
 also be entitled a Theory of Reality. The expounding of the 
 inexhaustible wealth of meaning which men put into that 
 word, " reality," can never be all discovered and reduced to 
 coin current in the realm of thought, by any amount of 
 miner's skill and miner's toil. On the side of conception, 
 where the ontological problem can be attacked with the 
 detailed analysis of reflective thinking, there is always more 
 beyond, which others may discover. All the growth in 
 knowledge which the individual can make is his best answer 
 to the question : What is Reality ? And the answer is never 
 complete for him. But all the growth of knowledge which 
 the race of man makes is the answer of the race to the same 
 question. And the answer of the race will never be complete. 
 There is always more beyond for observation and for thought 
 to compass. Yet in every individual Thing also there is an- 
 other kind of " surplusage " so to speak. This is that which 
 in ourselves, we experience as the fact of being in existence, 
 and which we conceive of as a potency of manifesting itself 
 in a variety of ways. And we never know any external 
 thing without projecting into that thing this potency, after 
 the analogy of our own selves. It is only on such terms that 
 we maintain our commerce, as real minds, with a system of 
 really existing things. 
 
 There are many apparent contradictions which must be met 
 in the attempt to elaborate the conception of reality in its 
 details ; and there are certain inherent difficulties which it 
 will never be found possible to overcome. But for this very 
 reason it is desirable not to multiply difficulties unnecessarily ; 
 and to get as many as possible of the more superficial contra- 
 dictions out of the way. To this end the following remarks 
 will serve in a measure. 
 
76 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Reality cannot be considered as a mere Process. That 
 change in qualities and in relations is not inconsistent with, 
 but is rather necessary to the reality of things, we shall see 
 subsequently. How the actuality of such change is consistent 
 with any kind of permanency, and what kind of permanency 
 such actual change makes it necessary to recognize, these 
 are among the special problems of metaphysics. But how- 
 ever far the principle of Becoming may be extended, we can 
 never identify this principle with the entire conception of 
 Reality. To say that nothing but the process is in reality, 
 this is to say that nothing is in reality. This truth is the 
 more important to bear in mind when, as at the present time, 
 the philosophy of things is so liable to be reduced to a merely 
 descriptive history of evolution. This view regards the real 
 being of the world as a sort of mere show a stage- 
 performance without an audience. Countless ages ago the 
 show was going on ; and this same show has been going on 
 ever since. Before mind was, the process in things began, 
 and went forward to result in the appearance of human minds. 
 But a show that is not a show of some reality, and a show to 
 some real and conscious Self, cannot be actual. No view can 
 well be more absurd, as an attempt at thinking the reality of 
 things in terms of cognition, than this off-hand identification 
 of a row of mental images of possible things with the entire 
 actuality of things themselves. Nor can we, in the case of 
 any individual thing, resolve its whole real being into a mere 
 process mid-air, as it were with which our series of 
 mental images is assumed to be identical. 
 
 Nor can Reality be considered as mere Law. What is meant 
 by things obeying laws, and what is the reality that any law 
 may have, are problems for metaphysical discussion to settle, 
 if it can. But whatever conception be attached to the word 
 " law," as ruling over things, or as immanent in things, or as 
 nothing but an abstraction of human thought derived from 
 the observed modes of the behavior of things, this conception 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 77 
 
 is quite too meagre to give the full meaning of the term 
 reality. Moreover, when we come to observe how the par- 
 ticular application of the conception to groups and classes of 
 real things itself changes with every changing point of view, 
 we shall understand better the vanity of trying to exhaust the 
 content of reality by stating it in terms of law. The con- 
 ception of " Law " in general, even when enforced with a cap- 
 ital letter, is one of the most inert and incapable of all 
 abstract notions. 
 
 Neither can Reality be identified with the entire Content 
 of human consciousness. For on the side of consciousness 
 itself, there are many of its products for the real correlates 
 of which we cannot possibly vouch ; and not a few which, by 
 their very nature as mental constructs, violate all that we 
 know about the fixed forms and most permanent laws of 
 trans-subjective reality. Nor do we need to go in our scepticism 
 upon this point as far as did Kant. The entire doctrine of 
 truth and error forbids our identifying the content of human 
 consciousness throughout with the real being and actual 
 relations and changes of things. It has been supposed and 
 this in the reflections of philosophical circles as well as in the 
 puzzles with which the common people have been awed 
 that the impossibility of making any universally tenable dis- 
 tinctions between the illusions of dreams and the percep- 
 tions of waking life, for example, compels us to some sort of 
 identification of the two. That the same activities of mind, 
 under the same laws, account for both illusions and percep- 
 tions is a psychological truth which we have always been 
 ready to insist upon. One may go even further, and affirm 
 that no facts of clairvoyance, or of telepathy, or of spiritualistic 
 vision, have as yet been shown to afford avenues of commerce 
 with reality that are essentially unlike those used in all the 
 ordinary work-a-day life. But this does not change essentially 
 the deeper-lying truth. It does not appear even to touch that 
 truth. The very words " illusion," " hallucination," " error " 
 
78 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 and the more contemptuous terms which men so freely bestow 
 upon what they believe to be mere thinking or mere imagina- 
 tion embody and enforce this truth. Some sure cognition 
 of reality it is indeed possible to find in the entire " stream 
 of consciousness " we call a mind. For illusions and hallu- 
 cinations and insane ravings and cases of double conscious- 
 ness, and every shade and kind of queer conceit or subtle 
 impulse or bizarre superstition, may afford verifiable knowl- 
 edge as to the real being of the human mind. But all this 
 compels us the more stoutly, and enables us the more in- 
 telligently, to oppose the off-hand identification of the entire 
 content of consciousness with the whole realm of reality. 
 
 Neither is Reality to be identified with the inscrutable and 
 unknowable Essence of things. The previous view confounds 
 reality with the u crude lumpishness " of things as, in the 
 form of images, they arise in, and ceaselessly flow away from, 
 the " specious present " of consciousness ; but this view con- 
 founds reality with the most rarefied and even negative ab- 
 stractions of reflective thought. The former, on account of 
 its apparent clearness and the ease with which it offers itself 
 to the man of what Hegel called " figurate conception," has a 
 charm for shallow minds. The latter is the snare of those 
 who desire to be profound in their reflections. The one 
 eventuates in positivism ; the other tends to metaphysical 
 mysticism. 
 
 Three principal forms have been taken by the conclusions 
 which those reflective thinkers have reached who make the 
 mistake of identifying Reality with the highest and barest 
 abstractions. The first of these regards the real being of 
 every particular mind or thing as consisting in some " hid- 
 den core " of existence. This view results from so expanding 
 the necessity of positing what we have called " a point of 
 attachment" for all qualities and relations as to make that 
 which is thus posited commensurate with the entire extent of 
 reality. Thus the qualities and relations themselves cease to 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 70 
 
 be essential " momenta " in the real being of things or minds. 
 2t this " core of being " would continue to be the essence 
 of the particular reality, if there were 110 actual qualities or 
 relations to be taken into the account. Sometimes this hid- 
 den, inscrutable being of things and of souls slumbers and 
 sleeps ; but it always abides at the centre of the soul or of the 
 thing, whatever may become of the superficial manifestations. 
 We do not now J object to every such form of substantialism 
 simply on the ground that it is unintelligible, but for a rea- 
 son yet more serious from the metaphysician's point of view. 
 It aims to put a stout heart into the body of reality, but in 
 fact it takes all the life out of this body. Whatever else we 
 lose from our conception of Reality, we must not part with 
 its dynamical elements, with its power to do the work de- 
 manded of it by that world of things and of minds which is 
 known to science and is the ground of the practical life. This 
 ghostly substantialism leaves only the bones of being nay, 
 it leaves but a single bone ; it has neither muscle, nor blood, 
 nor brain. The " What " of things belongs as truly to their 
 essence as does the " That " of things. The latter never can be 
 conceived of alone, and it never really is alone. 
 
 The second form of identifying Reality with some rarefied 
 and negative conception runs into mysticism in an opposite 
 direction. It identifies Reality with the conception of the 
 unknown aspects and relations of things ; or even with that 
 which is unlike all known aspects and relations, the Un- 
 knowable in general, as it were. Now inasmuch as knowledge 
 is always susceptible of growth, in the individual and in the 
 race, the negative conception of what no man knows, has 
 known, or will know, may easily seem larger and more awe- 
 inspiring than the mental image which tries to represent in a 
 single pulse of consciousness all that the race knows, or that 
 any member- of the race knows. But it is difficult to conceive 
 
 1 For a detailed criticism of its positions as applied to the case of the human 
 mind, see the author's " Philosophy of Mind.'* 
 
80 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of a more absurd hypostasis than that which follows from 
 identifying this negative conception with the only actual 
 Being of things. The first form of an abstract substantialism 
 arises, we have seen, from the attempt to make the essence 
 of reality consist wholly in the fact of our undefined believing, 
 feeling, or positing real things and real minds to be. But 
 this second abstraction makes the essence of reality to consist 
 in the negative fact that we do not know all of, or all about, 
 reality in general. This unknown, or unknowable, is then 
 assumed to be the real Ground, or Cause, of all that we do 
 know. Surely this is to make Chaos and Night the ancestors 
 of Jupiter and Minerva; and to convert metaphysics into 
 mythology. 
 
 But the third form of disregarding the meaning of our 
 actual experiences with things identifies Reality throughout 
 with " the Idea." Now that no real things exist, or can be 
 conceived of as existing, without taking into themselves 
 potencies which must be admitted as ideal, we shall subse- 
 quently show to be a metaphysical truth of the most funda- 
 mental importance. We are even ready to put this truth into 
 the following preliminary statement: beings that do not 
 actualize ideas are not to be known, or in any way admitted to 
 imagination or thought, as real. Or, in other words, there is 
 no reality in which there is not, as essential to its being real, 
 the presence or immanence of ideas to be recognized. And, 
 further, the one Reality, or u Unity of Reality," which philos- 
 ophy seeks, must also be the Ground of human ideals as well 
 as of all the particular realities that become objects of human 
 cognition. But just as we ourselves, even in our small meas- 
 sure, are too large to be identified with our own ideas, or 
 with the total stream of our ideas, or with any one else's 
 ideas about us, so is Reality in the large far more than can 
 be identified with any mere idea. 
 
 But to return again to the original and more positive points 
 of view: Man's conception of Reality must be derived from his 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 81 
 
 cognitive experience with concrete realities subjected to reflec- 
 tive treatment. This reflective treatment, so often as it seems 
 about to end in mere abstractions that arise from the over- 
 emphasis of thinking upon some particular aspect of his com- 
 plex experience, must be called back to the totality of that 
 experience again. This habitual recall will keep metaphysics 
 firmly rooted in the knowledge of real beings and of actual 
 events and relations, while permitting it to be thoughtful. 
 
 Speculating in this way of keeping close to the facts of 
 knowledge, we may make three preliminary observations 
 about the valid conception of reality. First: Reality is 
 always primarily a fact ; it is, first of all, that which is known 
 as being in (both as subject and as object) sense-perception 
 and self-consciousness. In every single cognitive experience 
 of every human being, reality is there ; and it is present with 
 all that power to compel conviction which its mere presence 
 brings, and with all that wealth of content with which it offers 
 itself to the work of the discriminating and constructive in- 
 tellect of man. In discussing the " primary act of knowl- 
 edge " from the epistemological point of view, this fundamental 
 truth has been repeatedly enforced. We shall return to it 
 again. 
 
 Second : Reality is always an actor or agent. Dead and 
 do-less things are not. We may, indeed, make a sort of 
 abstraction of all particular, conceivable forms of acting and 
 doing, and may then try in imagination to convert this bare 
 potentiality into a real existence. But this very potentiality 
 is itself like a slumbering lion acting in dream-life, and 
 ready, at the first prick of the stimulus, to leap forth in the 
 full strength of its awakening. It is the half-consciousness 
 of this truth which makes much of the physics of the day so 
 obscure and provoking, and yet so tenacious in its conception 
 of u potential " energy. And is not chemistry virtually com- 
 pelled and biology as well to pack the molecules and 
 
 atoms full of sometimes latent and sometimes active poten- 
 
 6 
 
82 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 cies ? But what are masses, molecules, atoms, in reality, 
 when they have wholly ceased to be actors or agents ; when, 
 in respect of the entire sum of all their qualities and chang- 
 ing relations, they are merely " potential " ? Just nothing 
 at all. And no wonder ; for if this true " core " of every 
 reality is gone from any particular thing or mind, that so- 
 called thing or mind is left quite too poor and helpless even 
 to raise its voice in the claim to be " one among many " in 
 a world of actual transactions between real existences. 
 
 Third : Reality is always connection according to some 
 law. What these very words " connection according to 
 some law " mean as applied to every real being and to every 
 actual transaction, undoubtedly needs to be further explained. 
 But our statement serves in a preliminary, though somewhat 
 vague way, to mark out the lines for a metaphysical system. 
 Substance and attributes, change and order, many and one, 
 unity in variety, succession and the permanent, action and 
 reaction, etc. all these correlated ways of considering the 
 answer to the question, What is it really to be ? imply the 
 same truth. The truth expresses the fact which our analysis 
 has already emphasized : Somehow, every being succeeds in 
 harmonizing, by its actual existence, all the essential attributes 
 and potentialities of all beings, in an ideal way. 
 
 Where, then, shall one so disposed find material upon 
 which to bestow the work of metaphysical reflection ? Close 
 by at hand, and beginning with anything, no matter how 
 seemingly insignificant or mean. For every real thing is an 
 example, or specimen, of the all-inclusive Reality. But 
 especially by, first of all, arriving at terms of satisfactory 
 understanding with one's self. For it is written : " He hath 
 put the world in their heart." Does this mean, however, 
 that I am myself, in my poor thoughts and conceptions, the 
 complete and satisfactory measure of this all-inclusive Re- 
 ality ? By no means so ; for you are yourself more than 
 your own mere thoughts or conceptions ; and the all-inclusive 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 83 
 
 Reality embraces you as a real and significant, but partial, 
 manifestation of its Self. What shall be done with the con- 
 tradictions that seem at once to emerge from the dark back- 
 ground of experience, and that threaten to break up the 
 harmonious structure of the conception ? Contradictions 
 that are merely in our conceptions must be solved by an 
 appeal to experience, and by the method of prolonged and 
 patient reflection. Apparent contradictions, that are solved 
 in actuality, belong to the very essence of the Reality which 
 thus in its harmonious working presents man with something 
 quite different from a merely logical system of agreeable 
 ideas presents him, that is, with the complicated problem 
 of a World that is a Unity, although of no merely logical 
 kind. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 EEALITY AS AN ACTUAL HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 
 
 HAVING paid tribute at the throne of experience, as ruler 
 over the thoughts and lives both of common folk and of the 
 devotees of science, we may the more securely consider our 
 problem, as it is embodied in more abstract terms. It is 
 essential to any valid theory of reality that the metaphysician 
 shall accept certain of the necessary forms of cognition in 
 the faith that they reveal the actual forms of things. These 
 necessary forms of cognition, which an analysis of cognitive 
 experience shows to be the accepted forms of things, are the 
 so-called " categories." This linguistic usage may be ac- 
 cepted, for want of any other single word which seems 
 equally convenient and suggestive of the truth. How many 
 and precisely what are the categories (in this meaning of the 
 word) has been much debated by both logicians and meta- 
 physicians. We need not now assume to enumerate or to 
 discover them all. It is well known how Kant thought it 
 possible to accomplish this preliminary task by making slight 
 additions to the Aristotelian catalogue of the necessary kinds 
 of judgment. Thus this great critic of knowledge was led to 
 the discovery which, almost beyond all others of that really 
 penetrating mind, gave satisfaction to his instinct for " ped- 
 agogical primness." Four classes ; three in a class ; three 
 times four, i. e., twelve and no more ; such was the 
 demonstrable list of the universal and eternal forms of the 
 functioning of all human judgment in objective cognition. 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 85 
 
 There were, and there could be, in Kant's thought, no fewer 
 and no more than twelve categories. 
 
 Nor is it necessary to notice, even for a brief criticism, 
 the attempts of Fichte and of others to reduce the categories 
 to a stricter unity ; or the somewhat shifting significance 
 which has been given to this and corresponding terms dur- 
 ing the last century of philosophical discussion. In this 
 discussion the colossal attempt of Hegel to present a com- 
 plete theory of reality by treating the necessary forms of 
 thinking as a living self-evolution is undoubtedly the most 
 significant feature. Our aim is at present much more modest 
 than was the aim of these three great thinkers. We wish to 
 use the word in the meaning which has already been indicated : 
 by categories we understand simply those essential forms of 
 knowledge under which men perceive and conceive of all they 
 call real. And concerning them we wish to illustrate and 
 to enforce the following four truths : First, the categories are 
 not separable either in thought or in reality, as are the con- 
 crete realities themselves. But, second, no single category 
 is recognizable by an analysis of cognitive experience or is 
 statable in thought, without involving the recognition and the 
 conception of every other. Nevertheless, third, no category 
 is completely resolvable into any other. Yet, fourth and 
 finally, all the categories form a sort of interior oneness 
 a system which appears as a harmony to thought and is 
 experienced as effecting a unity in the world of reality. 
 
 The more complete proof and illustration of these four 
 propositions respecting the nature of the reality known to 
 man must wait for the detailed discussion of the following 
 chapters. The fourth proposition, in its assertion and appli- 
 cation of the principles upon which harmony can be estab- 
 lished among the categories, is necessarily the final task of 
 all the discussion. But now, in a summary and intro- 
 ductory way, we wish to sketch a doctrine of the categories 
 as the equivalent of a system of metaphysics. And here an 
 
86 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 effective point of starting may be taken from the results of 
 the analysis which has already been suggested. What, then, 
 is it that any real thing the rose-bush was our example 
 is known to be ? IT this particular being is known as 
 having a number of perceivable and conceivable qualities; as 
 existing in a variety of relations ; as changing in time and 
 space ; as having parts and being measurable and numerable 
 and comparable with other existences under similar forms 
 and ends, and in obedience to the same laws. 
 
 Now if we state the task of systematic metaphysics in a 
 more abstract way, it is seen to concern these very concep- 
 tions which every particular being embodies in a concrete way. 
 The meaning and validity, in reality, of Being, Quality, Re- 
 lation, Becoming and Change, Time, Space and Motion, Force 
 and Causation, Quantity and Measure, Unity and Number, 
 Forms and Laws, and whatever other conceptions can 
 vindicate a claim to belong to the true list of the categories, 
 are the particular subjects for the student of metaphysics 
 to consider. They are the essential " momenta " in his theory 
 of reality. At present it is our intention to maintain the 
 four propositions just laid down as true, in general, of these 
 categories. Being, Quality, Relation, etc., to the end of the 
 list, are conceptions inseparable in thought and " aspects " 
 of things inseparable in reality ; but each leads to the rec- 
 ognition of every other, without, however, becoming identi- 
 cal with any other ; and yet they all show an interior unity, 
 such as is actually presented to cognition in the world of real 
 beings and of actual events. And if, recognizing these truths 
 as fact, we ask ourselves how they are made possible and made 
 full of meaning, we get our clue to the true theory of reality. 
 
 That the categories are not separable in reality, as the con- 
 crete realities themselves are, has already been shown in an 
 analytic way. Every object of knowledge, whether physical 
 thing or mind, in order that it may be known to be a (or one) 
 real being, must be regarded as somehow separable from other 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 87 
 
 beings, no matter how closely allied in kind or intimately re- 
 lated in fact. This stone is " one thing," because it can be 
 lifted from the pile upon which it is lying and conveyed to 
 another place, without forfeiture of its claim to identity ; and 
 the same is true of every other stone in the pile. In the case 
 of inorganic objects too huge and unmanageable for human 
 force as, for example, a mountain or a range of mountains 
 the discriminating act in perception or in conception 
 performs the same office of separation. The mental act of 
 discrimination makes the objects to be individual and actual 
 things, on account of their perceived or imagined separability 
 from other things. As the character of the known unity 
 that which constitutes it a real being changes, the char- 
 acter of the separation which is possible in the case of any 
 individual example of such unity changes also. Broken from 
 the tree, the bud, the twig, the branch, is still for a time 
 known as actually entitled to the name which has garnered 
 the qualities of its " thing-hood," but only for a time. 
 The embryo torn prematurely from the womb of the mother 
 is still an embryo ; but it is soon no longer an embryo, and 
 it becomes almost at once not a living embryo. In the case 
 of that unique kind of a unity in reality which we call a 
 mind, the essential truth of the principle upon which we are 
 insisting remains unchanged. Its unity as a mind, and its 
 separableness from other minds, are dependent upon its own 
 analytic and synthetic activity. But the actualizing of this 
 particular unity, and its separableness from other most closely 
 allied unities, has other " stuff " to handle than that which is 
 known in the case of any inorganic or organic thing. 
 
 The separableness of the categories in reality is not so. 
 Stone, and bud, and embryo, and human self, are all alike 
 actualizations of all the categories. And there is not a thing, 
 or a single one mind, of which this is not also true. But to 
 show this in detail would only repeat the analysis already 
 sufficiently expanded. 
 
A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 That the categories are not independent and separable in 
 thought appears more clearly as soon as we attempt to discuss 
 thoroughly the second of the propositions made above. No 
 single category is recognizable in cognitive experience or 
 statable in thought, without leading to the recognition and 
 the conception of every other category. The path is open 
 between the categories. The Hegelian dialectic proposed 
 to start from the simpler and more fundamental conceptions, 
 and by moving forward on the path of a spiral, each suc- 
 cessive part of which has an enlarging diameter, reach the 
 heights of the Absolute Idea. But like every other system of 
 evolution, when considered from the ontological point of view, 
 this dialectic only evolved at the end of its thought-movement 
 ideas that were involved at the very beginning. 
 
 Let this truth be enforced by taking as a point of starting 
 any one of the so-called categories : Being in Space, shall we 
 say? But by " being in space" really and not merely in 
 imagination we must understand some particular Thing oc- 
 cupying some particular portion of space. For it is not space 
 as a mere abstraction, which is to be considered, but space as 
 a category, that is, space as it is known, in application to- 
 real things. But nothing can be known or thought of as " in 
 space," that does not define itself as " here " rather than 
 "there." Its being at all in space, as all actual things 
 necessarily are, involves its particularity ; to be nowhere in 
 particular in space, but everywhere in general, or to be " all 
 over " space, is to be unknowable and unthinkable in terms of 
 this category. But this particularity which every actual 
 thing has, as being in space, is necessarily, in part, conceived 
 of as a relation to other beings that are also in space. Rela- 
 tion in space, as belonging to real beings, is neither cognizable 
 nor thinkable without implying movableness in space as an 
 actual qualification of things. This is here, and that is there; 
 but to be here, when another thing is there, is to be related to 
 that other thing " in space." 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 89 
 
 What more, however, is involved in being a particular real 
 thing here and yet actually related to another thing over there 
 both things " being in space," and having movableness in space ? 
 At least as much as is involved in the being of the same par- 
 ticular thing, irrespective of its position and movableness in 
 space. That is, its particularity consists, for our knowledge 
 and for our thought, in the possession of an assortment of 
 qualities which it shares in common with other things, but 
 with a peculiar or unique form of combination. This partic- 
 ularizing of itself by having a peculiar combination of 
 qualities is the feature essential for its being known as just 
 this and no other particular thing, wherever situated in space, 
 and however related to other things. But qualities cannot be 
 known or thought, in connection with relations in space, 
 without introducing the conception of other forms than the 
 spatial form of relation. The possession of any particular 
 quality makes necessary the introduction of a new example 
 of the category of relation. Considered as having color, for 
 example, all things are related under the quality of color ; 
 considered as having weight, under the relation of weight ; 
 and so on. 
 
 Being related and being movable, under the category of 
 space, is known and thought of only as the validity of the 
 category of change is recognized. Thus motion is custom* 
 arily described as " change of place." The path open between 
 the categories leads us from the thought of being related in 
 space to the thought of change. But the particularity of 
 things the being, each one, this rather than some other 
 cannot be maintained if the category of change is limited to 
 change of place. For any one thing, change of place involves 
 a change of relations. When any one thing has changed its 
 place, it can no longer be thought of as maintaining precisely 
 all the old relations. But many qualities of things, at least, 
 are so dependent upon the relations in space of the things 
 having the qualities, that change in the qualities is the neces- 
 
90 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 saiy sequence of a change of their relations in space. Points 
 of view do really determine changes in the qualities of things. 
 Now if any objector maintains that while this is true of 
 appearances, it is far from being true of realities, we must 
 recall him to the line of argument which we are following. 
 We are not speaking of change as an abstract and mystical 
 conception having no reference to men's experience with 
 realities ; but of the category of change as men know it to be 
 applied to actual things, in terms of this experience. And 
 we repeat that, considered in this way, the conception of a 
 real thing changing its relations to other real things in space 
 necessarily involves certain changes in the qualities of that 
 thing. Such a change forces upon our thought the being of 
 the thing as holding a different set of relations to the system 
 of things. The thing that changes its position in space 
 must always play another part from that which it formerly 
 played within the world-system. And this it cannot do 
 without developing, so to speak, certain new qualities or ways 
 of asserting its own continued existence. 
 
 The truth of the statements just made will be enforced and 
 expanded, if we return to them by a somewhat different path. 
 This may be done the more easily by introducing a substitute 
 for one of the phrases which has already been frequently 
 employed. " To be (really) in space " and " to occupy space " 
 are not, perhaps, precisely identical thoughts. But if these 
 two thoughts are referred to the actual cognitive experi- 
 ence in which they arose, the former is seen to involve the lat- 
 ter. Really to be in space is not merely to place the idea, or 
 conception, of some particular thing ideally inside of an 
 abstraction called " empty space." The inclusion and exclu- 
 sion which men intend by such terms are no merely logical 
 affair. When plain but serious people ask us, in somewhat 
 vulgar English, whether we have any " idea " that so many 
 men can be got into a room of such a size, they are not 
 .interested in a merely logical or grammatical puzzle. What 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 91 
 
 they wish to know is whether, when the test of fact conies, 
 such a number of solid, " non-squeezable " bodies will, under 
 the appropriate actual relations, occupy thus much or more 
 of space. For practical purposes, each thing is " in the 
 space " which it occupies. If it can in any way be made to 
 occupy more or less of space, then it becomes larger or 
 smaller in space. Whatever ceases to occupy any space, 
 either for perception or for conception, that ceases to exist in 
 space. Nor is the propriety of substituting "the occupying of 
 space " for the " really being in space " spoiled by any of the 
 discoveries of physics and chemistry respecting the porous- 
 ness of masses, or the separateness of the atoms within the 
 molecule, or the universal diffusion of ether within the seem- 
 ingly space-filling portions of ordinary matter. Here, then, 
 undoubtedly lies open one path which leads us straight to 
 another nest-full of categories. These are such as men 
 express by the words " activity," " force," " causation," etc. 
 To occupy space is to resist force with force ; it is for the 
 being A to keep the being E out of the place X. 
 
 Let it be noticed, however, that we have long since passed 
 over divergences in the path by which such categories as those 
 of quantity and measure, unity and number, might have been 
 reached. Really to be a particular thing in space is necessa- 
 rily to have magnitude and to be capable of having some stand- 
 ard of magnitude applied as an actual event, in conception 
 if not otherwise, with an accompanying process of numbering 
 the successive applications of the standard. To be a thing 
 is an impossibility, either to cognitive experience or to 
 thought, without a certain measurable extension in space ; 
 and also without implying the actuality of numerical rela- 
 tions to other things. Motion also is impossible, either as 
 an event actually perceived or as an occurrence rendered pos- 
 sible barely to thought, without implying the categories of 
 quantity and number. Indeed, it is this necessity of asking 
 the questions, How much ? and How many ? which compels 
 
92 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the physicist to attribute "mass" to all matter as its most 
 essential and universal characteristic. 
 
 How conformity to law and, so to speak, compliance with 
 ideal ends, on the part of the changes and the enduring rela- 
 tions and qualities of every thing, are necessary " momenta " 
 in the very being of that thing, it requires a more special 
 analysis to show. This analysis will be undertaken at the 
 proper time. It is enough now to remark that while change 
 is necessary to the being of any particular thing, unrestricted 
 change destroys the very conception of a real thing ; change 
 without limit amounts to an annihilation of the real being 
 subject to such change. Any being, J., may retain its claim 
 to reality as some particular thing, while it passes through 
 a succession of more or less important modifications, such as 
 AI, A z , A Sy . . . A D ; and there is nothing but experience to 
 tell us how far A n may be a departure from A 19 without de- 
 stroying the very existence of A. But no thing can maintain 
 its claim to continued existence under the name A, if it begins 
 to run through such a series of changes as are indicated by 
 19 B^ B s , . . . B n . Here, then, is plainly the conception of 
 law and of final purpose at the very heart of every reality. 
 
 That time is a form of cognition which is essential to the 
 very construction of all concrete realities admits of no doubt. 
 The path to this category, too, has lain open at every step in 
 the course we have been traversing. Really to be in space 
 each thing must vindicate its claim by occupying space 
 through a certain amount of time. Actual movement in 
 space can neither be known nor thought except as involving 
 the category of time. Things that move, or are conceived of 
 as movable, must be now here, and afterward there. The 
 popular definition of movement as change of position empha- 
 sizes a similar necessity to thought. And, indeed, the cate- 
 gory of change itself whether of position, or of relation, or 
 of quality, or of state implicates the reality of time in such 
 manner that the first beginnings of a frame-work for the former 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 93 
 
 category require, for their interpretation, the admission of 
 the validity of the latter category. Change that is not really 
 in time is empty abstraction ; actual change can take place 
 only in time. What is meant by " being really in time " is a 
 problem which demands a metaphysical solution ; but whatever 
 is meant, just that, at the least, is an indispensable condition of 
 all actual change. Neither can men know the qualities and 
 relations of things, whether the more transient or the more 
 permanent, without conforming to the category of time. The 
 path to this category lies open at every step for the mind 
 which seeks a systematic doctrine of the categories. 
 
 But the same truth might be as well illustrated by taking 
 any other category as our point of starting. From whatever 
 one of the various points of view we begin the survey of the 
 corresponding aspect of reality, what is seen from this point 
 cannot be exhaustively described without surveying all the 
 aspects of reality. In the actual growth of knowledge, both 
 for the individual and for the race, this observation proves 
 itself true. The different pursuits of the individual, and the 
 growth of the different sciences in the history of the race, 
 furnish grounds of selection among the possible points of 
 view. For the mathematician or the tradesman, the cate- 
 gories of quantity and of number are most impressive. For 
 the student of physics and chemistry, for the machinist and 
 manufacturer, these categories with the added conceptions of 
 causation and force. But in their treatment of concrete real- 
 ities both mathematics and physics are compelled to fix their 
 eyes on the actual relations and qualities of things in time 
 and in space. While law and final purpose, " ruling over " 
 and " dwelling in " things, are of eternal, practical and ethical 
 interest to all men. If, then, geometrical figures be employed 
 in illustration the system of the categories is not to be 
 compared to a thin straight line, or to a curve returning con- 
 tinuously upon itself, and running from pure Being to an all- 
 comprehensive Idea. Neither is it a pyramid or cone, erected 
 
94 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 and brought to a condition of equilibrium when resting upon 
 either end. It is rather a constantly revolving, perfect, and 
 transparent sphere. Whichever aspect of this sphere is first 
 presented to the eye, one enjoys the opportunity of seeing, not 
 only what this aspect is, but how this particular aspect stands 
 related to the entire sphere. The Hegelian path, with its 
 heavy, monotonous " tit-tat-too " tread, from Seyn, through 
 Wesen, to Idee, taking Daseyn, Fursichseyn, Quantitdt, 
 Maas, etc., etc., in regular order by the way, is by no 
 means the only path open between the categories. Every one 
 of these conceptions leads to every other, obviously enough, if 
 not with an equal directness. And no one of them alone 
 presents the mind with a valid and complete picture of the 
 reality of even the meanest thing. Nor can any one of them 
 be deified, as it were, and made the equal of the All-Reality. 
 And yet the third of the propositions already laid down 
 is equally true of the categories. No one of them is 
 analyzable into any other. If a separable and independent 
 existence or application to the whole of human cognitive 
 experience must be denied for each, on the contrary a sort 
 of independence must be maintained for each. To uphold 
 this claim successfully requires such detailed discussion as it 
 belongs to the different chapters of metaphysical system to 
 give. But the nature of the discussion is itself a sufficient 
 proof of the general truthfulness of the proposition. For 
 example, it has already been shown that we cannot interpret 
 satisfactorily the cognitive experience of men with any par- 
 ticular thing as " really in space " without recognizing also 
 the fact that the same thing is known as " occupying space." 
 And thus the path lies open from the category of Space to the 
 category of Force. But force cannot be resolved into space, 
 or into motion or change. Our thought puts this conception 
 of force, as exerted by the thing, into the very nature of that 
 thing as affording the explanation of the phenomenon called 
 " occupying space." The cause of the things occupying so 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 95 
 
 much of space is the character and amount of the force of 
 the thing. The cause of the thing's movement or arrest of 
 movement in space, and the cause of all its other changes 
 of states and relations, is some kind of force, somewhere 
 seated, either within this thing or within other things. Thus 
 does the mind work around from category to category, as its 
 experience assumes the different possible points of view. 
 Force that is to say is " in " the relation, "of" cause, 
 "to" motion, "in" space, and "in" time, and "of" every 
 other change "in" the qualities "of" any being. But each 
 one of these prepositions (" in," " to," and " of ") is designed 
 to mark some sort of a relation ; and each of the relations 
 which each of the prepositions marks implies the application 
 of the category of force to the solution of the problem, What 
 is it really to be ? in a somewhat different way. 
 
 Let the effort be made, however, to resolve the category 
 of force into any of the other categories, to which it seems 
 itself related in such manifold curious ways, and how un- 
 satisfactory the result! This is, indeed, an attempt which 
 has often been made in the past, and which is frequent and 
 fascinating enough at the present time, both among physi- 
 cists and among metaphysicians. It will receive the detailed 
 criticism which it invites, at the proper time. We are fre- 
 quently presented with such conceptions of individual realities 
 as that, for example, at which Uphues 1 arrives :" Things 
 consist for us," says this author, " of the sum of the proper- 
 ties which we learn to know by the senses, that with approxi- 
 mate regularity occur at the same time with each, and appear 
 as belonging together. They are the constituents of things 
 (Bestandtheile), because of this regular recurrence and be- 
 longing together." The conception of force, as well as the 
 conception of essence, in its application to the reality of 
 things, Uphues then sets aside as barren and useless. Now 
 in this way one may doubtless arrive at a descriptive cata- 
 
 1 Psychologic des Erkennens, p. 2. 
 
96 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 logue of those sensuous qualifications which any particular 
 thing has for us ; and which enable us in terms of sense- 
 perception to define what is that particular thing as capable 
 of being sensuously distinguished from other things. But to 
 constitute such a " consistency " of things, by exclusion 
 of the conception of force, is to cut the very heart out of the 
 reality of the thing. For it is only as some sort of a centre 
 of being, on which may be concentrated the active energies 
 of other things, and from which active energies may proceed 
 to terminate upon other things, that any particular object 
 indicates to thought its claim to reality. To be sure, all 
 language like that just used is figurative ; and the real trans- 
 actions that correspond to it need further to be investigated. 
 But its figurative use is at least necessary in order faithfully 
 to express all that every particular real thing is known to 
 be. Nay ! its figurative use reminds us of the very gist of 
 the reality which each particular thing is known to possess. 
 
 The vacillation of modern physics upon the point of this 
 category is an instructive spectacle for the metaphysician. If 
 it takes place in a controversial way, it shows that the thrust 
 of the spear has reached a vital part ; and the whole body of 
 science is thus set quivering with the deadly wound. In fact, 
 one fundamental form of modern physical theory would re- 
 duce all our most ultimate cognitions of matter and of physical 
 changes to terms of force. But another form of physical 
 theory will hear nothing of force ; it would willingly exclude 
 any such entity or essential manifestation of an entity from 
 the valid conceptions of modern science. We will not just 
 now press the questions : What, in the first case, becomes of 
 science as dealing with concrete realities ? or, What, in the 
 second case, becomes of science as having to do with causes ? 
 We will only call attention to the fact that, with the banish- 
 ment of this conception, all the genuine dynamics (not to say 
 the dynamite) is gone from man's view of the physical uni- 
 verse. Things become pale shadows, trooping here and there 
 
HARMONT OF THE CATEGORIES 97 
 
 in a fleshless and ghostly fashion, all life departed from 
 them. When the category of Force, and its allied category 
 of Cause, leaves the world of reality, how do its objects differ 
 from the most unreal of mental images, from the uncontrolled 
 mental train of dream-life ? 
 
 On the other hand, we find ourselves equally unable to 
 resolve any of the other categories into the conception of 
 force. No amount or kind of mere force could produce either 
 time or space, as these two conceptions are found to belong 
 to things in our experience with them. I may think, indeed, 
 of the actual things, or of the Absolute Being which I con- 
 ceive to be the Ground of things, as the force or cause that 
 compels me to cognize external objects under space-form and 
 time-form. I may find myself induced to acknowledge that 
 the ultimate cause of my apprehension and thought of all 
 things as spatial and temporal is the influence or force 
 exercised upon me, of the World-Ground. Or, to adopt for 
 the moment the Berkeleyan hypothesis : the being of things 
 all the being they have as things is their being perceived 
 by me and by other finite minds ; but their being in reality is 
 their being willed by God, in an orderly way, to arise in my 
 consciousness and in the consciousness of other men. But 
 this appendix " in an orderly way " introduces some- 
 thing more than mere force ; and it defines vaguely the terms 
 under which must fall, and actually do fall, all my valid cog- 
 nitions of real things. Nor is this simply " an orderly way ; " 
 as though any kind of an orderly way would equally well 
 answer to my experience. There is one kind of an orderly 
 way, which is time ; and another kind, which is space ; and 
 there are as many kinds of orderly ways as there are so-called 
 laws, maintaining themselves over or between things, and 
 thus keeping the things in order. From our present human 
 point of view, these ways are innumerable. But those par- 
 ticular orderly ways which men call " space " and " time " 
 stand in very different relations to our cognitive experience 
 
98 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 from the relations in which stand the many physical, chemi- 
 cal, and biological ways of the ordering of things. Space and 
 Time are categories ; and the laws of gravitation, or of chemi- 
 cal equivalence, or of biogenesis and development, are not 
 categories. As categories, space and time maintain a peculiar 
 kind of independence, suffering themselves to serve as paths 
 along which we may pass from one category to another, and 
 yet refusing to be absorbed in any of the other categories. 
 
 While, however, all the categories correspond in a general 
 way to the three propositions made above, there exist many 
 curious subordinate interrelations amongst them. To use 
 again the figure of speech which has already served the same 
 purpose : The path is indeed open between all the categories, 
 and the course of reflective thinking permits and requires free 
 movement from each one to every other ; but the path is not 
 equally direct between them all. These fundamental concep- 
 tions divide themselves into certain pairs and groups which 
 seem to be more nearly contiguous, one to another. An his- 
 torical study of the whole subject would show how both a 
 naive and a critical ontology have found themselves compelled 
 to consider its problems in accordance with this truth. The 
 popular thinking connects together the conceptions of sub- 
 stance and attribute, of magnitude and number, of force and 
 cause, of space and time, of law, or a certain orderliness in 
 behavior, and of an end to be reached by obeying the law. 
 
 The " Critique " of all cognitive faculty, which in its 
 author's profound judgment would so describe and arrange 
 the categories as that this work would need henceforth no 
 supplementing or amendment, divided them into two great 
 groups. In the first of these groups were space and time, the 
 a priori forms of all presentative knowledge (or sensuous 
 " awareness ") of things ; and the critical doctrine of such 
 knowledge was summarily dismissed with a few pages, full 
 of uncriticized assumptions on so-called "Transcendental 
 ^Esthetic." The other main group comprised the twelve re- 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 99 
 
 maining categories ; and these are the a priori forms of all 
 those judgments about things which constitute the sum-total 
 of experience. They fall naturally into four subordinate 
 groups of three in each group. The exposition and justifica- 
 tion of this system gave the critic, according to his own con- 
 fession, a great amount of trouble ; and the manner of its 
 being accomplished has given his readers no little trouble 
 ever since. But the important truth now to be noticed is that, 
 somehow, peculiar and curious interrelations of a more or less 
 orderly kind are always found by the analyst to exist among 
 the categories. Kant himself, after all his labor to answer 
 the question of right (Quid juris?*) and so afford a satisfac- 
 tory " Deduction of the Categories," does not even raise in 
 satisfactory form the most fundamental and interesting criti- 
 cal question of all. Why should these conceptions divide 
 themselves up in this particular way, unless some deeper-lying 
 principle belonging to the world of reality can be discovered 
 to account for the division itself ? On the psychological and 
 epistemological side, the reasons for any such pairing, or 
 grouping, of the fundamental forms of cognition must be 
 found in the very nature of cognition itself. But regarded 
 from the more distinctively metaphysical side, the reasons must 
 lie deep in the very nature of Reality. 
 
 Since we have now been led to thoughts which depend upon 
 combining the third and the fourth of our general propositions 
 respecting all the categories, they may fitly be illustrated 
 by an example or two. Either one of the several examples 
 already enumerated will serve to illustrate this singularity 
 in the structure of human knowledge. Undoubtedly, mag- 
 nitude and number constitute a sort of pair among the 
 categories which sustain certain closer than the customary 
 relations to each other. Neither precise knowledge nor logical 
 thought about things in terms of quantity is possible without 
 immediately introducing terms of number, as a sort of twin 
 vehicle to the necessary mental processes. How large ? is a 
 
100 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 question which can be definitively answered only in terms that 
 imply counting. But, in turn, the question, How many ? im- 
 plies some sort of measurement and consequent delimitation of 
 each thing which offers itself to be counted in making up the 
 answer to every such question. The psychological explana- 
 tion of this " pairing " of the categories of quantity and 
 number is undoubtedly to be found in the actual use made 
 of the faculties in measuring and numbering things. Yague 
 notions of larger and smaller, of difference and sameness of 
 direction do not indeed depend upon developing the power 
 of " enumeration." But precise measurement of things, 
 whether for practical or for theoretical purposes, is impossible 
 without counting ; nor can we count things without some, at 
 least, rough and preliminary measurement of them. If this 
 fact of experience is to enter into a theory of reality, it must 
 appear that there is something in the nature of things which 
 serves as a ground, or warrant, for the close connection 
 of these two categories in man's cognitions and in all his 
 reflective thinking. That is, it must be shown that the meas- 
 ureableness and numberableness of concrete realities are 
 interdependent, and yet not identical, aspects of things. And 
 it needs finally to appear that the Unity which a systematic 
 metaphysics discovers in Reality is, so to speak, the bond which 
 brings these categories into their actual close relation. 
 
 Another example of essentially the same truth may be 
 found by the critical analysis of the allied conceptions, space 
 and time. These two so-called categories are not, indeed, a 
 " pair " in the same sense in which this word may be figura- 
 tively applied to quantity and number. But analysis of the 
 cognitive experience which actually connects them discovers 
 many curious relations between them. How the mind finds 
 itself compelled to make use of terms that primarily apply 
 to space relations in order to express relations of time, is too 
 well known to need detailed illustration. Yet " contiguity," 
 " extension," " equality," " movement," etc., as applied to 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 101 
 
 temporal relations, stand for conceptions which contradict 
 the most important characteristics of the same terms as 
 applied to spatial relations. You can neither actually, nor in 
 thought, bring two times that are separate from each other 
 into contiguity ; nor can you conceive of them as actually 
 moved and superimposed so as to demonstrate their equality. 
 The line of time violates the most important condition which 
 is observed by every line drawn in space : its successive parts 
 do not " stay put ; " since their very essence is that they shall 
 succeed each other in their real existence whatever the 
 nature of this existence may be found to be. On the other 
 hand, neither experience nor thought can present things as 
 contiguous, or as extended, or as moved in space so as to 
 show their equality or inequality, without dependence upon 
 the category of time. All occupying of space, or change in 
 space, must be known as an enduring or a succession, in time. 
 
 Like a brooding and fostering nurse, or rather like a pro- 
 lific mother, does Relation itself stand related to all the other 
 categories. No other one of these forms of cognition appears 
 as so ubiquitous in presence, and yet variable in character. 
 Nothing static is there about actual relations ; although re- 
 lations themselves are to be conceived of only in case we can, 
 for a moment at least, fix and render stationary the ceaseless 
 changes of qualities, states, and positions in space. Of this 
 experience the psychological genesis is undoubtedly to be 
 found in the fact that knowing itself, on its intellectual side, 
 is essentially a relating activity. More on this point, how- 
 ever, would be to anticipate what must be said later. 
 
 The significance for any consistent theory of reality of such 
 curious interrelations amongst the fundamental forms of 
 knowledge has received far too little attention hitherto by 
 students of systematic metaphysics. It is well enough, 
 indeed, for the students of the positive sciences to take these 
 interrelations for granted. But what do they have to tell us 
 about the nature of the World as a Unity of concrete realities 
 
102 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 constituted under terms of an order so mysterious and exciting 
 to philosophical reflection? What sort of a Reality must that 
 be which can alone harmonize these differences and seeming 
 oppositions among the categories, while allowing to each its 
 independence and its proper place within the unique system ? 
 It is the answer to this inquiry which we hope to furnish by 
 subsequent detailed discussions. 
 
 The partial unification of the categories, as pairs or subor- 
 dinate groups, fitly leads our consideration to the fourth prop- 
 osition. All the categories, when considered as forms of 
 knowledge, constitute a sort of interior unity ; and when 
 considered as forms of the existence of things, they demand 
 some theory which will expound the Nature of Reality as a 
 harmonious and unitary system. On its epistemological side, 
 no one ever saw this truth more clearly, or labored more dili- 
 gently to expose and defend it, than did Kant. But since 
 his systematic metaphysics was simply an orderly exposition 
 of the categories regarded as mere forms of cognition, his 
 theory of reality could not be founded in man's total experi- 
 ence, but only in man's practical needs. It was ready-made 
 for one who would save his faith, by agreeing to surrender the 
 hope of knowledge. For us the actual unity which the forms 
 of all men's cognitive experience achieves, more or less per- 
 fectly, seems to demand and to warrant an explanation which 
 shall reveal the very nature of reality. The world as known 
 to man and here we agree with Kant in saying that this is 
 the only world with which metaphysics can deal is some 
 sort of a unity. To answer by reflective treatment of the 
 categories the question, What sort of a unity ? is a supreme 
 problem for metaphysical system. 
 
 Three views are possible as to the relations between them- 
 selves sustained by those forms of cognitive experience which 
 naive common-sense and the positive sciences alike agree to 
 accept as applicable to all known realities. The categories 
 may be regarded in an individualistic way, as it were ; they 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 103 
 
 rnay be taken simply as accidental and unrelated entities, or 
 forms, or laws, of things, which are to be accepted without 
 recognition of any necessity for further critical thinking 
 But to continue in this point of view is to refuse to phi- 
 losophize. From this uncritical position that strange circle in 
 actual cognition namely, trans-subjective existence is im- 
 plicate in experience, but experience itself assumes, for its 
 own explanation, such existence ; or being and knowledge 
 are related in such manner that neither can be regarded as 
 a point of starting independent of the other offers no prob- 
 lems worthy of reflective consideration. As soon, however, as 
 the different categories are studied in a comparative way, the 
 recognition follows of some kind of relations among them 
 which demand a persistent effort at harmony. The result of 
 this effort may be a certain doctrine of antinomies, or fun- 
 damental and irreconcilable contradictions among the cat- 
 egories. And this is the second of the three possible ways of 
 viewing the forms of human cognition. 
 
 This doctrine, that the categories show irreconcilable con- 
 tradictions, may be held and expounded in any one of several 
 different ways. There is, for example, that earlier form which 
 belonged to the Greek scepticism, and which has ever since 
 furnished puzzles for children and for somewhat childish 
 adult minds. In fact, and as tested by man's experience 
 with real things, Achilles does overtake the tortoise ; the 
 arrow does fly from the bow-string to the mark ; and every 
 single being is known under an indefinite number of diversi- 
 fied qualifications. Yet Zeno and Heraclitus go on disputing. 
 And by refining abstractions of Space, Time, Motion, Quan- 
 tity, and Number, it is demonstrated that no one of these well- 
 known events can in reality possibly be. 
 
 How Kant regarded the categories, from the subjective 
 point of view, has already been made the subject of critical 
 remark. They constitute, in his view, an orderly system, 
 with the unity necessarily belonging to the product of a mind ; 
 
104 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 that is, both sense and understanding are brought into harmony 
 of action by the mediation of imagination. Thus the system 
 of known realities attains a partial and dependent kind of 
 unity ; because it is itself nothing other than the product of 
 the continued activity of mind upon the raw material of un- 
 organized experience. Further, the service of an illusory 
 dialectic succeeds in bringing these organized experiences 
 toward but never into, the unity of the supreme ideas of 
 reason. The moment, however, we try to regard the cat- 
 egories as applicable to trans-subjective realities to what 
 Kant calls Dinge-an-sich or Gegenstdnde uberhaupt, the 
 most stubborn and irreducible contradictions arise between 
 them. They now become " paired off " in no amicable fashion ; 
 the rather are they divided off against each other, as thesis 
 and antithesis, and made ready for an internecine war. The 
 case is as though the principle of tribal " blood-revenge " had 
 been let loose among the categories. Out of their legitimate 
 territory any one who will may destroy them and have no 
 account to render at the bar of metaphysics, of ethics, or 
 of religion. 
 
 But the critical work of Kant with the categories leaves at 
 least a certain large and comforting remnant of knowledge. 
 Within their proper sphere they act in harmony ; and to the 
 critic, as well as to the user of them, from the Kantian point 
 of view they appear as a most wonderful and orderly, yet mys- 
 terious system of forms. Neither is it warrantable to speak 
 of the world which they result in producing as the realm of 
 mere " Appearance ; " it is rather the world of known reali- 
 ties, although of phenomenal realities. Moreover, by other 
 avenues of approach we are to be given enough of faith, if not 
 of knowledge, that shall disclose the practically acceptable 
 constitution of that Ultimate Reality to which the categories 
 do not apply. By the work of critics like Mr. Bradley, how- 
 ever, all the Kantian categories are thrown into the most 
 determined and irreconcilable conflict, within that very sphere 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 105 
 
 within which Kant himself held that they constitue a perfect 
 and harmonious system. That is to say, when the attempt is 
 made to apply the forms of cognition to the concrete realities 
 of our experience, they show such internal contradictions as 
 compel the belief that these realities themselves are mere 
 seeming. And thus the doctrine of antinomies, as inherently 
 irreconcilable oppositions among the categories in their appli- 
 cation to the actual concrete cognition of men, returns to essen- 
 tially the same form as that given it by the ancient Greek 
 scepticism and agnosticism. All known real things are now 
 at " loggerheads " with one another. And the Reality becomes 
 identified with the unrelated (the " uncategorized " if we 
 may be pardoned such a word) One. 
 
 It is the third view touching the relations that exist between 
 the categories which it is our purpose to maintain. They are 
 not to be considered as disconnected and unrelated forms 
 either of knowledge or of being, picked up haphazard and 
 adopted as though no mutual understanding or common signi- 
 ficance were presupposed. Neither does any fair criticism, 
 however searching, show internal and irreconcilable contradic- 
 tions among them. The rather are they, both when in use for 
 actual work-a-day or scientific knowledge and when, in hospi- 
 tal, lying under the scalpel of the analyst, a beautiful and 
 wondrous system. They do not need to be actually systema- 
 tized by logician or metaphysician. The surgeon's knife, 
 whether his subject be alive or the dissection be post mortem, 
 does not create the organism. A sort of organic character, 
 a unifying life, belongs to the categories : the result of analy- 
 sis is to discover it there. And the entire task of systematic 
 metaphysics is not accomplished it is scarcely properly 
 begun until a sympathetic insight into the truth of reality 
 has operated in a synthetic way to reconstruct in theory this 
 actually existing harmony. 
 
 The fuller proof of this comparative doctrine, which asserts 
 a significant interior unity as belonging to all concrete appli- 
 
106 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 cation of the categories, must await for its details the con- 
 clusion of our work. Indeed, the whole circle of proofs takes 
 us beyond the limits even of a general system of ontology ; 
 it demands a reflective treatment of the ideals of conduct, 
 art, and religion. But the ultimate grounds on which these 
 proofs rest, and from the exploration of which the proofs pro- 
 ceed, are all laid in man's indubitable cognitive experience. 
 
 First, then, the unity of the categories is proved by the fact 
 that every act of knowledge results from the harmonious 
 union of all these forms of knowledge, and thus gives to the 
 mind an object of knowledge which is itself a concrete example 
 of their real union. The rather may it be said, that, down 
 below all proof, and so too deep for proof, lies the nature of 
 the process of knowledge itself. This process, as experienced 
 and not proved, is actually a unifying actus of mind in which 
 all the activities of mind harmoniously take part. The object 
 known is actually a being that answers the quest for unity by 
 presenting itself to the mind as real, and really possessed of 
 the categories. Every known existence is characterized to 
 thought by the categories in a unifying way ; because it is 
 constituted in reality as a unity of the same categories. 
 
 Second : The unity which the development of all the partic- 
 ular sciences is giving to man's conception of the real world 
 is a further proof of the unity of the categories. But this 
 proof, too, strictly speaking, lies down below all proof, 
 and yet is the surer because its foundations are too deep for 
 proof. It is a sort of faith in the world's unity which is only 
 partially based upon experience. The great fact in the sci- 
 entific progress of the race is its tendency toward unification, 
 its growth toward a unitary conception of those diverse real- 
 ities and their manifold connections which are given to every 
 individual and to every generation of men. More and more 
 continually is the complex of things and minds conceived of 
 by man as a Cosmos an orderly Whole. Hasty generaliza- 
 tions abound and always have abounded, often to defeat tern- 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 107 
 
 porarily the very end at which they were themselves aimed. 
 Exceptions exist to all, or nearly all, known laws. Irregul- 
 arities occur which compel science to suspect or to modify its 
 most select formulas. The particular departments of human 
 knowledge set up their sometimes sharp and petty contro- 
 versies for supremacy ; or they proclaim good-natured offers 
 to effect a harmony on terms of surrender without reserve. 
 And yet the time comes when these sciences must stretch out 
 hands toward each other, and confess : " We have erred ; but 
 come now, for we are brothers, and why should we not help 
 each other and dwell together in unity ? " Now even if this 
 progressive unification is a manifestation of the illusory dia- 
 lectic which Kant wished to chasten, it is nevertheless an actual 
 result due to the growth of human experience by way of an 
 increasing knowledge of the real nature and actual relations 
 of things. And if it is a real growth of cognitive experience, 
 in any defensible meaning of the word " cognitive," 
 then the real world is more and more known as some sort of 
 a Unity. This Unity in Reality is that actual harmonizing 
 of the categories which, from the ideal points of view, is so 
 satisfactory to human reason. 
 
 But, thirdly, the unity of the categories is shown by the 
 results of a considerate and yet critical examination of the 
 categories. To effect this examination in detail is the task 
 more immediately before us. Any success in this task ought 
 to show that lack of harmony, or apparent contradiction, 
 amongst them results either from insufficient analysis or 
 from a misleading dialectics. It is, we believe, in every case, 
 the distorted abstractions of the metaphysician, and not the 
 actual forms of cognitive experience, which refuse to harmo- 
 nize with one another. To make peace is better than to make 
 trouble ; to unite in thought that which goes together in 
 knowledge and in reality is more honorable than to separate 
 between friendly and allied conceptions. The former is, 
 indeed, the harder thing to do. It is always easier to display 
 
108 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the imperfections, limitations, gaps, and disastrous pitfalls of 
 the human mind, than to give a sympathetic and apprecia- 
 tive interpretation to the common facts of man's experience 
 with himself and with external nature. But if the task is 
 greater, so also is the reward of its accomplishment. 
 
 At the close of these introductory chapters we sum up 
 certain conclusions already reached, and briefly set forth the 
 principal truths which it is our aim to establish. 
 
 Systematic metaphysics is a proper subject for the philo- 
 sophic mind ; for it is nothing worse or more impossible than 
 the effort to subject the facts of our cognitive experience 
 touching the nature of reality to a critical examination by 
 reflective thinking. As ontology it takes a positive and 
 fairly hopeful view of the epistemological problem involved ; 
 supposing that this is not a task impossible for man, it under- 
 takes that task with a sober confidence in human reason. 
 But it continually insists on bringing its reflections and in- 
 sights back to the testing of the facts disclosed by ordinary 
 experience and by the positive sciences. 
 
 Since real beings furnish the field for metaphysical research, 
 and the metaphysical problem is faithfully to characterize the 
 real according to the accepted forms of all cognition, we recog- 
 nize a distinction between "appearance" and "reality." But 
 this distinction cannot be so set up and carried through as to 
 divide the cognitive faculties, or the results of their activity 
 in the evolution of knowledge for the individual or for the 
 race, into two separate parts, to be called by these two names. 
 On the contrary, we find the very word " appearance " most 
 highly significant of the nature of reality. 
 
 When the student of metaphysics directs his attention to 
 that one word, Reality, which is employed somehow to gather 
 together and express the whole field of his research, the 
 subject he wishes to get at, he finds this word, of all others, 
 most rich, and yet somehow vague in content. But since he 
 cannot investigate the infinite particulars with which the 
 
HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 109 
 
 different branches of human knowledge have to do, he raises 
 the more general question to define his problem: What is it 
 really to be, as all things and mind are in their varying rela- 
 tions, transactions, and qualities ? This general question 
 must be answered by a reference to those universal forms of 
 knowledge which men accept as the forms of real being 
 of the minds and things that really are. 
 
 Thus, then, to study the fundamental data of human cog- 
 nitive experience, and to reduce them to a unitary conception 
 which shall provide for all the varied realities of the world in 
 some harmonizing way, is the task of the student of meta- 
 physics. His conclusions will have the value and only the 
 value (although why should this be considered a small 
 thing ? ) of a tenable Theory of Reality. 
 
 The detailed exposition of such a theory, which will now 
 follow, involves the discussion and illustration of the follow- 
 ing fundamental truths. Each of them is a truth which has 
 its roots in the primitive facts and in the maturer growths of 
 knowledge, but which is also ontological in its nature and 
 application. First: All the categories are forms, both of 
 knowledge and of being, that are actually and indubitably 
 realized in all our cognitive experience with the Self. I am a 
 Being whose existence and whose self-knowledge is consti- 
 tuted a Unity, because I am a self-conscious Self. Second : 
 All the real beings which are known as Things, together 
 with their attributes, changes, relations, laws, etc., are made 
 actual in our cognitive experience only as there is projected 
 into them, so to speak, the same forms of Being which 
 I know the Self to have. The categories, so far as they 
 can get any recognizable meaning in their application to 
 actual things, are the same categories as those under which 
 we know the Being of the Self. Third : The Unity in a world 
 of Reality which all things and all minds have is known in 
 terms of an all-inclusive and Absolute Self. Only the con- 
 ception of " Self-hood " can bring into actual and cognizable 
 
110 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Unity that complex of concrete realities which both the work- 
 a-day and the scientific experience of the race contains. And 
 this unifying conception is properly held by the mind, not as 
 a mere conception, but as the ultimate form given by reflec- 
 tive thinking to our knowledge of Reality. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 
 
 IT follows from what has already been shown that none of 
 the fundamental forms of knowledge and of reality can be 
 critically examined without more or less of implicit reference 
 to all the others. For the actual system of things which we 
 call the " World " as known to men is no mere logical 
 arrangement of mental forms, but the vital and interacting 
 unity of an infinite number of particular realities. And 
 moreover, each one of these particular realities is itself a sort 
 of actual system, or actualized unity of all the forms of being. 
 It is therefore impossible to say all that particular real 
 beings, with their entire outfit of qualities are, without dis- 
 cussing all the categories. But just now a problem is before 
 us which must be more closely defined ; and if it were not for 
 certain objections, mostly verbal and historical, rather than 
 essential, the definition of this problem might be expressed 
 in terms of two allied conceptions. These two constitute a 
 sort of pair, the first of which (curiously enough) is particu- 
 larly shy of yielding to any fixed and apprehensible termi- 
 nology. Every particular real being let us say tentatively 
 is necessarily a substance with attributes, a subject of many 
 states, an existence which does and experiences various changes 
 or has various qualities. To adopt the uncouth language of 
 modern science, which here corresponds to that of Aristotle, it 
 is a " that-which," existing under an indefinite number of condi- 
 tions and relations, that require to be determined by telling 
 stories about the "what" of the same thing. Its "that- 
 
112 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 which " is assumed or " posited " by science ; its " what " 
 is described by science. 
 
 The most scanty reading in the history of metaphysical 
 -speculation shows how much debate has been had in the past 
 over the conception of " Substantiality." Or, without essen- 
 tially changing the thoughts involved, we may substitute for 
 this word the terms " pure being," " being as such," or Ding- 
 an-sich. But the current metaphysical or <mta'-metaphysical 
 literature shows how distasteful and unpopular, even in scholas- 
 tic circles, all such abstract terminology has now become. This 
 is, no doubt, partly the result of the crimes against both ex- 
 perience and clear thinking which have been committed in 
 the name of this conception. These crimes are certainly 
 neither small in magnitude nor few in number. But perhaps 
 it is time to call off from this hunt the attention of minds 
 seriously disposed to analysis and reflective thinking ; and to 
 remind them that such words as " substantiality ; " pure be- 
 ing," Ding-an-sich, etc., at* least represent many an honest 
 attempt at solving the mystery of existence. Nor do we con- 
 sider it self-evident that some of this hasty scorn in the cur- 
 rent psychology and philosophy may not be due to a certain 
 popular shallowness of thought and of speech. At any rate, 
 it is certain that the most radically destructive assault upon 
 the old-fashioned category of substance can only have a nega- 
 tive result. Its criticism is, at best, only pioneer work ; it 
 removes obstacles and clears the path ; but it plants no seed 
 and harvests no crop. 
 
 The truth remains that there is in all human cognitive 
 experience a persistent and ineradicable something which 
 corresponds to the metaphysical term " substance." This 
 something is always posited as necessary to the actual exist- 
 ence of any thing, or of the whole world of minds and things. 
 The denial of this something is the one bare asseveration of 
 the current phenomenism which shows conclusively the in- 
 sufficiency of its analysis of experience ; which puts it into 
 
UNIVERSI 1 ] 
 PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR 
 
 irreconcilable conflict with the common-sense of mankind, 
 with the assumptions and conclusions of all the particular 
 sciences, with the inferences that flow from the language and 
 actions of men, and with all the most abiding and trust- 
 worthy conclusions of the world's greatest thinkers. This 
 denial also makes the psychology and the philosophy which 
 espouses phenomenism an object of little esteem, except 
 among the small group of scholastics with whom it is 
 current. 
 
 Use, then, what terms the metaphysician will, he must 
 reckon with the same ontological problem. Such words as 
 " substantiality," " pure being," Ding-an-sich, etc., and the 
 conception corresponding to them, have been so persistent in 
 philosophy that something actual and universal in our human 
 experience must be recognized which corresponds to them, 
 so persistent and expressive that something to correspond 
 must belong to the very nature of reality. 
 
 Every particular real Thing is a substance with attributes, 
 a being that has qualities ; every " phenomenal existence " 
 implies as its ground, or cause, some Ding-an-sich. Every con- 
 crete reality is possessed of qualities ; or every actual existence 
 has, and not merely is, the perceptive or the logical totality of 
 its qualities. So that to be real requires the recognition of 
 something besides a more or less persistently recurrent group 
 of connected phenomena. The " thing-hood " of each particu- 
 lar thing is more than the mere sum of its qualities. These 
 are abstract and now old-fashioned ways of expressing one of 
 the most difficult problems which meet the student of meta- 
 physics. We are going for this reason, as much as possible 
 conveniently, to avoid them. But the problem which has so 
 often been expressed, or even apparently solved, in these and 
 similar phrases, compels us to raise a number of questions like 
 the following : Why does such a conception emerge at all in 
 consciousness ? What that cannot well be questioned, and is 
 fundamental in human cognitive experience, corresponds to 
 
 8 
 
114 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 this conception ? What does critical examination learn of 
 this conception which is adapted, so to speak, to apply to all 
 that men call real both minds and things ? 
 
 If any of the questions just raised be taken before the " plain 
 man's consciousness," we can obtain no matter how persist- 
 ently we question it only very unsatisfactory replies. The 
 unanalyzed judgment and language of men insists on main- 
 taining this mysterious conception of " substance " or " real 
 being ; " but, on being pressed to explain the conception, it 
 can only repeat the mystery, either with what amounts to a 
 dumb show of gesturing or in some obscure figures of speech. 
 This is chiefly true, however, only of physical things ; it is less 
 true by far of the Self. And for the mind upon which the 
 full light of a reflective experience has shined, doubt about 
 the substantiality of the Self is impossible. 
 
 " Sensuous experience" (/Sinnliche Empfindung), says Lotze, 1 
 " has always been looked upon as that ground of cogni- 
 tion which is our warrant for the presence of real Being." 
 Another writer goes so far as to declare that " sentient 
 experience, in short, is reality, and what is not this is not 
 real : " But Mr. Bradley's phrase is much the most compre- 
 hensive, for it is immediately defined by him in this more 
 expanded form : " Feeling, thought, and volition (any groups 
 under which we class psychical phenomena) are all the material 
 of existence." 2 Such a declaration as this must be accepted 
 as final if we may be allowed to give it the following shape : 
 In cognitive experience all we can mean by reality is implicated. 
 If, however, appeal be made to this experience in its uncritical 
 form the answer will no doubt take its point of starting from 
 the sense-perception of things. Ask the " plain man " what it 
 is in that particular thing which makes it real to him, and 
 he will begin to pass in review his sensuous experiences. It 
 the " thing " is to be seen as having such a color and as 
 
 1 Metaphysic, Book I., chap, i., 2. 
 
 2 Appearance and Reality, p. 144. 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 115 
 
 being so large and so shaped ; to be felt as rough or smooth, 
 light or heavy ; it is known to have such other properties and 
 a variety of well-known uses ; and, perhaps, to have such a 
 name and to belong to such a familiar class of objects. The 
 proof that any particular answer " as to what " the thing is has 
 been correctly given must be taken back in detail to the 
 renewed testing of the senses of the same person, or of the 
 senses of other persons. And if persistent doubt arises con- 
 cerning the correctness of the first answers, then if the thing 
 endures for some time " substantially " (as it is naively said) 
 unchanged to sense-experience it may be considered to have 
 dispelled any doubt over the reality of its existence. 
 
 But now let appeal be made to this same uncritical experi- 
 ence with the inquiry whether the reality of any particular 
 being consist merely in the continuance together, as a fact of 
 sense-experience, of some group of sensuous qualities. It will 
 be somewhat difficult, indeed, for the plain man fully to com- 
 prehend such an inquiry. But sooner by far will he credit the 
 tale that any most solid thing has ceased to be, and even that 
 its entire substance has passed from the- world of real beings, 
 than credit the supposition that, so long as anything is known 
 to be, its reality can be fully conceived of as a mere " bundle " 
 of qualities put together in his own sense-experience. You 
 may easily convince him you have u burned up " the tree he saw 
 yesterday ; but you cannot convince him that the tree he sees 
 to-day has no trans-subjective reality. Annihilation of things 
 is much easier credited than their mere subjectivity. 
 
 Now here, indeed, is a strange puzzle proposed to meta- 
 physics by the popular way of regarding real things in all the 
 more primary acts of human cognition. The particular thing 
 is always known to men only as it has certain specific qualities ; 
 it may be conceived of, actually known, to have disappeared 
 from existence with all its qualities ; but so long as it really 
 does exist, it cannot be merely a grouping of qualities. In 
 other and figurative language : in order to be a thing, there 
 
116 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 must be an actual u point of attachment " for the qualities ; 
 and this point of attachment must be conceived of as 
 enduring throughout the real existence of the thing. Only 
 thus is any particular Being able to produce the conviction 
 that it is ; otherwise all our knowledge concerning what it is 
 would not amount to endowing it with reality. Indeed, its 
 reality is no endowment of our cognitive faculties ; whereas 
 its qualities may be considered as the way in which it is 
 known by these faculties. 
 
 If now the physical and natural sciences be inquired of, 
 one by one, what they understand by the real being of any 
 particular Thing, they answer with a wonderful enriching of 
 human knowledge as to the properties of things. Each of 
 these sciences has volumes which discourse at length respect- 
 ing its peculiar aspect of the general inquiry. But all of them 
 together, with all the volumes their devoted scholars have ever 
 written, cannot tell the entire story as to " what " any single 
 thing really is. Not one of them, however, in the least alters 
 either by increasing or diminishing, by removing or modifying 
 the conviction and the aspect of cognitive experience 
 answering to the so-called "substantiality" of things. And 
 why should the students of the physical and natural sciences 
 be either expected or qualified to accomplish this difficult 
 task of metaphysical criticism ? They are precisely as naive 
 and uncritical towards this conception as are the most ordinary 
 of minds. These sciences will increase our knowledge as to 
 what things really exist, and as to what others are the prod- 
 ucts of superstition and of fancy ; as to what is the constitution 
 of the things which do exist, and what they can do, and how the 
 relations between them change, and what careers we may expect 
 them to run in their joint course as parts of an all-embracing 
 Cosmos. But they are compelled to assume or posit a " that- 
 which." a reality comprising manifold "points of attach- 
 ment," to which all these properties, transactions, and 
 relations may be ascribed. 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 117 
 
 Nor do the merely logical explanations of this same onto- 
 logical conception, as ordinarily given, carry us much farther 
 into the heart of its meaning. Logic does, to be sure, enable 
 us to see on what occasions, and even under what conditions, 
 men correctly make use of this category. But in doing this 
 friendly office its students are peculiarly liable to mislead us 
 by a specious analysis which resolves the " real being," or 
 " substance," of things into some other and " purer " thought- 
 form. Sometimes as will appear more clearly when we 
 consider the metaphysical conceptions of matter and of 
 mind logical analysis tries to slip over, or cover up, the 
 real problem by introducing some very unpretentious but most 
 potent and deceptive phrase, as, for example, the one 
 employed so frequently by the positive sciences, namely, 
 " that-which." Matter is " that-which," etc. ; or mind is 
 " that-which," etc. But our question concerns precisely this, 
 the meaning and outcome of this convenient phrase, 
 " that-which." 
 
 Sometimes, however, this category of substance is resolved 
 in terms of number, relation, and time ; and then one is told 
 that the substance of any thing is a sort of enduring unity 
 established among the more obvious regular transactions of 
 the thing. Sometimes, again, one is taken nearer the heart 
 of the truth and is told that by this conception men express 
 their confidence in an " external cause of their sensations." 
 Here space, cause, and relation, are so combined as to stand 
 together in the room of the category of substance. Now this 
 category has not three feet, but one foot. And it is itself 
 in origin more simple and obvious than the category of cause. 
 To resolve substantiality into mere force is an even nearer hit 
 at the fundamental truths of our experience with the real. 
 
 We are assured by Wundt 1 , as a matter of logical analysis, 
 that an object-thing is given to our thinking when a complex 
 of properties and conditions is found coexisting with a certain 
 
 1 Logik, p. 410. 
 
118 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 constancy. And elsewhere 1 we are told by the same writer 
 that " extra-mental " reality is given to such an object-thing 
 on the basis of an assumption which may be expressed as 
 follows : " All perceptions which stand in connection accord 
 ing to their time-space form must also be connected together 
 in respect of their content." Hence arises the demand so to 
 think the actuality that the contradiction which Herbart and 
 others have found in the very conception of substance shall 
 be done away. In our effort to meet this demand the mind 
 receives help from the conception of a Law regulating the 
 Change which things undergo, and thus bringing about in 
 them, for thought, the unity which they certainly appear to 
 have to the senses. Further reflection upon this conception 
 of substance ordinarily results in two false views : (1) that 
 substance is the ground of experience, but is not given in 
 experience ; and (2) that substance, as being, is opposed to 
 appearance or phenomena. 2 In both these views, Wundt sees 
 a contradiction; for the former regards the category as 
 merely hypothetical, and the latter regards the same category 
 as the only actual, of which the phenomenal in our experience 
 is merely a manifestation. 
 
 In thus clearing the ground for the recognition of the true 
 genesis and nature of this conception of substantiality we find 
 ourselves in agreement with the positions of Wundt. The 
 two views which he regards as false cannot possibly be ac- 
 cepted as true, without a total abandonment of the most 
 fundamental position which we have elsewhere taken regard- 
 ing the nature and validity of cognitive experience, and re- 
 garding the nature and application to realities of all the 
 categories. With the determination not to be deceived into 
 setting up internal contradictions between abstractions and 
 mistaking them for contradictions inherent either in our own 
 cognitive processes or in the nature of things, we also sym- 
 
 1 System der Philosophic, p. 170. 
 2 Ibid., p. 267 f. 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 119 
 
 pathize most heartily. But it is just at the point where the 
 more purely logical treatment of this category is abandoned for 
 its more critical and metaphysical treatment, that we find our- 
 selves forced into positions of antagonism. For Wundt be- 
 comes uncertain and obscure in his analysis when he attempts 
 to deal with the " psychological application of the concept of 
 substance." Whereas it is in the application of this category 
 to the Self not, however, as separate from external objects, 
 but as in a living commerce with them that we discover the 
 genesis and realize the meaning of the same category as ap- 
 plied to things. Moreover, instead of finding the conception 
 of " substantiality " as held by the physical sciences superior 
 in clearness to that of psychology, the exact opposite seems 
 to us true. Still further, the opposition which Wundt sets 
 up between the scientific and the religious conception of sub- 
 stance seems to us another of those contradictions between 
 mere abstractions which a genuine spirit of philosophy seeks 
 so diligently to avoid. 
 
 But returning to the earlier point of view, we are impressed 
 anew with the inability of logic to solve our problem. For it 
 seems that logic can only enumerate certain conditions under 
 which the category of substance is implied in all acts of 
 knowledge, and then go on to add certain other categories 
 with which it is most closely allied in the same activity of 
 knowing. Doubtless, " constancy " in certain specified proper- 
 ties and conditions of every object is necessary in order that 
 the mind may either perceive, or conceive of, any particular 
 object as a real being, as having the substantial existence 
 of a Thing. Doubtless, men ordinarily assume that what is 
 connected in their experience with a sufficient constancy is 
 also somehow similarly connected in the particular reality. 
 And undoubtedly the conception of a law regulating change 
 helps the mind in its effort to think its way into the clear 
 light of a full-orbed conception of all that is necessary to the 
 actuality of any particular thing. But unless these words 
 
120 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 are to be taken as empty and ineffective abstractions, com- 
 forting to the thought of the thinker " of the chair," but quite 
 inadequate to do the business of the actual world of real 
 things, we must find something more in them than they at first 
 suggest. Connection, as such, is bare fact ; it is inert circum- 
 stance whether in thought or among things. What is the 
 " that-which " that connects ? Tying together, when done, is 
 done ; and from the point of view of the external observer,, 
 this is the end of the matter. What is it that ties together 
 both the different " moments " of the cognitive act, and the 
 different qualities and conditions or states of the thing known ? 
 And how can the mind make " law regulating change " account 
 for the real being of anything, unless it appeals, under cover 
 of these words, to a force that shall somehow constitute the 
 actual unity of the particular being, by dominating, as it were,, 
 over the stream of the phenomena and holding them con- 
 stantly directed upon some resultant end ? 
 
 John Stuart Mill, 1 after rejecting the definition of the 
 " school-logicians " (" A substance ... is self-existent ; in. 
 speaking about it, we need not put of after its name "), pro- 
 poses to define the same conception on the basis of the or- 
 dinary twofold distinction of substances into bodies and minds* 
 He then proceeds to characterize the former as " the unknown 
 external cause " to which we refer our sensations ; and the 
 latter he describes as " the sentient subject (in the scholastic 
 sense of the term) of all feelings ; that which has or feels 
 them." But now that has happened with this writer on logic 
 which happens with him and with all his followers in every 
 similar case ; a delightful simplicity of language in clearing 
 up logically the mystery of existence has only led us from 
 twilight shadows into the darkest night. 
 
 The significance of Mill's language is, however, most in- 
 structive. Let us consider it ; we are to have here a per- 
 fectly " sun-clear " definition, from the logician's point of view,. 
 
 1 A System of Logic, 8th edition, Book I., chap, iii., 6 f . 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 121 
 
 of the conception of substance as applied both to things and 
 to minds. But mind is denned as a substance, because it is 
 a subject, in the scholastic or metaphysical sense of that term ; 
 it is, indeed, a veritable " that-which ; " and " being sentient " 
 is set down as the mind's characteristic self-known qualification. 
 Now so far as the substantiality of things is concerned, this is 
 the very phrase which the physicists to whom Mill defers are 
 ready to adopt ; with them every material thing is, however 
 unknowable as to its essence otherwise, a veritable "that- 
 which," a subject of states, in the scholastic sense of the 
 term. And in physics it is because of their substantiality 
 that bodies are known as a cause of our sensations ; but this 
 cause is external (that is to say, " not-ourselves"), and un- 
 known, since " being sentient," as minds are, seems not to 
 define it well. Now how " being a cause " differs from being 
 a " that-which has," etc., we are left in most pitiable condition 
 of doubt. Apparently these two phrases amount to the same 
 thing ; for the former gives us the conception of substance as- 
 body, and the latter the conception of substance as mind. 
 Neither is it at once apparent why being a subject of states 
 that are defined by the word " sentient" should essentially differ 
 from being a subject of states that cannot be defined as sentient ; 
 at least so far as " being a subject " at all is concerned. But 
 what if one goes on to insist upon having a logical conception 
 of what it is " to be a subject," or " to be a cause " (known or 
 unknown), or " to be a ' that-which,' " at all ? In answer to 
 this metaphysical inquiry, the acute and " sun-clear " defini- 
 tion of the logicians appears to have nothing to say. But 
 this is the very question that metaphysics wishes to have 
 answered. 
 
 It is interesting to notice how Mr. Bradley, in his first 
 positive and constructive attempt to state what is necessary 
 to reality, 1 fixes upon " self-consistency " as its most essential 
 characteristic. Such consistency, however, he thinks, cannot 
 
 1 Appearance and Reality, Book II., chap. xiii. 
 
122 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 belong to "independent realities." It must belong only to 
 that Unity of Reality wbich philosophy seeks to find. This 
 self-consistency as a single system is self-existent. But it 
 must therefore remain unknown by any other than its self ; 
 for " if it is known by another, then forthwith it cannot be 
 self-existent since this relation must clearly belong to its 
 essence." Here again we have the attempt so often repeated 
 in the history of philosophy 'to form a logical conception of 
 Reality resulting in the substitution of an unknowable One 
 Being for that concrete fulness of life and meaning which 
 the actual system of realities seems to possess for the cogni- 
 tive consciousness, for the practical life, and for the religious 
 faith, of the multitudes of men. But what interests us at 
 this point is the recurrence in all these conceptions of a single 
 word. That word is the significant word Self. How shall 
 this word be understood ? When the school-logicians defined 
 substance as the " self-existent," did they mean to imply the 
 doctrine that every object-thing is real only when it is known, 
 or thought of, as existent after the analogy of the Self ? To 
 be self-existent = to exist as does a self, at least, in this 
 respect, that some point of attachment for the changing rela- 
 tions and states is assumed to remain constant amid all 
 change. And does Mr. Bradley's " self-consistency " as the 
 core of reality mean anything less than such consistency as a 
 self may have, and actually does have ? But if this is its 
 meaning, how can it be said that the essence of reality must 
 remain unknowable by us? 
 
 From our perplexing search after a satisfactory statement 
 as to the significance of this category we return with some 
 few valuable results. Language, science, logical analysis, all 
 alike, imply the confident recognition of something in experi- 
 ence, and something in reality, which answers to such abstrac- 
 tions as Substance, Being, or Ding-an-sich. Moreover, we 
 have been constantly pressed back, by the disappointing 
 results of our search, toward the re-examination of the actual 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 123 
 
 facts of cognitive experience. In this experience we seek the 
 genesis and the interpretation of our category. Whence 
 conies, and what is the meaning of, this X, which lies at the 
 heart of every particular thing ? 
 
 So far as the answer to this present inquiry lies in the 
 patent facts of human experience it may be given very briefly 
 in this place ; for this is an inquiry which has occupied us 
 with sufficient detail in several other connections. 1 In brief, 
 the genesis of the conception which has gone under the name 
 of " substance," " pure being," Ding-an-sich, is to be found in 
 every primary fact of knowledge. Every such fact is, on its 
 subjective side, a " self-felt activity " of the knower, a doing 
 that is not mere fact of conscious change but is also a con- 
 sciousness of doing. Fused with an indefinite variety of sen- 
 sation-factors, it is the consciousness that I am alive ; reflected 
 upon and made the basis of generalization, it is the knowledge 
 that I am not pure passivity or unlimited impressibility, but 1 
 am a Will. This self-activity, however, would never be " self- 
 felt " in such a manner as to reveal in consciousness the very 
 core of my being, were it not itself checked and inhibited. 
 The experience of being checked and inhibited on every hand 
 is the very core of my cognition of every other Thing. My 
 self-felt activity is opposed by " that which " is not, and can- 
 not be recognized by me, as my doing. The inhibition is, on 
 the contrary, necessarily recognized as the doing of that 
 which is not me. To that which, not being my self, stands 
 opposed to my self-felt activity, I attribute the same essential 
 being which I know myself to have. It, too, is a centre of 
 activity which stands to my self-felt activity in the reciprocal 
 relation of acting and being acted upon. It is in this funda- 
 mental fact of an activity, which is both self -felt and also known 
 
 1 As a question both for descriptive psychology and for the theory of knowl- 
 edge to discuss, see the following works of the author : " Psychology, Descriptive 
 and Explanatory," chaps, xi., xiv., xxi., and xxvi. ; " Philosophy of Mind," 
 chaps, iii. and iv. ; and " Philosophy of Knowledge," chaps, v.-vii. and xiii. 
 
124 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 to be inhibited, that we discover the root, in experience, from 
 which the conception of substance springs forth. 
 
 But this peculiar phase, or aspect, of every cognitive expe- 
 rience is never the whole of any particular act or process of 
 knowledge. Mere self-felt activity would never amount to a 
 knowledge of Self ; mere recognition of the inhibiting of this 
 activity, together with the attribution of an analogous activity 
 to some external object, would never amount to the knowl- 
 edge of a Thing. For on the side of knowledge no example 
 of such a complex mental process is ever " mere," or " bare : " 
 and on the side of reality, as we have repeatedly seen, no 
 particular thing is ever known as mere or bare being. On 
 the subjective side, indeed, it is the self-activity involved in 
 all knowing which accounts for my positing " that " / am ; 
 and it is the activity recognized as centering in the object 
 which limits and inhibits my self-activity, that accounts for 
 my positing 4< that " It is. This is because every cognitive 
 judgment is a deed of will ; and its issue is the affirmation of 
 some reality whose very essence is recognized as will. In a 
 word : " Knowledge is born of thinking which has arrived at the 
 pausing place of a judgment a finished product of synthetic 
 activity. " * For neither will alone, nor intellect alone, nor 
 feeling alone if it were not an antiquated and even absurd 
 manner of speaking, to apply the word " alone " to the work- 
 ing of any of these so-called faculties could ever result in 
 a genuine act of cognitive judgment. As there is no will 
 " alone," and no feeling " alone," in any knowing process ; so 
 there is no pure being, or thing-in-itself, existent in the world 
 of concrete realities. On the other hand, as there is no intel- 
 lect which can alone achieve the result of making a cognitive 
 judgment, so there are no qualities which, without "being 
 posited," can combine into the complex existence of an actual 
 Thing. Particular beings are not known to the mind as mere 
 bundles of qualities; for its act of knowledge is not mere 
 
 1 Quoted from " Philosophy of Knowledge," p. 146. 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 125 
 
 intellection. But they are not known to the mind as unre- 
 lated or pure beings ; for the mind cannot will or feel them to 
 be at all without discriminating their qualities and relations. 
 This synthetic voluntary activity of every cognitive (that is, 
 essentially trans-subjective) judgment is the genesis of the cate- 
 gory of substance. 
 
 Having once recognized that fact of knowledge, or rather 
 that aspect of every fact of knowledge, in which the concep- 
 tion of substance has its genesis, nothing further can be said 
 about it for its more complete definition. Strictly speaking, 
 all the categories are essentially indefinable. They are them- 
 selves those fundamental forms of cognition which by their 
 different particular combinations and modifications make all 
 definition possible. The rather should we say that they are 
 themselves, as men think them, the abstractions derived from 
 the cognitions of many particular minds and things which 
 ^xist in an indefinite variety of concrete relations and condi- 
 tions. This indefinable character belongs especially to the 
 category of substance if we may continue the use for a 
 while longer of so obnoxious a word. The reason for its 
 especially vague and shifty use, and its peculiarly provoking 
 resistance to all attempts at analysis, is now apparent. This 
 conception is not given to the mind in the form of any par- 
 ticular content of consciousness. Its genesis is the recogni- 
 tion of the fact that all knowledge involves self-felt activity, 
 inhibited by a non-self into which we project, by a necessary 
 and natural analogy, a centre of forth-putting and resisting 
 activity. 
 
 In discussing further the validity of the category of sub- 
 stance we may now make a certain convenient substitution. 
 For this X, in which the common people, the men of science, 
 and the adepts in the logical analysis of fundamental concep- 
 tions, all alike believe, we may substitute self-activity. By 
 this phrase is meant such activity as is an immediate datum 
 of every act of perception or of self-consciousness, so far as 
 
126 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the life of the Self is concerned ; and which is, of necessity, 
 in the very act of knowledge also attributed to every external 
 object regarded as real. This question now follows : What is 
 there in the known constitution of the mind, and what in the 
 known constitution of things, which warrants the application 
 of this conception to the reality of either, or of both ? 
 
 That the category of substance, as thus described by an 
 appeal to what is universal in human cognitive experience, is 
 applicable to the reality of the mind, there can be no doubt. 
 Indeed, to answer such a question negatively would be to 
 affirm and to deny at the same time. The consciousness of 
 the plain man, of the psychologist, and of the metaphysician, 
 agrees in testimony upon this point. Those critics of Descartes 
 who facetiously affirmed that it was just as valid an argument 
 to say, " I walk, therefore I am," as to say " I think, therefore 
 I am," were unquestionably in the right if "walking" be re- 
 garded as a genuine cognitive experience with one's Self. 
 When I am, whatever the specific content of consciousness 
 may be, so much alive as that I know I am alive, then my 
 knowledge admits of no doubt as to the reality of its object. 
 Actually, no individual experience with the Self is ever given, 
 except as determined content-wise. But every manner of 
 content must be experienced as the particular way in which, 
 for the present moment, my self-existence is actually deter- 
 mined. And this self-existence, however determined in 
 particular, must always be known and thought of, as self- 
 determined, although in dependence upon the influence of 
 other beings. All the language in which men speak of 
 themselves, whether ignorant and savage or intelligent and 
 cultivated, and whether they speak from the practical, the 
 scientific, or the philosophical point of view, illustrates this 
 fundamental truth. Language about human self-conscious 
 life, and about the concrete realities -of human daily living, is 
 intelligible in no other way. The answer of every man to the 
 question, What do you think ? or, How do you feel ? or, What 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 127 
 
 are you planning ? must always take the form of " positing " 
 the self-activity (though related to and conditioned upon 
 some object) of the "I am." 
 
 No form of reflective thinking upon the nature of mind ever 
 succeeds in escaping virtually the same conclusion. Physics 
 and psychology, or workaday experience, can explain why I 
 think, or feel, or will, this rather than something else. And 
 such explanation, either popular or scientific, seems somewhat 
 to relieve from mystery our questioning after the " what, " in 
 particular, of human experience. But the incomprehensible 
 "core" of every individual's being is not to be reached by 
 solving such problems as why I see this and not that ; or why 
 I hear a sound having the pitch c l instead of c 2 . That I see, 
 hear, taste, and smell, that I have any cognitive experience 
 at all this is the unexplained mystery, the irresolvable 
 datum of my being. And when the metaphysical analyst is 
 invited to approach this problem, he can, of necessity, do 
 nothing with it beyond pointing to the same ultimate datum, 
 and perhaps making his appeal to self-consciousness in some- 
 what clearer terms. 
 
 Every man, in every cognitive experience, when he makes 
 himself, as the knower, the object of reflection, recognizes this 
 " doing " self-felt and yet inhibited and determined by an 
 object as the point at which all analysis must stop, and in 
 which all experience has its roots. The disputes of psycholo- 
 gists and metaphysicians over this point are mere logomachies, 
 which by their very character demonstrate the same primary 
 and indubitable fact. Striving to express it in both its sub- 
 jective and its objective aspects, we may speak of it, from the 
 psychological standpoint, as at once active consciousness and 
 consciousness of activity. Adding a touch of metaphysics to 
 the psychology we may understand the talk about " positing," 
 etc., in which German philosophy has abounded. It is this 
 central "moment" in our stream of consciousness which 
 Teichmuller, for example, explains as a " positing conscious- 
 
128 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 ness " (das setzende Bewusstseyri), whose other side is a 
 "consciousness of positing" (das Bewusstseyn der Setzung). 
 Generalizing, and so forming one of those fascinating and 
 yet dangerous abstractions in which metaphysics abounds, we 
 recognize with Schopenhauer and Hartmann, fact of will, bare 
 will, as the solid core of being, the essential and the actual 
 of existence, inseparably united. Interpreting Kant's doctrine 
 of Ding-an-sich, both positively and negatively, we get many 
 indications of a recognition of the same truth in it. Both the 
 intense vitality and also the meagreness of Fichte's philos- 
 ophy come from his greatly emphasizing this experience of 
 the soul with itself. 
 
 In a word, that form of man's experience, in which are 
 found the roots that, when developed by abstract thinking, 
 bear the product of this most evanescent and intangible of the 
 categories ("Substance," "Pure Being," " Ding-an-sich "), is an 
 actualization of the same category in its application to the Self. 
 The conception of " being-real " could never orginate without 
 the experience of a conscious self-activity inhibited and 
 brought to an arrest by other activity. In this experience, 
 however, we immediately and indubitably know the Self, the 
 knower, as a " being-real." Behind, beneath, above, around, 
 this fact of experience, reflective thinking cannot get. It 
 defies further analysis, and it needs none. 
 
 If now the valid application of the same category to the 
 reality of things be questioned, one can arrive at a satisfac- 
 tory answer only by use of the principle of analogy. The 
 difference which we wish to signify by the word " analogy " 
 is dependent upon the difference between the genesis and de- 
 velopment of the knowledge of things and the genesis and 
 development of the knowledge of self. It is instructive to 
 notice how that clear but not profound thinker, John Stuart 
 Mill, emphasized this difference in his twofold definition of 
 u substance." The substance of the mind is said to consist 
 in its being a " subject " of states, in " the scholastic sense of 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 129 
 
 the term." It is a veritable but sentient " that-which." But 
 the substance of things consists in their being an " unknown 
 external cause " to which the mind refers its own sensations. 
 It will be shown in due time that the conception answering 
 to the words " being a cause " has no meaning that does not 
 involve the same experience with ourselves and with things, 
 in which the category of substance arises. It is now to be 
 noticed, however, that, according to Mill, this " external " 
 (or non-self) cause is unknown by the mind ; but the mind 
 knows itself as actually the subject of its own states. A 
 certain superior immediateness and trustworthiness of knowl- 
 edge as to the substantial reality of the mind seems to be 
 admitted in all this. And the admission is warranted by the 
 facts of experience. 
 
 It remains now to show how all human knowledge as to 
 the reality of external things pivots itself upon that central 
 act of " positing " which attributes to each object of knowl- 
 edge a self -activity, inhibited and determined, however, by 
 the self-activity of other objects. When we say " self- 
 activity ," we mean activity that is analogous to that which 
 we feel ourselves to have, as the very core and centre of our 
 own being at all. This "attribution" -or "reference," to 
 use the term of John Stuart Mill is not an inference or a 
 logical affair, in its more primitive forms of realization. It 
 is itself an activity, which enters into the very life of every 
 cognitive judgment, in such a way as that, without it no form 
 of logical inference could possibly take place. This much is 
 true in the claim of Helmholtz and others that a certain kind 
 of inference enters into every completed act of perception by 
 the senses. The psychology of the whole subject need not 
 occupy us anew in this connection ; it is enough to notice 
 that the attribution of such a " core " of being belongs in an 
 essential way to the cognition of every particular thing. 
 
 How the physical sciences deal with this primitive view of 
 all things as both doing and having something done to them, 
 
130 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 after the analogy of the experience of the Self with the objects 
 of its perception, will be shown in detail in the proper con- 
 nections. The current somewhat shifty conceptions of Force, 
 Energy, Causation, etc., as applied to things on the one hand, 
 and of Inertia, Mass, etc., as applied to the same things on 
 the other hand, all involve the use of this category. Action, 
 and reaction, impenetrability and elasticity, etc., involve the 
 same conception. At the basis of all the modern refinements 
 of the physical sciences lies this same notable and impressive 
 experience. In all man's workaday as well as his scientific 
 commerce with physical objects, they are known as centres of 
 an activity that resists and of an impressibility that receives,, 
 the activity of other objects, including the self of the knower. 
 The " substantiality," the " being real," of every particular 
 Thing, consists in just this. Our knowing it as substantial 
 and real necessarily involves the creation of this vital analogue. 
 In order to illustrate the fidelity to all human experience of 
 the propositions just made, it is necessary at present simply 
 to consider how men establish for themselves, or for others, 
 the actuality of any particular Thing. In all the simpler, non- 
 contested cases, he who is not blind has only to look and 
 see. If, however, he will not even look, he cannot see ; and that 
 particular visible thing cannot become known as a reality to 
 him. But merely looking involves the minimum of self-activity, 
 in its inhibition and subsequent, although nearly instantaneous, 
 determination by the object which seems to give to the mind 
 the cognition of an actual thing. The object is, " content-wise," 
 a group of visual symbols into which, because of the excite- 
 ment and arrest of attention, I infuse the trans-subjective 
 being which every reality must have. So interested am I, 
 as a rule, in reaching the practical results of my cognitive 
 activity that the essential nature and significance of the 
 activity is not recognized at all. But now let any doubt 
 arise : Is that object which I see a really existent Thing ? 
 To settle this doubt, I will to look, and to look more atten- 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 131 
 
 tively ; or I will to look again and again. Or, still further, I 
 will to put myself into other relations toward the object (as 
 of nearer distance or clearer light), in order that it may more 
 decisively determine my conscious state. Suppose, however, 
 that after using all the resources of perception by sight, the 
 doubt as to the reality of my visual object still remains. 
 Then I will to bring my other senses into relations of action 
 and reaction with the same object. I strive to grasp it 
 with my hands, or to embrace it in my arms, or to push 
 against it with all my bodily force. When this intensifying 
 of the consciousness of doing something is accompanied 
 in some manner pari passu by an increase in the conscious- 
 ness of being resisted by that which I cannot identify as an 
 object with myself, then I " know " that this particular object 
 is a " real Thing." It has stood the last test of substantiality 
 which immediate and primary cognitive experience can apply 
 to it. It has met my self -felt activity in a way to compel me 
 to recognize it as a centre of resisting activity, after the 
 analogy of a true and actual Self. 
 
 If, now, this kind of sensuous evidence fails or gives a con- 
 tradictory voice at any step along the line of progress in 
 settling, by an appeal to perceptive experience, one's doubts a& 
 to the real being of the object-thing, one may resort to mere 
 argument. Then the judgment which affirms or denies reality 
 for the object is made to depend on yet more remote and! 
 doubtful grounds. By almost imperceptible degrees this 
 judgment may be made to fade away into the misty regions 
 of mere opinion or conjecture. The Thing thus loses the 
 44 core " of its reality, because the mind can no longer get its 
 answer into the form of a modification of active consciousness 
 by an inhibitory or determining activity which centres in that 
 particular external object. On " general grounds " of intellect 
 one may argue one's way to the derived knowledge of, or 
 belief in, the real being of many things which never become 
 objects of perceptive experience. For us who see, there are 
 
132 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 many things known as actual to sight, that are not actual to 
 touch ; for the blind man none of his tactual and muscular 
 realities are things conceivable as real to sight. For in his 
 case, things of other men's sight can neither do anything to 
 him, nor receive any impressions by activities that make 
 themselves felt, as his own, within his consciousness. 
 
 If now the question be raised, What further is it for any 
 particular Thing just to be ? that is, to validate its claim 
 to actual existence, irrespective of any definite form of exis- 
 tence no answer can possibly be given. The instant any 
 being ceases to be experienced as in this commerce of active 
 and passive relations, within the system of beings, it forfeits 
 its entire appreciable claim to actuality. Nor can we imag- 
 ine or think of it as a concrete reality, unless we mentally 
 posit this " core " of its being after the analogy of our own 
 " self-existence." Moreover, every bit of evidence which 
 comes to senses, to imagination, or to intellect, as to " what " 
 any particular thing actually is, aggregates itself about this 
 central position. Speaking in a figure of speech which, how- 
 ever, goes straight to the heart of all human experience with 
 physical realities : knowing things involves a positing of them 
 as centres of the forthputting and the reception of activity. 
 It is not simply this ; for knowing is not bare, indeterminate 
 activity ; neither are things mere centres of activity. As 
 has already been shown, every concrete reality is an actual 
 harmony of all the categories. 
 
 With no other need of systematic metaphysics have its 
 students striven more earnestly and yet unsuccessfully than 
 with the need of satisfactory principles of differentiation. 
 Schopenhauer found these principles in the categories of 
 Space, Time, and Causation ; but he was never able to show 
 with the least degree of satisfaction, how these three prin- 
 ciples may be either derived from, or reconciled with the 
 unity of a bare and blind Will. It is much too early in our 
 discussion to consider how we propose to secure the satisfac- 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 133 
 
 tion of this need. But without recognition of its existence 
 the metaphysician cannot even refer, however vaguely, to 
 particular real beings. Whatever the human mind may 
 know, or conjecture, about the Unity of Reality, about the 
 One, the Absolute, the World-Ground, or any other term 
 philosophers have chosen for this unitary conception, 
 man's first-hand, verifiable, and common knowledge is the 
 knowledge of particular existences. For every human mind 
 knowledge is, and remains, knowledge of the self and of other 
 concrete beings, -their qualities, relations, and transactions. 
 From this knowledge of particulars all theory of reality must 
 set out ; to this knowledge all theory must be ready to return, 
 for its correction and its testing, again and yet again. Real- 
 ity may be some sort of a Unity ; and there may be One 
 Absolute World-Ground. But there are no known things in 
 general, and no known minds in general. 
 
 Now as will appear throughout the next succeeding chap- 
 ters all the categories afford both differentiating and uni- 
 fying conceptions. But the conception derived from that 
 " moment " of every cognitive experience which we have 
 already coupled with the category of substance, requires a 
 brief treatment in this place. We will call it " Quality." 
 
 The ground may be cleared for such brief criticism of this 
 conception of Quality as will be necessary to our purpose, by 
 a series of negative propositions. These denials all follow 
 from the attempt to treat the conception as entitled to a 
 place among the categories. And, first, the qualities which 
 distinguish particular beings from one another are never in 
 fact separable from those beings. Qualities that are not 
 "of" things do not really exist; but neither do qualities 
 "off" things, as it were. Language adopts all manner 
 of qualifying terms as though they were themselves realities 
 in need of qualification. For example : " Green is one of 
 the three fundamental colors, having a central position in 
 the chromatic scale, so many vibrations in a second, and 
 
134 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 such intensity, degree of purity, etc." The full significance 
 of this way of expressing experience can only appear in the 
 light of a further analysis of the categories involved; these 
 are relation, number, time, magnitude, force, etc. Scanty 
 reflection, however, is needed to make obvious the truth, 
 that the quality of greenness, or of being green, is not actu- 
 ally separable from the particular beings which it qualifies. 
 Subjectively regarded, this quality is really my sensation, or 
 yours, or that of some other sentient being. Objectively 
 regarded, from the popular point of view, it belongs to the 
 object thing, to the grass, or the glass, or the cloth, I see; 
 and objectively regarded, from the scientific point of view, it 
 has been provided with a " subject," to hold and possess it, 
 viz., the wonderful and mysterious being of the ether. 
 
 Neither to deny again the value of certain metaphysical 
 abstractions can any single quality be regarded as sufficing 
 to give the separateness of a reality to any object. In the 
 metaphysical theory of Herbart, the different categories were 
 regarded as mutually exclusive ; and the solution of the prob- 
 lem of being must be found in regarding all concrete realities 
 as consisting of innumerable simple essences, each with its 
 own single characteristic quality. But we have seen that the 
 reality of every particular being depends upon its somehow 
 harmonizing the categories ; and we, in fact, do not know and 
 never can know any thing as having only one quality. The 
 rather should we say that the qualities of every particular 
 being seem to be indefinitely numerous ; and that the more 
 we know of ourselves and of things, the more does the list of 
 known qualifications become enlarged. All our improved 
 means, both physical and chemical, for observing the qualities 
 of atoms and of masses of matter, whether inorganic or alive, 
 demonstrate the truth that the individual existences of the 
 world are not differentiated by the possession of single qual- 
 ities peculiar to each. And yet the conception of a Unity of 
 all things has been confirmed thereby. 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 135 
 
 Neither, again, can the qualities of particular beings be 
 considered as statical conditions or rigid states of existence ; 
 and so inconsistent with change or growth in these same 
 things. It is easy enough, indeed, to discover that the very 
 reality of some things depends upon their growth. An actual 
 tree, or chick, or man cannot be, without coming to be ; 
 the actuality of such beings depends upon growth. But a 
 profounder reflection shows this to be really true of all parti- 
 cular beings. Their qualities are, indeed, " of " them, and 
 may not be taken "off" them; but they are not like the 
 irremovable husk, or shell, of their being, of which the 
 kernel or " core " is the substance. Rigid substance + un- 
 changing qualities, is not = a real "Thing." 
 
 And, finally, we cannot express to ourselves what is meant 
 toy the qualities which distinguish any particular being, with- 
 out making use of forms of experience from which other 
 qualifying conceptions are derived. Qualities of any one 
 being always imply relations between two or more beings. 
 The very notion of qualities implies a reference to causal 
 influences, and causal relations so called. And through the 
 doors opened by these categories we are led out into the 
 broad universe of being, under the all-embracing sky, by 
 every attempt to consider how any single real being can 
 possibly be distinguished as such. This leading forth of 
 human reflection from the particular Thing no matter 
 what it may be to the universal Cosmos, of which it is 
 " part," rests upon a scientific basis that is growing broader 
 and more solid every day. And if the infinite wealth and 
 mystery of particular tilings is being emphasized by science, 
 with its increased specialization, the avenues to knowledge 
 of that mysterious Infinite in which all particular beings 
 have their Being are made more numerous. 
 
 " Raise thou the stone and find me there ; 
 Cleave thou the wood and there am I. " 
 
136 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Suppose, however, that a clear and positive answer be 
 demanded to the inquiry : What is it really to be the quality 
 of any particular being ? We sort things out by their quali- 
 ties either for practical or for scientific purposes, and it is 
 by knowing the more permanent or persistently recurrent 
 qualities that we learn what to expect from other beings and 
 what we may hope to do with them. In a word, by their 
 qualities we know '' what " things are. But this only tells us 
 what use we make of our knowledge of the qualities of par- 
 ticular beings ; it does not tell us what qualities really are. 
 
 In seeking for suggestions of the correct and final answer 
 to the metaphysical inquiry just raised, we are justified in 
 going straight to our most immediate and indubitable knowl- 
 edge. I know, to some extent, what some of my own quali- 
 ties really are, at least, if I will not refine overmuch, or try 
 to get down below or around behind the evidence. My quali- 
 ties, as immediately and indubitably known to me, are the 
 modes of the behavior of my Self both as doing and as 
 suffering in my changing relations to other beings. By self- 
 knowledge I am " qualified," or " particularized," in an in- 
 definite variety of minutely different ways. The varying 
 modes of my doing and suffering, of my complex active and 
 passive experience, in their peculiar combinations and group- 
 ing, serve to distinguish me from all other beings. Others 
 may "sort" me out by knowing sufficiently well what these 
 modes of behavior are ; they are the important items in the 
 conceptual knowledge of my Self. I " sort " myself out in the 
 same way. And the actuality corresponding to all this can- 
 not be doubted ; because description here is, so far forth, 
 only the expression of what is realized in my cognitive 
 experience with myself. 
 
 But what meaning must be attached to such a phrase as 
 " being the quality of an external thing" ; and, What is it in 
 reality to be the quality of any such thing ? The first answer 
 which one is tempted to give to these inquiries turns back for 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 13T 
 
 an appeal to the same cognitive self -consciousness. But this, 
 of course, can only tell us what are the qualities of that par- 
 ticular thing, as related to me. For example, the book which 
 lies upon the table, is greenish in color, is so large, is heavy, 
 roughish in look and feel, etc. But here physics and psy- 
 chology, from their different established points of standing 
 may join hands and proclaim that such descriptions of the 
 qualities of things are not ontological at all. The qualities 
 of things, regarded as " appearances " in our stream of con- 
 sciousness, are by no means copies of the qualities which 
 really belong to the things themselves. And this is as true 
 of the so-called primary qualities of things as of those 
 qualities which have, of old, been recognized as secondary 
 and derived. Thus the physico-chemical sciences have found 
 it necessary to devise an entire system of non-sensible quali- 
 ties which actually belong to things ; and which thus con- 
 stitute the conditions or causes of the same things appearing 
 to us as endowed with their immediately known qualities. 
 That is to say, the physico-chemical reality of things is made, 
 in part, the explanation, of the psychical reality of things. 
 What things are determines how things shall seem to us. 
 
 Now the fact just mentioned offers a very instructive, but 
 somewhat unsatisfactory answer, to our inquiry as to the 
 nature, in reality, of the category of Quality. So far as things 
 are concerned, this category seems now to have a twofold 
 significance. For the popular consciousness, and indeed for 
 every man's consciousness so long as he takes the popular 
 point of view, the immediately known qualities of things are 
 not their real qualities. Science tells us, however, what 
 these real qualities are. And the real qualities are totally 
 unlike the immediately known qualities ; but the former 
 stand to the latter in the relation of cause to effect. 
 
 The mind is loath to have its metaphysical inquiry as to the 
 actual nature of the qualities of things end in this disap- 
 pointing way. It continues to ask how we are to think of 
 
138 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the real qualities, which science reveals to the eye of imagi- 
 nation, as related to the things whose qualities they are. And 
 no other answer to this inquiry seems possible than the one 
 which follows the necessary analogy of our experience with 
 ourselves. Things really have qualities ; although the con- 
 jectures of modern science as to what these qualities really are 
 may be as far from a correct copy as are the visual and tactual 
 representations of the man who has never listened to the 
 marvellous descriptions of modern science. These qualities 
 are really nothing other than the actual modes of the doing 
 and suffering of the things themselves. But this is to con- 
 ceive of things anthropomorphically. Granted ; it is indeed 
 to conceive of them or rather to know them at least so 
 far forth, after the analogy of the self-known Self. 
 
 Any particular being, then, whether thing or mind, in 
 order to claim a place in reality, must have its own group of 
 qualities ; but these qualities are, really, only its character- 
 istic ways of acting and reacting in varying relations to other 
 particular beings. And these qualities are kept together, in 
 our thought and in reality, by some kind of a bond. It was 
 this latter conception which was discussed in the earlier 
 part of this chapter. 
 
 To know that any particular thing really is, it is not enough 
 merely to observe, to discriminate, to think, so long as 
 such forms of experience are regarded as merely passive 
 content of consciousness. To posit the existence of things 
 as a matter of knowledge, it is necessary to experience a felt 
 inhibition of one's self -activity. But to know what any par- 
 ticular thing is, one must observe, discriminate, think, the 
 various modifications of one's conscious content ; and one 
 must attribute these to the thing as its qualities. 
 
 When I ask, What, in reality, are the qualities of that par- 
 ticular Thing, considered not as appearances to me but as 
 actually belonging to the thing ? only one answer can be 
 given. They are the forms of the experience and of the 
 
PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 139 
 
 doing of that thing. If I regard them as forms of the " ex- 
 perience " of the thing, I take the point of view in which I 
 am myself conscious rather of being first acted upon, and 
 then of reacting. If I regard them as forms of " doing," I 
 take the point of view from which I am conscious of acting 
 and then of observing changes in other beings which I inter- 
 pret as results of my acting. Both points of view get their 
 meaning from knowledge of the Self and from experience 
 with its many forms of doing and suffering in the commerce 
 of life with Things. 
 
 Other distinctions in qualities such as those between 
 the primary and the secondary, the essential and the acci- 
 dental, the permanent and the transitory need not concern 
 us just now. These distinctions are all species under the 
 one genus whose nature our metaphysical analysis and criti- 
 cism has attempted to disclose. As regards the central prob- 
 lem, What is it actually to be the quality of any particular 
 being? these distinctions in kinds of qualities are not im- 
 portant. We shall find them important subsequently, when 
 we raise the question concerning the limit of such qualities 
 as must be grouped, or placed in succession in order to main- 
 tain the reality of any mind or thing. Meantime, the dis- 
 cussions of this chapter may be summed up, in a partial and 
 preliminary way, as warranting the following conclusion : 
 To be a real Being, with actual qualities, is to be what I 
 know my Self to be, namely, capable of initiating and of 
 experiencing changes that are attributable to some subject or 
 " central point of attachment," conceived of after the analogy 
 of a conscious Will. 
 
 But such a conclusion as the foregoing is itself not the end, 
 but rather the beginning, of yet more careful metaphysical 
 analysis and criticism. It leads us at once to discuss the 
 forms of knowledge, recognized as forms of reality, that fur- 
 nish topics for the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHANGE AND BECOMING 
 
 THE conclusions of modern science have sufficiently avenged 
 any dishonor done in past centuries to the reputation of 
 Heraclitus, that first great apostle of the all-inclusive reality 
 of Change. " There is nothing abiding, either in the world 
 or in its constitution taken as a whole. Not only individual 
 things, but also the Universe as a whole, are involved in per- 
 petual, ceaseless revolution ; all flows, and nothing abides. 
 We cannot say of things that they are ; they become only, 
 and pass away in the ever changing play of the movement 
 of the universe. That, then, which abides and deserves the 
 name of deity, is not a thing, and not substance or matter, 
 but motion, the cosmic process, Becoming itself." 1 Yet, with 
 Heraclitus, this ceaseless self-transmutation was conceived 
 of as though taking place in an " eternally living fire : " " All 
 is exchanged for fire, and fire for all, as wares for gold, and 
 gold for wares." And over this " dim idea of a World-sub- 
 stance " was placed in control a hidden formative harmony, 
 a divine directing law (8/^77), wisdom considered as an 
 efficient force (7^0^177), an imperial and universal reason 
 
 Thus the thinker who first installed the category of change 
 upon the throne of reality, was forced to acknowledge, al- 
 though in vague and niggardly fashion, the full truth to be : 
 mere change cannot constitute any single actual thing, much 
 
 1 Quoted from Windelband, " A History of Philosophy," Part I., chap. i., 4. 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 141 
 
 less an orderly world of interacting actualities. Change 
 must somehow be constituted a Principle of Becoming, in 
 order to be recognized as a conception valid for reality. And 
 what was true for this ancient philosopher, with all the mis- 
 taking of figures of speech for substance of things which 
 characterized his age, is true a fortiori for us now; if we wish 
 to " get at " Reality, to know what Being is, we must accept 
 change as one, but only one, of the categories. Becoming is 
 actualized in the particular, because the universal Principle 
 of Becoming belongs to the very nature of Reality. 
 
 That change is actual, both in minds and in things, cannot 
 be denied in consistency with the undoubted facts of all hu- 
 man experience. But this is quite too mild a way of calling 
 attention to the very nature of this experience and to the 
 nature of the things in commerce with which such experience 
 comes. Indeed, there is so little mystery or doubt about 
 this, that much discussion of this category seems superfluous. 
 The ontological aspect of the problem may be expressed in 
 the following question : How can change in reality be so 
 conceived of as that it will serve as an actual all-inclusive 
 principle of becoming ? 
 
 That particular changes actually occur is a fact of knowl- 
 edge so primal and indubitable that the attempt to deny it 
 involves the mind in the most fundamental contradictions. 
 We cannot even imagine or think of changeless existence, 
 whether mental or physical. A mind that experiences no 
 changes is not conceivable as a mind at all, and a totally 
 changeless thing is no actual thing. It has just been shown 
 that particular beings are made particular by the possession 
 of certain groups of qualities peculiar to them. But qual- 
 ities are modes of the doing and suffering of these beings; 
 and to do or to suffer in different ways implies, of course, the 
 reality of change. But what should now be insisted upon as 
 necessary to establish a point of view from which to criticize 
 this category is, that the full meaning of change can be 
 
142 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 understood only by recognizing that it is a primary and 
 indubitable fact of knowledge. Any grasp of consciousness 
 which is a full-orbed act of cognition content-full and self- 
 active and involving all the so-called faculties is itself, in 
 its full significance, an actualization, a living experience of 
 the category of change. 
 
 Psychology, assuming for the moment the biologist's point 
 of view, recognizes the immense significance of sensations of 
 change for the origins and growth of all human mental life. 
 In the form of sensations of motions, the human animal, like 
 all its brothers in the scale below, depends largely upon its 
 sensitiveness to change for its survival in the struggle for 
 existence. Psycho-physics illustrates abundantly the princi- 
 ple that " sensations of becoming " form, in a peculiar way, 
 the stimuli of discriminating consciousness, and the indis- 
 pensable basis of all clear perception of things. But such 
 experience as this does not afford an indubitable knowledge 
 of change in reality, whether such change be referred to 
 processes in some thing " out there " or to the form of men- 
 tal representation " in the mind." Discrimination as a truly 
 intellectual activity, and memory in the form of clear recog- 
 nition of likenesses and unlikenesses, are further necessary in 
 order to establish, within our more primitive and indubitable 
 experience, the category of change. Yet again, the mere 
 occurrence of like or unlike states in the stream of conscious- 
 ness, and the mental discrimination of the likeness or 
 unlikeness of these states, does not suffice for the valid 
 cognition of an actual change. Development of time-con- 
 sciousness, of self-consciousness, and of thing-conscious- 
 ness, is necessary to the recognition of the fleeting succession 
 of different conscious states, as " of" the world of selves and 
 of things. For changes are no more capable of an " un- 
 attached" existence, of being known mid-air (auf der Luff), 
 as it were, than are qualities or states. Minds change and 
 things change ; and we know the actuality of their change. 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 148 
 
 But knowledge of minds and of things is never mere sensa- 
 tion, or mere discriminating consciousness. Even less is it 
 a mere succession of totally unrelated conscious states, 
 even if these conscious states are themselves acts or pro- 
 cesses of relating mentally. 
 
 Now, no act of knowledge that has for its object particu- 
 lar beings, whether things or minds, in a process of " under- 
 going " or " initiating " changes, can be less rich in content 
 than is knowledge in general. In other words, change in 
 reality cannot be, originally, merely sensed or merely inferred, 
 but it must be known ; its metaphysical import, or ontologi- 
 cal character, has its roots in cognition, where all the roots 
 of our metaphysics lie. All knowledge has, as knowledge, 
 this metaphysical import; and it all involves the develop- 
 ment of time-consciousness, of self-consciousness, and of 
 " thing "-consciousness. 
 
 If now the data of cognitive experience be analyzed, there is 
 found amongst them all the fact of a knowledge of actual changes , 
 taking place both in ourselves and in other things. This known 
 fact of change in particulars is much more primitive than is 
 any recognition of a unity of nature, a principle of uniformity, 
 or any conception of a " reign of law " over any particular being 
 or over that system of beings which constitutes the world as 
 known to man. The diversity of one's own experiences, the 
 heterogeneity of other things, the contrasts and oppositions of 
 objects, are the primary and orginally more important " mo- 
 ments " of all man's knowledge. This is the one undeniable 
 fact in actuality which lies bedded in all human experience : 
 In the form of time-consciousness I know my Self and Things 
 as differentiating their being by passing from one condition of 
 doing or suffering into another and, in some respects, unlike 
 condition. 
 
 That we have correctly stated the fact of knowledge as it 
 appears from the subjective point of view, no one can doubt. 
 Hence it is customary for psychologists, when struggling 
 
144 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 to free their expressions from all metaphysical implicates, to 
 point out that the very nature of the " stream of conscious- 
 ness " is that it shall somehow "flow" This stream is say 
 some a mere succession of states ; although even then it is 
 necessary to add, that each " phase," or " wave," or " pulse," 
 of consciousness may carry with it something that gives to it, 
 and to the preceding phases, waves, or pulses, a sort of unity 
 of existence. But, however one tries to express such a principle 
 of unity, and certainly, something of the kind is needed to 
 bind together the successive conscious states into a " stream," 
 there can be no doubt, and there is no dispute, from the 
 subjective or psychological point of vie w, that without changes 
 of conscious states there can come to be no " stream of con- 
 sciousness." " Stream " means a flow, a series of changes. 
 That every mind appears to itself as changing, and that indeed 
 its content is a succession of different " appearances," no ques- 
 tion can be raised. 
 
 But the truth that, from the psychological or subjective point 
 of view, all facts of cognition are facts of changing content, has 
 also its objective or ontological side. Considered from this side, 
 this truth becomes an unfailing guaranty of the reality of 
 change, both in minds and in things. That I appear to myself 
 to change, when this appearance is a fact of knowledge, is not 
 distinguishable from the fact that I know myself really to 
 change. Or to state the case more precisely the distinc- 
 tion between appearing to one's self to change and actually 
 changing one's self is only a distinction in points of view and 
 in form of abstract mental representation ; it is not a distinc- 
 tion valid in reality. When I pass from a state of predomi- 
 nating pain to one of predominating pleasure, or from the 
 perception of a running horse to reflection upon the psycho- 
 physical mechanism which is necessary to its running, or 
 from the memory of a disagreeable experience in the past to 
 the joyful intuition of a great painting, I know that I do 
 actually change. Hence cognitive consciousness of change is 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 145 
 
 convertible with cognition of actual change when the Self is 
 regarded as the object. For the entire complex experience is 
 statable only in this way : I know that I have changed ; I 
 was actually in one condition some while since, and I am now 
 actually in a different condition. The distinctive feature of 
 such a form of consciousness, if it attains the dignity and the 
 veraciousness of a genuine act of self-knowledge, is just this : 
 I am cognitively conscious of changing, and this " changing " 
 is known to be mine. 
 
 In all our use of this category, too, its application to things 
 is somewhat differently made from its application to ourselves. 
 Hence the metaphysical discussion of change must begin by 
 returning to the more modest claim : external things do cer- 
 tainly appear to me, and to all men, very frequently and some- 
 what indefinitely to change. I cannot, however, immediately 
 convert this claim into an indubitable proposition that things 
 do, in reality, change ; at least not if by " Things " I now 
 refer to aught conceived of as trans-subjectively existent. 
 Such a conversion of claims is made more difficult by the con- 
 clusions of modern science as to the nature of physical changes 
 in general. For example, the table yonder, with the books 
 lying upon it, has certainly the appearance of a tolerably stable 
 collection of separate beings, occupying for the present un- 
 changing relations in space. Nor do the visual qualities of 
 these beings change in so obvious a way that from the prac- 
 tical point of view there is any need to take account of their 
 changes. To be sure, as clouds pass over the sun the colors 
 of the objects are slightly altered; and if one chooses to 
 notice this phenomenon, one discovers that the relations, ap- 
 parent size, etc., of the objects alter, as one's eyes and body 
 are moved in their relation to them. But the important fact 
 of cognitive perception is this, books are lying still on a 
 stationary table, a mental picture of a system of unchanging 
 beings in statical relations of space. If now the physico- 
 chemical sciences are consulted as to what actually causes in 
 
 10 
 
146 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 consciousness such a picture, these sciences have a tale to 
 narrate of ceaseless, incredibly rapid, and most mysterious 
 changes. The table and the books, considered as trans-sub- 
 jectively real and regarded from the scientific points of view, 
 are molecules that actually approach and retreat from each 
 other ; within these molecules are atoms darting back and 
 forth ; perhaps these atoms must be conceived of as them- 
 selves infinitely varied systems of change, like wreaths of smoke 
 or of gas ; and within each reality, and between all the 
 elements of them all, and between them all and me, and within 
 my eyes, nerve-tracts, and brain, vibrates unceasingly the 
 awfully mysterious being of the omnipresent and god-like 
 ether. 
 
 No wonder that the man of so-called " common-sense " re- 
 coils with some incredulity from that picture of the changes 
 in things which the modern sciences constantly affirm to be the 
 actual state of the case, as well as to afford the real causes of 
 the changing appearances of things to him and to other men. 
 
 In order to understand our experience we must return to 
 the sure ground of standing in the facts of knowledge. From 
 them our path for the exploration of the category of change 
 its trans-subjective applicability and validity must be 
 traced anew. These facts, so far as they concern the true 
 being of the world, are primarily perceptions by the senses. 
 And if for the moment one is willing to set aside the very 
 doubtful distinction sometimes made between things as 
 known to us and " things-in-themselves," some progress may 
 quickly .be made toward a tenable solution of the problem 
 before us. For it has already been shown (p. 46 f.) that to 
 regard the former as mere appearances and the latter as the 
 only true realities is to deny the most fundamental implica- 
 tions of all human cognitive experience. 
 
 In the knowledge of things by human perception they are 
 all known to be subjects of certain modifications peculiar to 
 them, each one. In other words, the mind perceives changes 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 147 
 
 in things as well as in its self ; but the character and limita- 
 tions of the application of the conception of change are not 
 precisely identical for both things and minds. Some of the 
 apparent changes in things are necessarily attributed to 
 changes in the mental points of view; or even to actual 
 changes going on in the mind. Some other changes, however, 
 we are irresistibly convinced, so long, at least, as the point 
 of view of perceptive cognition is steadfastly maintained, 
 belong to the things themselves and occur in reality. Such 
 are especially all alterations of the appearances of things in 
 space. There are, indeed, illusions of motion not a few ; 
 and a man does not need to be a modern expert in psychol- 
 ogy to know this. Men have always known and reckoned 
 upon such experiences successfully in a practical way. But 
 whatever space may really be, and whatever motion in space 
 may actually mean, there can be no doubt that a knowledge 
 of actual changes of place by the things constitutes an insep- 
 arable part of men's knowledge of what things really are and 
 actually do. 
 
 To naive perception things actually change not only their 
 size and shape, by accretion or growth or separation, but also 
 their color, taste, and other sensuous properties. All the 
 advances of the physico-chemical sciences, however, tend in 
 the direction of reducing all changes in the sensuous prop- 
 erties of things to terms similar to those to which changes in 
 place, size, and shape may obviously be reduced ; all perceived 
 changes of the qualities of things, that is to say, are really 
 appearances due to actual motions of things. These motions 
 may be either in the gross masses of things, or in the mole- 
 cules and atoms composing them ; or they may be motions in 
 some medium, or vehicle, which connects human organs of 
 sense with external things, such as olfactory effluvia, lumin- 
 iferous ether, etc. It must be admitted that all the re- 
 sources of these sciences, aided by the two arms of mathe- 
 matics and improved instrumentation, have not yet succeeded 
 
148 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 in making the reduction complete. Certain occult or manifest 
 qualities and changes in things have to be recognized in fact, 
 for which we can as yet devise no formulas even imaginary 
 in terms of motion. Nevertheless, the effort, the tendency, 
 and the triumphs, of modern physical theory are unmistakable 
 here. Things can move either as masses in space, or intra- 
 molecularly, or perhaps " intra-atomically ; " but these are all 
 the changes of which, quoad "things," they are capable. This 
 kind of change, however, they actually do both undergo them- 
 selves and cause in one another ; and, indeed, they are always 
 ceaselessly changing in this way, whether the dull and slow 
 senses of man can discern the truth of fact or not. 
 
 What is necessary to acknowledge, then, as known to science, 
 may be stated in the following way : The doubt or denial of 
 all actual changes in external things cannot be held in con- 
 sistency with the facts and legitimate inferences of man's ex- 
 perience with things. Agnosticism, whether positive or negative, 
 concerning the trans-subjective validity of the category of change 
 undermines the entire fabric of human knowledge. It is not 
 simply a permissible postulate to hold that change in my 
 perceptive consciousness is explicable because change is actual 
 in the world of things. It is rather the necessary presupposi- 
 tion, the inescapable metaphysical import, of all perceptive 
 and scientific knowledge of things, that they actually do 
 change. To state the fact of knowledge in an abstract but 
 thoroughly justifiable way : The very terms of the knowable- 
 ness of things include the implicate things do really change. 
 Process and Becoming in the realities of human experience 
 cannot be reduced to merely subjective affairs, or to charac- 
 teristics of the existence of the Ego as a flowing " stream of 
 consciousness," without undermining the entire structure of 
 that knowledge of the external world which the race has 
 builded through many thousands of years. If this were the 
 place for such an excursus, it could also be shown that all the 
 social, and even the ethical and religious, postulates, convic- 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 149 
 
 tions, and most firmly established cognitions of men, are alike 
 pledged to guarantee the actuality of changes going on in 
 external things. 
 
 The growth of human knowledge shows that both selves 
 and things are somehow and to some extent at least, con- 
 nected together in a unitary system of interdependent changes. 
 That the changes which go on in any one thing, or group or 
 system of things, are never entirely independent of changes 
 going on elsewhere, is true both as a sort of necessary presup- 
 position and as an indisputable conclusion of scientific inves- 
 tigation. Only in case something like this be conceived of 
 as actual, can the name of science be vindicated for any body 
 of propositions. Only as man's growing knowledge confirms 
 and perpetually illustrates this conception, can scientific 
 development take place. Here the omnipresent category of 
 relation thrusts itself forcibly upon our attention. Things 
 and minds do not change in a wholly isolated way. And even 
 when some one thing or mind seems to take upon itself the 
 responsibility, so to speak, of initiating any change in itself, 
 such change eventuates in a change in some other thing or 
 mind. 
 
 Without at present raising again the issue between a 
 monistic or a dualistic, theory of mind and body, and the 
 theory of psycho-physical parallelism, we need only call 
 attention to the universally accepted facts involved in experi- 
 ence: somehow changes in us and changes in things are 
 actually related. In certain forms of experience the convic- 
 tion is universally accepted, and must therefore be critically 
 accounted for, that the actual changes recognized in the self 
 and those changes perceived or inferred in external things 
 run through such an order as that the one is in a fairly 
 faithful correlation with the other. For example : " I saw 
 the greyhound run from the hedge beside the road to the tree 
 upon the hillside." This "I saw," with its object, was 
 actually a series of conscious states of perception that have 
 
150 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 somehow come to have the unity of a continuous mental 
 process. But the " running greyhound " is a real thing 
 changing its actual position in space. And yet the very 
 meaning of the terms in which the complex knowledge is 
 declared implies, as beyond doubt, some sort of dependence of 
 the former on the latter. While the perceptions changed, P, 
 P 1? P 2 , P 3 , P 4 , etc., the place of the greyhound changed, as 6r, 
 #!, #2, #3, $4, etc. In details I may easily be mistaken ; the 
 apparent position indicated by PI never corresponds with the 
 actual position of 6ri : and yet the entire mental series of P, 
 P 1? etc., is a " fairly faithful " representation of the trans-sub- 
 jective series, G-, 6r 1? etc. 
 
 Further discussion of much that is involved in what has just 
 been said must be left for other connections. It is enough now 
 to notice that in knowing the actuality of changes in both 
 things and minds, both kinds of change are known as somehow 
 belonging to a single system of changes. To remove things 
 from this system would render them unknowable and even in- 
 conceivable as things ; to remove our self from this system would 
 be to render this self incapable of the knowledge of things. 
 
 When such a word as " system " is introduced into a meta- 
 physical discussion, the thought has already passed beyond 
 the conception of mere change, or change considered as un- 
 limited change that is conceived of only in terms of change. 
 And the truth is that mere change, or random change, in our- 
 selves or in things, is not what our true experience reports 
 to us ; such change, did it exist, would be essentially unknow- 
 able. To speak of a " Thing " changing, or of a " Self " 
 changing, is already to limit the character of the change. For 
 the point of contemplation to which the mind is now compelled 
 to advance for the further reflective treatment of this category 
 discloses the following truth : nothing real, whether minds or 
 things, can be, unless some limitation is put upon the changes 
 which it undergoes. Both knower and object-thing known 
 at once lose claim to be the same realities if they are carried 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 151 
 
 by the "world-flow" beyond a certain limit of change. Some 
 principle of becoming must, then, be acknowledged as in con- 
 trol of all the modifications which all real particular beings 
 actually undergo. In other words, change is indeed a nec- 
 essary qualification of reality, and an indubitable fact bound 
 up in the process of knowledge ; but mere change is not only 
 logically inconsistent with the conception of a thing or of a 
 mind ; it is also inconsistent with the reality of any known thing 
 or self-conscious mind. Here, again, then, we take our stand on 
 the incontestable facts of cognitive experience and, in defiance 
 of all manner of sophistic or other agnostic abstractions, affirm 
 that this regulation, or control, of change must be ontological. 
 Metaphysics, whether naive and so fitted for practical life and 
 for the pursuit of the physical sciences, or critical and system- 
 atic, is compelled to recognize principles of becoming as 
 applied to the world of concrete realities. 
 
 In the conclusion just reached we have spoken of " prin- 
 ciples" of becoming rather than of any one Principle of Becom- 
 ing. This has been partly due to the wish to cling as closely 
 as possible to the actual facts of men's common life of knowl- 
 edge ; and partly to the belief that all the other metaphysical 
 problems are involved, in a vital way, in any effort to unify 
 the different actual changes of things and minds. It must be 
 admitted therefore, for the present, that the growth of knowl- 
 edge allows of, and seems at first-hand analysis to require, an 
 almost indefinite variety of real principles of becoming. From 
 the practical points of view, and for man's workaday uses the 
 amount of changes consistent with the continued reality of any 
 single thing is determined in a vague and shifting manner ; 
 but what chiefly determines is the particular point of view, 
 with its practical utility. For example, water frozen is no 
 longer water, but has been changed into ice ; and' yet it is 
 after all the same clear water which makes the good ice. 
 Water heated changes into vapor : and heated more, it is no 
 longer water but has become steam. This same water, when 
 
152 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 subjected to certain conditions in the chemical laboratory, 
 changes into oxygen and hydrogen gases things so unlike 
 their original that the change seems incredible to naive percep- 
 tion. Oxygen and hydrogen gases are not the same things as 
 the water from which they are derived, the water is no longer 
 really existent ; but these particular volumes of gas have just 
 come actually to be. Liquefied air is not at all like air ; and 
 yet it is called air only liquefied. But that the water has 
 changed into gases seems improperly to express the transac- 
 tion in reality. The air has changed its form and become liquid. 
 The water has lost its reality by the process of decomposition ; 
 but two other things have been brought into being by the same 
 process. Even the man of science, with his mind so firmly 
 fortified against all claims for an existence ab initio, can 
 scarcely avoid talking in this vague and uncertain way. 
 
 It is not necessary to illustrate the truth for which we are 
 contending with any of the thousands of examples which 
 might readily be found. Consider the amazing transformations 
 through which some animals and plants go ; so that recogni- 
 tion of them as in any sense the same beings in the different 
 stages of their transformations, is difficult or impossible even 
 for the most trained among experts. Consider the amazing 
 transformations through which every plant and every animal 
 necessarily goes transformations that are not considered 
 "amazing" only because they are too familiar to shock the 
 unreflecting mind. For example, we are now being told, as 
 an interesting new discovery in botany, that " the cycle of 
 vegetation of the truffle is completed by an alteration of states, 
 each having to do with a different substratum or host. This 
 alteration is very similar to that which takes place in the case 
 of Ascidiums which, as it is known, develop on a different 
 species of plant from that which bears them during the earliest 
 period of their existence." And what shall we say of the 
 changes which go on in the newly impregnated egg, as 
 modern microscopy and physiological chemistry describe these 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 153 
 
 changes ? Here is a Thing that is, and is to be, in some sort 
 the same throughout ; but what it will be, does not appear as 
 yet, even under the highest powers of the magnifying glass or 
 the most delicate of chemical tests. But as we look on, and 
 under our eyes, it proceeds to define itself more and more by 
 going through most astonishing and wholly unpredictable 
 changes. Under the influence of interior forces it proceeds to 
 maintain its claim to be a particular real being by placing all 
 its changes under the limitation or control of some peculiar 
 principles of becoming. 
 
 If now our science tries to account for any such succession 
 of phenomena by ascribing it all to the peculiar attributes 
 of the molecules which compose for example the substance 
 of the living cell, it only pushes the problem further back. 
 For, in the first place, it can only describe the molecules and 
 atoms themselves as real things, whose changes are some- 
 how limited and controlled by principles belonging to each, 
 molecules of albuminoids, carbohydrates, etc., or atoms of 
 carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. And, in the second 
 place, the principles of becoming, which account for observed 
 changes in the relations of the atoms, or in the constitution 
 of the molecules, do not in themselves suffice to serve as prin- 
 ciples of that becoming which the entire history of the 
 plant or animal displays. Every atom is some sort of a 
 unity equipped by chemical theory with its peculiar list of 
 principles that regulate what it can really do and be ; and so 
 is every species of molecule compounded of the atoms ; and 
 so is every individual real thing composed of an infinity of 
 molecules. 
 
 It is undoubtedly things which grow that furnish most 
 striking illustrations of the need of principles of becoming. 
 But the same need exists for things which do not grow ; for 
 all things, indeed, that change ; and so for all things, since 
 all things change. When something to serve as a nucleus is 
 cast into the menstruum where certain molecules of a. 
 
154 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 definite chemical construction are in solution, then a crystal 
 whose character is determined by the construction of the 
 molecules begins to form itself. In fact, the molecules rally, 
 run together and range themselves in appropriate ideal man- 
 ner ; and a wholly new being is formed. This striking series 
 of changes is separated from those that characterize the 
 growth of a living cell by certain sharp lines of demarkation 
 which modern science only emphasizes, but cannot as yet see 
 the possibility of breaking down. Yet the crystal, like the 
 full-grown animal or plant, is far from being the resultant 
 of unlimited or uncontrolled changes. On the contrary, it 
 acquires and maintains its existence as a " crystal " as that 
 particular being which it is under a stricter limitation and 
 control than that which presides over the living cell. Its 
 more specific characteristics, as a crystal of a particular kind, 
 require it constantly to subject its changes to the appropriate 
 principles regulative of its specific form of being. 
 
 In a word, however the points of view and the ends desired 
 may change, the metaphysical truth enforced by the facts 
 remains the same. Men choose the points of view from which 
 to contemplate the alterations and the identities of particular 
 things, with various theoretical or practical ends to serve. 
 But changes of tilings in reality cannot be known or conceived of, 
 as mere mechanism of change; they are always known and 
 conceived of as falling under some principle that shall serve 
 as a living and associating unity. Principles of becoming 
 must limit and control all actual becoming. Only thus 
 can things have their different states and conditions unified 
 enough to validate their claim to a place in the world of 
 reality. 
 
 What kind of principles accordingly will serve to confine 
 the changes of things within the limitations necessary to their 
 being known as realities ? And, since every such principle 
 must be ontological : What kind of a " living and associating 
 unity " must particular real beings possess in order that, 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 155 
 
 while actually changing, they may somehow continue real ? 
 Now, all human language and human thinking show clearly 
 enough how these questions must be answered, if answered 
 at all. And the refusal to accept this answer throws the 
 mind back into that agnostic position from which the con- 
 sistent application of any of the categories to reality becomes 
 impossible. " The real identity (0r continued being) of any 
 particular being consists in this, that its self-activity manifests it- 
 self, in all its different relations to other beings as conforming 
 to an immanent idea" l But the conception of " conforming 
 to an immanent idea" is derived from our familiar experi- 
 ence with ourselves. It is as actually thus conforming to 
 immanent ideas that we know ourselves to exist, and to 
 remain somehow the same, in spite of all changes of states 
 and conditions which we either undertake or undergo. And 
 when we know, or conceive of, other selves as actually con- 
 tinuing in existence, although being subject to change, the 
 same principle is applied to them. Finally, all men's cogni- 
 tions and conceptions of external things illustrate the same 
 truth. Things are known or conceived of as remaining some- 
 how seZf-identical, while being subjects of more or less im- 
 portant changes, after the analogy of this identity which be- 
 longs to the self. We project into things "that which" secures 
 their existence from succumbing to the constant process of 
 change. Like the self, they remain constant, in their doing 
 and suffering, to immanent ideas. As having self-activity 
 the mysterious " core " of the being of things and as 
 being related to other beings in a system of things, the 
 various forms of their doing and suffering come under the 
 control of ideal principles. And to be actually " under the 
 control of ideal principles," as distinguished from being a 
 mere, unintelligible and unmeaning mechanism of change, 
 is to do and to suffer, in this respect as we know ourselves to 
 
 1 Compare "Philosophy of Mind," chaps, iv. and v. ; and "Philosophy of 
 Knowledge," chaps, vii. and ix 
 
156 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 do and to suffer. The ontological Principle of all Becoming 
 must be an ideal principle; and as an ideal principle, it 
 requires so far forth that things should be known as bearing 
 an essential likeness to the Self. 
 
 Now, that I do actually conform to immanent ideas is an 
 indisputable truth of immediate experience. This is, in many 
 instances, the central truth of self-consciousness; in all 
 instances of self-cognition it is a truth implicate in the very 
 process of self-cognition. Knowledge of one's self, as actually 
 changing or as having changed, always implies the recognition 
 that the actual changes have been limited and controlled by 
 some ideal principle. If experience be analyzed, it is found 
 that, although self-knowledge cannot be resolved into what 
 Lotze calls " self-feeling " and somewhat injudiciously over- 
 estimates in his doctrine of being, it cannot be experienced 
 without such self-feeling. Neither can self-knowledge exist 
 without that self-felt activity which has been found to be im- 
 portant as a sort of root for the growth of the metaphysical 
 conception of substance, or pure being. But neither can the 
 act of self-knowledge be completed without recognitive 
 memory and that reflective thinking which issues in the 
 cognitive judgment : /, that was, and am, and have been, am 
 the subject of all the changes. This is to affirm that all the 
 changes have been conformable to the one idea of my " Self ; " 
 and therefore not merely felt, and willed, but also known as 
 mine. This conformity is not merely conceptual, a bare 
 agreement with an abstract idea ; for the Self which realizes 
 and knows it is not a mere abstract being, a bare idea of a 
 self. 
 
 Suppose, now, that any particular change occurs in the 
 " stream of consciousness " which, on well-known psychological 
 principles, must be attributed to the Self and not to some 
 Thing, but which only partially or with difficulty conforms to 
 the ideal principles recognized as belonging to the self. Such 
 a change is recognized as more or less "unlike" me, al- 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 157 
 
 though it is " in " me ; it seems " queer " that I should do in 
 this way or should suffer such feelings as this. Still, within 
 certain not easily assignable limits, one may swerve in one's 
 conscious changes from the idea which defines one's own 
 being and yet remain an actually existing and self-identical 
 mind. Even the unfortunate victim of progressive paralysis 
 can still remember some things belonging to his past, can 
 still recognize some of the present objects of his mental re- 
 presentation as belonging to his peculiar " personal " experi- 
 ence, can still exhibit to himself and to others certain well- 
 known traits. He is still in a measure the same real mind 
 that he once was ; and yet, how changed ! But suppose that 
 absolutely all conformity recognizable by himself or by other 
 minds to the idea of the former self has ceased; then this 
 particular mind has so changed as, for the time at least, to 
 have vanished from reality ; it is no longer the subject of 
 changes, for it has ceased to be as becomes the actuality 
 of a mind. 1 
 
 Doubtless, we seem to be talking in figures of speech when 
 we apply similar terms to physical things. Granted, too, that 
 we are really talking in figures of speech. The fact remains, 
 nevertheless, that all which we know, or can mean, about the 
 identity of things amidst their changes must be constructed 
 after the analogy of our experience with our own changing and 
 yet self-identical selves. How physics and chemistry work 
 out the details of the general principle, and how they sum- 
 mon to their efficient help the categories of Force, Quantity, 
 Number, etc., will be briefly considered elsewhere. Confining 
 ourselves at present to the discussion in hand, we can only 
 repeat what was formerly said from another point of view : 
 " Things have in reality no sameness, no identical and per- 
 manent being, except as they conform to the terms of mental 
 existence, and manifest the immanency and control of that 
 
 1 For further discussion of this problem, see the author's " Philosophy of Mind," 
 chap. v. : " The Consciousness of Identity and so-called Double Consciousness." 
 
158 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 which is inconceivable unless it be stated in terms of mincL 
 In vain do physics, chemistry, and biology strive to escape 
 some such conclusion as this. The terms they employ to 
 set forth what in the physical world, amid all changes, 
 remains really the same, are absolutely meaningless unless 
 all material reality is admitted to be the expression and the 
 subject of what is ideal." 
 
 Mr. Bradley is not without good grounds in affirming that 
 a certain " self-consistency " is the primal principle of all 
 the real. For if now we attempt to apply the conception of 
 change or becoming to the entire world of being, the same 
 line of reflective thinking must be followed to its legitimate 
 end. A World, a Cosmos, no matter how incomplete or even 
 inchoate, and no matter how little rational from the higher 
 ethical and aesthetical points of view, cannot be an unrelated 
 and unsystematized series, or network, of changes. Some prin- 
 ciple of becoming must be recognized, just so far in space 
 and in time as such changes are known or even conceived of, 
 as belonging to one world. And wherever known or con- 
 ceived of, this principle bears the stamp of its origin and of 
 its original application. Its extension to the system of physi- 
 cal change in the world of things is valid only if the anal- 
 ogy between this world as a totality and the totality of changes 
 we know as belonging to the Self is valid. For the appli- 
 cation is itself the projection of the immanent presence of an 
 Ideal Principle into the heterogeneity of physical changes^ as a 
 living and associating force. 
 
 It was the poetical recognition of this truth which led 
 Shelley to write : 
 
 " The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
 Heaven's light forever shines ; earth's shadows fly ; 
 Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of Eternity." 
 
 But Browning's expression of the thought is more profound,, 
 although at the same time his figure of speech is more confused. 
 
CHANGE AND BECOMING 
 
 " For as some imperial chord subsists, 
 Steadily underlies the accidental mists 
 Of music springing thence, that run their mazy race 
 Around, and sink, absorbed, back to the triad base ; 
 So, out of that one word, each variant rose and fell, 
 And left the same 'All 's change, but permanence as well.' " 
 
 But in order to discuss the possibility of applying the cate- 
 gory of Change to the World-Ground, or to the entire system 
 of things and to its career of changes considered as falling 
 under some conception of development, there is much work 
 of a more fundamental and humble character yet to do. 
 Should we finally attempt such high themes, however, it will 
 be well to remember the very limited set of conclusions which 
 this chapter has enabled us to reach. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 KELATION 
 
 IT is a significant saying whose origin has been attributed 
 to different authors, and which expresses a truth that may 
 well enough have occurred in an original way to different 
 minds : " Relation is the mother of all the categories." From 
 the subjective point of view relations are what we find as 
 ultimate residua, so to speak, of all our thinking ; and from 
 the objective point of view, they are the manifold expressions 
 which cognitive experience gives to the fundamental and ulti- 
 mate fact, that all concrete realities so far as known or know- 
 able to man are united into some kind of a system. If that 
 which unites things is solely the thinking faculty of man, 
 then all relations whatever are subjective. But if the bond 
 actually exist, in various ways, between concrete real beings, 
 such relations cannot be the result solely of the synthetic 
 activity of the human thinking faculty. 
 
 It is the temptation of all metaphysical discussion of this 
 category to settle its problem quickly, and to attain a com- 
 fortable position of logical consistency, by leaping to either 
 one of two extreme points of view. Suppose it to be concluded 
 that all relations are merely subjective; then it is possible 
 to see how an independent active and synthetic force like 
 the human mind should create a sort of unity out of various 
 appearances to itself, in accordance with the terms set into 
 its own constitution. Trans-subjective or actual relations 
 between real things are thus abolished ; and the only reality 
 that remains as the " correlate " of this psychic conscious 
 
RELATION 161 
 
 force is the One unrelated mystical Absolute. But such 
 " correlation " is itself surely a relation that must be main- 
 tained as existing in reality. It is in fact an entire system of 
 concrete and definite relations. And thus the category of 
 relation produces destructive contradictions within the very 
 Being of the Absolute. On the other hand, if we deny that 
 any of our subjective relations belong to the world of true 
 reality, the successive cognitions of man remain mere " ap- 
 pearances," or mists, hung mid-air over a machine-like system 
 of physical interactions ; and no possible way can be devised 
 of verifying any truth as arising between the subject and real 
 things. For " truth "as obtainable by the mind of man requires 
 a complicated system of actual relations between a thinking sub- 
 ject and the transactions going on amongst beings other than this 
 subject. The reality of relations is, therefore, a metaphysical 
 problem whose solution determines one's entire attitude 
 toward the nature of reality. And this solution cannot be 
 safely reached by a leap to either extreme position. 
 
 We follow a suggestive method of approaching the problem 
 offered by the category of relation, if we consider how great 
 is the variety of forms which this category may assume. In 
 the popular way of regarding the truth, there is only one 
 Space, one Time, and one essentially identical conception of 
 Force, however manifold the "manifestations" of this 
 force may be. Of Qualities, Changes and Numbers, of Forms 
 and Laws, a quite indefinite variety appears necessary in 
 order to account for the facts of our more primary experiences 
 with things. Of Relations, however, there certainly seem to 
 be a considerable number of species which do not admit of 
 easy reduction under a single all-inclusive genus. And yet 
 the number of possible relations is by no means so essentially 
 unlimited as is the number of qualities or changes which 
 things are capable of developing. Considered as a principle 
 of unifying, therefore, this category must be given a place 
 somewhere midway between the two classes of categories with 
 
 11 
 
162 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 which it has just been compared. Or, to put the case in 
 another way: The correspondence of all spaces, times, and 
 forces, to the conceptions of one space, one time, and one 
 force, unifies the different concrete experiences which men 
 have with an indefinite variety of things and of minds ; and 
 thus they all become known as belonging to the one World 
 which includes them all as particular beings in It. But the 
 indefinitely varied qualities, changes, and numbers, of things 
 serve to break this unity up again into an indefinite variety 
 of particulars ; although quality, change, and number, are also 
 unifying principles. Here, however, the mediating influence 
 of relations becomes manifest. Space, time, and force actually 
 unify, because particular beings are known as related in 
 space, in time, and under the various forms or manifestations 
 of force. On the other hand, the particular beings of the 
 world are bound together under higher and yet higher forms 
 of unity as they are shown to be related, in respect of their 
 qualities, changes, and forms, and their subjection to general 
 formulas called " laws." 
 
 That some such view of the mediating and unifying office of 
 the thought of relation is not fanciful, will appear more clearly 
 when it is considered how actual relations are established by 
 the growth of human knowledge ; and also what it is to be 
 related in reality. But the nature of this category may per- 
 haps be shown in yet more impressive way by calling atten- 
 tion to the part it plays in those dramatic schemes for a rigid 
 classification which result from the vain attempt to treat 
 metaphysics as a matter of formal logic. For example, the 
 author of one such attempt 1 having got himself ready "to 
 complete the Formal edifice which we have been slowly build- 
 ing up," divides all the categories into " a posteriori elements 
 of Receptivity " and " a priori Dialectic moments of Percip- 
 ience." The former are then subdivided into " Attuits " and 
 
 1 See a book called " Metaphysica Nova et Vetusta, A Return to Dualism, by 
 Scotus Novanticus," Sixth Part, The Categories. 
 
 
RELATION 163 
 
 u Predicaments " ; and the latter into " Pure " and " Deriva- 
 tive." But the interesting thing for our present purpose to 
 notice is, that four of the eleven " attuits " are different 
 kinds of relation (i.e., of space, time, quantity, quality) ; and 
 all the other seven are inexpressible without introducing the 
 conception of relation. Again, all the so-called " predica- 
 ments " repeat the same classification from an altered point 
 of view; while each of the "& priori Dialectic moments of 
 Percipience " except the " Absolute-Infinite " and " Being " 
 as Identity is most obviously neither conceivable nor work- 
 able without aid from the conception of relation. And as to 
 the two exceptions, we might easily undertake to show that 
 they, too, need the same aid if they are not to remain barren, 
 useless, and merely formal abstractions. 
 
 But a greater master than the author of the " Metaphysica 
 Nova et Yetusta " has failed to appreciate the full significance 
 of the ontological truth which is admitted when Relation is 
 declared to be " the mother of all the categories." We refer,, 
 of course, to Kant, the founder of modern metaphysical dialec- 
 tic and criticism. Who has emphasized more than did he^ 
 the truth that all scientific cognition depends upon the forms 
 of the functioning of the intellect, or relating faculty , in its. 
 different kinds of judgments ? In fact, the conclusions of the 
 Transcendental ^Esthetic as to Space and Time, as well as the 
 theory of the Transcendental Dialectic or " logic of illusion " 
 (eine Logik des Scheins), depend upon the trustworthiness of 
 man's relating faculty in its dealing with the data of objective 
 cognition, or " phenomenal reality." Yet Kant's definite 
 recognition of the part which the category of relation takes in 
 the unifying of human knowledge is wholly confined to the 
 discussion of the third of the four classes of categories. And 
 here his scheme leads him to recognize only three kinds of 
 relation, namely, Inherence and Subsistence, Causality and 
 Dependence, and Community or reciprocity between the active 
 and the passive. 
 
164 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 It is undoubtedly impossible to give any definition of the 
 category of relation in general. It might be said a fortiori, 
 we cannot tell what it is to be related, or even what we mean 
 when we affirm relation of things in general, without assum- 
 ing the very conception it is proposed to define. Definition 
 itself is a relating ; either by bringing the particular into a 
 partial unity with the universal, or by bringing one event into 
 a partial unity with another event as its cause, or by bringing 
 one part of a thing into a partial unity with other parts, as 
 forming a totality, etc. This very attempt to define, however, 
 since it results in presenting a more vivid picture of the way 
 in which different kinds of relation are concretely realized 
 furnishes no unimportant clue to a fuller appreciation of the 
 significance of this category. For every relation appears to us, 
 and must be described, as a partial unification of two beings 
 which, when considered irrespective of this particular relation, 
 would be incapable of being known together the same stand- 
 point being maintained. 
 
 The metaphysical meaning and ontological value of what 
 has just been somewhat obscurely indicated will appear clear 
 when we have considered briefly the psychological genesis of 
 the conception of relation. What is it " to relate, 11 or for the 
 knowing mind so to function as to present itself with a picture 
 of things, or events, under the general conception of relation ? 
 Now, however difficult it may prove for different thinkers to 
 agree as to the answer to the ontological problem, or even as 
 to whether any answer to such a problem can be given, there 
 is no doubt about the correct answer to the psychological 
 question. To relate, from the subjective point of view, is to 
 think ; it is to function as our intellect always does whenever 
 we observe the simplest and most obvious relations ; or when- 
 ever by elaborate processes of inference we reach those rela- 
 tions that are most complex and hidden. Such intellection 
 is necessary for the knowledge of relations. 
 
 Whenever the attempt is made to regard experience wholly 
 
RELATION 165 
 
 from the psychologist's point of view, it is seen that there can 
 be no knowledge without that functioning of intellect which 
 is, pre-eminently and essentially the faculty of relating. 
 "Relation-feelings" more properly called "feelings of 
 change " must indeed be admitted, if one is intent upon a 
 complete analysis of the content of consciousness implied in 
 the knowledge that A is related to B, whether as part to 
 whole, cause to effect, means to end, in space, in time, or 
 however related. The ideas, whether memory-images or 
 images of more purely imaginative origin, which arise in 
 connection with this " feeling " experience, are undoubtedly 
 important factors in determining the way in which the relat- 
 ing function shall be accomplished within the stream of con- 
 sciousness. Neither can we fail also to observe that relating 
 is an active process ; that judgments of relation are true deeds 
 of will. But the distinctive thing about all " relating " is the 
 manifestation of mind as intellect. It is intellect as a relating 
 faculty which makes possible the knowledge of relations, of 
 whatever kind. Only when discriminating consciousness has 
 developed the power of framing cognitive judgments can rela- 
 tions be said, not merely to be implicit in the stream of con- 
 sciousness, in the form of " relation-feelings," but to be known 
 as actually existing between the objects of cognitive experience. 
 It is, then, the nature of the cognitive judgment, regarded 
 as the summing up of a process of relating, in which must be 
 found the explanation of the genesis of the category of rela- 
 tion. Its universality as a form of knowledge, when regarded 
 from the subjective point of view, is necessary and complete. 
 For all knowledge necessarily takes, as knowledge, the form 
 of this judgment. It is the nature of this judgment, too, 
 which explains what was formerly said in describing the 
 work performed by the category of relation in the progres- 
 sive organization of experience. The work is itself a partial 
 unification of two otherwise wholly disparate and unknowable 
 objects. We say " otherwise unknowable," the same stand- 
 
166 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 point being maintained. For two objects which refuse to be 
 even partially unified, or judged as belonging together, under 
 terms of any one particular kind of relation, may always be 
 unified under some other relation by changing the point of 
 view from which judgment is pronounced. No object, how- 
 ever, can be known, can become an object of perception or 
 of inference, that cannot be partially unified with other ob- 
 jects by some kind of judgment of relation. The thing A 
 must be classed with the thing B, however different in qual- 
 ities, size, shape, etc., as co-existent in the one space in 
 which all things exist. If A is known as co-temporaneous 
 with, or antecedent, or sequent to B, then the one time in 
 which all things come into being, persist, and pass away, 
 serves as a further principle of unification. " Time-wise," 
 A is at one with B ; although A may occupy more or less, 
 in quantity, than B, of this one time. A may, or may not, 
 be classed with B under any one of those particular forms of 
 relation which serve for the partial unification of the parti- 
 cular beings of the world. But in order to be known at all 
 both must be judged as falling, together with other beings, 
 under a unity brought about by certain forms of relation. 
 
 It is, then, by being related that the different objects and 
 " momenta " of man's experience as a " knower " are tempo- 
 rarily and partially unified ; and are afterward, so to speak, 
 released from these particular uniting bonds, only to enter 
 into others of similar character. The only complete and final 
 release, from all relations, for any object comes when it dis- 
 appears entirely from the sphere of knowable reality. 
 
 The same psychological view of the origin of the category 
 of relation explains how the knowledge of any particular 
 thing, or class of things, accumulates and develops in the 
 history of the individual and of the race. From selected but 
 changing points of view the different " momenta" or aspects 
 of the thing, or the different members of the class, are 
 thought together under the varying kinds of relation. In the 
 
RELATION 167 
 
 development of the individual's perception, as dependent on 
 time, on the distribution of attention, and on the external 
 conditions limiting the quality, intensity, and " life-likeness " 
 of the sense-elements, one may pass from a vague knowledge 
 of "somewhat" over there (though one has no idea "what") 
 to a knowledge involving more and more of apperception and 
 of judgment as to the particular " what." This is the mental 
 construction of the Thing as a concrete unity exemplifying 
 various forms of relation, both internal and toward other 
 things. 
 
 The same view shows us why things are known as having 
 so many, and no more, principal kinds of relations. There 
 are as many principal kinds of relations as there are points 
 of view from which the mind may regard things as objects of 
 relating activity ; and there are only so many. Thus the other 
 categories in some sort set the limits within which the opera- 
 tions of the relating intellect are conducted. Things may be 
 related in space, or in time, or as respects the kind and 
 amount of force belonging to, or operating upon them ; they 
 may be related as respects quantity, and number, and forms, 
 and laws ; they may sustain various forms of the causal rela- 
 tion, such as we express by " production," " making," " effect- 
 ing," " influencing," " stimulating," etc. ; they may be related, 
 by virtue of likenesses and unlikenesses, in species, genera, 
 families, and so on. Sensations, ideas, thoughts, and trains 
 of reasoning, as such, may be related. The categories may 
 themselves be considered as related ; some of them as, for 
 example, substance and attribute in ways peculiar to them- 
 selves. Thus, in his System der Philosophic Wundt has a 
 chapter on the "Relation of Transcendent Ideas to Meta- 
 physical Views of the World : " and in this chapter he con- 
 siders the two ideas of an " infinite totality " and a " finite 
 absolute unity " as related so that they " completely corre- 
 spond " to the relation between the mathematical conceptions 
 of the infinitely great and the infinitely small. 
 
168 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 All that has been said thus far only means that whatever 
 men think, or think about, must bear the form of thought. 
 And since all knowledge is dependent upon thought, all that 
 is known is known as related. So that, if on the one hand 
 we maintain that relations exist for our thought, only as our 
 relating activity constitutes the relations, on the other hand 
 we must also maintain that relations are the forms which our 
 thinking impresses upon all that has existence for thought. 
 
 But now the important distinction emerges between subjec- 
 tive relations and relations that are trans-subjective ; or as 
 one seems compelled to express the distinction in popular lan- 
 guage relations that are merely thought and relations that 
 exist in reality. The student of systematic metaphysics can- 
 not deny or abrogate the validity of some such distinction. 
 It has already been seen that a system of subjective relations 
 as compact as is the nature of man's functions of knowing and 
 yet as all-inclusive as is the sphere of those functions, must 
 be admitted. Suppose now it be denied that relations, in any 
 way correlated to these, exist trans-subjectively. Suppose it 
 to be affirmed that the only knowable relations which can be 
 called actual are those consummated in the stream of con- 
 sciousness between the different " momenta " of that stream. 
 Relations, in reality, are thus limited to our own sensations, 
 feelings, ideas, thoughts, etc. Strictly carried out, such a 
 view results in compelling every thinker to regard himself 
 as the only real being, real, because unrelated to any other 
 real being. The conception of reality is thus made identical 
 with the idea of the Self regarded as absolutely independent 
 and separated from all other actual minds and things. But 
 such a conception makes void the psychology of knowledge, 
 vitiates objective science, and destroys the foundations of 
 the ethical and social order in man's consciousness as a 
 knower; it, indeed, ends in just that suicidal hypothesis of 
 solipsism which has already been rejected. 
 
 If, on the contrary, the actual existence of other selves, 
 
RELATION 169 
 
 with whom I may come into intellectual, ethical, and social 
 relations, is once admitted, on whatever basis the admis- 
 sion is placed ; then actually existent relations between real 
 beings are also admitted. And if the distinction between 
 truth and error be held valid in the commerce between these 
 intellects, then the distinction between subjective relations 
 and actual relations becomes a matter of fact. That is to say, 
 it has become matter of fact that the intellect of A either 
 does, or does not, relate B and C to itself, or to each other, a& 
 A, B, and C, are actually related. And if the number of selves 
 constituting this community of real beings, and the complex- 
 ity of the actual relations existing amongst them, exceeds 
 the powers of the intellect of either A, B or C ; then also 
 the subjective and the actual relations appertaining to this' 
 community do not correspond throughout. 
 
 Nor can the claims of this distinction be arrested at the 
 present point. For if knowers were, by their relating activ- 
 ities to create all actual relations, and things were not them- 
 selves actually related; then these knowers would belong 
 entirely to a world apart from the world of things. Of course, 
 one cannot be ignorant of the answer which the Kantian sub- 
 jective view of the nature of knowledge proposes to our problem. 
 According to this view relations between things and minds, 
 and relations amongst things, are all alike the work of the 
 intellect's relating activity, which functions in a totally miracu- 
 lous way after the fashion of the twelve categories. " Nature," 
 and the laws of nature, are to be regarded as purely the con- 
 struct of the mind of man. But, as has often been pointed 
 out, Kant himself was obliged to assume, in an uncritical way, 
 the positive conception of a trans-subjective reality for things 
 which should serve the threefold purpose of being the un- 
 known cause of our sense-experience, the ground of the limi- 
 tations that control our scientific cognitions, and the goal of 
 the higher activities of reason in its effort to reach its supreme 
 unities. But all this is inexpressible and inconceivable with- 
 
1TO A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 out implying terms of relation. Thus again the whole system 
 of accounting for man's experience as a knower breaks utterly 
 down in its effort to lift off from reality the load of the 
 category of relation. 
 
 Internal and destructive contradictions will be found in 
 every attempt that ever has been made or can be made, to 
 ground the cognitive experience of man in a real being which 
 has neither internal relations, nor relations to his own mind. 
 Words cannot be invented which are sufficiently charming or 
 convincing to banish these contradictions from the conclu- 
 sions of such an attempt. This is invariably true of the 
 Reality envisaged, believed in, or excogitated, by every form 
 of mysticism. Such mystical metaphysics has its entire 
 content in contradictions. It constructs the One, from 
 which all variety and manifoldness must come without any 
 internal principle of differentiation; the Will that must 
 create or evolve a world of infinite concrete complexity, with- 
 out any guidance from thought, or stimulus of motif, or end 
 suggestive of an idea ; the " self-consistent " Being, which 
 maintains its consistency without any bond between the dif- 
 ferent momenta of its own being, and somehow contrives to 
 make a good show of itself to human consciousness without 
 having itself any consciousness of what It is about. Its God 
 is the Absolute ; and It must somehow be kept freed from all 
 responsibility for the actual relations that the experience of 
 man recognizes, and yet must be thought of, felt about, and 
 behaved toward, as though It were the Ground of all these 
 relations. In a word, it calls on us to recognize the Great 
 Unrelated, which is, nevertheless, the Source of all relations. 
 
 Within the bounds of human knowledge, then, no limits 
 can be set to the category of relation. Whatever man 
 knows as real is known as actually related. Whatever he 
 conceives of as real is conceived of as related. The abso- 
 lutely unrelated is both unknown and inconceivable. Reality 
 as a whole, must be known, if known at all, as a System of 
 
RELATION 171 
 
 relations. The distinction between subjective relations and 
 objective relations, or relations merely existing in thought and 
 relations existing between real beings must be admitted. But 
 this is a very different distinction from that between being 
 related and being unrelated. The one is a distinction between 
 the partial and the perfect, or between error and truth, or 
 between ignorance and knowledge. The other is a distinction 
 between the known and the knowable, on the one hand, and 
 the unknown and unknowable, on the other hand. The Unre- 
 lated or the Unknown is absolutely ineffective and valueless as 
 a principle of explanation for the known and the conceivable 
 world of realities. 
 
 Reality, then, whether in the form of concrete actual 
 things and minds, or when considered as that vague sort of 
 Unity with which our thinking endows the entire system of 
 such beings, or when converted into an explanatory principle 
 and called either "Absolute" or "World-Ground" is al- 
 ways known as a Being-related. But if one keeps asking, 
 " What is it really to be related ? " one can only answer with 
 the tautology : "It is, in general, just this to be related." 
 When interpreted by an appeal to that basis of experience in 
 which the conception of relation has its origin, this plainly 
 means: "To be related is to be an object of knowledge, 
 because all knowledge is constituted through the function of 
 relating faculty." But the being-related in reality of other 
 selves, and of things in general, cannot be conceived of as 
 wholly dependent upon the functioning of my relating faculty, 
 or of the relating faculties of the other finite selves, who with 
 me constitute the community of human minds. The total 
 system of actualized relations is not mentally represented in 
 any one stream of human consciousness ; nor in all these 
 various streams of human consciousness, considered in their 
 entire flow. Reality, in the large and considered as a system 
 of relations, is too complex and vast for human minds com- 
 pletely to compass. Indeed, there is no portion of Reality, no 
 
172 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 single real Thing, whose internal and external relations are 
 all completely and infallibly known by the entire race of 
 thinking men. 
 
 Our reflective thinking is not, however, without ample and 
 satisfactory means for knowing what it is really to be related. 
 This knowledge is like that which we have of all the cate- 
 gories ; for they are all forms of being as known to us, and 
 not simply forms of knowing. It is in se^-knowledge that 
 relating as a function of the knower, and reality of being 
 related, are both actually united. My knowledge of my Self, 
 like all my other knowledge, is dependent upon the develop- 
 ment of my intellect, of my relating faculty. Every time I 
 know myself, the achievement implies that I actively relate 
 the different momenta or aspects of conscious life to one 
 another and to the subject called Ego or Self ; and also relate 
 this Self to other beings in the world of my experience. But 
 to achieve this kind of knowledge I must actually be related, 
 as I know myself to be related. For it is actual changes, 
 and actual states and actual forms of mental representation, 
 whether they have or have not any reference external to my- 
 self, which are the objects of self-knowledge. Or, putting the 
 case abstractly : as a knowing Self, I actively relate, or bring 
 into the unity of an object of cognition, the different factors 
 of experience ; but as a self known, I am an actual living 
 unification of different factors of being. If to know, as a self 
 knows itself, is to relate, then to be, as a self knows itself 
 to be, is to be really related. 
 
 What has just been said amounts to this important con- 
 clusion : Really to be related is really to be as I knoiv myself 
 to be a systematic and unitary thought-being. So far as I 
 really am a being related an actuality of relations I am 
 not dependent upon the knowledge of other knowers for this 
 being. I am what I am, whether you know me to be such or 
 not. But both as knowing myself, and as being my Self, I 
 am a dependent being. In my knowledge and in my being, 
 
RELATION 173 
 
 I am dependency related to a system of beings which I 
 cannot identify with myself. Yet these beings, too, I must 
 know and conceive of after the analogy of my self. 1 This is 
 as true of the so-called category of relation as it is true of any 
 other of those fundamental forms under which all human 
 knowledge exists and develops. I know other selves only in 
 terms of internal or external relations. Every other man is 
 known to me as a being that is the subject of changes in the 
 stream of his consciousness which he relates to each other, 
 and to himself, as I relate the conscious changes in that 
 stream of consciousness I call myself. He is also a being 
 that stands in essentially the same relations to other men, 
 and to the system of physical things, as those in which I 
 stand. And now as to what it is for him and for me, and for 
 all other human beings who have developed enough to know 
 anything, to be related in reality, we can only say : It is 
 actually to "lead the same kind of a life" that each one 
 finds himself leading. This is a life which is an actualized 
 system of relations, all referable to one subject, in so far as 
 they are internal, and yet all implying other actual systems 
 of internal relations, to which this particular life stands de- 
 pendently and externally related. 
 
 And what is true of minds respecting this category is also 
 true of things. So far as the application of the conception 
 of relation goes, things are precisely like selves. In order to 
 be actually related, and not merely related in those streams 
 of consciousness which know themselves and which call them- 
 selves men, things must have at least a certain amount of 
 self-hood in themselves. No reality can exist simply as a 
 system of relations constructed by some other reality ; but it 
 must, so to speak, be in fact a ^/-constructed and self-con- 
 sistent system of relations. This it must be, in order to 
 vindicate any slightest claim to existence in reality. This 
 
 1 Compare the chapter on " The Knowledge of Things and Knowledge of 
 Self," chap, vii., Philosophy of Knowledge. 
 
174 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 takes us back to the truth that a real Thing must be a thought- 
 unity ; a series of states, that has set itself into a kind of 
 partial and temporary independence by behaving in consist- 
 ency with some idea. What, however, this particular thing, 
 A, must be, in order to be actually related (and it cannot 
 really be at all without being actually related), just that every 
 other particular thing whether B, C, D, etc. must also 
 be. Indeed, the partial and temporary independence which 
 things must have, in order to be regarded as individuals, is 
 itself only their more or less consistent forms of reaction 
 upon an environment of other beings. Thus under the cat- 
 egory of relation the whole world of concrete realities appears 
 as a vast system of relations maintained amongst beings that 
 have, at least, a partial and temporary existence as u self- 
 constructed and self-consistent systems " of relations. The 
 interior relations of each being, whether Self or Thing, are 
 themselves, as it were, dependent upon and somehow absorbed 
 in an all-inclusive System of Relations. 
 
 The entire collection of concrete real beings things and 
 selves, actually known or only ideally conceivable is actually 
 inter-related. Only thus can any one of these real beings be 
 known; only thus can the collection be conceived of as a 
 system, as constituting one World. What now must this 
 category mean, when we yield to the compulsion which the 
 inherent constitution of all human knowledge imposes upon 
 us, and apply it to the entire collection of beings, to the 
 one World ? Nothing different from what we have already 
 found it to mean. For the categories are not to be threat- 
 ened or coaxed. They do not change their nature, when 
 applied to Nature not even if this word be spelled with a 
 capital. They do not bow to the demands of aspiration, 
 not even when men begin to talk of the Absolute or of God. 
 It follows, then, that a System of Relations, conceived of as a 
 totality and complete in itself can only be actualized in terms of 
 a Self. In vain does the relating faculty strive to rid itself 
 
RELATION 175 
 
 of this necessity imposed by its own constitution. Would it 
 not be well to bail the necessity joyfully as a revelation of 
 fundamental truth ? The mind of man cannot conceive of 
 " the unrelated," under such terms as the Absolute, the Un- 
 known, the All-One, the self -consistent Whole. All such 
 terms have their uses and their values, in the effort to set 
 forth certain aspects of Reality, conceived of as a System of 
 self-constructed and self-consistent Relations ; they also have 
 important bearings upon the practical life of morals and 
 religion. But the truth of man's cognitive experience remains 
 the same : The world that is either immediately given, or lies 
 implicit, in this experience is necessarily a unity of related 
 beings ; and this world can be conceived of as such a unity, 
 only in recognition of the truth that it is really so far now 
 only as the category of relation goes an Absolute Self. 
 
 We have stated the conclusion of a criticism of that con- 
 ception which is " the mother of all the categories," under 
 the following limitation, " so far now only as the category 
 of relation goes." This limitation was added in order to 
 avoid an injudicious and illogical haste in trying to reap the 
 fruits of critical and metaphysical cultivation. But even 
 when stated with this limitation, there are two most import- 
 ant corollaries which follow immediately from the main pro- 
 position. And, first : The total system of actually existing 
 relations cannot be conceived of as related in an external 
 way : It cannot be related to some other being, which is 
 to be conceived of as standing, so to speak, upon terms of 
 equality with itself. The rather must all actual relations be 
 considered as really internal to this System ; they are its 
 " self-consistent " modes of behavior, the forms of its Life. 
 They all belong to Itself ; they are consistent with Itself ; 
 they are determined by Its own immanent principles of be- 
 havior. From different human points of view, the changing 
 relations seem partly subjective and partly objective, partly 
 imaginary and partly true to actual fact. From these 
 
176 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 points of view, the distinction between relations that are 
 merely in thought and relations that are also in reality is a 
 distinction valid for the experience of the individual knower or 
 mind. From these points of view also, certain relations are 
 internal and belong to the Self, and certain others are exter- 
 nal and belong to the Self as somehow united with other 
 selves and other things. But these points of view, although 
 valid for cognition and revealing to us the very nature of 
 reality, are only partial. From the point of view from which 
 the entire System of Relations must be regarded as having a 
 Unity analogous to that which we know ourselves to have, all 
 relations appear as alike interior and yet actual. 
 
 It is in some such way as the foregoing that we must, for the 
 present, understand the phrase, an " Absolute Self." This is 
 the very opposite of regarding the supreme, the complete, 
 Reality as equivalent to the Unknown, because the unrelated. 
 This Self is " absolute," not because It is unrelated, but because 
 all relations must be regarded as, for It, self-constructed 
 and self-consistent. Within this system and only as within 
 this system can any concrete reality exist all particular 
 beings have a kind of double actuality. They are partial and 
 temporary unities, comprising a variety of internal relations, 
 and standing to each other in a variety of external relations ; 
 but the One Reality constructs and comprehends them all; 
 for all of their relations, both internal and external, are 
 within the One Reality. 
 
 But the second of the two corollaries which follow from the 
 attempt to apply the conception of relation to the total system 
 of real beings is equally important. We have spoken of 
 self-knowledge as bringing into our cognitive experience a 
 certain system of relations that are partially " self-constructed 
 and self -consistent." Such language implies, however, that 
 intellect and will combine in the realization of such a system. 
 It is intellect "functioning" or active intelligence, which con- 
 structs that system of subjective relations which is called 
 
RELATION 177 
 
 knowledge, and which is in its essential character a relating 
 of different items and " momenta " of the flowing stream of 
 consciousness. It is the same active intelligence which be- 
 comes the object of knowledge, whenever the Self is known. 
 In other words, to know relations, and to be related, as the 
 knowing self acts, and the known self exists this is nothing 
 less than to live the life of a conscious intelligence. And only 
 as some knower projects into the otherwise senseless and dead 
 thing the semblance of a principle of active intelligence can 
 even that "thing" be known as actually existent. So far 
 forth and only so far forth, as it constructs and consistently 
 maintains the appropriate internal and external relations, can 
 any existence really be related. But this is to realize both 
 Intellect and Will. 
 
 What is true of the individual beings of the world is a 
 fortiori true of the system of related beings, of that One Being 
 in which all actual relations have their ground. An actual 
 system of relations can exist only within such a Reality as 
 combines all the powers of an active intelligence, and is thus 
 a living and unifying Intellect and Will. But here are con- 
 ceptions of Unity, Force, Law, and Final Purpose, either 
 quite implicit or only half concealed. 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TIME 
 
 BOTH implicit and express reference has already been made 
 to two of the universal forms of knowledge whose characteristics 
 differ in a marked way from those of all the other categories. 
 Analysis of the all-inclusive concept of reality showed that 
 every particular being is known as existing " in time " ; and 
 that every other being than one's own in the most interior 
 and self-centred conception of the self is also known as 
 existing " in space." Neither is a knowledge which shall set 
 us into relations with other beings in a system of reality, pos- 
 sible without applying to ourselves some of the various modi- 
 fications of spatial qualities and spatial relations. No ethical 
 or social existence or development is known or conceivable by 
 man, which is not based upon a certain confidence in the 
 trans-subjective reality of space. But especially in discussing 
 the metaphysics of change and of relation, constant reference 
 was either made or implied to the universal character of the 
 conceptions of time and space. The particular beings which 
 are made real to man by his experience with natural objects 
 and with his fellow men, all exist, change, and enter into 
 various relations, "in time" and "in space." 
 
 What, however, is the significance for metaphysics of the 
 language popularly employed when speaking of these concep- 
 tions ; since this language is so notably different from that 
 employed in speaking of the other categories ? All minds and 
 things are said to exist, to change, to develop, to be related, 
 " in time " and " in space." But for such conceptions as " pure 
 
TIME 179 
 
 being," change or becoming, and relation, similar terms are 
 not customarily employed. To be sure, one might say that 
 " things fleet " and " things extend," in somewhat the same 
 way as that in which they are said to exist, change, grow, and 
 to stand related. One may also depart from the plain talk of 
 workaday life far enough to remark, that " the times are in a 
 process of change," or that " the places of our former acquain- 
 tance are no longer in existence." 
 
 If all the varied uses of different languages are taken into 
 the account, it will appear that the conceptions figuratively 
 expressed by the preposition " in," or its equivalents, are 
 exceedingly numerous and difficult to bring together under 
 any single conception. Their employment, however, in con- 
 nection with abstract conceptions answering to the words 
 "space" and "time" implies that what answers to these 
 conceptions is thought of, not as a reality, nor a quality, nor 
 a relation of realities, but as a medium of realities. Things 
 exist, change, grow, and stand related ; and among the quali- 
 fications which can be applied to their existence, change, and 
 growth, are those of duration and extension. But when an 
 attempt is made to express our conviction as to what in reality 
 it is that makes possible the enduring and the extension of 
 things, as well as their changes, their growth, and their vari- 
 eties of relations, we find ourselves forced back into the same 
 significant figure of speech. The answer must always be given 
 by a repetition of such phrases as " in time " and " in space." 
 Time and Space are thus regarded in the light of universal 
 " media." Things, with all that they really are and all that 
 belongs to them, are " in " these media. 
 
 It is characteristic of naive, popular consciousness to accept 
 without reflection the figures of speech which it employs for 
 the expression of knowledge and for the practical purposes of 
 communication between men. The positive sciences, too, 
 even when the conceptions of time and space constitute the 
 chief material of their investigation, do not essentially change 
 
180 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the significance of the popular figures of speech. Mathematics 
 and mathematical physics indeed, treat the succession and 
 duration of things, their extension, and their changes of posi- 
 tion, as though they were entities. They thus develop an 
 elaborate science of temporal and spatial relations, and they 
 work out mathematical formulas for the exact statement of 
 these relations. But the student of these sciences knows 
 quite well that he is only dealing with abstractions ; that there 
 really are no successions and durations and extensions, exist- 
 ing independently of concrete realities ; much less even is there 
 any single existence corresponding to the conception of dura- 
 tion as such, or of extension as such. He needs only a little 
 reflection to convince him that these qualifications of things 
 must somehow be considered as resulting from the orderly 
 arrangement in their action upon him of different " momenta" 
 or parts of Reality, which have to be combined into some kind of 
 a living unity in order to lay claim to be real existences. Of 
 course, too, those sciences which make no pretence to a scien- 
 tific treatment of temporal and spatial qualities and relations 
 do not need to depart from the popular and figurative point of 
 view. They may be content to employ naively the figure of 
 a " medium " in which realities exist. 
 
 Metaphysical theories, with their ontological conceptions 
 answering to the words, Space and Time, find no difficulty in 
 accepting the popular and the scientific points of view, at 
 least, so far as their negations are concerned. Indeed, they 
 are all accustomed to deny an actual existence to these cate- 
 gories, whether as themselves entities or as states and quali- 
 ties of entities. Glaring internal contradictions can be shown 
 to result from the attempt to regard space and time as 
 entities. Metaphysicians are wont to suppose that they have 
 conferred some great favor upon common sense and upon 
 physical science when the results of the uncritical ways of 
 regarding these categories have been pointed out. 
 
 The truth is, however, that this negative criticism has been 
 
TIME 181 
 
 so often and so thoroughly done, that no great amount of 
 originality can ever be displayed in doing it over again. This 
 is especially, though by no means exclusively, true of meta- 
 physics since the beginning of the reign of the Kantian criti- 
 cism. The Hindu philosophy discovered centuries ago that 
 time and space are not only illusory, but are the creators of 
 illusion. To know reality only as spatial and temporal is 
 to be the victim of Maya. Kant's critique of these transcen- 
 dental forms of all sensuous cognitions, and of imagination 
 as based upon and limited by such cognition, was relatively 
 meagre and dogmatic enough. Even Schopenhauer, who 
 intended to exalt the truth of perception in opposition to the 
 truth of ratiocination, finds in time and space nothing more 
 sure than those subjective forms of differentiation which 
 arise from the illusory activity of intellect ; and intellect is 
 mere product of the brain, the way in which blind Will 
 gets itself duped with show of knowledge. But as to the 
 true Nature of Reality, space and time have, of course, 
 nothing to tell us. 
 
 Now if any modern student of metaphysics were likely to 
 adopt the senseless delusion that time is really some kind of 
 a long-drawn out entity, which has only length and neither 
 breadth nor thickness, or that space is actually a spread-out 
 being with the three dimensions of length, breadth, and 
 thickness, it might seem worth while to take pains over such 
 crudities. Then the customary questions might be repeat- 
 edly proposed : " In what is this entity of time drawn out ? " 
 and " In what is the three-dimensioned being of space 
 spread out ? " It seems to us, however, to promise a better 
 motived and conducted course of criticism, if we begin by 
 accepting the confession of everybody that, somehow, space 
 and time are like " media " for the orderly arrangement of 
 existences, of changes, and of relations. 
 
 And, in truth, what the common-sense of folk generally, 
 and of the student of physical science in particular, objects to 
 
182 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 having concluded by the metaphysicians is an affair of quite 
 another kind. Minds and things are entities, so the aver- 
 age man thinks ; changes actually occur in them, and rela- 
 tions actually exist between them. Just as firmly does the 
 popular and naive consciousness insist on the conviction that 
 time and space have something to tell us about the Nature 
 of Reality. And when reality is spoken of in connection with 
 the conceptions of time and space, its meaning does not corre- 
 spond to what Kant meant by " phenomenal reality." The 
 cognitive consciousness of mankind refuses to credit the 
 doctrine of the merely subjective origin and applicability of 
 time and space. In this refusal our sympathies are with the 
 cognitive consciousness of mankind, and this to the extent 
 of accusing the scholastic metaphysics of having, as a rule, 
 sophisticated the whole problem. In other words, the con- 
 ditions, nature, and valid implicates of our knowledge of 
 reality are such as to refute the Kantian view of the trans- 
 cendental ideality only, and to compel the opposite view of 
 the transcendental reality also, of both time and space. 
 
 This, then, is the state of the problem offered by the cate- 
 gories of time and space. They are universal and inescap- 
 able forms of knowledge; and knowledge always has to do 
 with reality. But when one comes to inquire into the rela- 
 tion existing between these forms of knowledge and either 
 the concrete realities or that System of Reality which it is 
 the aim of metaphysical thinking to conceive of as a whole, 
 this relation appears peculiar even unique. Time and 
 space cannot be identified with any of these realities, or with 
 this system as a whole ; neither can they be spoken of as 
 qualifying particular beings, or as expressing one aspect of 
 the sum-total of being, in the same way as can the other 
 essential characteristics of reality. Here, then, is an appar- 
 ent contradiction, or rather a puzzle which requires further 
 reflective thinking for its theoretical solution. For the meta- 
 physics which resolves time and space into purely subjective 
 
TIME 183 
 
 forms of knowledge, leaves men a world of mere " appear- 
 ances" for their known world, and offers to their faith an 
 unknowable abstraction a Unity that is, but is no what 
 as the only " Reality." How, then, shall we so interpret our 
 cognitive use of the categories of time and space as to construe 
 reality in valid terms of human knowledge ? 
 
 The question just raised we shall now try to answer for the 
 category of Time. This answer is most fitly approached by 
 briefly noting the principal points respecting the psycholo- 
 gical origin of the time-concept. With all growth of knowl- 
 edge the development of cognitive " time-consciousness " is 
 inseparably connected. The connection is reciprocal. For 
 time-consciousness never develops in the form simply of a 
 knowledge of particular objects in the " stream of conscious- 
 ness " ; never, also, as a conception of merely empty time. 
 
 In tracing the psychological origin of this category, the 
 experience in which the most primary and rudimentary time- 
 consciousness is formed must first of all be considered. This 
 experience consists of a succession of psychoses, all of which 
 are conscious processes of greater or less duration, and are 
 capable of being marked off from each other by the subject 
 of them, through their differences in intellectual, emotional, 
 and volitional content. Ordinarily these glide into each 
 other with a somewhat smooth and continuous flow. Not 
 infrequently, however, sudden and rude shocks occur, which 
 bring into sharper contrast the different qualifications of the 
 successive states, and so emphasize both the duration of the 
 single states and the transition from one state to another. 
 But this sort of experience affords material for the develop- 
 ment of a genuine time-consciousness, provided but only 
 provided some intelligence can look upon it from an ideal 
 point of view. As a mere feature of the stream of conscious- 
 ness, unrecognized and not understood, such an experience 
 contains nothing fully to account for the knowledge of Self 
 or of Things as " really being in time." 
 
184 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Neither is it through mere association of conscious pro- 
 cesses, however complicated and habitually experienced, that 
 a true time-consciousness can be developed. Such a develop- 
 ment requires discriminating consciousness and growth of in- 
 tellectual powers ; and so much intellectual discernment is not 
 a simple affair. On the contrary, it involves voluntary atten- 
 tion, with its " alternate diffusion and concentration," moving 
 " like the foot of a snail, which never leaves the surface it is 
 traversing" (to borrow Dr. Ward's illustration). It involves 
 also growth of self-consciousness ; since recognitive memory 
 is necessary to any growth of the higher forms of time-con- 
 sciousness. Events must be set by such memory into a 
 certain time-relation with other events, all of which belong 
 to the cognitive experience of the same self, as a succession 
 of psychoses. Inference and constructive imagination are 
 forms of mental life that are also necessary to the rise and 
 the growth of the same experience, all of which includes this 
 category. The time during which I have been existent, 
 although always in a succession of changing states, is by no 
 means all covered by my most earnest and successful efforts 
 at recollection ; much less is it all representable in terms of 
 any one act of recognitive memory. Between the definite 
 " I-am-now " of self-consciousness and the less definite " I- 
 was-then" of memory intervenes the indefinite " I-have-been" 
 of inference ; for this link is not to be filled up either by 
 self-consciousness or by memory, but only by a combination 
 of thought and imagination which sketches a mere schema of 
 possible particulars. And these same faculties project into 
 the third form of time the future what is neither remem- 
 bered as past nor consciously envisaged as belonging to the 
 present. 
 
 All the life of the Self as feeling, will, and intellect, in 
 various forms of the manifestation of these faculties is 
 therefore concerned in the origin of time-consciousness. If 
 now, from this point of inquiry, the question be raised, 
 
TIME 185 
 
 " Where, then, is time ? " the reply must be : " My time 
 is in me ; and yours is in you," etc. That is to say : 
 Time, as the subjective but universal and necessary form of 
 cognitive experience, is both actually experienced in the life 
 of the self and is also all constructed by the activity of the 
 self. It is, so to speak, carried along with every act of 
 knowledge as the formal condition of any such act taking 
 place. If from the same point of view an explanation be 
 sought for the three kinds of time, present, past, and 
 future, psychology answers in essentially the same way. 
 Present time for us is the construct of our own self-conscious 
 self, dependent upon the " grasp of consciousness " for its 
 clearness of outline, its fulness of content, and its relation 
 to other moments in the life of the same self. Past time is 
 the construct of our own self, exercising recognitive memory 
 and so relating other moments, with more or less clearness 
 of outline and fulness of content, to the present moment. 
 And future time is real in anticipation, when, by an act of 
 thought and imagination we outstrip the actual succession of 
 our self-conscious states, and, abstracting from what is hap- 
 pening now around us, project the self into conditions differ- 
 ent from those known to be present. For the only way to 
 " realize " the future is to imagine one's self so changed in 
 feeling, thought, or environment, as to separate between this 
 self to be, and the now self-conscious or the remembered 
 self. The leap forward in anticipation and the leap back- 
 ward in memory carry with them the same characteristic exist- 
 ence, and involve the exercise of the same mental activities ; 
 only the emphasis laid upon these activities in their distribu- 
 tion is different. This truth is illustrated by the well known 
 fact of psychology that, subjectively, memory binding us to 
 the past and imagination transporting us into the future are 
 often mingled and even interchanged. Thus men not infre- 
 quently remember what has yet to be, or what has already 
 been only in imagination ; while what has really been in the 
 
186 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 past often appears to them rather as " in a dream," that is, 
 as matter of the image-making faculty in its most illusory 
 forms of activity. 
 
 From the psychological point of view simply, then, there is 
 no difference in the " actuality " of time, whether present, 
 past, or future. Each of these three forms of time really is 
 only as the construct of the active self ; neither of them 
 is any more real than are the others except as it is made to 
 be real by the action of this self. It is customary, indeed, 
 to affirm that only present time has reality; only "now" 
 actually is. Thus Lotze, even after confessing that " there 
 would be no meaning in the statement that things exist in 
 time, if they did not incur some modification by so existing 
 which they would not incur if they did not exist in time," l goes 
 on later to deny the reality of both past and future, and to 
 reduce to an abstraction " the proper meaning of that reality 
 which we ascribe only to the present." The vacillating posi- 
 tion which this philosopher holds toward the category of time 
 is, perhaps, as well summed up in the following, as in any 
 other sentence quotable from his writings: "There is no 
 real time in which occurrences run their course ; but in the 
 single elements of the universe which are capable of a lim- 
 ited knowledge there develops itself the idea of a time in 
 which they assign themselves a position in relation to their 
 more remote or nearer conditions as to what is more or less 
 long past, and in relation to their more remote or nearer 
 consequences as to a future that is to be looked for more or 
 less late." 
 
 It would not aid our discussion to point out the contra- 
 diction between these two sentences of Lotze's, or to show 
 how profoundly his treatment of the category of time involves 
 him in other contradictions with the fundamental place 
 given in his philosophy to the principle of becoming. But 
 these, and all similar declarations so rife in systems of meta- 
 
 1 System of Philosophy ; Part II., Metaphysic ; Book II., chap. iii. 
 
TIME 1ST 
 
 physics, are challenges to review the actual facts of cognitive 
 experience. These facts, when treated from the standpoint 
 of psychology, remind us that the " now " of consciousness is 
 no more real than is the " there-was" or the " there-will-be" 
 of consciousness. Psychologically considered, in every act 
 of recognitive memory the past is realized ; and in every 
 rational act of anticipatory inference and prediction the 
 future is realized. Without development of time-conscious- 
 ness in all its three forms, as consciousness of the present, 
 consciousness of the past, and consciousness of the future, no 
 knowledge can take place. Things can no more be real " in " 
 the mere present, than in the long past or the remote future. 
 In other words, in order that any real beings may exist and 
 become known to us, the continuance of time as present, 
 past, and future must be regarded as the medium in which 
 these beings exist. So that if time were purely subjective, 
 the temporal existence of real beings at all would not be 
 secured by positing some peculiar reality for that particular, 
 ever changing and never abiding moment which we call 
 " now." The actuality of time present alone does not suffice 
 to enrich the content of reality. 
 
 The psychological origin of time-consciousness, is, then, to 
 be found in that complex and peculiar form of functioning to 
 which the mind subjects its own states. As an active, compar- 
 ing, and self-conscious intellect, it knows all these states as 
 more or less enduring, and as successive. Those states 
 whose content is constituted with little conscious reference to 
 their place in an order of succession which involves other 
 states, it knows as its own present. Other conscious pro- 
 cesses it knows as memories, and these are set somewhere in a 
 place as " past " for the self ; still others it projects into im- 
 agined (not merely self-conscious or remembered) relations as 
 states that may yet be. All these three ways of knowing its 
 own states in an orderly way necessarily enter into the experi- 
 ence in which its consciousness of time originates and grows. 
 
188 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Not only is it true, however, that each one's time-conscious- 
 ness is his own mental construct, but each one's time-con- 
 sciousness is different from every other's peculiar to himself. 
 Both observation and experiment demonstrate this. The 
 " grasp of consciousness " differs in different individuals ; and 
 it is the grasp of consciousness which gives to the " now " of 
 time-consciousness all the reality it has. This active con- 
 structive power differs greatly in dependence upon age, upon 
 original constitution, voluntary attention, interest, education, 
 and environment. The same thing is true of time-conscious- 
 ness in its imaginative work of constructing those brief in- 
 tervals of time that elapse between two similar events in 
 consciousness. Very young children have almost no power 
 of this sort ; with them, indeed, the past has little or no real- 
 ity. But the same restricted use of imagination makes it 
 impossible for undeveloped minds to realize in consciousness, 
 as a matter of time, any future event. They will have every- 
 thing they desire in the all-absorbing, but itself vague and feeble, 
 present. So do adults, too, differ greatly in respect to both the 
 perfection of their memories of the past and also their reach 
 of anticipatory image-making toward the future. Some men 
 come to live much in the past ; others much in the future ; 
 but most men live most in the present. All of which means, 
 simply enough, that some streams of consciousness consist 
 mostly of memory-images ; some of perceptions and self- 
 conscious thoughts and feeling; some of projected fancy- 
 images or inferences taking the form of anticipation. For 
 each individual self it is also true that time-consciousness 
 itself differs, in its grasp upon the present, in its range of 
 memory, in its vividness of projected image-making, in its 
 confident ratiocinations. 
 
 There is, therefore, no unity to time-consciousness, regarded 
 as a purely subjective affair, which can apply beyond the uni- 
 fying actus of the Self. There is no reality to one Time, when 
 viewed from this point of view ; there are only times many, 
 
TIME 189 
 
 and varied, and incapable of producing even the appearance 
 of a real world of things. Being themselves " out of joint," 
 they cannot produce a system of events known as happening in 
 one time. The merely subjective view of this category will not, 
 therefore, satisfy the conditions of man's experience with 
 realities. For these conditions require at the least the reali- 
 zation of a certain unity, and some realistic basis for such 
 unity, among the different time-consciousnesses. Other- 
 wise, men could never " come to time," whether in a social 
 way or in the way of agreement upon the bare facts of 
 the physical and natural sciences. 
 
 Let the utter inability, the abject imbecility, of merely 
 subjective time be illustrated by the following hypothesis : 
 The stream of consciousness called A, considered time-wise, is 
 a certain ordering of psychoses, such as A ly A 2 , A B , A. . . . 
 A n . Some of these psychoses have reference to the present ; 
 some are memories of the past ; and some are anticipations 
 or predictions of the future. But the stream of consciousness 
 called B is also, considered time-wise, a certain quite differ- 
 ent succession of psychoses, such as S 19 B^ B s , B. . . . B n . 
 Now, without the hypothesis of some bond of unity, it is left 
 to chance whether the " now " of A and B shall ever be 
 actually coincident a present time, common to both streams 
 of consciousness in its applicability to any particular 
 object. Without some similar hypothesis it is also a 
 matter of pure chance whether the memories of both shall 
 ever coincide in their acts of locating events in past time ; 
 whether they shall ever give to any event the same location 
 in the ideal stream of past time. Why should A pick out 
 the same locality for the event Jf, which is given to the same 
 event by B, unless the event itself has something to say 
 about its own proper location ? But for both A and B the 
 event X was originally a mere mental representation, per- 
 haps of the presentative order ; and regarded from points of 
 view which are wholly subjective and so disparate, it could 
 
190 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 not determine both streams of consciousness to locate it in 
 memory at the same place. What is an obstacle in the way 
 of preventing A and B coming to some " common time " is 
 an overwhelming obstacle in the way of any multitude of 
 men coming to the same time. Thus the purely subjective 
 view of time-consciousness destroys the possibility of society, 
 of history, of the intercourse and development of the race. 
 And that it destroys the possibility of every form of science 
 which requires the exact measurement of time, there is no 
 need even to illustrate. 
 
 It is customary to rescue time from the devouring maw of 
 such solipsistic idealism by compounding a doctrine which 
 maintains both the objectivity of time and the relativity of 
 time. To avoid the ambiguity which the words " objective," 
 etc., have in such connections, we will take the liberty of 
 sometimes substituting for it such other terms, as " trans- 
 subjective," " external," etc. 
 
 The conception which we wish now to examine is not am- 
 biguous ; it denies that the duration or the time-order of actual 
 events is dependent upon the duration and the time-order of 
 the individual minds which perceive or conceive of the 
 events ; it affirms that things do actually come into existence, 
 change their states and relations, and cease to be, as respects 
 time-form, as well as respects all our other forms of knowing 
 them. Things are really " in time ; " and the reason why we 
 do not always know them as they really are, do not per- 
 ceive or conceive of their durations and arrangements in time 
 in such a manner as that our time-consciousness is an accurate 
 picture of these transactions, is to be found in the nature of 
 ourselves and in the character of our relations to things. That 
 all men's ordinary knowledge and all their scientific formulas 
 are based upon some such assumption as this, does not admit 
 of doubt. Let its meaning be made clearer and its validity 
 tested by throwing it into a form of illustration such as has 
 already been adopted. Over a large portion of the earth the 
 
TIME 191 
 
 rising and the setting of the sun, and its included movement 
 through the sky, are given in a certain time-order to millions 
 of human beings. The objective or external series of trans- 
 actions is, as a matter of acknowledged fact, mentally 
 represented in as many millions of different ways. These 
 differences themselves are partly resolvable into mental dif- 
 ferences, of attention, memory, grasp of consciousness, 
 etc., and partly into more important differences of physical 
 relations. If the time-consciousness of any three persons, 
 A, j&, and (7, who have repeatedly regarded this object from 
 substantially the same point of view, does not accurately cor- 
 respond, the reason for the failure is said to be found in some 
 subjective cause ; the cause is a mental fault or inefficiency 
 peculiar to one or more of the three. If all three had been 
 equally attentive, accurate in memory, and trustworthy in 
 description, the time-series of the sun S 19 S z , JS&, . . . $ n 
 would have been u substantially the same " in each of the 
 three streams of consciousness. 
 
 Now such a mode of conception as that above plainly con- 
 tains something which cannot be explained as wholly due to 
 the a priori character of the time-consciousness in which A, 
 By and (?, all alike share. It is not a matter which can be 
 resolved into either inherent or acquired characteristics of 
 time-consciousness alone. For two similar yet differently 
 located mental representations such as the sun that rose in 
 the morning and the sun just setting, or Si and S a do not 
 necessarily result in the mental representation of a time filled, 
 and a space passed, by one and the same real object ; they do 
 not necessarily so result, even if we are prepared to disregard 
 the fact that A, B, and (7, agree, in the main, in their time- 
 series of representations. The morning sun can easily be 
 made to " appear " to one eye on the horizon and to the other 
 in the heavens as at " high noon ; " subjectively regarded, it is 
 just as conceivable that its transit might be in the reverse of 
 the actual direction ; or that the sun might hang stationary 
 
 
192 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 as, indeed, it apparently does for a considerable time in the 
 summer of the highest latitudes. From the point of view of 
 the time-concept only, 8 might move from its point of rising 
 to its point of setting, without appearing, or even actually 
 being, at different points between ; thus, the object now 
 appears at r, and then the same object appears at s, without 
 
 any intermediate appearances along the line m (r s). 
 
 It is only the nature of space which prevents such conceptions 
 or such actual events as this. Nor can it be claimed that any 
 particular time-order belongs, of necessity, to this or to any 
 other natural event, merely because of the necessary and 
 a priori nature of time. Now it is just this particular time- 
 order which constitutes the essential feature of the knowledge 
 that the sun rose this morning and has just set ; and it is the 
 agreement of a number of subjective time-series in the con- 
 sciousness of the same trans-subjective or external order 
 which constitutes the metaphysical problem offered by every 
 such experience with things. In other words, why do A, B, 
 and (7, find their time-consciousnesses agreeing in the mental 
 representation of an object, which all alike regard as not them- 
 selves, going through a series of actual changes in the order 
 
 #!,$,$ . . . SJ 
 
 But now we are reminded that of the millions who mentally 
 represent the Sun as rising, passing across the sky, and setting 
 on its other side, the great majority by no means accord with 
 the time-series of A, B, and 0. For the men who live on the 
 hill-top and the men who live in the valley the actual series 
 of changes, S^ &, S B . . . S n , is different, both time-wise and 
 otherwise. And with every considerable change in longitude 
 and latitude, from East to West and North to South around 
 the entire globe the same thing is true. But to explain this 
 our acquired knowledge of the facts emphasizes the influence 
 of the trans-subjective time-order of the phenomena and not 
 the subjective differences in the different streams of conscious- 
 ness. The causes are chiefly resolved into changes in the 
 
TIME 193 
 
 physical points of view. Thus D, E, and F, are required on 
 scientific grounds, if they will represent the time-series /Si, 8^ 
 S s . . . n , in accordance with trans-subjective facts, to agree 
 with one another but to differ materially from the mental rep- 
 resentations of A, By and C. If the Arctic explorer were to 
 experience the same subjective series as that experienced by 
 the observer from the equator, one (or both) of them would be 
 held to be suffering from an illusion. The actual relation of 
 the two groups (A, B, and (7, and D, E, and Fj) to S absolutely 
 requires that the time-order of their mental representations 
 of 8 shall be markedly different. And here the important 
 factor in the differentiation is the behavior of S regarded as 
 a series of changes that are trans-subjective and external to 
 both groups of conscious observers. To account for such 
 experiences by alleging the subjective character of time-con- 
 sciousness is rightly regarded by the man of common-sense 
 and by the man of science as entirely unsatisfactory. When 
 Benvenuto Cellini saw the sun in the midnight darkness 
 of his cell, his experience may be referred to a subjective 
 ground. But when A, being in Rome at the same absolute 
 time with Z>, who is at the North Cape, fails to see the mid- 
 night sun which the latter clearly sees, the causes for this 
 difference are to be found in the different objective relations 
 of A and D to the real being of S. 
 
 But there is little need to multiply illustrations ; although 
 all human experience could be drawn upon, if need were, to 
 furnish illustrations. For human cognition cannot take place 
 without embodying, in its very structure, the trans-subjective 
 application of the category of Time. What has particularly 
 been emphasized by the just previous discussion is this : The 
 fullest possible acknowledgment of the relativity of all time- 
 consciousness , and especially of all mental measurements of 
 time, does not in the least impair men's confidence in the trans- 
 subjective applicability of the concept of time. For this relativ- 
 ity of time-consciousness is not described with fidelity to 
 
 13 
 
194 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 our common experience when it is regarded as, essentially 
 considered, a time-relation between mental representations. 
 This relativity is itself essentially considered, a manifold sys- 
 tem of actual relations between each Self and a world of Things. 
 To convert the fact that the time-consciousness of the in- 
 dividual is a subjective affair, the conditions of which lie 
 partly within the mental constitution of the individual, into a 
 theory that the entire concept of time has only a subjective 
 basis, is a leap in argument which overcomes all the difficul- 
 ties only by disregarding them. 
 
 Nor are the facts of experience met by those metaphysicians 
 who hold that the basis for the objectivity of time lies wholly 
 in that common mental constitution which compels men to 
 perceive, and conceive of, all their objects, as in time. For 
 this theory settles nothing as to the causes in particular why 
 men agree, within certain limits, and disagree within certain 
 other limits, in respect of the duration and time-order which 
 all individual transactions in the world of things appear to 
 them to have. Both the agreement and the disagreement are 
 such that its ground must be partly trans-subjective ; the 
 ground must lie, that is, in the actual time-series which 
 belongs to the things that change. Or, to state the same 
 truth in more concrete terms : All the changing states and 
 relations of the object, 0, are given to me in a certain time- 
 series of mental images which are mine ; and which are my 
 time-consciousness as determined for this particular case. 
 The moment I regard this series, E^ J? 2 , E 9 , . . . U n (Ego^ 
 Egoz, etc.,) as communicable to you, and debatable with you, 
 I make three assumptions. First, I assume that you are 
 going through with another series of mental processes, Ai 9 
 AZ, AZ-, . . . A n ( Alteri, Alter ^ etc.), which is essentially like 
 mine, in that it is a succession of psychoses " in time " and, 
 is referable to the same object. But, second, I assume that 
 this series is unlike mine, in that it is yours and you are 
 immediately conscious of it. And, finally, besides these dif- 
 
TIME 195 
 
 ferences which are due to subjective causes, your time-con- 
 sciousness is assumed to be differentiated from mine, on 
 account of the different relations in which you and I stand to 
 this same object. Here, then, are two subjective time-series, 
 which have their likenesses and their differences explained by 
 the assumption of different relations in which the two subjects 
 stand to the same series of changes in the object-thing. 
 That is to say, on the supposition that actually goes 
 through the time-series, ft, 2 , O z . . . n , I pass through the 
 time-series E, E z -> E^ . . . E n , and you pass through the time- 
 series AI, A 2 , A 3 . . . A n ; but the cause for E l etc., being 
 unlike AI, etc., is to be found in the general fact of the two 
 subjects E and A being constantly in different relations 
 toward the trans-subjective time-series, ft, ft, 3 . . . O n . 
 The assumptions necessary to explain any common agreement 
 amongst men as to the particular character of a world-order of 
 happenings in time are similar to those considered above ; 
 but, usually, they are infinitely more complicated. This com- 
 plication, moreover, is chiefly created on the side of things 
 rather than on the side of selves. To be sure, there are no two 
 men, the subjective-conditions of whose time-consciousness 
 corresponds in all particulars ; but so far as the metaphysi- 
 cal treatment of the category of time is concerned such 
 merely subjective particulars may be disregarded. The gen- 
 eral fact of substantial agreement in the essentials of time- 
 consciousness the fact, that is, that all men perceive and 
 conceive of all events, psychical and physical, as happening in 
 time, and as having some duration and place in an objective 
 time-series is explained by referring it to the constitution of 
 the human mind. Time-form, as present, past, and future, is 
 the way in which all men perceive and conceive of all changes 
 as taking place, whether in themselves, in other men, or in 
 things. But the complex of things is a multifarious and 
 infinitely complicated system of happenings. For every 
 " now," regarded as covered by the grasp of any human con- 
 
196 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 sciousness, the number of happenings which occur within this 
 one system in Nature so-called is quite incalculable. 
 For every " then " in the past, whether as definitely fixed by 
 memory or imagined vaguely, the same thing was true. For 
 every " then " in the future, no less innumerable will be the 
 happenings with which it will be filled when it has become 
 the " now " of that future time. The world's time is no thin 
 line in which a feeble grasp of consciousness brings fitfully 
 together some half-dozen simple elements at most, and thus 
 imparts to them that unity of reality which things have when 
 happening for me, in the same time. But considered as past, 
 present, or future, the World's time is no whit different from 
 my time. Its " now " is the same as my " now " considered 
 time-wise. And for the world to have been, ten thousand 
 years ago, when I was not, is no different as respects the 
 world's relation to time from that in which I am now stand- 
 ing to my being of ten years ago. 
 
 It is, however, in the number of the happenings, and the 
 complexity of their interrelations, that the world's time differs 
 from the time in which every individual's stream of con- 
 sciousness flows on. The attempt is sometimes made to re- 
 present this difference by increasing the breadth of the 
 stream of time. But in the world-wide series of events it 
 takes no more of a " now " for ten million times ten million 
 things to happen than it takes for a single psychosis in the 
 " now " of a human consciousness. This is not because the 
 World does not change in time; it is because the World 
 can do so much more than you and I can do in a given 
 amount of time. In fact, what you and I can do is a part of 
 the world's infinitude of events, all in the same time. 
 While you think, I dream : and then while I study, you eat 
 your dinner ; in the same meanwhile, hundreds of human 
 beings are born and die ; countless myriads of microbes and 
 living germs begin and end their existence; the planetary 
 system and all the heavenly bodies are bowled along 
 
TIME 197 
 
 incalculably complicated courses throughout thousands of 
 miles of space ; and who shall make a beginning of even 
 conceiving what an infinity of changes an infinity of atoms 
 are going through ? 
 
 Let now the effort be made faithfully to present that pic- 
 ture of the trans-subjective application of time which human 
 science, in its greatly enlarged knowledge of the nature and 
 the transactions of the world of things, considers necessary 
 to its very life. Note well : as regards the meaning of the 
 category of time, and its applicability to things, the utmost 
 refinements of science differ in no respect from the coars- 
 est notions of unreflective common-sense. The speed with 
 which some of the cosmic processes go on is, indeed, such 
 that no grasp of consciousness is quick or deft enough to 
 represent them accurately. On the other hand, the stretches 
 of time which must elapse while others of these processes 
 mature, prove equally baffling to imagination in its efforts 
 to present the infinite extension of time. But, as we have 
 already said, the kind of time in which science sets these 
 processes is the same as that in which each one's own little 
 world of experience is set. It is only the number and com- 
 plication of the changes in states and relations which are 
 taking place at every instant that distinguishes the World's 
 time from the time of the plain man's consciousness. In 
 other words, " to be in time " is one and the same thing for you 
 and for me, and for the whole system of realities. 
 
 Now this infinity of simultaneous transactions may fitly be 
 symbolized in the following way : Let oo stand for the world's 
 happenings all of them, quoad their infinity. At no time 
 are they representable by a mere A, B, C, . . . N; or an (a+b+ 
 +cT)+(>+H-c?+e), etc.; as though you and I, and all the men 
 of lofty imagination and scientific training could, by any 
 combination of mental effort, at a single instant, picture them 
 completely. Suppose, for example, an agreement were made 
 amongst all the savants and philosophers of earth's millions 
 
198 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 that, at a given instant of absolute time, each one should 
 perform an appointed task of mentally representing a certain 
 number of the world's transactions at that instant ; would the 
 results, when compounded, give a full and accurate picture of 
 the world's then present transactions ? Not better than the 
 analysis of a single salt drop would enable us to comprehend 
 the tides, and storms, and monsters strange and terrible, 
 that make up the reality of the ocean ! It is no thin strip of 
 actuality, no cross-section of a cylinder infinite in length, but 
 measurable in diameter by standards of human imagination 
 and intellection, of which we are speaking now. 
 
 Time^wise, however, the life of the world is, according to 
 the conceptions of science, as easily representable within any 
 given area, as is the life of any one of us. It is in reality a 
 succession which may be symbolized by oo i, oo 2 , oo 3 , . . . 
 oo n . But no oo 2 is to be conceived of as separate from its an- 
 tecedent oo !, or its sequent oo 3 ; whether as respects the na- 
 ture of its total content, or by the interposition of a barrier of 
 empty time between the two. For this actual world of ours 
 cannot be known as created wholly anew at every instant of 
 its existence in time. And this conviction of enduring 
 existences, and of real causal connections which constitute 
 an infinity of bonds between each oo in the series, leads the 
 thought backward to the categories which have already been 
 examined. It also involves conceptions which still await 
 examination, such as those of the world's Unity, and of the 
 influence of common forms and forces acting under unchang- 
 ing laws. Although time is necessary for all these aspects 
 of the world's life, the reality of time is no sufficient expla- 
 nation of them. Of course, also, any thought of interpolating 
 some fraction of empty time between the successive members 
 of the series, oo l . . . oo n , is a violation of the very assump- 
 tion with which the mind starts, and under which it con- 
 structs this picture of such a series. The world's time is 
 never an empty framework in which hypothetical transactions 
 
TIME 199 
 
 might conceivably take place. It is nothing but this continuous 
 succession of an infinity of interrelated changes the flow " in 
 time " of the infinitely rich content of the Being of the World. 
 The arrogance of subjectivism can reach no more transcend- 
 ent height than to suppose that the actuality of the world's 
 time is in the least degree affected in character by what 
 men think or imagine about it. 
 
 For, on this last point, it is at once evident that human 
 time-consciousness is itself only one little, fitful, and fragment- 
 ary series of happenings in the time-series of the Being of the 
 World. The total series represented by oo i, oo 2 , oo 3 . . . oo n 
 includes the series which is the so-called " stream of con- 
 sciousness " I know as my Self. And it is equally kind and 
 ready to afford its fostering embrace, with you and with all 
 other streams of consciousness. To recur, then, to the illus- 
 tration already employed: suppose that on account of com- 
 plicated differences in relations, the trans-subjective series 
 0i, a , 8 . . . n (Object), is mentally represented by me 
 as a series E^ E^ E s . . . E n (Ego), and is, in a different 
 way mentally represented by you as the series, A^ A^ A s . . . 
 A n (Alter) ; then all the series gone through by and E and 
 A^ and all the intermediate series in which the " complicated 
 differences of relations " amongst these three beings consist, 
 are alike included in the series oo 1? oo 2 , oo 8 . . . oo n . In- 
 deed, the time in which the actual transactions of the object 
 take place, and in which your and my mental representations 
 of its transactions take place, is alike the world's time. Our 
 mental representations add nothing to and take nothing away 
 from the character of this time ; their existence or their 
 cessation can only serve to increase or diminish the richness 
 of the known content of the world's Being " in time." 
 
 In some such way as the foregoing must a system of meta- 
 physics which is true to the facts of cognitive consciousness 
 validate that knowledge of selves and of things upon which 
 the plain man's convictions and the scientific assumptions 
 
200 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of all ages insist, as respects the application of the category 
 of time to reality. Rightly understood, only this conception 
 gives an ontology which is to be accepted and defended 
 against all the attacks of philosophical scepticism and of 
 theological dogmatism or mysticism. For both the extreme 
 of scepticism and the extreme of mysticism, in their denial 
 of an actual trans-subjective time-series " in which " all 
 Reality exists, cut away at the roots the entire growth of 
 man's cognitive experience. Realities that are not " in time " 
 are not knowable or conceivable, are in no way to be dis- 
 tinguished from non-realities. A System of Reality, a real 
 World or Cosmos, that is not existent " in time " is not 
 knowable or conceivable : for the many beings whose changes 
 of state and relation, as they fall under universal laws and 
 ideal forms, constitute the system, must be united both for 
 thought and for existence in actual reciprocity under the 
 category of time. 
 
 Doubly futile is the effort to discover a history or any 
 principles of development belonging to a World that does not 
 actually exist in time. That conception which dominates 
 all modern science and in its false and mistaken as well as in 
 its true and well-taken applications, throws floods of light 
 upon our intellectual treatment of the facts of experience 
 the conception of " Evolution" is emptied of all significance 
 when separated from the category of time. The human mind 
 can maintain no valid cognition of reality no cognition at 
 all in any fit meaning of this word without maintaining 
 the trans-subjective applicability of the time-concept. 
 
 " But if twenty millions of summers are stored in the sunlight still, 
 We are far from the noon of man, there is time for the race to grow." 
 
 Without taking this concept in good faith we cannot even 
 believe in our own reality ; much less can we ground this 
 reality in any world that is external to the individual's 
 " stream of consciousness." Nay : this very stream is not 
 
TIME 201 
 
 to be called "stream," or "line," "or "life," or "growth," 
 is not to be treated genetically or examined scientifically, 
 without self-consciousness, memory, imagination, reasoning, 
 etc. ; and all these psychical processes, or aspects of the 
 conscious mind, implicate the incontestable validity of the 
 time-concept. This is as true of Rip Yan Winkle, when 
 awakening from his long and dreamless sleep, as it is of the 
 astronomer when eagerly watching a transit of Yenus. In 
 every conception of the Self the applicability of the category 
 of time to a reality that is not wholly measured by the pres- 
 ent existence of the conceiving activity is implicate in an 
 inextricable manner. 
 
 From this main position, which, on the one hand, admits 
 the relativity of all human time-consciousness and, on the 
 other, maintains the actuality of a time-series as belonging to 
 the life of the World, we are not to be driven by any form of 
 mysticism, no matter on what abstractions or negations 
 this mysticism may be founded. Relativity is no more incom- 
 patible with Reality than are Time and Space. Relation, and 
 Time and Space, are all forms of cognition of so fundamental 
 a character as to lay valid claim to have their ground in the 
 very nature of reality. And "to be in time" is no more 
 mysterious for the entire World of Eeality than it is for that 
 little fragment of reality we call ourselves. For, strictly 
 speaking, discussions about the " unendingness " of time, 
 the possibility of conceiving of an absolute beginning in 
 time, the " eternal now J> of the divine Mind, etc., have noth- 
 ing to do either with the nature or with the validity of this 
 category. Everybody knows perfectly well what it is for the 
 Self to be " in time," and equally well for the entire World 
 of Being to be in time, quite irrespective of any negative or 
 positive position in answer to these mooted questions. Un- 
 doubtedly, it has been the frequent practice of metaphysics 
 and of theology to juggle with the time-concept, whenever 
 the proposal is made to extend its application to the Infinite, 
 
202 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the Absolute, etc. But the lesson to be drawn from both the 
 successes and the failures of all these dialectical efforts is not at 
 all that which is consecrated by the Kantian " Critique." Their 
 legitimate result is not the affirmation of the transcendental 
 ideality, or the negation of the trans-subjective reality of the 
 time-concept. It may very well enough be a lesson as to the 
 impossibility of conceiving of the Infinite (or the Absolute) 
 by a process of prolonging in time, or of heaping up in the 
 "now" of a single grasp of consciousness, a monstrous num- 
 ber of otherwise disparate mental images. But such discus- 
 sions have no bearing upon the nature and validity of the 
 time-concept. 
 
 It will be of some help, however, in promoting a general 
 theory of this category, to consider briefly certain difficulties 
 such as those mentioned above into which the mind is 
 plunged by a metaphysics that disregards the facts of cog- 
 nitive experience and deals chiefly with abstractions. For 
 example, the conception of " infinite " meaning by this, un- 
 ending time, is, so far as such a conception has any bear- 
 ing on a theory of reality, intelligible both as a positive and 
 a negative conception. That is to say, it is positively a con- 
 ception corresponding perfectly to the conception of any par- 
 ticular finite time ; any portion of infinite time is measurable 
 and comparable with other times, is perpetually divisible into 
 present, past, and future, and is capable of being "filled" 
 with events occurring in a series and enduring through 
 a longer or shorter amount of time. These are the " marks " 
 which the mind necessarily employs in its effort to frame 
 even the most empty and abstract picture of time. In the 
 actual constructive processes which are responsible for this 
 picture, we are conscious of ourselves passing through a cer- 
 tain series of states that are representative of the processes 
 which would go on in this infinite extension of the world's 
 time. Thus this "world's time" is, both subjectively and 
 trans-sub jectively considered, no whit altered in its make-up, 
 
TIME 203 
 
 because the mind is trying to conceive of it as unending. 
 But the qualification of being infinite, or unending, is rep- 
 resentable only in negative fashion. Infinite and unend- 
 ing time is not to be thought of as measured or definitely 
 compared, for quantity, with any of the particular times of 
 our experience with realities : its present is, indeed, always the 
 movable and content-full " now " which forms the mind's only 
 possible conception of present time ; but its past and its 
 future are not to be conceived of as finished ; and, although 
 not a moment of it can be imagined as unfilled with the 
 being of the World, it is not to be imagined as ever all 
 filled by a possible multiplication in the extension, time- 
 wise, of the world's transactions. In a word, quoad time, 
 infinite or unending time is, positively considered, just like 
 any other time ; but its infiniteness or unendingness negates 
 every effort of the mind to conceive it as limited or ended. 
 The conception answering to the noun is positive ; the con- 
 ception which aims to answer the adjective results only in 
 negation. But this is equally true of every combination 
 which can be made between all manner of nouns and adjec- 
 tives like the adjectives " mfinite " and " unending." 
 
 Not more serious are objections against the trans-subjec- 
 tive application of the time-concept which take the form of 
 maintaining the impossibility of conceiving an absolute begin- 
 ning in time. Even the argument of the profound Kant in 
 his " First Conflict of the Transcendental Ideas " scarcely 
 deserves to be considered as a serious objection. 1 " In an 
 empty time," says this philosopher, " it is impossible that any 
 thing should take its beginning, because of such a time no 
 part possesses any condition as to existence rather than non- 
 existence, which condition could distinguish that part from 
 any other (whether produced by itself or through another 
 
 1 See the "Critique of Pure Reason," Miiller's translation, p. 345, and compare 
 remarks on this "Antinomy" in Adickes, and in the author's "Philosophy of 
 Knowledge," pp. 412 f. 
 
204 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 cause). Hence, though many a series of things may take its 
 beginning in the world, the world itself can have no begin- 
 ning, and in reference to time past is infinite." Now this 
 argument, so far as it has any cogency whatever, tends only 
 to show the impossibility of mentally picturing an " absolute 
 beginning" of the entire complex of world-happenings an 
 oo 2 , which has been preceded by no GO 1? with which it may 
 be compared as sequent in time and dependent upon it as 
 upon its Ground. That " in the world " many series of hap- 
 penings may take their rise, Kant is careful to admit ; for 
 the denial of this would involve the denial of the a priori 
 nature of the time-concept. All such beginnings, however, 
 are relative, both to the mind of the knower and also to 
 one another in the unending world-process. 
 
 But, in fact, the limitation of our ability to conceive of a 
 world as springing into being at any instant, which instant 
 could then be marked off as the absolute " beginning of 
 time," is twofold in character. And the Kantian statement 
 of this alleged antinomy, confuses the two and misapplies 
 both. For by the very term " World " must be understood 
 a time-series of events, already inaugurated according to some 
 definite ideas of form and order and final purposes, an 
 actual system of beings already interacting in time. Cer- 
 tainly such a system cannot be conceived of as really 
 springing out of nothing. As an idea or series of mental 
 representations, it is the product of man's active imagina- 
 tion and intellect functioning in time. And as actual, it 
 must be regarded as the product of some cause or system 
 of causes, in order that it may originate at all. Granted the 
 hypothesis of such a cause we will say, for the sake of the 
 argument, of the will and reason of God the Creator and 
 the category of time, as such, opposes no objection whatever 
 to the world's time-series having an actual beginning. On the 
 other hand, if I may think of the beginning of the world as a 
 "moment" in the Life of the Everlasting World-Ground,. 
 
TIME 205 
 
 then there is no longer any insuperable objection to my 
 conceiving of this world as having a beginning " in time." 
 For now, the time in which the world's time begins is some 
 particular time in the Life of that World-Ground, whom 
 faith knows as God the Creator. Permission thus to think 
 of the world and of the World-Ground can neither be given 
 nor denied in the name of the category of time alone. But 
 the whole problem as to a " beginning in time " is raised to be 
 considered anew, upon far higher and obscurer grounds. 
 Let it be remembered, however, that in this way the trans- 
 subjective reality of the category of time is not in the least 
 degree impaired or altered ; but the point of its application is 
 transferred from a world-process that is conceived of as 
 beginning in time to the life of a Self that is, indeed, in 
 time, without having any beginning in time. In this way 
 both the confidence with which the time-concept is satisfied, 
 and the inability to make this concept wholly void, may be 
 regarded as affording proof for the metaphysical position we 
 are defending. In other words, if I regard the world's time 
 as a mere series of happenings in things, I may picture to 
 myself the beginning of this series in time. But if I regard 
 the nature of the ultimate World-Ground, I find that It 
 cannot be conceived of as having a beginning in time. In 
 neither case, however, can the trans-subjective application 
 of the time-concept be voided. And this double fact, which 
 is a fact both of positive conviction and also of impotency, 
 requires the view that Time is a necessary form of Reality. 
 
 It is scarcely worth while to dwell long over that mysticism of 
 theology which thinks to exalt man's conceptions or minister 
 to his practical religious needs by speaking of the divine 
 consciousness as an eternal now." Understood as a legiti- 
 mate but figurative representation, it is, so far as the charac- 
 ter of the time-concept is concerned, just as true of man as 
 it is of God. With every time-consciousness it is, of course, 
 always now. This is the truth already referred to which 
 
206 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Lotze and others have rather unhappily expressed by speak- 
 ing of the present time as alone having reality ; for the past 
 has been, the future will be ; and neither past nor future truly 
 is. But when the attempt is made to understand this phrase 
 as a denial that the Being of God is " in time," with a view 
 to save the Absolute from the limitations of time, then such 
 a compound phrase as the " eternal now " represents one of the 
 cheapest and most ineffectual forms of mysticism. No meta- 
 physical theory can afford to disregard the claims of mystic- 
 ism ; but what we object to is a mysticism that contents itself 
 with compounding phrases out of irreconcilable and contradic- 
 tory elements. Let the truth be acknowledged frankly : If 
 God does not exist in time, then man can never know Him, 
 that He is, nor what He is, nor anything about Him. Nor 
 can any effort of intellect or imagination make " existence 
 in time " mean anything essentially different, quoad time, for 
 God, from what it means for man. But, here again, the ques- 
 tion whether existence in time is conceivable for a being that 
 is entitled to be called " Absolute " enlarges our theoretical 
 difficulties and lifts them all upon decidedly higher and 
 broader grounds. For the critical survey and mastery of 
 these grounds, we do not in the least smooth our path by 
 introducing a vague mysticism into the discussion of the 
 category of time. 
 
 And now the way has been opened to that provisional 
 answer to the problem of this chapter which will, we believe, 
 best serve a harmonious and satisfying system of metaphysics. 
 The problem, it will be remembered is this : The " being in 
 time," which we and all other selves and all things have, can- 
 not itself be wholly due to the constitution of the individual's 
 time-consciousness. This time-consciousness, although rela- 
 tive to each individual mind's peculiar constitution and devel- 
 opment, is also, in all its essential characteristics, common to 
 all human minds. Otherwise no human life or human devel- 
 opment, no science, or social intercourse, or moral character, 
 
TIME 207 
 
 could exist. Moreover, the very nature of knowledge forbids 
 that the ground of this common human time-consciousness 
 should be found wholly in the subjective structure of the race. 
 The world of non-human things, not only is known as in 
 time, but it actually is in time ; that is to say, a trans-sub- 
 jective series of happenings infinite in content at every 
 moment of time is presupposed in all man's cognitive 
 experience. Our individual times, and the times of the race, 
 are included in the world's time. And that very principle of 
 relativity, which is often urged in favor of the pure subject- 
 ivity of time, is itself an indisputable evidence of its trans-sub- 
 jective applicability. The system of reality actually is a 
 time-series which, although its content at each " now " of 
 its existence, may be symbolized by oo , must, as a series, be 
 symbolized by such an objective arrangement of its content as 
 oo i, oo 2 , QO 3 , etc., through unending time ( oo n ). Or, if we 
 feel impelled, for valid reasons, to distinguish between that 
 all-inclusive system of reality we call the " world," and the 
 so-called " World-Ground," we can only substitute a similar 
 form of conception for the unending Life of this World-Ground. 
 God's Being then becomes an unending time-series, every 
 " now " of which is infinitely rich in content. But all this 
 brings again before us the final question which arises in the 
 discussion of this metaphysical problem : What sort of a Being 
 must the World have in order that it may satisfy the conditions 
 imposed upon it by this category of Time f 
 
 There are two important but subordinate classes of ques- 
 tions which are customarily employed to complicate the 
 answer given to the metaphysical problem just proposed. 
 These questions concern, first, the propriety of any distinction 
 between the world, as a total system of realities, and the 
 World-Ground ; and further, the manner in which this dis- 
 tinction is to be made (natura naturata and natura naturans ; 
 the world and God, etc.). The second class of questions con- 
 cerns itself with the relations in which the two beings thus 
 
208 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 distinguished must be supposed to stand to each other (Creator 
 and created ; The One and its multiform " differentiations " ; 
 God and the world as his " manifestation" or " revelation"). 
 Now we wish for the present as much as possible without 
 prejudicing a future consideration of such questions to put 
 them all on one side. Whether we distinguish, as belong- 
 ing to one sphere of reality, between God and the world, or 
 distinguish them not, and however we picture the relation 
 between the two spheres distinguished, our present problem 
 is unchanged. What nature must Reality have in accordance 
 with the inescapable conditions of human time-consciousness ? 
 To this question only one answer seems possible, or even intel- 
 ligible : The nature of reality must be that of an absolute Self. 
 Really to be " in time " is to exist as a Self knows itself to 
 exist. Really to be in the all-inclusive world's time is to be 
 an infinite and absolute Life like that, time-wise, which every 
 self knows itself to be. Only with this hypothesis can those 
 two aspects of the time problem which are ever before the 
 metaphysician be treated in a reconciling way. These are the 
 reality of time as a constitutional form of the functioning of 
 the knower, of the cognitive self ; and the reality of time as a 
 trans-subjective series inclusive of all events, both of those in 
 the consciousness of the knower and of those in the world of 
 external things. These two aspects the subjective and the 
 trans-subjective are completely reconciled only by that 
 theory of reality which regards all concrete existences as hav- 
 ing their time- series in the unending Life of a Self. No other 
 theory, therefore, unites the subjective series and the, to us, 
 trans-subjective series, in the Unity of one World existent in 
 time. 
 
 To accept that mechanical and external view which regards 
 the happenings of so-called nature as stamping themselves 
 " time-wise," in a blurred fashion, upon the sensitive paper of 
 the human mind, is to contradict all the testimony of psy- 
 chology, and to subvert all the analysis of philosophy, with 
 
TIME 209 
 
 respect to the genesis and development of man's consciousness 
 of time. Such realism is shattered into fragments by a few 
 sturdy blows from the critical student of this category. But 
 to regard the genesis and development of time-consciousness 
 as purely subjective, as an affair of the constitution and 
 activity of the human mind alone, is to render knowledge 
 impossible, and to separate man from the world of things. 
 It is to render science a dream constructed out of a possible 
 series of imaginary happenings rather than a progressive 
 study of the truth of the world's history. Such idealism is 
 evaporated by the heat of our fierce workaday sun, and by the 
 added heat of its own friction with the ethical and religious 
 interests of life. 
 
 In illustration and further proof of the view we are advocat- 
 ing let it be considered what the mind is doing when it pictures 
 the events of the whole world of beings as actually happening 
 in one and the same time-series. The mind is doing simply 
 this : it is trying to take the interior point of view held by 
 the world's time-consciousness. But what really is this point 
 of view ? It is the point of view which would be held by the 
 mind, if its limited grasp of consciousness were only adequate 
 to include all the happenings that go on in the world's time. 
 It is the point of view of a being that has a time-conscious- 
 ness like our own, yet infinitely greater and profounder in its 
 grasp. This is what would be seen from its point of view, if 
 all these happenings were brought within the grasp of an 
 infinite and all-inclusive consciousness. The " now " that is, 
 the " then-that-was," and the " then-which-will-be," have no 
 reality, and never can get any reality, as applied to the entire 
 system of happenings, unless some conscious Self be conceived 
 of as functioning under the category of time. Our conception 
 of absolute and universal time is man's best, yet feeble and in- 
 adequate representation of the Divine time-consciousness. 
 
 In vain does the mind strive to rid itself of the demand to 
 conceive of the existence of the world in time, under the form 
 
 14 
 
210 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of a Life of other conscious Mind, functioning after the 
 analogy of its own life. The student of biological evolution 
 draws an enticing picture of a vast and indefinitely extended 
 world-process which antedated the existence of any form of 
 sentient life. He aims to tell you what was " then " so many 
 myriads of millions of years ago. But surely this little stream 
 of consciousness does not claim to contain all this as content 
 of memory. The biologist is only making a fairly plausible 
 but wofully fragmentary picture of what there was then to 
 know, if some knower had been upon the scene. His finite 
 act of imagination in the " now " of his little consciousness, 
 gives the needed unity of an imagined past time to the 
 imagined elements. But what was necessary in order to 
 make really existent u in time " the world that " then " was ? 
 For time is no force, external to things or immanent in things, 
 which binds them into a unity. Only a conscious self, now 
 existent, can create the actual " now " which brings many 
 things into the unity of one time. Only a conscious Self, 
 then existent, could have done the same service for things at 
 any moment of that past time. That which we do so fit- 
 fully and imperfectly for a fragment of the world's events, 
 the World must somehow do perfectly and constantly for it- 
 self, if it is going to be known as existent " now " in time. 
 AncLwhat is true of the ever-changing present, is true of the 
 past, and of the future, of the world's stream of events. We 
 can conceive of them as in time now past, only as we imagine 
 them to be remembered by some possible mind. Time past, 
 actual and not imaginary, is representable by us only in 
 terms of memory. All these happenings in the world, which 
 neither we nor other men have known or can know, are 
 conceived of as possible objects of memory for the Absolute 
 Self. The only reality which the world's past time can have 
 must be found in the truth that the World somehow remem- 
 bers itself. 
 
 But it is not hard to conjecture what thoughts are passing 
 
TIME 211 
 
 through the minds of readers unwilling to agree with our 
 reconciling theory. You are talking, say they, about the 
 characteristics of that time in which the world's events must 
 be known, if known at all ; you are forgetting that meta- 
 physics deals only with reality, and that the metaphysics 
 of time discusses the question, What is it actually to be in 
 time ? Why may not much, nay almost all, of the world's 
 happenings never have been known ; and yet they may have 
 happened all the same ; and that " in time " ? To be known in 
 time, and really " to be in time," are surely not one and the 
 same thing. But here again is that foolish and inconsiderate 
 kind of realism which forgets that every form of time- 
 present, past, and future is actually a form of conscious 
 mental life ; and that without such mental life, all the words 
 and concepts employed to describe time-consciousness are 
 absolutely devoid of meaning. If one does not mean anything 
 conceivable when one speaks of " time " as actually applicable 
 to the world of realities, one might as well inquire what it is 
 to be really " in abracadabra " as really to be " in time." 
 
 Notice, then, that all the phrases which popular usage, or 
 scientific theory, or transcendental metaphysics employs virtu- 
 ally consider objective time after the analogy of the life of a Self. 
 By them all, time is regarded as somehow real ; and yet not 
 as a real thing. It is vaguely thought of as a " medium" of 
 things ; but the actuality of it as a " medium " is conceivable 
 only as an actual succession of conscious states. To bring 
 into existence the u now," that is for me, I must grasp 
 together into the unity of consciousness, the otherwise dis- 
 parate " momenta " of my own life ; then I actually am 
 u now," and my object has an actual present existence for me. 
 The same thing is true of the " now " that is for you. How 
 a universal " now " can come into existence, an absolute time 
 that gives the time-consciousness to all finite selves according 
 to the relations in which they, respectively, stand to it, this 
 is a problem which admits of no other solution than the one 
 
212 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 we have proposed ; such a " now " must be the construct of 
 the active consciousness of an Absolute Self. And the com- 
 plete application of this category to all the conceivable objects 
 that make up the present complex of the world's being can be 
 secured only if the grasp of this time-consciousness includes 
 all these objects within itself. Differently expressed, it may 
 be said : The world's absolute and universal time is the actual 
 succession of states in the all-comprehending Life of God. 
 If, then, one is willing to substitute for the mathematical 
 symbol of oo, the conception of the Life of an Absolute Self, 
 one may validate both the popular and the scientific assump- 
 tion of an absolute time in which all the events of the world 
 are ever taking place. This conception is that of a series 
 which must be conceived of time-wise and yet involves the 
 denial of a beginning or end to itself; a series that, from 
 every now, or oo i, reaches both backward and forward to oo n . 
 The transcendental reality of time is the all-comprehending 
 Life of an Absolute Self. 
 
 As to objections which arise against the conception of an 
 Absolute Self or against the possibility of conceiving of an 
 absolute Being as existing " in time," this is not the place 
 for a detailed consideration. It is, indeed, well to respect 
 the hesitation of Augustine, who says : " What then is Time ? 
 If no one asks me, I know ; if I wish to explain it to one that 
 asketh, I know not ; " and the modesty of Professor Sidg- 
 wick's declaration : " The relation of the Absolute to time is 
 one of the things I do not understand." But if we not only 
 accept Mr. Hodgson's escape from a paradox which is only 
 apparent to the refuge offered by the conception of an in- 
 finite intelligence ; but also carry our critical analysis to a 
 point where we obtain insight into the ideal and yet trans- 
 subjective nature of time-consciousness, then we may dis- 
 cover that the contradictions and antinomies, customarily 
 alleged, do not exist at all. Our time-consciousness is, 
 indeed, limited ; its present grasp, its recall of memory, and 
 
TIME 213 
 
 its anticipatory seizures of the future, are all feeble and 
 defective enough. But " really to be in time " is not per se 
 to be finite and limited. And surely the conception symbol- 
 ized by a simple oo is no grander or more absolute than that 
 symbolized by a series, oo 1? oo 2 , oo s , . . . oo n . Just as 
 surely is all human thought about Reality made grander and 
 more worthy to stand, when for this symbol, oo , there is sub- 
 stituted the conception of the Life of an Absolute Self. At 
 any rate, only this conception seems able to validate the 
 category of time in that trans-subjective and universal ap- 
 plication of it which the development of human knowledge 
 presupposes, demands, and perpetually confirms. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SPACE AND MOTION 
 
 THE philosopher Schopenhauer emphasizes the necessity 
 of Space as a principle of differentiation (principium individ- 
 uationis) which rules over all the objects of man's sensu- 
 ous perception. Human experience through the senses is not, 
 indeed, to be trusted as giving the truth of reality, the intui- 
 tion of the Thing-in-itself ; but its space-form is universal 
 and unquestioned as the work of intellect within the sphere 
 of phenomena. Or, to use the Kantian expression, all "phe- 
 nomenal realities " are cognizable only as they fall under 
 this universal principle of differentiation. Now, since a 
 critical metaphysics can maintain neither the crudely realis- 
 tic nor the unqualifiedly subjective views of the origin and 
 the applicability of our space-concepts, some satisfactory 
 mode of reconciling the truth of both these views must be 
 sought. And we discover a certain clue which it seems 
 desirable to follow with the search-light of reflective philos- 
 ophy while considering space as such a universal and funda- 
 mental principle of differentiation. If it were permissible 
 at once to express the thought in a tentative way, it would 
 seem that the following claim might be made : It is only 
 when space is operative as an active and controlling prin- 
 ciple both subjective and trans-subjective that"fa other," 
 and many "others," existing in the unity of a System of 
 Reality, can be known or even rendered conceivable to man. 
 
 Now undoubtedly the temptation to consider space as 
 something far different from an active principle of any sort 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 215 
 
 is very great. The temptation is even essentially connected 
 with, and strongly fostered by, the very experience out of 
 which emerge all our workaday conceptions of spatial 
 qualities and spatial relations. The nature of this experi- 
 ence makes it much more difficult for the unreflecting mind 
 to recognize the truth that space is not an entity, or a purely 
 passive and formal principle of things, than is the case with 
 the twin category of time. For the impressive feature of 
 our time-consciousness, on the one hand, is the immediate 
 awareness of change in the content of experience. There- 
 fore time itself is figuratively said to move, to flee, to be 
 "on the wing." And our own whole Self is describable, 
 from its time-wise point of view, as a " stream of conscious- 
 ness. " So closely connected is the time-concept with the 
 experience of change that we need considerable reflection 
 even to correct the meaning for reality of these figures of 
 speech enough to substitute for them the more appropriate 
 figures of speech. It is really we ourselves, and the things 
 we know, that are changing " in time " as though time 
 itself were for us, and for things, some sort of an unchang- 
 ing medium. But, on the contrary, with space we are only 
 the more confirmed, the more we reflect, in the figurative 
 view that it does not move or change ; space plainly appears 
 to every mind as a motionless, unchanging, and therefore 
 internally inactive "medium," in which things are set. We 
 and other things move "in space." But no changes of posi- 
 tion, or of size, or of shape, which things may undergo in 
 this medium, have any effect upon space itself ; neither has 
 the space, in which they are set, any power to effect changes 
 in things. There it is enveloping and surrounding man 
 and all other beings, as a sort of medium of existence, to be 
 sure, homogeneous, yet without possessing any of the quali- 
 fications which he and things possess ; except that it is in- 
 finitely extended in three dimensions, as all things are 
 extended in three dimensions to a limited extent. 
 
 
216 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Of course, no prolonged attempt at reflection is needed in 
 order to convince the mind that all such modes of speaking 
 are figurative and unfit to reveal the final truths as to the real 
 nature of the category of Space. Yet the very tenacity with 
 which these figures of speech are employed, and the difficulty 
 with which they are interpreted into a satisfactory theory of 
 reality, are significant facts in the history of metaphysical 
 speculation. 
 
 There is no other so-called category which has been so 
 much discussed, with so little net result, as the category of 
 space. Here the practical implications and the theoretical 
 conclusions seem to be brought into the sharpest contrast, if 
 not into obvious contradiction. In popular uses, space is the 
 most objective and realistic of all human conceptions ; yet it 
 has been most commonly resolved by ontological systems into 
 a purely subjective form, a mere idea of the image-making 
 faculty. Space is the necessary presupposition of all ethi- 
 cal and social intercourse between men; yet it has been 
 most often declared to be totally irrelevant to the reality of 
 the Self. The cheapest forms of unanalytic, common-sense 
 realism have taken this conception for granted, as a kind of 
 copying off, by the mind, of something actually existent; but 
 the most subtle and acutely analytic forms of psychological 
 idealism have been as yet unable to trace satisfactorily its 
 mental genesis and development. Space, considered as 
 "appearance," seems visible and tangible, as time is not; 
 but in answer to the question, What then really is space ? 
 one can only fall back on mysteries that lie much more re- 
 mote from human powers of envisagement than does the 
 mystery of time. And for this same reason, while one may 
 venture to form a definite mental picture of what it is for 
 God to exist in time, one hesitates even to raise the simi- 
 lar question in one's reflection over the nature of the space- 
 concept. Thus it comes about that that which men are 
 inclined at first to believe is really an object of immediate 
 
THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 SPACE AND MOTION 
 
 and indubitable experience, and which is undoubtedly the 
 necessary presupposition of all their grossest, most material 
 experiences, has somehow the thinnest and most evanescent 
 roots in the depths of Absolute Being. Ask me what Time is, 
 and I can respond ; "Look to yourself and see ; for that which 
 your conscious life is will give to you the envisagement of 
 a real being in time." But ask me what Space is, and I can 
 only say : " It is the form in which the show of things takes 
 place; but what it really is, I cannot say in terms which 
 admit of direct envisagement by self-conscious experience. " 
 It has already been suggested, however, that the clue to 
 a method of harmonizing the valid claims of the realistic and 
 the subjective views of the category of space may be discov- 
 ered by considering space as a principle of differentiation. 
 Without space, "otherness" could not be, nor any multi- 
 plicity of thing-existences in the unity of one World. [Let 
 not the reader be offended by an uncouthness of terms which 
 may help to make a profound and difficult truth somewhat 
 more comprehensible.] In this our common world of sen- 
 suous experience, here am I,' and there are You; and near 
 by here, or over there, are myriads and myriads of other 
 selves and things. But to me here, wherever I may be, 
 you there, wherever you may be, are always a thing ; 
 and I am always, of necessity, known to you, in the same 
 way, as a thing external to you. All those " other " beings, 
 which are really other than both of us, and yet are, for both 
 of us, really the same, become known in the same way. It 
 is space which makes possible this infinite differentiation 
 (or "externalizing" of each to every "other") of real beings, 
 all existing in the unity of one World. Thus is made actual 
 a system of beings that are external to one another and yet 
 are related in a form of ideal Unity; this function must be 
 assigned to Space whatever view be taken as to the genesis, 
 development, and validity, of our space-perceptions and 
 space-concept. 
 
218 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 The general conception of Space as a principle of dif- 
 ferentiation whether purely subjective or also trans-sub- 
 jective admits of illustration in two directions. First : 
 without space-form we cannot distinguish the Self from the 
 not-self, or from " the other " than self, as being external to 
 the self. Space is not, indeed, the only form under which 
 this so fundamental distinction takes place ; but it is one of 
 the several most essential or categorical of such forms. I 
 am unable to identify myself with you, because neither the 
 time-form nor the content of the two streams of conscious- 
 ness coincides. Your time-form is not my time-form ; and 
 our separate times do not constitute one continuous and con- 
 nected stream of consciousness. Moreover, the content of 
 the two streams is markedly differentiated, for each one of 
 us, by the distinction between self-consciousness and thing- 
 consciousness. But this essential differentiation is itself 
 accomplished only under the category of space. This state- 
 ment can be verified as a psychological fact by showing how 
 the consciousness of self and the knowledge of a world of 
 things grow together in every human mind, in a sort of re- 
 ciprocal dependence. Only as these two beings namely, 
 I that perceive or think about the thing, and the Thing 
 which I perceive or think about become more definitely 
 et off from each other can the knowledge of either be devel- 
 oped. But this very process of " externalizing " is always 
 an instance under the general principle of space-form. Or 
 to state the truth of cognitive experience in a somewhat 
 more abstract and metaphysical way : Consciousness of Self 
 and World-consciousness develop together in a sort of re- 
 ciprocal dependence ; and this reciprocal dependence is essen- 
 tially connected with the progressive recognition of that 
 category which makes the world " other than, " or " external 
 to, " the self. We say " other than " or " external to ; " 
 for although there are, so to speak, other ways in which, 
 and relations by which, each man distinguishes his self here 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 219 
 
 and that world there, yet the way that looks "space-wise," 
 and the spatial relation of "externality," is essential to the 
 distinction. Every object-thing, whatever else in qualities 
 or relations or activities it may be or may accomplish, is 
 always given as external to the Self. 
 
 It is universally admitted, both as viewed from the point 
 taken by the most naive realism and also from that held by 
 the advocate of the doctrine of the transcendental ideality of 
 space, that "things" are to be known only as external and 
 extended. This necessity which attaches itself to all human 
 cognition of things, the realism of the totally unreflecting 
 mind considers to be explained by the affirmation that things- 
 in-themselves, or things totally independent of mind, are 
 actually external and extended. From this unreflecting 
 point of view our mental representations of things as in 
 space are a kind of copying-off process, dependent for its 
 validity upon the extra-mental existence of beings resem- 
 bling space-wise the system of mental representations. 
 But the Kantian doctrine accounts for this necessity by re- 
 ferring it wholly to the mental constitution ; although Kant 
 himself is repeatedly caught in an explicit or concealed 
 reference to some kind of a trans-subjective cause of this 
 form of mental representation. Both extremes of view agree 
 that all things known by man, whether perceived or only 
 imagined, must be known "in Space." Both, however, 
 either vacillate or deny, when the question is raised as to 
 the applicability of the space-concept to the Self. It is 
 rather customary to deny that the mind, or soul, or Ego, 
 exists in space; or, at any rate, it is held that we do 
 not, all of us (that is, both body and mind), come under the 
 necessity of submission to space-form, as all things mani- 
 festly do. 
 
 Every form of the negative position toward the applica- 
 bility of the space-concept to the Self demands something 
 more than an unreflecting assent. It is necessary to ask, 
 
220 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 What is meant when I am told : "To be sure, you know 
 all things, including me and other human beings, only under 
 the form of space ; but you, yourself, are not known to your- 
 self as existing ' in space. ' ' Let us take this appeal for a 
 meaning to the actual facts of our common experience. If, 
 now, by the word "self" is understood what not only the 
 child but also every adult understands for all practical pur- 
 poses, it is certainly not true that I do not know myself to 
 exist in space. For the essential thing in every popular 
 conception of the Self is just this, that when one is asked 
 a question as to one's whereabouts, one can lay one's hand 
 on one's heart, or one's head, and respond: "Here am I." 
 Indeed, this " Here-am-I " is so essential a part of the answer 
 which we feel ourselves compelled to give, even when we are 
 asked to define our most essential nature, that no man can 
 easily refrain from bringing it to the very front in evidence. 
 In moments when living is full of some special form of emo- 
 tion or of action, it is most emphatically true that experience 
 compels every man to emphasize, in his conception of the 
 self, some particular part of his bodily organism. The con- 
 nection between the Ego and this particular part of the 
 organism is ordinarily expressed in one of two ways ; either 
 the local, or the instrumental. I know myself as either 
 here, immanent and suffering or doing, in the organ; or I 
 am just outside of the organ, and am using it as my instru- 
 ment. 1 am suffering pain in my heart, or my heart is giv- 
 ing me pain ; I am feeling the action in my moving arm, or 
 I am acting upon something else with my arm. In either 
 form of speech some kind of a relation which is covered 
 under the general conception of Space is applied to the feel- 
 ing, perceiving, and willing Self. In a general way, the 
 differentiating and externalizing function of the category of 
 space seems as truly implied in these as in any other of our 
 cognitive experiences. 
 
 It is, of course, at once to be remembered that such facts 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 221 
 
 of knowledge as those just mentioned concern the psycho- 
 physical self, the man as a kind of two-sided unity, or as 
 having a dual nature, both body and mind. To the mind 
 itself, to the pure Ego, it is customary to affirm that spatial 
 conceptions are in no respects applicable. And into what 
 absurdities and foolish contradictions our thinking is plunged 
 by the attempt to apply, in detail, conceptions of spatial 
 qualities and spatial relations to minds, there is scarcely need 
 to mention. Every thing, for example, is not only " out of " 
 every other, but the distance at which it is out, or the dis- 
 tance between the two things, is measurable or calculable as 
 so much, and no more. Even for the atom, the phenomena 
 of isomerism of position seem to make necessary all the 
 spatial qualifications of larger things. But how far is the 
 Ego from the organ when, for example, the nerve-tract con- 
 necting that particular organ with the sensory-motor centres 
 of the brain has been severed ? Nor do we escape the per- 
 plexity and the contradictions if, while admitting that exten- 
 sion in space is inapplicable to minds, the attempt is made 
 to vindicate for them position in space. It is a certain 
 vacillation upon this matter which is one of the causes that 
 makes Lotze's view of the nature and applicability of this 
 category confusing. 1 But how avoid vacillation, and yet 
 make clear the meaning of "the localization of cerebral 
 function," or connect, in whatever terms, the stream of 
 consciousness as a whole with the molecular constitution 
 and physico-chemical behavior of the brain ? But, on the 
 other hand, shall we be forced into the absurdities of a 
 "figurate conception" (to borrow Hegel's somewhat scornful 
 phrase) which virtually regards the faculties in particular, 
 or the Ego in general, as moving about from brain-centre to 
 brain-centre, after the fashion of birds hopping from twig to 
 twig in the top of some tree ? 
 
 1 See his " Metaphysic," Book II., chapter i. : " Of the Subjectivity of our Per- 
 ception of Space " a chapter which seems to us the most severe and suggestive 
 criticism of this category which has ever been written. 
 
222 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 It is, to a certain large extent, such difficulties as the 
 foregoing which drive some students of metaphysics to the 
 extremes of subjectivism in their treatment of the category 
 of Space. It is owing to the excessive fear, at least in part, 
 of such forms of " figurate conception " that a writer like 
 Paulsen feels himself justified in ruthlessly forcing a path 
 through the thickets of a sceptical epistemology, and then 
 upward to the cold and barren heights of a mystical Ideal- 
 ism. Scant comfort is it to the mind which insists upon 
 thinking out its bearings clearly, that, when alone on those 
 heights, it may indulge an emotional faith in maintaining 
 still some kind of a relation to some kind of a Reality. 
 Physics and psychology, indeed, combine to furnish their 
 warrant to Paulsen 1 when he declares that idealism, from 
 Plato to Berkeley, concludes: "The spatial world cannot be 
 the absolute reality ; extension and divisibility are not com- 
 patible with absolute reality." Experience may also war- 
 rant him in affirming: "We may imagine beings whose 
 sense-organs and percepts are different from ours, and who 
 therefore have different forms of arranging the elements." 
 But to say, " We can imagine an intellect for which neither 
 the ' before ' and ' after, ' nor the ' outside ' and ' by the side 
 of,' have any meaning," 2 comes perilously near upsetting 
 the very subjectivism and that in its most tenable form 
 which it is the design of all such declarations to establish. 
 For, on the contrary, my imagination and my intellect must 
 represent all its objects with a meaning for " before " and 
 "after," and for "outside " and "by the side of." " Ausser- 
 einander und nebeneinander seize ich meine G-egenstande." 
 But when still later 3 Paulsen plumply declares that " Space, 
 Time, and the Categories, are as much products of evolution 
 as are eyes, ears, and brains," he has destroyed all possi- 
 bility, for himself and for every other thinker, of pursuing in. 
 a legitimate and fruitful way the very business of systematic 
 
 1 Introduction to Philosophy, p. 348. 2 Ibid., p. 350. 8 Ibid., p. 413. 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 223 
 
 metaphysics. The essential and unchanging forms of cogni- 
 tion have been reduced to the rank of being the (must we not 
 say, fortuitous) offspring of a thought so complex, so vague 
 and shifty, as yet so full of internal contradictions and so 
 much the child of the Zeitgeist, that it can itself ill claim 
 title to be called one of the latest born of the categories. 
 What is there about this word "evolution" which makes it 
 so mighty as to down all the other conceptions of the human 
 understanding ? And when the waters of experience in 
 which our growing powers are bathed become somewhat 
 murky, why proceed at once to pour out the living child of 
 reality, " with the bath " ? 
 
 We note, however, that two assumptions, which are by 
 no means self-evident, strengthen those difficulties of imagi- 
 nation upon which a sceptical subjectivism chiefly relies in 
 its treatment of the category of space. These are, first, the 
 assumption that what is essential about the space-concept as 
 a form of mental representation is to have things presented 
 to perception as a sort of smooth, continuous extension ; and, 
 second, the further assumption that the relation between this 
 form of mental representation itself and the " absolute real- 
 ity " can be properly conceived of only as a certain copying- 
 off process. Now neither of these two assumptions is true ; 
 and we shall soon show that they are not true, by pointing 
 out positively, and with some detail, what are the facts of 
 cognition, and its trustworthy assumptions. Let it be no- 
 ticed now, however, that if space be expounded as some sort 
 of an active differentiating principle both subjective and 
 trans-subjective, both a form of mental life and a form of 
 that Reality which manifests itself, in all knowledge, to 
 man then many of the customary difficulties vanish. More- 
 over, the essential nature and, if we may so speak, the moral 
 and spiritual value of the category of Space, then reveal 
 themselves. For to return to the point of standing from 
 which the discussions proceeded space certainly has this 
 
224 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 function of differentiation in the genesis and growth of 
 human knowledge. It has also all the supreme value which 
 such a function implies. Considered as exercising this 
 function, it does really get application to the entire life of 
 every self or self-like being. 
 
 Undoubtedly we may, if we choose, regard the Self as 
 pretty purely a mental activity. It is I that think and feel 
 and will. 1 Regarded as the subject of these activities, as 
 activities merely, I am not to be spoken of as external to the 
 activities ; nor are the objects whether they are states of 
 myself or " thing-objects " to be spoken of as external to 
 me. Even much less am I or they spread out, over so many 
 square feet or cubic metres of space. But considered thus 
 merely (that is, as pure unrelated reality of thinking, feeling, 
 and willing subject) I am not a Self actually existent among 
 other selves and things, in the unity of one World. And 
 it is impossible to conceive of my standing in manifold rela- 
 tions to beings " other " than myself without the introduc- 
 tion of some principle of differentiation which shall render 
 them external rather than interior to me, as are my own 
 conscious states regarded as mere states. 
 
 In insisting upon this function of space in the form of 
 "externalizing" "the other" for every conscious Self, we 
 are not making anew the old and vain attempt to devise a 
 deduction of this category. It is not our point of conten- 
 tion simply that the human mind is unable to do without 
 some principle of differentiation ; and that by chance, as it 
 were, nature, in its manifold processes of evolution, has hit 
 upon this particular principle. Neither is it intended to 
 smuggle in an explanation only apparent, of the category 
 under an ambiguous use of the word "external." The space- 
 concept must be received as one of the categories; and, 
 neither disregarding the use of figurative terms for express- 
 
 1 In this connection see chapters iii. and iv. in the author's " Philosophy of 
 Mind." 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 225 
 
 ing this concept, nor insisting upon giving to these terms 
 a literal but foolish interpretation, will help us to discover 
 the essential service in all human knowledge which this 
 category performs. But is not this the most striking thing 
 about this service : It is under space-form that all other 
 selves and all other things are differentiated, for each self, 
 from itself? And to the extent of making such a differ- 
 entiation actual, the category of Space applies also to the 
 Self. When 1 know any other than myself, as an "other," 
 then I set that other out of me, as in a system of beings, all 
 united in one Space. 
 
 The essential nature of that function of differentiation 
 which is performed by the space-concept for all man's 
 knowledge of things their qualities, changes, and rela- 
 tions is too obvious to need more than a brief mention. 
 Every particular being, in order even to be known as a 
 " Thing, " must possess either perceived or imagined spatial 
 qualities. This becomes true of every element, or part, of 
 each thing, just so soon as our experience or our theoretical 
 interests have determined how we will choose to resolve it 
 into its elements, or parts. For example, the tree over 
 there is external not only to me, but also to other trees 
 which are in the same neighborhood, and it has a certain 
 extension " in space. " But its different parts, however I 
 choose to construct them by processes of mental discrimina- 
 tion, top and bottom, right-hand side and left-hand side, 
 or trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, and buds, are all ex- 
 ternal to one another, and each has its own extension in 
 space. And if its parts are still further differentiated by 
 analyzing it into their minutest tangible or visible elements, 
 the same thing remains true of these elements. Even when 
 imagination transcends the limits of the visible and the tan- 
 gible, no matter how much these limits are first extended 
 by instrumental methods, each element must be conceived 
 of as differentiated space-wise from every other. Those 
 
 15 
 
226 A THEORY OF EEALITY 
 
 mathematical points, which a certain theory of the constitu- 
 tion of matter strives to regard as immaterial centres of force, 
 must be conceived of, and described, as here and there, set 
 side by side, or so far distant from each other, etc. Posi- 
 tive void of extension cannot be imagined without invoking 
 the differentiating function of the category of Space. 
 
 Now the more obvious and fundamental, if not all the pos- 
 sible changes in things, consist of different directions and 
 velocities of the whole mass, or of the parts, or of the ele- 
 ments, of those things. Actual motion is the great and the 
 universal fact in the being and the life of every physical 
 thing. Possibility of movement is the undoubted factor in 
 all our conceptions of what things can do. What can the 
 world of physical beings do ? It can move ; and it does 
 move. Movement is the form of change which all such 
 beings share in common. Without stopping to examine the 
 ingenious attempts of philosophy, like that of Trendelen- 
 burg l for example, to make " motion " the sole universal 
 category, or " vehicle " of all the categories, we cannot refuse 
 to speculate upon the significance, for the nature of reality, 
 of such permanent and universal facts of man's experience 
 with things. "He who knows not motion," said Aristotle,, 
 " knows not Nature. " But even the customary and unsatisfac- 
 tory definition of motion as " a change of place " emphasizes 
 the differentiation effected in the world of things by the 
 principle called Space. There are indefinitely many places, 
 actual and conceivable, in which things may be ; and the 
 change of things from one to another of those places can only 
 be accomplished on condition that the places shall somehow 
 be kept separate while the things remain the same. This, 
 introduces to our thought the effective and separating nature 
 
 1 See his " Logische Untersuchungen," the entire Band I. : " Weil die Beweg- 
 ung eine in sich einfache Thatigkeit ist, die sich nur erzeugen, nicht /erlegen 
 lasst, wird sie zugleich die letzte sein, die aus keiner andern stammt, und wird 
 darum auch aus sich erkannt werden ; weil sie die letzte ist, wird sie allgemein 
 sein und jeder Thatigkeit zum Grunde liegen," etc. 
 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 227 
 
 of space. The differentiating function of this category must 
 be invoked in order to understand our experience with both 
 the interior and the external movements of things. 
 
 Among the many objective relations, which things may 
 sustain to one another, such as those of kinship and differ- 
 ence in qualities, or of descent in the same or in diver- 
 gent lines of generation, the relations of position and motion 
 jii space are ever most conspicuous and most important. 
 Without knowledge of such relations science cannot arrange 
 things into species and genera, or trace their descent from 
 one another, or their distribution over the face of the earth. 
 And as for astronomy, mechanics, and physics, not to 
 mention so-called pure mathematics, the sciences which 
 go by these names are little else than systems of abstractions 
 statable only in terms that employ constantly the differen- 
 tiating function of the category of space. How all quantity 
 and measurement, and all number and ideas of unity or of 
 manifoldness, are dependently related to this same principle 
 will appear in the proper connections. 
 
 Thus far Space has been spoken of as though it were an 
 active principle that accomplishes something necessary to 
 any knowledge either of Self or of Things, as existing to- 
 gether in a unitary system. Space, that is, has been spoken 
 of as though it were an agent. And yet the discussion began 
 by calling attention to that persistent "figurate conception" 
 of this category, which both the popular and the scientific 
 consciousness employs, and which regards it as some kind 
 of an inactive entity, or a pure stationary form or frame- 
 work for the setting of things. Now, it was just the in- 
 sufficiency of this latter view, when taken on its own 
 grounds, which we desired to show. Whatever else space 
 is, or is not, it must somehow perform its function of differ- 
 entiation for us and for the things which we know. For this 
 is the essential truth of fact in all human knowledge, so far 
 as knowledge falls under this so-called category. All that 
 
228 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 is "other" in man's known world, is external to each man's 
 self; all things are, and change, and stand related (one and 
 others), only as they comply with the terms of this function 
 of the space-concept. Even if a man considers his own body 
 entirely, or any member of it, not excepting the brain, as 
 belonging to the sphere of the wo-self, still this differentia- 
 ting function of the space-concept must be invoked. 
 
 But is space properly spoken of, as though it were an 
 active principle ? To this question scientific psychology 
 gives no hesitating or equivocal answer. It demonstrates 
 beyond doubt that, considered from the psychological point of 
 view, space is most properly and precisely just that. Sub- 
 jectively regarded, space, in fact, is the construct of an 
 active and discriminating Self. Like all other constructs of 
 this same agent, it begins in darkness and confusion, grows 
 into clearness and precision of mental representation dif- 
 ferently for different individuals; and attains its highest 
 development in that systematic doctrine of spatial qualities 
 and spatial relations which the physical sciences so success- 
 fully employ. As for the so-called "space-concept," it is 
 like every other form of a concept in respect of the mental 
 faculties which it requires for its formation. As mere con- 
 cept, it bears an abstract and formal character, and depends 
 upon the comprehensiveness and degree of success which 
 different individuals meet in their attempts to think out the 
 meanings of their experience. But it is a "category"; be- 
 cause it is, at any rate, a necessary and universal form of 
 the human mental representation of things. The world of 
 things, and of selves as related to things, is known by all 
 men to exist in space ; and this world cannot be known to 
 exist otherwise than as existent in space. Moreover, with 
 the more correct and profound recognition of the meaning 
 of this category, we deny the statement of Paulsen, that 
 any world of different beings can even be imagined, or 
 thought, as not coming under space-form. 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 229 
 
 In spite of the concentration of experimental, introspec- 
 tive, and theoretical effort upon the psychology of space, the 
 subject remains in an incomplete and unsatisfactory condi- 
 tion. There is comparatively little difficulty in arriving at 
 agreement concerning all the principal problems in the de- 
 scriptive history of the time-consciousness. But with the 
 problems in the genesis and development of space-conscious- 
 ness the case is not so. Students of psychology are still 
 striving to answer the poetical inquiry : 
 
 " Who can tell what a baby thinks ? 
 
 What of the cradle-roof, that flies 
 Forward and backward through the air ? " 
 
 And the constantly increasing throng of incompetent inves- 
 tigators only seems to emphasize the words of Diderot : " To 
 prepare and question one born blind, would not have been 
 unworthy of the combined talents of Newton, Descartes, 
 Leibnitz, and Locke." Yet we cannot sympathize at all 
 with the position taken by the majority of writers on the 
 metaphysics of space, from Kant to Mr. Bradley, 1 the latter 
 of whom declares : " We have nothing to do here with the 
 psychological origin of the perception " (that is, of space). 
 On the contrary, the study of the genesis and development 
 of man's perception and conception of space is the only way 
 to approach the important metaphysical problems involved. 
 Although even the following brief account of the points 
 made good, in our judgment, by modern psychology will 
 contain certain opinions that other students will dispute, 
 the agreement on which we can count is necessary and suffi- 
 cient to establish and maintain our central metaphysical 
 tenet. 
 
 The most primitive " stuff, " from which space-conscious- 
 ness takes its genesis, consists of certain obscure and com- 
 
 1 Appearance and Reality, p. 35. 
 
230 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 plex conscious modifications called "sensations of motion." 
 Originally these are not perceptions of motion, or of things 
 in motion; nor can they be regarded as set by the active 
 mind into the framework of an already constructed space. 
 On account, however, of the constitution of the psycho-phys- 
 ical organism and in accordance with its inherited functions, 
 these complex sensations are of immense importance in the 
 development of the Self, and of its knowledge of Things. 
 The child comes, all alive writhing, kicking, screaming 
 into a world that is also alive to its very core. These 
 most primitive sensations of motion are thus both the prod- 
 ucts of self -initiated movements of the organism, and also of 
 the passively received movements of things, as they change 
 their relations to this organism and so stimulate it in mani- 
 fold different ways. This primitive experience is full of 
 pain and also of pleasure ; it has both its risks and its re- 
 wards. Thus the modifications of sense-consciousness which 
 the active self constantly undergoes by virtue of its neces- 
 sary commerce with active things, become both the stimuli 
 to its appropriate modes of action and the indicice of the 
 changing relations in which things stand to the self. That 
 is to say, sensations of motion serve as " local signs. " 
 
 The image-making and discriminating consciousness must 
 be invoked in order to give system, and a regulated value 
 and orderly arrangement, to this primitive horde of sensa- 
 tion-processes. The contemporaneous existence of two or 
 more groups of sensations in consciousness, even if they are 
 of that peculiarly differentiated character which belongs to 
 different sensation-complexes of motion, does not of itself 
 necessitate the perception of space. This twofoldness will 
 not alone warrant the mind either in placing the sensation- 
 complexes "side by side," or in attributing them succes- 
 sively to the same object that has moved from one place to 
 another. Psychology cannot, indeed, derive the compulsion 
 to experience things in space from any amount of mere dif- 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 231 
 
 ferences in the content of simultaneous or successive sense- 
 consciousnesses. It can in this way only account for the dues 
 made use of by the mind in perfecting its experience under 
 spatial form. Further explanation of the development of 
 the space-consciousness requires two other assumptions. 
 One of these involves the work of that same image-making 
 and discriminating intellect to which reference has just been 
 made. The other implies some native tendency or impulse, 
 amounting to a compulsion to make just this peculiar kind 
 of an arrangement of different " moments " of sense-con- 
 sciousness. In these two assumptions we recognize again the 
 Self as a constructive and differentiating principle, which acts 
 according to its own nature in its apprehension of a World of 
 things. 
 
 It is not necessary to follow further the history of the 
 development of space-consciousness as studied from the sub- 
 jective or purely psychological point of view. Apparently 
 the statement of Teichmuller l is true: "Spatiality is, there- 
 fore, so far as experience goes, only an arrangement of touch 
 and sight-sensations." But even if we accept the conten- 
 tion of those who, like James and Ward, hold that all sensa- 
 tions have a sort of vague primitive "bigness," we do not 
 escape the necessity for believing in a process of "the 
 integration or synthesis of these proximately elementary 
 presentations which are called perceptions, intuitions, sen- 
 sory-motor reactions, and the like." "Arrangement," in the 
 one case, implies an active principle in the form of a mind ; 
 and not less so do the words " integration " and " syn- 
 thesis." Nor is this view of the psychological genesis and 
 development of space-consciousness changed as we watch 
 the process which results in that wonderful diremption of 
 the objective world into the Self and external Things. Al- 
 though this process involves, according to Volkmann, 2 two 
 
 1 Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt, p. 247 f. 
 
 2 Lehrbuch der Psychologie, II. p. 136 (3d ed.). 
 
 
232 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 constitutive marks, namely, projection into an outside 
 space and becoming conscious of dependency in having the 
 sensation, it involves no less the differentiating activity, 
 space-wise, of the thinking, feeling, and willing mind. It 
 is indeed, to use the phrase of this author " the deter- 
 mining of the other by the without ; " but it is even more 
 obviously a determining that the other shall be without, by 
 act of that which knows itself as within. 
 
 Mere projection and arrangement of sensation-complexes 
 into more stable combinations, under space-form, do not 
 give us the cognition of a real thing. Every "Thing" is 
 something much more than a mere spatial arrangement of 
 the sensation-complexes, with " their escort of images, " etc. ; 
 every thing has already been proved to be a concrete realiza- 
 tion of all the categories. Subjectively regarded, however, 
 every concrete reality receives the space-form which it 
 comes to possess, through an active and attentive synthesis 
 of the perceiving mind. 
 
 It is customary for those who regard space as a purely 
 subjective principle to explain its universal application to 
 the objects of our cognitive experience by considering it as 
 a constitutional form of mental representation. Thus, to 
 represent all things to themselves, as spatially extended and 
 spatially related, belongs to the very nature of the mind of 
 mankind. Space, like all the other categories, is a priori. 
 But the character and the clearness of every individual's 
 space-concepts, considered as abstractions and as capable of 
 scientific application, may well enough be matters of an in- 
 definite differentiation, in dependence on education, native 
 talents, and even trivial circumstances. That the mental 
 representation of things in space is, in some sort, native 
 to all normal human minds, no one can doubt. But is this 
 admission enough in itself to account for the universal and 
 necessary objectivity of space in the form in which the 
 experience of man with things exhibits such objectivity as 
 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 233 
 
 universal and necessary? We do not by any means believe 
 that it is. 
 
 For let our brief study of the so-called " objective validity" 
 of the space-concept begin by trying to get clear ideas of 
 what both ordinary and scientific knowledge demands of any 
 attempt at explanation. That is indeed a cheap way of vir- 
 tually dismissing the entire problem which concludes the 
 pure subjectivity of the category of space from the subjec- 
 tive and relative character of the space-presentations of all 
 men. For it is just this universal applicability of our mental 
 representations of space, though in a way to take an infinite 
 number of relations into account, which itself needs to be 
 accounted for. 
 
 An analysis of the objective experience of man with space 
 shows that the following particular truths are inextricably 
 interwoven with all knowledge of things and of the self in 
 relation to things. To deny these truths is to destroy the 
 integrity of the very structure of human knowledge. First: 
 the spatial perceptions and conceptions of different individ- 
 uals vary in dependence upon changes in attention, imagi- 
 nation, degree of discrimination, etc. ; they are, therefore, 
 undoubtedly subjective, in the most solipsistic meaning of 
 that word. Every individual has his peculiarities in re- 
 spect of the space-form of mental representation. Second : 
 Certain features of the spatial perceptions and conceptions 
 of all men are alike, and the laws of the development of 
 these perceptions and conceptions are the same for all men. 
 In some undoubted meaning of the words, space-form is the 
 universal and necessary form of the mental representation 
 of things by man. Third: The changes in the spatial per- 
 ceptions and conceptions of men are, indeed " relative ; " but 
 this very relativity itself demands an explanation that can 
 be found only in actual changes of relations among the con- 
 crete realities of the world. Even the relativity of this 
 form of mental representation implicates a trans-subjective 
 
234 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 ground. Moreover, the differentiating function, so to speak, 
 of this trans-subjective ground must be adequate to the task 
 of accounting for the infinitely great variety which human 
 spatial perceptions and conceptions actually display, in the 
 development of the individual and of the race. For, fourth : 
 Motion is a most undoubted and universal fact in all man's 
 experience with things. It is by the continuous realization 
 of this fact, under a great variety of forms and laws, that 
 all physical evolution takes place. Every form of physical 
 science either resolves itself into formulas expressive of this 
 fact, or else it is rendered dream-like and ghostly by the 
 denial of the trans -subjective reality of this fact. 
 
 It follows, then, to state the conclusion in technical 
 language, that neither the solipsistic theory of space, nor 
 the theory which maintains the merely transcendental ideal- 
 ity of space, fully satisfies the plain facts of man's cognitive 
 experience. On the contrary, some sort of a trans-subjective 
 reality must be accorded to this category, conceived of as an 
 active and universal principle of differentiation. 
 
 The enforcement of our metaphysical view of the space- 
 concept may be effectively secured by use of symbols similar 
 to those employed in discussing the category of time. Let 
 it be supposed that A and B are subjects of some phenome- 
 non of motion in a body called X. Two men, for example, 
 are standing together upon a street-corner and are watching 
 a horse and wagon driving toward them ; or two astronomers 
 are observing the transit of the same planet from widely 
 different points of view. Now, in the first case, strictly 
 speaking, the series of objective consciousness which consti- 
 tutes the perception of motion in the mind of A will not 
 correspond to the series which constitutes the perception of 
 motion in the mind of B. On account, however, of a suffi- 
 ciently close resemblance in the content of the object, Jf, 
 the perceptions of the two observers are of the same object, 
 which is changing in the same way its relations to them, "in 
 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 235 
 
 space." Thus, although one stream of consciousness flows 
 in the series A l9 A 9 A z , . . . A w and the other in the 
 series Bi, B~, B 3 . . . B n , both are described in terms of 
 Xi, X 29 X 3 . . . X n that is, as the same changes in the 
 space-relations of the same X to the two different selves, A 
 and B. For the full explanation of the experience of the 
 two observers, it is therefore necessary to take into account, 
 first the subjective peculiarities of both A and B; these 
 chiefly explain why the series Ai 9 etc., differs from the 
 series B\ 9 etc. One man could not see so clearly as the 
 other; or his attention and interest flagged; or the slight 
 difference in points of view of the two, differenced their per- 
 ceptions, etc. But, second; that both A and B see the 
 object X "in space" at all, and that both see it "in mo- 
 tion " at all, may be accounted for by the vague, a priori 
 doctrine of space, which can simply say : It is the nature of 
 A and B so to do. Still there remains something more to 
 be accounted for. And, third; that both A and B pass 
 through a series of space-perceptions which admits of being 
 described as the series of objective, spatial changes, X l9 X Z9 
 X s X n cannot be explained without reference to the nature 
 and activity of X. That is to say, the differentiating func- 
 tion of a being which is neither A nor B, but which is X, must 
 be invoked to account for the objective series of space-percep- 
 tions in which both A and B substantially agree. 
 
 In the other case namely, that of two astronomers watch- 
 ing the transit of the same planet from two different points 
 of view the same argument holds good a fortiori. No such 
 cognitive experience can be explained without assuming a 
 trans-subjective ground for the variations evoked in the dif- 
 ferent mental representations of space. In this case the 
 two series of the subjective order differ in a much more 
 important way than in the familiar case previously consid- 
 ered. The series Ai 9 A^ A 8 . . . A n is now considered as 
 .a mere succession of perceptions of motion, quite unlike the 
 
236 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 series B, B^ B 3 . . . B n . To affirm that both these men- 
 tal series are, pbjectively regarded, motions of the same 
 planet or, in other words, that the true objective series 
 for both A and B has its ground in the same X^ X 2 , X% 
 . . . JT n 'requires a complex scientific knowledge, which 
 can only be made valid by a large amount of previous ex- 
 pert observation and of mathematical calculation. This im- 
 pression of the trans-subjective character of the observed 
 transaction (if you will, of its perfectly superhuman and 
 immovable ground in the reality of the system of things) is 
 greatly heightened by considering the success which the 
 physical sciences have in their calculated predictions re- 
 garding the future motions and future positions of the ob- 
 jects with which they deal. Where, then, shall the cause for 
 the marked differences between the two mental series of the 
 observers A and B, which are both of them of necessity re- 
 ferred to the same object, the planet, be found ? It is par- 
 tially, no doubt, in the difference between the two minds, A 
 and B\ for, as is well known, even with the best of training 
 and the strictest of attention, no two observers see precisely 
 the same phenomena of motion when observing the same 
 physical event. But in this case such an explanation is 
 relatively insignificant. The really significant and impor- 
 tant cause of the difference in the series of mental represen- 
 tations of motion of the same object in space is found in a 
 difference, in the spatial relations to this object, of the two 
 different observers. 
 
 Now, in all such cases as the foregoing, the metaphysics 
 of either a solipsistic or a mystical idealism is quite futile 
 to satisfy the demands of the understanding for an explana- 
 tion of man's experience with things. Such forms of ideal- 
 ism cannot even describe this experience without internal 
 and destructive contradictions. That the grounds for the 
 detailed differences in the space-perceptions and experiences 
 of men, with the motion of external objects are to be found 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 237 
 
 solely in the individual subject (are solipsistic: solus-ipse) is 
 an opinion more absurd and untenable than the most crude 
 and naive form of realism. But the resolution of the com- 
 mon elements that analysis detects amid all these differ- 
 ences, into a mere Idea that has its realization only in a 
 purely human form of representation, and so affords no ex- 
 planation of the differences themselves, is an empty and 
 barren abstraction. In the nature of the realities themselves 
 must be placed, in part, the grounds why all men represent 
 them in space-form, and yet with an infinite variety of differ- 
 ence. Nay more: the ultimate grounds of the differences 
 themselves are to be found neither in mental caprice, nor 
 merely in the laws of mental representation. They are 
 themselves necessarily conceived of as trans-subjective, as 
 not lying solely in the perceiving and conceiving mind of 
 man. In this its persuasion, the workaday and the scien- 
 tific realism of the multitude of men is perfectly invincible ; 
 as invincible as it is weak and absurd when it regards the 
 spatial qualities and spatial relations of the things mentally 
 represented, as independent of the activity of the mind thus 
 representing them; or when it regards the mental repre- 
 sentation itself as a species of photography, which repro- 
 duces the passive and statical but extra-mental extension 
 and externality of things. 
 
 The necessity of making similar assumptions for the 
 explanation of all man's experience with things considered 
 as extended and movable in space, is enforced by a further 
 analysis of the same examples. In the case of any two ob- 
 servers watching the same object from the same point of 
 view, there would arise not simply a substantial agreement 
 in the series of perceptions of motion, but also in those 
 changes which accompany and constitute the mental repre- 
 sentation of the size of objects. Every adult knows, without 
 the assistance of experimental psychology, that the apparent 
 size or extension in space of objects varies with their 
 
238 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 distance. In the case of the two men watching the horse 
 and wagon approaching them, the series of perceptions of 
 both would be that of an object increasing its apparent size, 
 although known on grounds of previous experience to be the 
 same object, and so, of course, not increasing its real size. 
 That is, the appearance in the minds of A and B would be 
 of jr, X, X, . . . X; although it would be known that 
 each object in this series was actually the same X. In the 
 case, however, of the astronomers watching the same planet 
 from widely different points of view, the apparent changes 
 noted would not involve changes of size, but only changes of 
 relation to a number of other objects other planets and 
 stars, the zenith, the horizon, etc. Now these changes, 
 although to a certain extent dependent upon purely subjec- 
 tive conditions, are nevertheless not to be accounted for 
 without reference to trans-subjective grounds. 
 
 Man's objective experience with things, as having spatial 
 qualities and as coming under spatial relations, is all of a 
 kind similar to the examples just given. The metaphysical 
 account of this experience, as an essential part of human 
 knowledge, requires, therefore, some such view as the follow- 
 ing : Things are self -differentiating in their actual relations to 
 one another, space-wise. They are not simply made by our 
 form of mental representation to be, each one, for every other, 
 another than itself ; the principle of differentiation they pos- 
 sess also in themselves. From the purely subjective or psy- 
 chological point of view, we can trace the genesis and devel- 
 opment of human spatial perceptions and conceptions ; and this 
 investigation leads to the metaphysical conclusion : Space is 
 in us ; and this is the reason why we perceive and conceive of 
 all things as being in " space." But the study of the physico- 
 chemical sciences recalls us to the point of view in which re- 
 mains standing the man of a naive and unreflecting realism. 
 This study compels us to conclude that, in some true meaning 
 of the words, after all, we and all things are actually in space. 
 

 SPACE AND MOTION 
 
 If, then, as is admitted space is a human form of 
 perceiving and conceiving of things, yet both the general 
 ground for all cases, and the special ground for every par- 
 ticular case, of such perception or conception, must lie also 
 in the nature of things. And if, once more, it is the essence 
 of space to serve as a principle of differentiation, then the 
 service of this principle must be rendered, so to speak, both 
 to us and to things in their relations to us and to one an- 
 other. The ultimate nature of man's mental representation 
 of things, as in space-form, must lie in the differentiating 
 activity of a Being that shall have control over man's mental 
 representations and also over the actual being of things. 
 
 That our metaphysical doctrine of space, as thus far de- 
 veloped, satisfies the demands made by the physical and 
 natural sciences in order to render their conceptions and dis- 
 coveries valid for reality, becomes clear when it is consid- 
 ered how these sciences treat both the relativity and the 
 actuality of Motion in Space. The tendency of the most 
 clear-sighted modern physics is to base all its abstract con- 
 ceptions, principles, and demonstrations, upon observed facts 
 of motion. We have already seen that this is what psychol- 
 ogy indicates as the valid order of procedure and of life. 
 The child actually begins his observations and his general- 
 izations where the expert student of physics should begin. 
 Both are warranted in beginning with facts of motion. This 
 is the patent and the impressive thing in the world of spa- 
 tial objects, self, other selves, and things, they are all 
 moving. But movement as a datum of experience implies 
 extension limited so as to give unity to the separate things, 
 their relations, and their change, "in space." Unity, 
 relation, and change, are all implicit in every perception 
 and conception of motion. When, for example, X moves 
 
 from a to 5, along the line a &, it is necessarily considered 
 
 as the same definitely limited X, which, beginning with a 
 relation to the points a and b that implies coincidence with 
 
240 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 one (a) and that also means distance in a given direction 
 from the other (), then proceeds to alter this relation. After 
 X has moved, it is coincident with the point b and related 
 to the point a as it formerly was to the point b. All this 
 truth, we are wont to say, is implied in the perception or 
 conception of motion. But only a very small part of all 
 this is to be found explicit in the sensational flow of the 
 stream of consciousness. For our sense-consciousness as- 
 sures us, at most, only of a change in the content and local- 
 ization of certain sensation -complexes, which have a sort of 
 serial relation in time and a sufficient similarity in content 
 to make them stand for the same X. 
 
 That a series of sensation-complexes of motion may be 
 produced otherwise than by actually moving X from a to b, 
 as, for example, by a skilful and rapid combination of the 
 successive retinal images, or by successive stimulations of 
 the same parts of the retina with objects that have different 
 sensuous qualities students of the physico-chemical sci- 
 ences as well as students of psychology, know to be true. 
 They know also perfectly well that all their theory of kine- 
 matics, or phoronomics, as well as of statics, is a theory of 
 relations. No body can be placed anywhere in space, with- 
 out defining its relations to some one or more other bodies 
 in space. And there is no actual movement, either to be 
 observed or to be calculated, which must not have its direc- 
 tion and velocity considered as related to some other moving 
 or stationary body. Indeed, there is no actual known mo- 
 tion which is not relative to a standing still ; and there is no 
 actual standing still which is not relative to a possible mo- 
 tion. So that " absolute " motion and " absolute " rest are 
 alike impossible ; or, at least, they are never actual in this 
 world of things, as it is given to our minds to observe and to 
 know it. When, therefore, physics makes use of the distinc- 
 tion between the " apparent " and the " real " motion of any 
 body, it is not meant to assert that the real motion is any 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 241 
 
 less relative than is the so-called apparent motion of the 
 same body. Without some standard of comparison to which 
 a moving body may be brought, its real motion could never 
 be made apparent ; and the apparent motion, so far as physi- 
 cal science does not deal with illusions and hallucinations, 
 is precisely as real, quoad motion, as it is possible for any 
 motion to be. For purposes of theory or of the application 
 of known laws, we may put ourselves by imagination into 
 ideal points of view, and then inquire how the movements, 
 if actually taking place, would appear to an observer from 
 these points of view. This is what the Copernican theory did 
 when it described the so-called "real'* movements of the 
 earth around the sun. But in all its process of investiga- 
 tion, in its discovery and application of the laws of motion, 
 and even of those facts of motion which have not yet sub- 
 mitted to generalizations in the form of "laws," the science 
 of physics believes in the trans-subjective reality of motion. 
 In this it is exercising its legitimate right. But it does 
 not belong to physical science to tell us what it is really to 
 move in space; or to speculate as to what is the real and 
 ultimate nature of that space " in which " all physical bodies 
 have their existence and their motion. This, however, is 
 precisely the problem which metaphysics attempts. 
 
 Upon this firmly established assumption that all move- 
 ment of physical objects, although relative and measurable 
 only by reference to points of comparison, is nevertheless a 
 transaction in reality, the physical sciences build their com- 
 plicated systems of theory, law, and generalized facts of 
 experience. The fulfilment of the expectations which their 
 conclusions excite, and of the predictions which they make, 
 constitutes an ever accumulating mass of evidence in favor of 
 the truth of this fundamental assumption. So far have they 
 now gone in extending man's knowledge of that system of 
 things, and of their changes in magnitude, number, and 
 position, in the midst of which is his life and development, 
 
 16 
 
242 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 that the main features of the picture may be regarded asr 
 complete. It is the picture of an infinite variety of be- 
 ings, numerable and measurable, but constantly undergoing, 
 changes in the position they occupy with reference to others 
 in the same system. And as this picture becomes more and 
 more subjected to the test of man's enlarging cognitive ex- 
 perience, it becomes more and more detailed and serviceable 
 for purposes both of explanation and of forecast; but it is 
 altered in no one of its essential characteristics. No being 1 
 becomes known, no object is perceived or conceived of, that 
 is not also numerable, measurable, and movable, within this 
 system. Indeed, the growth of the physical sciences in ex- 
 actness of theory, and in strictness of application, is a growth 
 in power to number and to measure the internal and the ex- 
 ternally related movements of the beings constituting this 
 system. This growth that is to say all assumes, and it. 
 more and more convincingly proves, both the relativity and 
 the trans-subjective reality of those principles which make: 
 possible such forms of dealing with the facts of motion. 
 And among these principles is, in some sort, pre-eminent, 
 the real existence and the qualities of space. 
 
 The objective validity and the practical applicability of 
 the molecular and the chemical sciences involves the same 
 implication as to the Nature of Reality. In part, these in- 
 ternal movements are such differentiations as can be made 
 objects of knowledge by perception, through improved in- 
 strumentation ; and, in part, they are movements which are 
 inferred or imagined in order to explain observed changes. 
 But they constitute a growing body of scientific generaliza- 
 tions which is more and more conquering the most mysteri- 
 ous fields of phenomena: while at the same time, it does not 
 destroy or alter in the least the point of view which episte- 
 mology and metaphysics must assume for their theoretical 
 determinations of the nature of reality. For example, let 
 the microscopist watch the motions of an amoeba as it 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 243 
 
 changes its place in its surrounding medium, while at the 
 same time changing its own contour in those ways so charac- 
 teristic and as yet essentially mysterious. Here is an ob- 
 ject: A, which while it moves from n to z, along a course 
 that can be defined by no known combination of laws inde- 
 pendently of its own "will," is the subject of internal mo- 
 lecular changes that, up to the present date, bear the same 
 unexplained character. The total phenomenon observed is 
 thus described : A 9 moving from n to z through indetermi- 
 nate points, such as o, p . . . x, y, while at the same time 
 changing itself from An to Az in shape, in an equally inde- 
 terminate manner. Or let the example be taken from the 
 modern scientific account of the growth of some living cell. 
 How marvellous the description which biology now affords 
 of the movements which go on within the cell, and toward 
 the cell from its surrounding pabulum; and which finally 
 result in the evolution of a complex living organism no 
 less significant than the body of some human being ! Here, 
 with an infinite complexity of motion, on the part of an in- 
 definitely great number of elements originally entirely sep- 
 arate, in water, air, plants, animals, C changes itself 
 through a planful series, into something unrecognizably 
 different. By laying hold of these elements a, 5, <?, d to 
 2?, and even almost to oo, and by drawing them into itself ; 
 by actively rearranging them, and then dividing itself into 
 C' and C" ; and by proliferation and segregation and aggre- 
 gation, etc., of cells, all forms of molecular movements, 
 the original C succeeds in becoming the system of organs 
 known as B (a human body). Or, again, let the example be 
 taken from the inferred and imagined atomic movements 
 which modern chemistry needs in order to explain its ob- 
 served phenomena. Let us suppose we have the series of 
 hydrocarbons Methane, CH 4 , Ethane, C 2 H 6 . Propane, C 3 H 8 
 to deal with ; and that we are required to make clear to our- 
 selves what changes in the molecules are necessary in order 
 
244 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 to render such a series possible. Only if one is at liberty to 
 suppose that intramolecular movements of the atoms, re- 
 sulting in new arrangements of position, take place, can one 
 give any intelligible account of such a series. 
 
 Here again, however, there is as little need to multiply 
 examples as in the case of the physics of masses whose 
 movements may be made visible and tangible to the un- 
 trained observer. The one fact which the physico-chemical 
 sciences find everywhere is the fact of motion. The most 
 far-reaching telescope reveals this fact; the most penetrat- 
 ing microscope emphasizes the same fact. The heavenly 
 bodies, however remote and unlike our own earth, are con- 
 stantly changing their relations to one another in infinite 
 space; the atoms are doing the same thing within the in- 
 definitely small spaces to which the laws of their relations 
 confine their activities. All things and all elements of .all 
 things are ceaselessly on the move ; that is, they are hold- 
 ing a certain individual oneness and "otherness," and are 
 undergoing continuous changes of relation, in accordance 
 with the terms set to them by the differentiating principle 
 of space. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary again to criticize and to expose 
 the essential unsatisfactoriness of either a crudely realistic, 
 or a shallow and flippant idealistic metaphysics in its atti- 
 tude toward the assumptions and discoveries of the modern 
 physical sciences. Nor is there need to remind the more 
 intelligent students of these sciences that, in their scientific 
 language and forms of pictorial representation, they are not 
 penetrating to the heart of reality. Of course, the sensuous 
 picture which the individual observer frames, whether of 
 the position, the motion, or the spatial qualities of things, 
 is not a copy of what exists, " in itself " just like this pic- 
 ture, and entirely independent of the observer. Just as 
 little need is there to insist that the entire science of spatial 
 properties and of changes in space is relative; that all its 
 
SPACE AND MOTIOX 245 
 
 measurements, formulas, and laws have reference only to 
 objects which must always be considered with reference to 
 one another. But, on the other hand, metaphysical dialec- 
 tic will not easily convince the thoughtful student of the 
 physical sciences that phenomena of motion, and the laws 
 governing spatial properties and spatial relations of physical 
 objects which have been built up through so many centuries 
 on a basis of these phenomena, are without trans-subjective 
 ground or significance as touching the nature of Reality. 
 Neither the flippant subjectivism which compares Space to 
 a " product of evolution " (of evolution that is not itself " in 
 space " ?) nor the solemn, critical but agnostic Idealism of 
 Kant, will render the student of science easy in his mind, 
 if once he betakes himself to metaphysics. For he, as well 
 as the "plain man," feels irresistibly that man's cognitive 
 experience, as a race, is such as to demand that the known 
 system of different things carry within itself the principle 
 that can account for both its unity and its differences. The 
 essential Being of the System must be conceived of as a 
 Unity that can realize itself in an infinite number of beings, 
 differentiated actually each from every other. 
 
 This conviction of the positive sciences reminds us that 
 the unifying function of the category of space is not less 
 obvious or essential than its differentiating function. Such, 
 from the subjective point of view, is the valid conclusion of 
 psychology and of an idealistic metaphysics. No external 
 object (and here the word " external " includes the most in- 
 terior parts of one's own body) can be known or imagined 
 that is not brought under the unity of this one principle. 
 Spatially considered, the world is one. Every particular 
 thing becomes a known or an imagined part of this one 
 World, only as it enters into relations with other particular 
 things, in the unity of this one space. The mental act of 
 representation is always a unifying act ; it is an actual syn- 
 thesis. Regarded also as a universal mental form of the 
 
246 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 human mind, this category is a unifying function. By vir- 
 tue of my representing all objects of experience in this way, 
 common to me with all men, I am made one with the race. 
 I can thus give and receive knowledge about things, their 
 size, shape, position, and movements, whether external or 
 internal to the things themselves. I can thus both learn 
 and teach a doctrine of the world of things, which shall 
 have that formal unity and that practical value in enabling 
 us to interpret and predict, which are essential to the very 
 nature of science. 
 
 Moreover as has been implied in the last sentences of 
 the preceding paragraph the actual operation of the cate- 
 gory of space in the world of real things is to exhibit them, 
 as different and manifoldly situated and related, yet in the 
 unity of a single system. In order to effect this actual uni- 
 fication, space must be regarded as something other than a 
 mere conception, or a mere form of human mental represen- 
 tation. The significance of this demand has already been 
 partially indicated by calling attention to the fact that men 
 speak of Space as though it were an active principle; they 
 conceive of it after the analogy of a doer, or an agent. But 
 whatever they may mean by regarding all things as really 
 being "in space," the phrase takes note of their unity under 
 this conception, as truly as of their differentiation. You 
 and I are made "other" to each other by this principle; but 
 you and I are made " one " with each other, and with all 
 other things, by the same principle. Were it not for the 
 actual unifying effect of this principle, men could not live 
 in one world, separate beings, and yet having commerce 
 with one another and with the same or with different things. 
 For me, indeed, "here" means one position in space; and 
 for you, "here " means another and different position. And 
 yet we may point out to each other the same thing as in the 
 same " there " ; we may meet each other here, in the same 
 city ; or we may part from the same home to go yonder, in 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 247 
 
 different directions. It is the category of Space as truly as 
 .the categories of Time and of Force, that renders all the 
 myriad beings of human cognitive experience kindred within 
 one World. 
 
 This is perhaps the fittest connection in which briefly to 
 notice certain problems connected with the criticism of the 
 category of space. Some of these problems have quite un- 
 warrantably increased the current stock of metaphysical 
 puzzles. One of them concerns the so-called "infinity of 
 .space. " By this phrase it cannot properly be meant to ask, 
 whether the mind of man can get by perception, or give to 
 itself by imagination, either the empty or the filled-up picture 
 of a world of things that has absolutely no limits to its exten- 
 sion ; nor to inquire, whether we cannot somehow divest our- 
 selves of all obligation to this category and so imagine, or 
 think about a world of things that shall exist many things 
 in one world without being " in space " at all. The true 
 state of the case is as follows : Subjectively regarded, the 
 infinity of space is provided for, when it has once for all 
 been recognized that space is the universal and necessary 
 mode of the human mental representation of a system of 
 things, so differentiated as to be, one and another, external 
 to each. Objectively regarded, the infinity of space is 
 affirmed when it is recognized that, without limit or excep- 
 tion (in-finis\ all objects constituting this system of per- 
 ceived and conceivable things exist in accordance with this 
 principle. Thus, as a pictorial representation, I cannot 
 know the infinity of space. As a conceptual form of dif- 
 ferentiating the particular objects in the unity of the one 
 system, I cannot fail to know the infinity of space. 
 
 In somewhat the same way must we solve the puzzle as to 
 the " infinite divisibility " of space. The mind cannot actu- 
 ally perceive, or even picture, as going on without limit, 
 the process of differentiating the particular beings of the 
 "world in respect to their spatial qualities and spatial rela- 
 
248 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 tions. Neither can we mentally represent any particular 
 being which shall realize this infinite divisibility as though 
 it were already accomplished. I can, indeed, by a process 
 of abstraction, think and reason about relations of position, 
 merely as such. And this is done by every mind, whenever the 
 fundamental postulate of geometry is apprehended : " Between 
 any two points, anywhere situated in space, one, and only one, 
 straight line can be drawn. " On the other hand, the char- 
 acter of space (and this means here the pure form of every 
 mental representation of things), of itself, affords no reason 
 why the process of dividing, and so of externalizing to one 
 another, the parts of any thing, should ever come to an end. 
 But this does not constitute, as Kant held, an antinomy 
 which so affects the very nature of the category of space as 
 to destroy all applicability of it to trans-subjective realities. 
 This very antinomy, the rather, shows that space is a prin- 
 ciple, both of differentiating and of unifying; and that any 
 limit to the actual differentiation of things must come from 
 some other characteristic (or motif) in Reality, than that 
 representable under space-form. Who shall say, a priori 
 and in the name of Space, how fine or how coarse God shall 
 decide that things and their elements are, in fact, to be ? 
 
 Once more, it confirms further our view of the real nature 
 of space to reflect critically upon the discussion, by mathe- 
 maticians and physicists, of space of more than three of 
 four, or of n dimensions. That all men's pictorial represen- 
 tations of spatial qualities and spatial relations are actually 
 three-dimensioned there can be no dispute and no doubt. 
 Moreover, if we disregard certain alleged occult phenomena, 
 which can scarcely yet lay claim to acceptance as facts, the 
 conception of "three-dimensioned space" will serve to ex- 
 plain all the facts of human experience with the external 
 world. It is three-dimensioned space which all the applied 
 sciences of physical objects both assume and also verify by 
 their discoveries and their predictions. On the other hand, 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 249 
 
 these sciences cannot deny a priori that Reality might differ- 
 entiate, and still unify, its innumerable particular beings and 
 elements, after a manner analogous to that which furnishes 
 the ground for our mental representations of things in space, 
 and yet in a more complex and varied way (a "fourth," or 
 more, up to an n th dimension). If we should finally dis- 
 cover facts of knowledge which required the assumption of 
 " w-dimensioned " space, we might make it as a permissible 
 hypothesis or even a valid theory; but this would not, of 
 itself, in the least degree affect our present three-dimen- 
 sioned form of mental representation ; and as little would it 
 justify us in changing the metaphysics of the category of 
 space. 
 
 The ontological doctrine which is demanded by the facts 
 of experience and by the conclusions of the positive sciences, 
 may be summed up as follows : There belongs to the Being 
 of the World a principle which actually differentiates this 
 Being into a vast number of particular beings; and these 
 particular beings are co-existent in time, and yet " external n 
 each to every other ; but the same principle, at the same time, 
 unites all these beings in a system of reciprocally deter- 
 mined changes of relations to one another. This principle 
 both assigns, at every moment of time, the place which each 
 being assumes for itself within the one system ; and it also 
 admits of a series of changes in the relations pertaining to 
 such assignment. This same principle is also the ground of 
 man's perceptions and conceptions of the spatial qualities 
 and spatial relations of things. It is the trans -subjective 
 cause of our mental representation of ourselves, and of all 
 that is " other " to us, both other selves, and other things 
 as in a space-system. From this it follows that, as a 
 principle, it cannot possibly be wholly alien to us, who are 
 the both active and passive subjects of this particular form 
 of mental representation. Besides, the genesis and develop- 
 ment of our space-perceptions and conceptions can be traced 
 
250 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 in the history of the mind-life. For us, and for all men, 
 this principle is a category; it is one of those universal and 
 necessary forms of cognitive experience which act, on the 
 one hand, as binding laws of the subjective development, 
 and, on the other hand, indicate a grasp of the mind of man 
 upon the nature of reality. 
 
 Combining the results of this discussion of the category 
 of Space with those reached by discussing the category of 
 Time, the symbolism already adopted may be expanded as 
 follows: Let the Being of the World, as respects its infin- 
 ite content, = oo . Then the Being of the World in Time 
 may be represented by the series oo i, oc 2 , oo 3 , etc., through 
 unending time, to oo . But the Being of the World in Space 
 provides that each " moment " in the series of oo shall in- 
 clude a systematic ordering of the particular beings in such 
 manner as to secure their "otherness," for all purposes of 
 physical and social intercourse, yet within the unity of a 
 .single system. It provides that oo i shall be, and shall be 
 known as being, = (a l9 b ly <?i, d l9 e^ /i, . . . Wi) ; oo, = (a 2 , 
 ^2, 2 > ^2? 2, /a, . . . n 2 ), etc. ; in accordance with the 
 .particular being of a, and of all the other interdependently 
 .related beings, and with the nature of the "laws that govern " 
 .the changes of all their spatial qualities and spatial relations. 
 This was seen to mean that the Being of the World is a Life, 
 said to be in time because it is a series of states, each hav- 
 ing an infinitely rich content belonging to it. 
 
 But what, as bearing upon, and as contributing to, our 
 Theory of Reality is the meaning of this symbolical way of 
 ^conceiving of the category of Space? . . . The answer to 
 this question can only be partially indicated at present; no 
 answer can ever be so satisfactory for the category of space 
 as for the kindred category of time. But it may well be 
 noted that the discussion of the space -concept, as related to 
 all of man's experience, cannot avoid introducing other con- 
 cepts such as change, relation, and especially all those 
 
SPACE AND MOTION 251 
 
 involved in the distinction of Self from other selves and 
 from things. One conception, however, seems to be most 
 essentially involved in all attempts to answer the inquiry : 
 What is it really to be "in space ? " This is the conception 
 of Force. Unless the world of concrete realities were a sys- 
 tem of beings, with force in them as we may say in a fig- 
 urative way no real existence in space could be, or could 
 be known. Two considerations may for the present suffice 
 to establish this contention. First: it is a common but ex- 
 ceedingly significant phrase, to speak of all real things, as 
 " occupying " a definable and measurable amount of space. 
 One may not convert into each other offhand the two 
 phrases "really to be in space" and "to occupy space." 
 But both theoretically and practically, there is no real exis- 
 tence in space which does not occupy that same space. To 
 be actually posited or extended, spatially, a thing must seize 
 and hold a certain definite position and extension. This it 
 cannot do unless it be, somehow, possessed of the required 
 forces. But second : if we examine anew the experience in 
 which our space-concept is obtained and developed, and, by 
 building on the truthfulness of which, the physical sciences 
 rear and solidify their wonderful structures, we discover the 
 same significant thought. The ultimate subjective fact is 
 the perception, and then the conception, of Motion. The 
 ultimate need to be satisfied by the category of space is 
 the effecting of those regular and lawful performances in 
 the World-system which science observes and conceives of 
 as motions, trans-subjectively initiated and controlled. Mo- 
 tion, however, is not something that can be defined or ac- 
 counted for in terms of space merely. To illustrate this, 
 suppose that the popular definition be accepted: Motion = 
 "change of place." At once the question must be raised: 
 Is this a change that is already accomplished, or a change that 
 is in the process of accomplishment ? The answer must be : 
 All actual motion is rather something changing its position, 
 
252 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 or its relation in space to other things. Hence real motion 
 something moving; or motion = motion. But this fact of 
 motion, which cannot even be defined in terms of space, 
 when space is regarded as some mere thought-form or pas- 
 sive framework of a world of active Reality (so-called 
 "pure space"), is, as we shall see later, intelligible only as 
 it implicates force. 
 
 No actualization of the space-principle is, therefore, pos- 
 sible, either from the point of view of its subjective origin 
 or of its trans-subjective applicability, unless this principle 
 itself is conceived of as the mode of the action of one all-dif- 
 ferentiating and yet all-unifying Force. And surely here we 
 have come close to the very heart of our conception of Self- 
 hood, as giving us the essence of the Being and the Life of 
 the World. The category of space must be referred for its 
 trans-subjective ground to a World-Force, that arranges in 
 a determinate way all the different beings of the world, in- 
 cluding each Self whose pictorial representation of the spa- 
 tial qualities and spatial relations of things is determined 
 by this same Force. As a mental representation in us and 
 in all men, its actuality implicates an orderly functioning, 
 both to differentiate and to unite, of a Being that is not our- 
 selves, and yet that includes our Self and all not-selves in 
 the one system. Space is not simply our human form of 
 mental representation; it is really the correlated form of 
 the functioning of this World-Force. Further information 
 as to the nature of this correlate cannot be obtained from 
 an analysis merely of our space-consciousness and of its 
 implicates. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 FORCE AND CAUSATION 
 
 THE different conceptions thus far subjected to critical ex- 
 amination have all been sucli as seem to admit of some kind 
 of inductive proof by reference to our sensuous experience 
 with things. All the qualities which the concrete realities of 
 the world possess are either immediately knowable, or are 
 capable of being imagined, in terms of sense-perception. 
 Changes, too, are perceived by eye and hand and ear, and even 
 by the less discriminating and objective of the senses. Al- 
 though to relate is the constructive act of the intellect, and 
 being related may be said, from the subjective point of view, 
 to be imposed upon things by man's intellectual activity, yet 
 the necessary conjunction of this activity with all the passive 
 aspects of human sense-consciousness makes it proper to 
 speak as though the mind became " immediately aware " of 
 the relations that actually exist amongst things. Space and 
 time, too, seem to furnish forms and laws, conformity and 
 obedience to which are enforced by all our sensuous acquaint- 
 ance with the World of real existences. In some sort, there- 
 fore, Becoming and Change, Quality, Relation, Time, Space 
 and Motion, may be said to be the more obvious and sen- 
 suously apparent of the categories. 
 
 But we can no longer suppress a momentous truth which 
 has been slumbering just below the surface of all these more 
 superficial of the categories. Indeed, this truth has seemed 
 to arouse itself and lift up its head, at intervals, during all 
 our previous discussion of the categories. Each one of them 
 
254 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 has given token of the intimate presence of a yet more spirit- 
 ual and profoundly influential conception. For example, it 
 was found that qualities are neither known nor conceivable 
 apart from something that is said to " have," or to " exercise," 
 the qualities ; and this vague " something," when questioned 
 gave back an unmistakable echo of a conception of force in re- 
 serve, as it were, within the very depths of each particular 
 being. Again, when becoming and the various forms of 
 change were considered, it appeared that some active prin- 
 ciple must always control the becoming, and thus account for 
 the origin and the character of every particular change. This 
 principle of a control of change hints at the same conception 
 of force. Relations; to be sure, sometimes seem so calm, sta- 
 tical, and impassive, that they, at least, would not suffer if all 
 forms of the manifestation of force were removed from the 
 world. 'But at once we are reminded that the mental act of 
 establishing relations, whether by observation or by argument, 
 is about the most energetic thing which a human will can ac- 
 complish. Forceful, pre-eminent, is the mind that seizes and 
 works out the most complex and subtle relations amongst the 
 " stuffs " of its sensuous experience. And some objective re- 
 lations unmistakably demand force for their establishment 
 and their continuance or change. Such are all relations, for 
 example, of tension, strain, attraction, repulsion, suspension, 
 etc., in physics ; and all the ideal relations of cause and effect, 
 means and end, etc. Moreover, since no actual relations are 
 perfectly statical and unchanging, the presence of force must 
 be recognized in the midst of them all. Finally, the con- 
 ception of a differentiating and unifying force seemed neces- 
 .sary in order to complete the actualization of the categories of 
 time and space. 
 
 All this to speak figuratively may be said to amount to 
 this important truth : a dynamical view must be substituted for 
 a merely statical view of the Being of Reality. Or rather, all 
 the universal and necessary forms under which man knows. 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 255 
 
 the World show but the surface of its nature until he re- 
 cognizes the truth: The Being of the World is a Unity of 
 Force. 
 
 Now we are by no means ready to identify all that is know- 
 able with the abstract conception of a oneness of force. This 
 would be substantially to repeat the ontology of Mr. Spencer, 
 however much the particular terms were varied in which the 
 conception was elaborated. Nor are we satisfied to employ 
 Schopenhauer's much more intelligible term, and thus leap at, 
 one bound (with no attempt at discussion of the steps in the 
 argument, but with scores of interesting, though partly irre- 
 levant illustrations) to the conclusion : the all-inclusive 
 Reality = a Unity of Will. Besides, as to the nature of 
 that unity which metaphysical system must effect amongst the 
 indefinite variety of forces (the almost infinite number of 
 wills) actually known to man, there is needed detailed critical 
 inquiry. It is in place to notice, however, that some concep- 
 tion of Force pervades all cognitive experience, and to inquire 
 critically into the genesis, development, objective application 
 and significance in the physical and chemical sciences, of this 
 conception, and into its ontological import and validity. For 
 the truth is beyond all controversy that no semblance of a 
 satisfactory theory of reality can be advanced, which does not 
 give a most prominent place to this category. Indeed, it is 
 just this category, which makes alive, effective, and impressive, 
 both our practical and our theoretical view of the World. This 
 gone or left out, we and all things can scarcely be even so 
 much as u A moving row of shadow-shapes." 
 
 The genesis and earlier developments of the conception of 
 Force are connected with a certain experience, common to all 
 men, which arises in the consciousness of those terms on 
 which the Self has intercourse with Things. There are seve- 
 ral uncertain factors in the analysis of this experience, even 
 at the hands of the most incisive of experts in psychology. 
 Indeed, so profound and comprehensive is this experience it- 
 
256 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 self that no analysis will, probably, succeed in sounding its 
 depths or in mapping out its entire domain. But its promi- 
 nent features are sufficiently well-known and agreed upon to 
 serve as points of attachment for a valid metaphysical theory. 
 Into the details of this analysis, or into the defence of our own 
 ^peculiar views respecting the psychology of the " Force-con- 
 cept," it is not necessary to enter here. It will suffice to out- 
 line this experience in the most elementary and sketchy 
 fashion. 
 
 If the " plain man's " consciousness is inquired of, as to the 
 view which it holds concerning the explanations necessary to 
 any understanding of the changes taking place in the complex 
 of observed phenomena, both internal and external, this view 
 may be suitably expressed in about the following way. I am 
 myself constantly doing a lot of different things with my 
 self or with the other beings which I meet in the course of my 
 experience ; but, then, these other beings are also constantly 
 doing a lot of different things with me. Moreover, I know 
 equally well that these beings are constantly doing a lot of 
 different things with one another. In short, I live in a world 
 of beings that cannot, and that do not, let each other alone ; 
 but they are, on the contrary, always doing something to one 
 another, and having something done to them by one another. 
 Practical knowledge consists, indeed, in knowing how to do 
 with things ; how to get them to do in certain ways with me ; 
 and how to avoid their doing with me, in certain other ways. 
 All knowledge, both practical and theoretical, of the world in 
 which I myself am placed, is knowledge of the manifold ways 
 which its beings have had, and may be expected to have, of 
 doing something and of having something done to them. 
 
 That view of the changing complex of phenomena, which 
 ascribes this complex to the reciprocal influences of the differ- 
 ent beings of the world, in the centre of which the self stands 
 as both observer and doer, is really a very profound and 
 complicated view. It brings back upon us all the problems 
 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 257 
 
 that belong to the attempts to deal critically with the con- 
 ception of reality. But it need only be noticed now that 
 the view is based upon the conception of Force as a Cause of 
 Change. At the very heart of that experience which ex- 
 presses its conclusions in such a naive but rational and highly 
 suggestive way, we recognize the " self-felt but inhibited 
 activity " to which we were obliged to refer as explaining the 
 rise of the conception of "pure being" or " substantiality," 
 as applied both to the self and to things. But, as was then 
 said (see p. 123 f.), no actual, concrete experience is ever an 
 experience of pure being, mere substance, or unconditioned 
 activity. And the category now under examination the 
 conception, namely, of force as a cause explanatory of change 
 shows plain signs of the aggregation of other factors about 
 this central and unanalyzable factor of all human experience. 
 Activity is never pure ; action is always followed by change 
 in the observed internal relations of the Self, and of the Self 
 toward other Things. It is in this consciousness of acting, 
 of being inhibited, and then made aware of subsequent 
 changes in the relations of the Self and of external Things, 
 that the conception of Force is formed. The action of any 
 being, when regarded as the cause of subsequent changes of 
 relations, either internal or external to that being, is its exer- 
 cise of "force " so-called. Force is action regarded as the 
 vause of a change of relations. 
 
 Further reflection upon every correct description of that 
 particular experience in which the conception of force origi- 
 nates shows, in a very impressive way, how inextricably in- 
 tertwined are the categories in the genesis and development 
 of all human experience. Here, when starting the attempt 
 to discover the roots of the category of Force, there have 
 been uncovered the kindred but not identical categories of 
 Change, of Relation, and of a peculiar kind of relation 
 which is ordinarily called that of " being a Cause. " But at 
 the centre of all is the mysterious consciousness of " being 
 
 17 
 
258 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 alive ; " and this was found to be equivalent to a " self-felt 
 activity. " 
 
 The conception of cause ranks itself, from a certain point 
 of view, under the conception of relation; for causation is 
 one among several kinds of relations, namely, that partic- 
 ular relation sustained by two beings in action, when one is 
 said to be somehow accountable for the other's change of 
 state. If it were not for observed changes in the relations 
 of things there would surely be no need to discover, or to 
 imagine, any explanation of change in the form of forces 
 said to be " inherent in, " or " transeunt upon " things. Yet 
 cause itself, as will appear more clearly later on, is a con- 
 ception of much greater complexity than is the conception of 
 either action or force ; although the latter conception that 
 of force cannot be detached, either in one's experience 
 with particular realities, or in one's theory of reality, from 
 that peculiar relation between things to which is given the 
 name of "cause." Force itself, then, cannot be described 
 (not to say defined) without reference to changes in the 
 relations of things for which it furnishes the explanatory 
 ground, or cause. 
 
 What has just been claimed in a general way may now 
 be illustrated by some example. Suppose that I have made 
 up my mind to lift a stone, which is rather heavy for my 
 unaided strength, and to place it in another position than 
 the one it now occupies. It has fallen from my garden wall ; 
 and I will replace it, if I am able. In planning this trans- 
 action it is likely that no thought, not to say vivid feeling, 
 of actually exerting force has entered the stream of my con- 
 sciousness, up to the moment when I begin lifting hard at 
 the stone. But if I have deliberated over the prospect of 
 my success in the coming effort, my mental picture of the 
 volitions I intend to put forth has been followed by a mental 
 picture of resulting sensations of tension and strain on my 
 part, and of the awakening, in a strong flood, of the feeling 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 259 
 
 of external resistance. If I chose to be very nice in my dis- 
 crimination of the minute changes going on in my own self- 
 conscious life, 1 might doubtless detect that the process of 
 deliberation itself, with its consequent mental "effort" to 
 determine beforehand the results of my yet further subse- 
 quent muscular effort, had already caused a change in my 
 own self. But, disregarding these niceties, which do not 
 eventuate in the plain man's consciousness, I bend my back 
 and stiffen my muscles to the task. At once the character 
 of that stream of consciousness I call myself becomes most 
 profoundly modified. Looked at from one point of view, I 
 am aware that I am putting forth (for me) an immense 
 amount of my force ; looked at from another but closely cor- 
 related point of view, the stone is resisting this force of mine 
 by itself putting forth a counteracting force. Jam lifting 
 upward : it is pulling downward ; and the practical question 
 is, which of the two is going to exert the dominant and over- 
 coming force. Slowly I raise it to its place on the wall ; 
 it meantime showing the teeth of its obstinate resistance by 
 scraping the skin, bruising the flesh and straining the heart 
 and back of its fellow energizer. Having overcome the 
 stone with extreme difficulty, I now sit down on another 
 neighboring stone, myself overcome, and proceed to re- 
 flect upon the psychological description and metaphysical 
 import of this accomplished transaction. 
 
 About certain features and implications of every experi- 
 ence like that just described there can be little or no doubt. 
 On the side of self-consciousness the important factor is this : 
 the idea and volition to produce a certain change in an ob- 
 ject not-self that Thing lying in space out of me and in 
 certain observed relations to other external objects has 
 been followed by action in the psycho-physical Self, with an 
 immense increase in the conscious "feeling of effort" so- 
 called. Much of this complex feeling of effort is itself, 
 psycho-physically considered, of peripheral origin ; it is a 
 
 
260 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 modification of sensation-consciousness due to the altered 
 condition of muscles, joints, skin, heart, lungs, diaphragm, 
 and other organs of the body external to the central nervous 
 system. But there seems as little reasonable doubt, that 
 this conscious modification is not all of peripheral, but is 
 also largely of central origin. Quite irrespective of this 
 disputed point in physiological psychology, there is abso- 
 lutely no doubt as to how the total experience appears to the 
 self in consciousness; it is as an immediately known, an 
 "envisaged," exercise of its own force in the accomplish- 
 ment of an end which has been previously presented in idea 
 to the same self. 1 moved that stone to be sure, with my 
 body, and only by " putting forth " all my strength. It is 
 in the force of which I was indisputably conscious as belong- 
 ing for the time being to my psycho-physical self, that the 
 vera causa of the change which has happened to this thing 
 is to be found. This psycho-physical force of mine was, 
 however, resisted strongly by the force of the stone ; it was 
 inhibited so that at one instant it seemed as though my idea 
 could not get itself realized in the contemplated change of 
 the object-thing. Thus the entire transaction appears from 
 the most interior point of view as a conflict of forces differ- 
 ently centered the one in my Self, and the other in the 
 Thing, not-myself. 
 
 Such a complex transaction, however, from start to finish, 
 is not satisfactorily described in mere terms of self-felt and 
 yet inhibited activity. For my more objective experience 
 undergoes meanwhile a series of concomitant and dependent 
 changes. By the various appropriate forms of sense-percep- 
 tion I am made aware of a succession of crossed and inter- 
 laced variations in the position of my own bodily members 
 and in the positions of the object-thing (the stone) ; I per- 
 ceive also a variety of changing relations between us both 
 and other things. The stone is lifted, from the ground, in 
 my arms, and placed upon the wall. Things external to my 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 261 
 
 body are now arranged differently from the manner of their 
 arrangement a few moments ago. Popularly expressed, the 
 exertion of my force has made the stone change its place in 
 space, by motion from one position to another ; the exertion 
 of the stone's force has resisted, pained, and fatigued me. 
 The accomplished change in the stone's relation to other 
 things has for its cause my forthputting of energy, directed 
 toward an end mentally represented beforehand ; the accom- 
 plished change in the condition of myself has for its cause 
 the forthputting of the energy of the thing with which I vol- 
 untarily entered into a relation of conflict of forces. 
 
 Such conceptions as the foregoing, doubtless, seem crude 
 and anthropomorphic to the advocate of a dialectical meta- 
 physics. Crude they may be; and anthropomorphic they 
 certainly are. But in them there lies hidden the entire 
 ontological problem of the world's incessant behavior, as 
 that problem is given to man in all his cognitive experience 
 concerning the terms on which he has commerce with his 
 fellows and with things. And the alleged anthropomorph- 
 ism, instead of turning out to be an incidental feature which 
 progressive science succeeds in throwing off, is really a 
 valid system of naive explanations that underlies the entire 
 body of human science. Such anthropomorphism is an ex- 
 planatory principle which must be trustingly received and 
 faithfully applied in order to understand the deepest Nature 
 of Reality. It is based upon the assumption that the trans- 
 actions of the real world are all to be accounted for as the 
 work of beings that, by virtue of the powers, or forces, cen- 
 tring in them, are the causes of changes in the relations 
 which they sustain to one another. The moment, however, 
 this assumption is applied to transactions between things 
 other than selves, it implicates the belief that things, too, 
 are so far forth actually constituted after the analogy of the 
 self-known Self. 
 
 In a word, we have here discovered the genesis of the con- 
 
262 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 ception of " Substantial Causality. " This is a conception 
 which arises inevitably out of our experience with things, 
 and which, in the way of analogy, is carried over into the 
 constitution of the things themselves. As says Wundt 1 : 
 "The substantializing of the causal-concept undoubtedly 
 has its psychological roots in our active personality " ( in 
 der handeinden PersonlichJceit) ; and, " in its first stadium 
 the conception of Force, or Energy, is identical therewith " : 
 "Kraft ist substantielle Causalitat." The force that is 
 ascribed to things and without such ascription the entire 
 world of ordinary experience and the world of scientific in- 
 terest and achievement is a mere phantasmagoria, a swarm 
 of "shadow-shapes" partially amenable to logical formulas 
 is projected into them on the assumption that they, like 
 us, are real centres of self-activity, substantial causes of 
 mutually determined changes in reality. 
 
 The psychological objection to this view, that our experi- 
 ence when we seem to ourselves to be " exerting force " is 
 illusory, does not alter the metaphysical conclusion. For 
 the fundamental problem is wholly missed by this objection. 
 This problem is set by the inquiry : What is the genesis of 
 the conception of force itself ? and, Why do I attribute force 
 to things in their relations to me, even if I am not war- 
 ranted in attributing it to my Self in relation to things ? 
 To derive the genesis of the force-concept from a mere, pas- 
 sively conceived sensation -content, is to substitute that 
 which is first for that which is last; and vice versa. Or, 
 rather, the cognitive experience out of which arise the con- 
 ceptions of my Self exerting force, and of having force ex- 
 erted upon me, is one and the same experience. Being 
 active and being passive, doing and being done to, influenc- 
 ing and being influenced, exerting force on another and 
 being forced by another, use what words you will, they 
 are explicable only as correlate terms. 
 
 Moreover, such correlate terms cannot be explained, or 
 
 i System der Philosophic, p. 292 f. 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 263 
 
 even described with reference to their essential content, 
 without reliance upon the validity of this same primitive 
 universal experience. Somehow or other all men have the 
 conception of force, and employ it as a principle of explana- 
 tion for the changes which take place in the relations of the 
 particular beings of the world. The chemico-physical sci- 
 ences build their structures upon the same explanatory prin- 
 ciple. But this conception cannot be obtained from any 
 merely external and sensuous observation of the behavior 
 of things. There is nothing in the mere intensity or exten- 
 sive magnitude of sensations, considered as content, to jus- 
 tify or even to suggest such a conception. What if, when 
 one grasps the stone and pulls upon it, the muscular and 
 tactual and other sensations become more painful and in- 
 tense, and seem to spread over a larger area of the body ? 
 What if one feels certain internal sensations, located in the 
 heart, lungs, or diaphragm, changing in similar fashion ? 
 All this is, in itself, mere fact of change to be discriminated 
 in the content of consciousness. But why explain this fact 
 of change by attributing it to some invisible, intangible, 
 non-sensuous cause, called my force, on the one hand, and 
 called the force of gravitation, or the down-pulling force of 
 the stone, on the other hand ? To this question no answer 
 can be given that does not recognize the truth which consti- 
 tutes the core of every man's experience in all such cases. 
 On the one hand, is in fact, a self-felt activity, and on the 
 other hand, an inhibition of, or opposition to that activity ; 
 and this latter is actually attributed, after the analogy of 
 the Self's behavior, to the Thing that is not-self. 
 
 Now if by the study of physiology and physiological psy- 
 chology it is shown that what appears in consciousness as a 
 self-felt activity is, after all, only the feeling of the back, 
 arms, heart, lungs, and diaphragm, and that these impor- 
 tant organs force upon consciousness the illusion of being 
 a centre of activity, the essential truth of the case is not 
 
264 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 altered. The question recurs : Why are the back, or other 
 organs of the body, thought of as being the "substantial 
 causes " of both the change in my consciousness and also in 
 the position of the external thing? This singular illusion 
 as much needs to be accounted for as does the most naive 
 confidence of an unreflecting realism. In fact, to speak of 
 the application of the force-concept to the Self as an illusion 
 only increases the difficulties in the way of understanding 
 the genesis of the concept itself. Instead of doing honor to 
 the real potencies residing in things, and to the sciences 
 which deal so successfully with these potencies, this defec- 
 tive psychological analysis goes far to undermine the reality 
 of all force and the truthfulness of all the physical sciences. 
 
 The candid physicist is apt to have far less trouble with 
 his metaphysics of force than is the psychologist who is 
 influenced by the prejudices of an insufficient analysis. This 
 is because the former deals with the phenomena in terms of 
 conceptions that, however crude they may be, are based upon 
 fundamental data in some genuine, safe, and realistic way. 
 The examination of the current physical uses of this cate- 
 gory is therefore most instructive to the student of syste- 
 matic metaphysics. But on the threshold of any such 
 examination we are met by two classes of writers on phys- 
 ics. There are those who, being from the first desirous to 
 avoid all metaphysical assumptions or else suspicious of the 
 particular implications which belong to the conception of 
 force, try to make as little use as possible of this concep- 
 tion. But other writers, seeing clearly that this conception 
 cannot possibly be dispensed with by the scientific student 
 of physical principles, define it, at least in a provisional and 
 semi-practical way. They then proceed either to employ the 
 conception in the development of their science, or to substi- 
 tute for it the more definite and manageable conception of 
 energy. 
 
 It is notable of that class of physicists who make the more 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 265 
 
 serious attempt to handle the conceptions of physics with as 
 little as possible recognition of the metaphysical nature of 
 the conception of Force that they succeed in appearance 
 only ; over and over again they find themselves compelled 
 to introduce covertly the same conception, although ex- 
 pressed in obscure and inappropriate terms. If the word 
 " energy " be substituted for the word " force, " we do indeed 
 obtain a most valuable new working theory. But if we de- 
 fine or even describe in terms of our experience with real 
 things, what is meant by energy, we can scarcely avoid in- 
 troducing in a modified way factors belonging to the other 
 and more fundamental conception, To speak of "work" 
 actually done, or of the " potential " of work, involves a ref- 
 erence to essentially the same experience. All the measure- 
 ments of physics are indeed, primarily accomplished by the 
 application of some standard to the results of force that is, 
 to the movements of physical bodies, or to the distances and 
 relations in space of bodies regarded as movable. But the 
 very significance of spatial relations, as indicating the pos- 
 sibility, or the certainty, of actual movement in the future, 
 is entirely lost without reference to the conception of force 
 as the non-sensuous cause of change. 
 
 Physics itself, as soon as it becomes anything more than 
 a purely abstract science of phoronomics, is essentially a 
 science of dynamics. Indeed, phoronomics itself = kine- 
 matics; and the latter cannot be brought into touch with 
 reality anywhere except as it "forms properly an introduc- 
 tion to mechanics," because it "involves the mathematical 
 principles which are applied to its data of forces." 
 
 Still further, it will be found that all attempts to describe 
 or define those material beings which physical science investi- 
 gates, are obliged to connect the conception of force, as a 
 cause, with their description or definition of matter. Tn the 
 barest and vaguest thought about it, matter is, at least, a 
 "that- which" producing effects in the senses of man. And 
 
266 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 if this bare and vague thought is helped out as must hap- 
 pen before the beginnings of a science of physics can emerge 
 
 by statements concerning the habitual doings of this sub- 
 stance, these statements themselves become descriptive of 
 different effects ascribed to one substantial cause. Here 
 again the mind is led back to the experience which warrants 
 this belief : To be a force = to be a substantial cause. 
 
 Abundant illustrations of the impossibility of treating 
 physical subjects without virtually introducing the concep- 
 tion of Force as a Substantial Cause of changing spatial rela- 
 tions may be derived from all the writings which have made 
 the attempt at such treatment. It is better worth the while 
 of the critical student of metaphysics, however, to note how 
 all the more definite accepted descriptions of this category 
 
 however imperfectly or awkwardly expressed come to 
 the same fundamental conclusion. The world of things 
 which are constantly changing their relations in space, by 
 movement in gross masses, and movement of their molecular 
 or atomic parts, must be explained to the human intellect as 
 dependent upon invisible and intangible causes called the 
 forces "of," or "in," or "belonging to," things. These 
 very words "of," and "in," and "belonging to," are them- 
 selves the embodiment, in figures of speech, of that same 
 fundamental and essentially unchanging experience which 
 has already been described and analyzed. The physical in- 
 terpretation of these figures of speech would lead science 
 into not a few awkward predicaments ; it is, therefore, quite 
 the correct thing for modern physics to decline to discuss 
 the meaning for reality of these significant figures of speech. 
 It is not the physicist's business to tell what is the qualifica- 
 tion, or aspect, of things which makes it at all appropriate 
 for us to speak of them as in the possession of, or as being the 
 seats of, those physical forces which are the invisible and 
 intangible substantial causes of the most complex of changes 
 that go on in the material World. 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 267 
 
 "Force," says Sir William Thomson, "is any cause which 
 tends to alter a body's natural state of rest or of uniform 
 motion in a straight line." Here the essentially true fac- 
 tors of the conception are precisely this : Force is the cause 
 of any change in the motion of a body as referred to another 
 body. To speak of "rest or of uniform motion in a straight 
 line" as the "natural state" of the bodies of the physical 
 universe is a fiction which, however useful it may be for 
 theoretical purposes (and of this even we have our doubts) is 
 an entirely inadequate representation of the real facts of the 
 case. This theoretical simplicity does not represent nature 
 as we find it. Rarely, if ever, does nature show to man, as 
 existing in the present or as having existed in the past, in 
 any of its masses or of the particles composing its masses, 
 either rest or uniform motion in a straight line. And if 
 such were the "natural " state of the world's physical bodies, 
 no system of definitely constructed and organized things 
 which is precisely what we call Nature, could ever be ac- 
 counted for by any theory of forces that did not take experi- 
 ence more into the account. The natural state of all things 
 is, so far as experience makes us acquainted with it, rest- 
 less and ceaseless changes of motions, through infinitely 
 varied spatial relations to one another. The invisible 
 causes of these changes are the forces that are figuratively 
 said to "reside in," or "belong to," the different things. 
 As to the propriety of identifying a mere tendency with a 
 force, as does the definition of Thomson, we will not remark 
 here. 
 
 More clear-cut is the definition of force which reverses the 
 point of starting in the following way : " Every cause cap- 
 able of determining the movement of a body, or of modify- 
 ing a movement already existing, is called Force." l But to 
 speak of "a cause capable of determining" is to repeat the 
 
 1 From the " Cours elementaire de Physique " of Boutan and D'Almeida, 
 I., p. 6. 
 
268 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 causal idea twice over; and this, after having once suffi- 
 ciently indicated its existence by the word "cause." For 
 no force-less being is "capable" of doing anything; and no 
 being can "determine " the movement of another being with- 
 out acting upon that other as a cause. When, again, force 
 is defined as " any action between material bodies by which 
 they change or tend to change each other's condition " (so S. 
 Newcomb), the thought is expressed that the activity of one 
 thing is regarded as a cause (as that " by which ") of change 
 in the internal or external relations of another (a mutual 
 change, as " between ; " or possibly to be regarded as con- 
 fined to a change of "condition "). But if all physical, phe- 
 nomena are resolved into changes of position or of motion, 
 then force is briefly defined as "the efficient cause of all 
 physical phenomena" (E. C. Pickering). Indeed, most of the 
 modern definitions of force, as a fundamental conception in 
 physics, contain only comparatively slight modifications of 
 the language in which Newton stated the fourth definition 
 of Book I. of his " Principia " : " Force is an action exerted 
 upon a body in order to change its state either of rest or of 
 moving uniformly forward in a right line." But Newton's 
 statement involves both the same assumption, that rest, or 
 uniform motion in a straight line, is the natural condition 
 of real things, and also the fictitious and external view of 
 the whole subject which regards an action as something cap- 
 able of actual transmission from body to body. It also has 
 this superfluity : it introduces the teleological idea (" in 
 order to "), in language, if not in fact. Somewhat unne- 
 cessarily metaphysical for the purposes of the physicist, 
 perhaps, are the following attempts to define this category : 
 "The invisible causes of these reciprocal actions we call 
 forces ; " l or, " The last cognizable cause of any change what- 
 ever is called Force." 2 
 
 1 Muller's " Lehrbuch der Physik und Meteorologie ; " I, p. 30. 
 
 2 Bohn's " Ergebnisse physikalischer Forschung ; " I, p. 3. 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 269 
 
 For the vague and intractable metaphysical conception 
 which attaches itself to the word Force, a substitute has 
 been provided, with a more definite and workable content, 
 by modern physics in connection with its use of the word 
 "Energy." Here the thought is a measurable quantity of 
 work which is expressed by the configuration or motions of 
 the bodies constituting a system and so reciprocally related 
 to each other. Thus we are told that " energy may be de- 
 fined as the power of doing work or of overcoming resis- 
 tance " (" Encyc. Brit. ;? ). But since " overcoming resistance " 
 is one of the finest and bravest ways of "doing work," one 
 scarcely sees the need of employing both clauses. Two of 
 the writers, whose definitions of force have already been 
 quoted, express their conception of energy, as follows: 
 "Energy is an ideal physical quantity which serves as a 
 common measure of certain forces or results of action in 
 nature " (S. Newcomb); or "By energy is meant the capacity 
 of a body to do work " (E. C. Pickering). Of these two 
 definitions the former brings out more clearly the measur- 
 ableness of the energy belonging to every physical body, 
 whether by virtue of its position, or its motion, in relation 
 to other bodies; but the language becomes vacillating and 
 obscure when it divides that which is measured into "forces," 
 on the one hand, and "the results of action," on the other 
 hand. The second of these two definitions fails to bring 
 out clearly the quantitative aspect of all those problems in 
 physics which deal with the conception of energy. For 
 unless " capacity " means merely amount of work, we have 
 in it and in the words "doing" and "work," the same idea 
 repeated once or twice over. 
 
 As far as the metaphysical view of the category of Force 
 is concerned, the physical conception of Energy has nothing 
 either to add or to detract. But in its way of representing 
 the real beings and actual transactions with which it is the 
 business of physical science to deal, the latter conception, as 
 
270 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 customarily held by modern writers, is much the more cor- 
 rect and satisfactory of the two. For, in the first place, the 
 modern conception of energy isolates some system of bodies, 
 and considers as its definite problem their changes of actual 
 position or of motion; second, it emphasizes the doing of 
 work, which is something appreciable and measurable; 
 and, third, the different " works " performed by the different 
 bodies or systems are held to be comparable with one an- 
 other, by application of some common standard, in terms of 
 number. Upon the basis of this kind of computation we 
 may arrive at the dynamical science of the changes of things. 
 This, then, is the picture of a world of real physical beings, 
 all at work, with varying and yet comparable intensities and 
 results. No real being is there in this world, that does not 
 do some work; no being is there whose work may not be 
 brought into relations with the work of other beings for 
 their mutual hindrance or furtherance. A grandly dynami- 
 cal world, where every " body " is at work ; and neither 
 beings, nor forces, are ghostlike and merely conceptual, 
 or in the air ! Or to state the truth in less figurative 
 terms, although perhaps in a way which trangresses the 
 limits of safe physical theory : " The conception of energy 
 arises out of the direct recognition of the fact that every 
 possible change in the physical universe is effected against 
 some Force, and it is just in virtue of its power of overcom- 
 ing such force that a body is said to have energy. ... It is 
 in virtue of its possession of so much energy a measurable 
 thing that any body does work, i. e. , produces change 
 against force. " 1 
 
 If now we analyze more carefully this dynamical concep- 
 tion of the world which modern physical science has adopted, 
 it seems to involve the following important particulars : (1) 
 The world of things is known as having some sort of Unity 
 that is referable to the Conception of Force ; (2) this unity 
 
 1 " Relation of Matter to Energy." Monograph by " B. L. L." 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 271 
 
 comprises, however, a vast number of particular beings that 
 must be regarded as in possession of, or as centres of, defin- 
 ite and measurable amounts of force; (3) these particular 
 beings, -vehicles of energy, or centres of force, as the} 
 change their relations to one another in space, or their in- 
 ternal condition (the relations of the molecules or atoms 
 that compose them), must be thought of as increasing or 
 diminishing in the amounts of work they are doing; (4) the 
 change in the amounts of work doing by these particular 
 beings is to be regarded as caused by a redistribution of the 
 One Force of the world; (5) all changes of relations and 
 conditions, which take place through this ceaseless redistri- 
 bution of the World's Force, are in accordance with certain 
 ideal limitations (that is to say they are not haphazard, but 
 are according to law) ; and, finally, (6) thus does the World 
 acquire a Unity which is both dynamical and ideal, because 
 it consists of a vast number of beings, that are all doing 
 work " upon " one another, but in some fashion that has re- 
 spect to a set of regulations and, it may be, to some common 
 goal or end. At any rate, upon this last point, the actual 
 results observed, and both accepted as a working postulate 
 and also progressively proved by experience to constitute a 
 true physical theory, indicate an orderly behavior of many 
 beings, in the accomplishment of a "self-respecting" and 
 " mutually respecting " work. This work, as a totality and 
 in all its details, involves constant resistance, conflict, reac- 
 tion as well as action, destruction of the old as well as con- 
 struction of the new. But all this conflict and change does 
 not affect any of these six essential " moments " in the physi- 
 cal and dynamical conception of the world. 
 
 Now, before a student of systematic metaphysics trans- 
 lates this picture so fair and grand, yet terrible in some 
 of its aspects into the ultimate terms of his theory, he 
 must give some attention to those more particular features 
 of the picture about which modern physical science is still 
 
272 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 obscure and uncertain, and even, perhaps, in some cases, 
 self-contradictory. Among such features is the customary 
 way which physical science has of elaborating the doctrine 
 of this ceaseless redistribution of energy. Of course, it 
 would not be fair to expect of physical science that it should 
 think out for itself the meaning of all the figures of speech 
 which it is obliged to employ. Probably few of its students 
 do not recognize at once the truth of the statement that to 
 speak of energy as some kind of an entity, which can actu- 
 ally pass from one physical body to another, or which can be 
 regarded as a kind of gross sum that is capable of being it- 
 self subdivided into different amounts and species of ener- 
 gies, is to employ highly figurative language for the scientific 
 expression of a multitude of facts that differ widely in their 
 character as given by our actual experience. When, then, 
 so clear thinkers as Tait and Clerk-Maxwell assert that 
 "energy has been shown to have as much claim to objective 
 reality as matter has " (Tait), and yet "energy we know only 
 as that which, in all natural phenomena, is continually pass- 
 ing from one portion of matter to another " (Clerk-Maxwell), 1 
 we must understand them as dealing in convenient figures of 
 speech. As to the truth which is expressed in the former of 
 these two statements, only thus much is either certain or 
 intelligible. The only "claim to objective reality," which 
 physical energy can show is to be found in our ideal inter- 
 pretation of the observed or imagined changes in the rela- 
 tions of material things. On the other hand, the only 
 " claim to objective reality " which matter has, depends 
 upon things so manifesting themselves in our experience 
 as that we are compelled to regard them as possessing and 
 exercising force. That is to say, " matter " must show 
 "force," in order to establish its claim to objective reality; 
 but physical " force " is itself never shown apart from some 
 kind of physical existence = "matter," in general. To 
 
 1 Matter and Motion, p. 165. 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 273 
 
 speak then of our knowing energy only as it continually 
 " passes from one portion of matter (thing, or constituent of 
 a thing) to another," is to deny that we can know energy at 
 all For energy can never be known, or even conceived of, 
 as an objective reality capable of actual transference from 
 one thing to another. 
 
 At this point it is necessary to call critical reflection back 
 to the facts of cognitive experience. What the mind knows 
 is simply this : (1) material things are constantly changing 
 both their external relations to one another in space, and 
 also the internal relations of their constituent parts; (2) 
 these changes are measurable and comparable, by applica- 
 tion of standards chosen for purposes of theoretical or prac- 
 tical convenience ; and (3) the causes for these changes we 
 are somehow compelled to find in the so-called " forces " 
 belonging to the things. The general facts of experience 
 may be expressed as follows: Of a number of physical be- 
 ings, A, B, C, D, etc., existing together in time, their simul- 
 taneous or successive changes are observed to conform to 
 some ideal principle, or formula, such as x = A. Y, or x 
 varies as ^/ y. The cause of this uniform, mutually depen- 
 dent behavior of A, B, (7, D, etc., is then declared to be 
 found in their common possession of one (or one kind of) 
 energy ; namely, Eg or Eh (energy due to gravitation, or 
 energy that is called heat). And, next, the principle, or 
 formula, is spoken as the law of that particular kind of 
 energy (the formula, L, which is followed by Eg or Eh). 
 
 But, further, it is learned by experience that when the 
 measurable changes in the internal condition or external 
 relations of A are increased or diminished by a certain num- 
 ber of units of the standard, then corresponding changes in- 
 crease or diminish in the internal condition or external 
 relations of B provided that A and B are the two bodies 
 exclusively to be considered. What is true of A and B, is 
 also true of A and (7, of B and <7, and of A and D, etc. ; and 
 
 18 
 
274 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 so on, until all the beings concerned (A, B, C, D, . . . N) 
 are considered in all their possible inter-relations. Hence 
 the warrant for that figure of speech which regards E as a 
 gross amount of an entity called energy, that may be redis- 
 tributed continually amongst A, B, (7, D, etc., by being 
 transmitted or passed over from one to another. The im- 
 possibility of any such actual transaction, however, follows 
 from the very nature of force; and no meaning valid for 
 reality can be given to any of the expressions that follow 
 this figure of speech without referring back to the original 
 experience to which the genesis of the entire conception of 
 force has been traced. All that is observed by the senses 
 is external to the true inner nature of things, regarded as 
 centres of force; but we know what this inner nature is, 
 whenever we have that living commerce with them in which 
 our will-power is met, opposed, and overcomes or is van- 
 quished, by the will-power which we, on account of this very 
 experience attribute to them. 
 
 . In this connection the fallacy of one assumption, at any 
 rate, as an assumption which has clung to the science of 
 physics with a strange pertinacity requires a brief notice. 
 This assumption is the denial of actio in distans, as though 
 it were impossible and even inconceivable as a qualification 
 or potency of matter. When the mystery of gravitation was 
 first discovered, it was natural enough to endeavor to lessen 
 this mystery by explaining the so-called force of gravitation 
 through some kind of impact. If enough little bodies could 
 be imagined to hit the big bodies a sufficient number of ener- 
 getic blows to the second, the former could give over into 
 the possession of the latter a force sufficient to account for 
 their influence upon one another through intervening space. 
 Thus Newton, in a letter to Bentley, 1 declares it to be "in- 
 conceivable that inanimate brute matter should . . . affect 
 other matter without mutual contact." "That one body," 
 
 1 See Newton's Works, ed. S. Horsley, vol. iv. p. 438. 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 275 
 
 he adds, "may act upon another at a distance through a 
 vacuum without the medium of anything else, " is " so great 
 an absurdity that no man who has in philosophical matters 
 a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. " In 
 accordance with the same views of the inconceivability of a 
 true actio in distans we find Bernoulli l declaring the exercise 
 of force without impact "revolting to minds accustomed to 
 receiving no principle in physics save those which are in- 
 contestable." "There is," says Professor Challis 2 also, "no 
 other kind of force than pressure by contact of one body with 
 another. " And not a few of the highest modern authorities 
 have not hesitated to pronounce upon the a priori impossi- 
 bility of the conception of the action of force without im- 
 pact. "Gravity cannot act," boldly declares Mohr, 3 "except 
 by the interposition of ponderable matter. " " Forces acting 
 through void space are inconceivable, nay absurd," says Du 
 Bois-Reymond, 4 "and have become familiar concepts among 
 physicists since Newton's time from a misapprehension of 
 his doctrine and against his express warning." And the 
 authors of the "Unseen Universe," 6 in plainest violation of 
 the confidence which they might well have reposed in the 
 title chosen for their treatise, affirm: "Of course the as- 
 sumption of action at a distance may be made to account for 
 anything; but it is impossible (as Newton has long pointed 
 out in his celebrated letter to Bentley) for any one 'who has 
 in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking ' for 
 a moment to admit the possibility of such action." 
 
 Now as to the question of fact namely, whether the phy- 
 sical bodies of the universe do act, as it is figuratively said, 
 "upon" one another, without coming into relations of con- 
 tact metaphysics is entirely ready to leave the observa- 
 
 1 See the reference in Stallo, " Modern Physics," p. 55. 
 
 2 Philos. Mag. 4th Series, vol. xxxi., p. 467. 
 8 "Geschichte der Erde," Appendix, p. 512. 
 
 * Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens, p. 20. 
 6 Ibid., 3d ed., p. 100 (Stewart and Tait). 
 
276 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 tions of physicists to decide. And here two conceptions of 
 matter (to which reference will be made later on) have for a 
 long time contested, and perhaps will always continue to 
 contest the field. These are the conception of matter as 
 consisting of masses, or elements, set in an empty medium 
 of space, and the conception of matter as a completely space- 
 filling continuum. Now there is nothing in the nature of the 
 conception of force which enables us to choose between these 
 two conceptions ; and both of them leave the nature of force, 
 considered as the substantial cause of the changes which go 
 on in the configurations and spatial relations of material 
 masses, equally mysterious, equally natural, simple, and 
 intelligible. But if we are driven to a choice on a priori 
 grounds between the two, we may well declare that offhand 
 denials of the possibility of actio in distant are, of all forms 
 of assumption, the most childishly anthropomorphic. In- 
 deed, the only solid ground afforded for these denials is 
 the fact that we, bodily selves, cannot determine changes in 
 not-selves, in things external to the body, unless we get 
 some bodily organ so close to the things that we can feel 
 their pressure without readily seeing between it and them. 
 This is what impact means to the senses. And, indeed, one 
 of these authorities in physics rests his objections upon this 
 very ground. Professor Challis expressly insists that since, 
 only when we have come into actual contact with a thing, do 
 " we feel in ourselves the power of causing motion by such 
 pressure," and since "personal sensation" is the only "basis 
 of scientific knowledge," we are forbidden to admit that 
 any mode of moving one body by another is possible except 
 that of contact and pressure. 
 
 But in answer to those physicists who claim the inconceiv- 
 ability of actio in distans, the objections from psychology and 
 philosophy are numerous and complete. Pressure-feeling is, 
 of itself, no more translatable into immanent or transeunt 
 force than is another kind of feeling. The apparent contact 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 277 
 
 of the bodily organ with the thing it presses upon is not 
 actual contact. Neither it nor any other two things or mi- 
 nute subdivisions of things, are ever known by the senses to 
 come into actual contact; and the mystery of influence over 
 the minutest amount of space is essentially as great as that 
 of influence over millions of miles of space. Moreover, 
 actio in distans cannot be conceived of as the traversing, by an 
 entity called force, of either the smaller or the larger dis- 
 tance ; for there is really no such transaction as the actual 
 passing of force from one body to another. Such a passing 
 no matter how close the contact is the inconceivable 
 thing, and not the figuratively so-called actio in distans. 
 And, indeed, the idea that " a body cannot act where it is 
 not," is the relic of mediaeval metaphysics in the domain of 
 modern physics. 
 
 But the one demand which the philosophical mind makes 
 upon the conception of force is that it shall serve actually to 
 unite the varied changes in the different bodies of the physi- 
 cal world into the Unity of a System. It was this demand 
 which Newton felt, as the very passage cited so often by his 
 followers explicitly shows. For this passage ends with the 
 significant declaration: "Gravity must be caused by an 
 agent acting constantly according to certain laws " (that is, 
 in a legal and ideal way) ; " but whether this agent is mate- 
 rial or immaterial 1 have left to the consideration of my 
 readers." Now since all force is essentially "immaterial," 
 in the meaning in which Newton uses this word, and yet is 
 immanently connected with the very being of all so-called 
 material things, one may guess without long-continued hesi- 
 tation what view of the truth this master in physics felt 
 himself compelled to take. Force, which is = cause of 
 changes of motion, is an immaterial agent, but present in 
 all material things; otherwise these things would be "in- 
 animate brute matter" to use Newton's own significant 
 words. 
 
278 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 The modern physical principle of the conservation and 
 correlation of energy, and the claim that the quantum of 
 such energy in the universe is unchanging, summarizes a 
 vast amount of observation and carefully framed . theory. 
 The propositions and assumptions which enter into this the- 
 ory are worthy of careful examination by the student of sys- 
 tematic metaphysics; but their complete truthfulness in 
 fact, or the satisfactoriness of the theory, does not alter the 
 nature or the validity of his conception of Force. The the- 
 ory, however, requires one distinction which is of no little 
 interest and importance. This is the distinction between 
 " kinetic " energy and " potential " energy ; or between en- 
 ergy which is measurable as observable changes in the ex- 
 ternal relations or internal conditions of bodies, and energy 
 which is imagined to be located in these bodies by virtue 
 of their relations of position or their statical condition of 
 strain, tension, etc. In the one case we have the concep- 
 tion of energy that is actually "doing work " by producing 
 changes of velocity in the masses or the constituents of the 
 masses, of physical bodies ; in the other case, we are asked 
 to imagine an energy which is liable to be " set free " for the 
 actual doing of work by some change in the mutual configur- 
 ation of the bodies of the system in which it resides. Of 
 course the language employed by this distinction is highly 
 figurative. That energy, which is something essentially per- 
 ceivable and measurable as a product of mass and velocity, 
 or units of motion in units of time, should be spoken of as 
 "potential" or "stored," carries our reflection back to the 
 psychological origin and metaphysical signifiance of the con- 
 ception of Force. 
 
 Most instructive, therefore, is it to take the ideas in- 
 volved in the distinction between potential energy and 
 kinetic energy before our na'ive and unscientific experience 
 with things. In this experience we note the significant fact 
 that one often seems to one's self to be exercising, or suffer- 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 279 
 
 ing from, no small amount of force, without any notable 
 change by way of motion marking the result. This would 
 have been the case with me at the instant when I was lift- 
 ing hard at the stone and the stone had not yet begun to 
 move. I should then have known myself as in a condition 
 of " stress " or " strain, " that is, as possessed of energy 
 not yet made effective as a cause of actual motion. The 
 not-self-object, the stone, would also have been thought of 
 as liable to prove too strong for me. It will perhaps con- 
 tinue to cling to the ground ; or when raised a little way, it 
 will move backward toward the ground, in defiance of my 
 utmost force. 
 
 Moreover, the advantages and disadvantages of "position," 
 as respects the effects of the ordinary exercise of so-called 
 force, are perfectly well known by every observing man. 
 For the stone can show me its inherent force in a much more 
 convincing way when it is placed upon my foot ; or particu- 
 larly when it falls upon me from a considerable height. 
 Again, if I throw it from my hand, it drops to the ground 
 at a more or less remote point according as I put more or 
 less of my force into the throw. Or if I wish to avail my- 
 self of the weight of the stone, or of a hammer, to accom- 
 plish work, the higher the lift of the implement, the greater 
 the amount of work done by the blow. 
 
 What is thus crude and inaccurate in every man's worka- 
 day knowledge, physical science renders refined, accurate, 
 and statable in terms of definite formulas. But it does not 
 in the least change man's conception of what can really be 
 meant by the "storing" of energy, or by the "potency" 
 which things have exclusively in virtue of their advantageous 
 positions; or by the "conversion" of a kind of energy that 
 is not actually doing work into an energy which is actually 
 at work, as soon as the favoring circumstances are found. 
 Inasmuch as it taxes the imagination to picture non-self-like 
 things in the possession of that of which they show no signs ; 
 
 
280 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 inasmuch, too, as more careful observation frequently reveals 
 an indefinite number of minute movements, hitherto unsus- 
 pected, going on in such things; the tendency of physical 
 theory is toward the assumption that so-called potential 
 energy is never really non-kinetic. "Potential energy," 
 says Tait, "must in some way depend upon motion." If 
 this assumption could be verified in all cases to perfection, 
 then the sum of the squares of the velocity of every portion 
 of matter, multiplied by its mass, would be a constant 
 quantity. Then apparent losses of energy would be only 
 apparent. And this is precisely what Leibnitz 1 although 
 somewhat crudely conceived to be true, in the example of 
 two non-elastic bodies, when encountering each other. They 
 become, he thinks, "agitated interiorly" with an amount of 
 motion which shows that there has been no real loss of their 
 active forces. The physicist Huygens, 2 asserted the same 
 opinion, as follows : " The quantity of movement which bod- 
 ies have cannot be increased or diminished by their encoun- 
 tering each other ; but it always remains the same quantity 
 in the same direction (vers la m$me cdte), after subtracting 
 the quantity of movement in the opposite direction." 
 
 It is, indeed, only as an abstract and a priori principle of 
 phoronomics that the modern theory of the conservation and 
 correlation of energy can be pronounced to be demonstrative 
 or even of universal applicability. As a formula explana- 
 tory of the real facts of experience it is a presupposition in 
 which a number of the fundamental dynamical conceptions 
 of physics are united 3 ; it is not workable at all without 
 admitting the somewhat obscure metaphysical distinction 
 between actual energy and potential energy ; it has hitherto 
 been proved, as an empirical rule, only within a somewhat 
 
 1 " Comp. Opera," ed. Erdmann, p. 775." 
 
 2 Article, " On the History of Force/' by Dr. C. K. Akin : " Phil. Mag." 4th 
 Series, vol. xxviii., p. 470 f. 
 
 3 Comp. Wundt, " System der Philosophic," p. 467 (Phoronomische und 
 dynamische Principien ) . 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 281 
 
 narrow range of observation ; and it is available for purposes 
 of prediction (that last test of the scientific character of any 
 principle) only in a certain still more narrow class of cases. 
 
 The clearest picture of a case to which the theory of the 
 conservation and correlation of physical energy incontest- 
 ably applies may be gained in somewhat the following way : 
 Let us suppose a number of bodies -4, -B, 0, />,... N 
 the aggregate sum of whose capacity for doing work = X, if 
 both their energies of motion and also their energies of posi- 
 tion, as due to the amounts of attractions and repulsions 
 belonging to their relations in space, be taken into the ac- 
 count in calculating X. Then, so long as this system of 
 bodies is considered in a merely quantitative way, and as 
 uninfluenced from outside itself, the energy of the total sys- 
 tem will be neither increased nor diminished. The energy 
 distributed among the different bodies of the system, re- 
 garded as either the actual or the potential changes in their 
 external relations and internal conditions, will be a con- 
 stant quantity. The energy of J., B, (7, D, . . . N, will 
 remain = X. To employ the terse language of Professor 
 Tyndall, on the supposition that the " system " dealt with 
 includes all the bodies of the universe, we may say : " The 
 whole stock of energy or working power in the world con- 
 sists of attractions, repulsions, and motions ; " add configu- 
 rations, and this stock is a constant quantity. 
 
 Now it is to be observed that, when the principle of the 
 conservation and correlation of energy is stated even in this 
 most abstract manner, the statement implies a number of 
 assumptions which can never be completely verified by hu- 
 man experience ; that any concrete application of the prin- 
 ciple to a particular system of bodies requires data which 
 only experience can furnish ; and that any actual application 
 may possibly modify the conception of the principle itself, 
 in a very material way. For, in order to work the theory, 
 it is assumed that the exact amount of energy stored in each 
 
282 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 mass, and in each molecule or atom, of the bodies belonging 
 to the system, by virtue of all its relations to every other 
 mass, molecule, and atom, is already known. It is also 
 assumed that the system must be regarded as uninfluenced 
 from outside of itself. As a matter of fact, man has no 
 knowledge of any such system ; and he can never, from the 
 Tery nature of his experience with things, obtain a knowledge 
 of any such system. For example, it is possible to consider 
 for theoretical purposes some of the motions of the bodies 
 of the planetary system as belonging to a closed system. 
 But the movements which the entire system performs, as it 
 accompanies the sun on its ceaseless journey into unknown 
 spaces, are to be explained, if at all, by influences, from out- 
 side itself. And whether the whole universe is receiving 
 additions from, or making losses to "the outside," can never 
 be known, because our calculations can never include the 
 whole universe; not to speak of "stocks" of energy outside 
 of all existing physical bodies possibly in some "immate- 
 rial agent," such as Newton felt the need of in order to 
 transmit and distribute the force of gravitation. 
 
 The principle of the conservation and correlation of energy 
 ^also assumes that the system to which it is applied may be 
 considered in a merely quantitative way, at least so far as 
 its power for doing work is concerned. But the principle of 
 the " conservation " of energy, as a constant and unchange- 
 able quantity, is not workable as an explanation of the facts 
 of human experience, until it is united with the principle of 
 the " correlation " of energy. That is to say, Nature must 
 be at liberty to change the kind of energy she employs, or 
 she cannot agree to keep her stock unchangeable in quantity. 
 Or, to quote from Clerk-Maxwell : " The total energy of any 
 body or system of bodies is a quantity which can neither be 
 increased nor diminished by any mutual action of these 
 bodies, though it may be transformed into any one of the 
 forms of which energy is susceptible" (the italics are ours). 
 

 FORCE AND CAUSATION 283 
 
 Thus this mysterious big X, which the physical theory of 
 energy would like to render manageable by considering it as 
 a gross quantity (-X" when it becomes kinetic energy, or Force 
 actually doing work no matter about its kind = S^MV 2 ) 
 becomes, as soon as the theory is applied to actual things, an 
 indefinite storehouse of Force that differentiates itself into 
 kinds according to the native preferences, or repulsions, 
 which the different elements and masses have for one an- 
 other. And so far as we now know, every little x (as for 
 example, the molecules in a crystal, or the atoms in a chem- 
 ical compound, or the molecules and atoms in a living cell) 
 has a somewhat peculiar set of " laws " in control of the pre- 
 cise items of work done within its system. 
 
 It becomes necessary, then, in order to give a valid em- 
 pirical basis to the view that the amount of energy in the 
 world is kept constant (or " conserved "), that we should 
 know precisely on what numerical terms so to speak 
 any gross amount is converted into different so-called kinds 
 of energy. These are the terms of agreement, or " correla- 
 tion," amongst the different ways which the different beings 
 of the world have, of doing their different kinds of work. 
 Now modern physics has made some notable, but not a 
 large, progress in reducing to approximately accurate form- 
 ulas the quantitative relations which are uniformly main- 
 tained between the different kinds of physical energy. Its 
 success has been most marked as respects the correlations of 
 the energy of moving masses with the molecular energy 
 called "heat." In respect of the mathematical theory of 
 light, of electricity, and of magnetism, it has put forth com- 
 mendable efforts definitely to correlate the kinds of energy 
 connected with these phenomena, with one another, and with 
 the energy of heat and of gravitation. In carrying out these 
 efforts it has felt itself compelled to assume the existence of 
 another kind of being, called "ether," which is in some re- 
 spects astonishingly unlike that kind of being which is 
 
284 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 known through the senses and is called "matter." Even 
 by the help of this assumption, however, it is still far from 
 a successful inductive proof for the necessary and universal 
 character of the principle of the conservation and correla- 
 tion of energy. Ordinary, "brute and inanimate matter,'* 
 when considered as constituted out of some seventy different 
 kinds of elements, as these constituents enter into the indefi- 
 nitely manifold relations of which they are capable, shows 
 itself capable of doing very manifold amounts and kinds of 
 actual work. The facts of chemistry, inorganic and organic, 
 and especially physiological, are at present so fast outstrip- 
 ping the merely quantitative explanations offered by physi- 
 cal theory, that to assert the undoubted applicability of this 
 principle to all these facts is seemingly to anticipate by cen- 
 turies the needed empirical proofs. 
 
 It is not, however, for the purpose of contesting the theory 
 of energy held by modern physics that the above remarks 
 have been made. We wish only to call attention back to 
 the actual picture of the physical world with which man's 
 trustworthy knowledge presents him, and to the real and valid 
 meaning of those figures of speech which physical science 
 employs in stating its own principles. The "energy" dis- 
 played by the world of things is, of course, not really an 
 entity which can be "stocked" and "distributed," "con- 
 served " as a lump sum and " correlated " with itself as it 
 takes on a variety of different kinds. The truth of fact is 
 simply this : the physical bodies known to us behave in such 
 a manner that if we are at liberty to regard them merely as 
 vehicles of energy, we can partially explain this behavior in 
 terms of mathematical formulas. This mode of explanation, 
 however, is and must forever remain exceedingly " partial. " 
 
 For mathematical formulas never in themselves furnish 
 the complete and satisfactory explanation of the behavior of 
 things, with reference to one another. And truth to say 
 no mathematical formulas for the behavior of things, ex- 
 

 FORCE AND CAUSATION 285 
 
 pressed in terms of a common cause, are obtainable in the 
 great majority of observed cases. Yet those relations of 
 things, in which no known formula will comprise, even in a 
 figurative way, the quantitative terms on which the rela- 
 tions are uniformly established, are among the most impor- 
 tant and universal. 
 
 So far as "we at present know, much of the behavior of 
 physical bodies is dependent upon the "natures" of some 
 seventy different kinds of elements, which, when they are 
 brought sufficiently close to one another in space, combine 
 in an indefinite variety of ways though always in obedi- 
 ence to certain laws of number and under uniform condi- 
 tions. Thus combining, these elements exhibit ever new 
 and surprising physical qualities. And if they can be " in- 
 fluenced " to combine in yet more complicated ways, by 
 some already existing arrangement such as belongs to the 
 living cell, the same elements will do yet more marvellous 
 things. Mere energy, if such a thing as " mere " energy 
 were conceivable, quantitatively distributed and having its 
 law given in terms of the amounts belonging here or there, 
 goes only a little way toward explaining this infinite variety 
 to the behavior of things. 
 
 Illustrations of this necessity which experience imposes, 
 for considering physical energy as differentiating its locality 
 and the character of its work according to other ideas than 
 those of mere quantity, might be multiplied to any extent. It 
 is in the field of the new chemistry of explosives that we are 
 just now obtaining the most impressive, near-at-hand exhi- 
 bitions of physical energy. But such phenomena cannot be 
 explained in accordance with the principle of the conserva- 
 tion and correlation of a gross amount of energy, without an 
 added special regard to the specific natures and relations of 
 the beings that display the energy. That is to say, the 
 energy "developed" by the explosion (to use a more appro- 
 priate figure of speech), cannot, previous to the transaction 
 
286 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 itself, be said to be stored in the beings that engage in the 
 transaction; neither is such energy kinetic so far as any- 
 thing is known about the internal movements of these be- 
 ings. To illustrate by a single example : Certain compounds 
 of Nitrogen, Hydrogen, and Chlorine (as NH 2 C1 and NHC1 2 ), 
 are explosives ; while perhaps the most astonishingly explo- 
 sive of all compounds is that of Nitrogen and Chlorine, NC1 3 . 
 Now Nitrogen and Hydrogen get along comfortably enough 
 together, and so do Chlorine and Hydrogen ; as in the case 
 of NH 3 , or HC1, and other compounds of Chlorine, all of 
 which are eminently stable and " safe. " But the discovery 
 of the explosive character of NC1 3 was so dangerous an affair 
 that it quite wrecked the health of the chemist who made it, 
 through the state of constant anxiety in which he was kept 
 by his investigations. 
 
 Now we do not give any adequate explanation of the tre- 
 mendous energy displayed by NC1 3 when we merely speak of 
 it as " stored " either in the N or in the Cl ; or when we de- 
 clare it to have been " put into " either of them by effecting 
 this combination as NC1 3 . The ultimate fact appears to be 
 simply this; somehow the natures of N and of Cl are such 
 that, when they are for the time being united, they easily part 
 company, and develop, in the act of parting and reunion, an 
 enormous amount of energy. This idea, or rational explana- 
 tion of this complex resultant of the nature of N, of the nature 
 of Cl, and of the natures of both in their relations to each and 
 to the other elements with which they unite on leaving each 
 other, is concealed by chemical science under the figurative 
 expression, " chemical affinities." But affinities are never 
 mere forces ; they are neither simple qualities nor compound 
 qualities that can be distributed ever anew with only due 
 regard to the amount of energy distributed. "Affinities" is 
 a word which stands for forces that have preferences. Affini- 
 ties are exercised by beings that have, belonging to them, 
 immanent ideas in control of the forces; and these ideas 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 287 
 
 dictate to the forces the terms on which they shall do their 
 specific amounts and kinds of work. And. without all this 
 equipment of immanent ideas, the behavior of things, chem- 
 ically considered, cannot be understood or explained. 
 
 Another illustration of this important metaphysical truth 
 may be found in the behavior of every living cell as it ap- 
 pears under the microscope, and when considered from the 
 modern chemico-physiological points of view. From the 
 moment when the cell is quickened (we will suppose it to be 
 an egg of the human species), it begins a most mysterious 
 process of internal, molecular differentiation. In this work 
 of differentiation certain elements from the male combine 
 with elements from the female. Much more intricate and 
 unmathematical than the behavior of the molecules in the 
 formation of a crystal of any particular type is the behavior 
 of the elements which have entered into this dual combina- 
 tion. By the well-known processes of growth of the individ- 
 ual cell, of fission, proliferation, aggregation, segregation, 
 etc., with the most marvellous display of industry and in- 
 genuity in overcoming difficulties and in handling new mate- 
 rial, these accumulating cells build up the finished structure 
 of the human body. And now the most highly differenti- 
 ated, supremely intricate, and consumingly interesting of 
 molecular mechanisms is completed. The completed struc- 
 ture is scientifically considered as the resultant of construc- 
 tive forces resident in the elements out of which this 
 particular body the human body is built. Here again, 
 however, it must be remembered that, to speak in terms of 
 reality, no one entity of a force can be said either to reside 
 in the entire structure or to be distributed amongst its mil- 
 lions of different parts. How then can the conception which 
 regards energy simply as a lump sum, offering a quantita- 
 tive problem to mathematics, account for the actual facts of 
 experience ? 
 
 But what, finally, is the significance for a Theory of Real- 
 
288 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 ity which is lent by a critical discussion of the category of 
 force ? It seems to us that this question may be partially 
 and approximately answered in somewhat the following way. 
 In the first place, no rational mind is satisfied with that 
 representation of the actual physical world which regards it 
 merely as a succession of phenomena of the sensuous order, 
 connected together by imaginary links of hypothetical phe- 
 nomena. Physical science discloses a real world, where the 
 ceaseless play (or work) of mighty forces must be invoked in 
 the interests of rational explanation. These forces actually 
 belong to the different physical beings of this world consid- 
 ered as a total system ; whether these beings are simply con- 
 sidered as masses, or as molecules and atoms ; and whether 
 the forces are considered as the causes of actual changes in 
 the external relations and internal conditions of things, or 
 as potencies making possible such changes when the circum- 
 stances set free (or set " at work ") the forces. But the 
 changes actually effected, and the terms on which we may 
 predict changes to take place in the future, are such that an 
 ideal unity is obvious in this world of many beings with 
 their multiform forces. 
 
 Lotze has well said: "We are only doing honor to a 
 ghost when we dream of an absolutely nameless primitive 
 force which, formless in itself and consisting of an unnamed 
 number of constant amount, assumes as a trifling addition 
 that needs no explanation the changing names under which 
 it is manifested." Within certain limits, indeed, the unity 
 of the forces may be figuratively regarded as a constant sum, 
 a quantity of One Force which somehow gets stored in the 
 different beings of the world, or passed over from one to an- 
 other of them. But even thus we are compelled to recognize 
 varied forms of relation; several kinds of force, and many 
 ways employed by the different beings, of displaying and de- 
 veloping their peculiarities of force. The world becomes 
 thereby a much higher and richer kind of unity. Indeed, 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 289 
 
 the bewildering complexity of the relations, and the new- 
 ness of the phenomena which the progress of science dis- 
 covers, bear some direct relation to the advancing high 
 character of that unity which our thought ascribes to this 
 complexity. When the Being of the World is regarded from 
 the point of view of its substantial causality, it appears as a 
 Unity of Force that differentiates itself, in respect of kinds 
 and relations, so as to produce a marvellous and bewilder- 
 ing complexity. Yet over all this complexity there rules so 
 much of adherence to form and to law as that the result is a 
 Unity of the World which is far more than a mere unity of 
 force. But this is to endow the World-force with manifold 
 controlling Ideas. 
 
 Translated into terms of an indubitable experience, what 
 is the Reality that corresponds to this description of the 
 world in terms of force, and of the conservation and mani- 
 fold correlation of physical energy ? Every " moment " of 
 this description is an unmistakable factor in the self -known 
 Self of the knower. The description is the picture of a Will, 
 differentiating itself according to its preferences, under the 
 control of forms and laws or immanent Ideas. Here, in- 
 deed, our theory anticipates itself somewhat; for the sig- 
 nificance of so-called "forms and laws" in the world of 
 concrete realities still awaits critical examination. But 
 that forces which correlate themselves in kind and degree 
 with one another, and which thus manage to construct a 
 unity that is indescribably rich in variety, are significant 
 of One Will, manifesting its immanent ideas in many ways 
 while still retaining its own identity, there can be no man- 
 ner of doubt. Or, if this be not true, the figures of speech 
 employed by human science, as well as by man's ordinary 
 knowledge of the world of things in terms of force, are with- 
 out intelligible meaning. The movements of physical objects, 
 like the gestures of the actor of a pantomime, reveal the Will 
 and the Ideas behind ; or else they reveal nothing at all. 
 
 19 
 
290 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 In discussing the preceding categories the essence of the 
 conception of Cause has been discovered. This conception 
 is that of a being in action, when so related to another be- 
 ing, as that the action of the one is followed by changes in 
 the external relations or internal condition of the other. 
 Bluntly expressed, it is the conception of one being doing 
 something to another being. Thus construed, its genesis 
 and significance have already been, for the present, suffi- 
 ciently explained, Even in this earlier and cruder form, 
 the conception is complex. But the so-called " law of caus- 
 ation," together with the assumptions and thoughts enter- 
 ing into it, as these are held by the modern sciences of 
 nature, is yet more complex. Ideas of quantity and of num- 
 ber, and especially the thought of a uniform and " self-con- 
 sistent mode of behavior," enter into these more refined 
 forms of this conception. Yet its roots, even in the most 
 refined of its forms of application, are deep in the experi- 
 ence which has already been described as that of " being a 
 substantial cause." 
 
 One's total experience with things, as consisting of ob- 
 served changes both in one's self and in them, and of self- 
 felt but inhibited activity, contains all the elements for an 
 empirical apprehension of the causal relation. Indeed, this 
 experience is best described as a knowledge of doing some- 
 thing to some other being, and also of having something 
 done to one by that other being. The cognition is that of a 
 commerce of beings which stand to each other in the relation 
 of substantial causes. Beyond this neither scientific curi- 
 osity nor metaphysical analysis can take the mind of man. 
 This experience of being a substantial cause under variously 
 changing relations is itself, the rather, the experience out of 
 which all man's scientific and metaphysical explanations are 
 actually derived and without which human knowledge would 
 not be what it actually is. 
 
 Philosophical theories of causality like those of Hume, 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 291 
 
 Kant, and Mill, as Romanes pointed out, run counter to, 
 and are confuted by, the very objectivity of the causal rela- 
 tion which all the physical and natural sciences both assume 
 as a fundamental principle of their procedure, and also con- 
 stantly confirm by all their advance in power to predict and 
 in discovery. Growth of experience along the lines of re- 
 flective thinking and under the guidance of the principle of 
 sufficient reason is necessary in order to generate the com- 
 plete conception of causation, especially as this concep- 
 tion is employed in the higher stages of mental development. 
 This growth is effected in the manner well described by 
 Wundt l : " With the empirical apprehension of a causal re- 
 lation there is, therefore, uniformly connected the demand 
 that the same correspond to a logical relation; since the 
 whole causal connection of nature is considered, under the 
 presupposition of certain general principles and originally 
 given facts, as a unitary, logical system of grounds and con- 
 sequences." As we have elsewhere shown, 2 however, this 
 " demand " is itself the complex and ever developing result 
 of man's reflective interpretation of his collective experi- 
 ence. It consists in finding out the rationale of the behavior 
 of things, with a growing persuasion which is more and 
 more justified by accumulating experience, that things have 
 a rationale. It is a finding out of the mind of things, as; 
 their mind is shown by their customary modes of behavior. 
 In its last result, it is the strong and well fortified convic- 
 tion that, somehow, things are all of one mind, since they 
 manage to limit and to restrict one another without destroy- 
 ing each other completely ; indeed, in some large and com- 
 prehensive way, things serve certain common ends, and so 
 build up the unity of a world-system. 
 
 So indefinite and complex a conclusion as this involves, 
 of course, several conceptions which still remain to be ex- 
 
 1 System der Philosophie, p. 302. 
 
 2 " The Principle of Sufficient Reason," " Philosophy of Knowledge," chap. x. 
 
292 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 amined critically, before they take their place in a completed 
 theory of reality. In closing the discussion of the category 
 of Force, it is well to notice again carefully the relation, 
 both in thought and in reality, of the moments which human 
 thinking assigns to "substantiality" and to "causality," re- 
 spectively. The substantial being of any thing is thought 
 of as requiring some principle, belonging to it, that shall 
 prevent the thing from going, in its changes, outside of a 
 certain prescribed circle ; or what is the same conception 
 that shall compel the thing to change its states in a cer- 
 tain prescribed order (according to its so-called "nature," 
 or immanent idea). Thus A must become only A a , A^ A y , 
 A s . . . A v \ or else it ceases to be the substance A. The 
 causal activity and passivity of any being, however, its 
 standing in causal relations, appears when any particular 
 series of changes in A is regarded as dependency connected 
 with another series of changes in some other being, B (as, 
 for example, B A , B& B y , B^ . . . B v ). All such series of 
 dependent changes, for their complete explanation or refer- 
 ence to the complex causes which account for them, require 
 an answer to three connected problems. These concern, 
 first, the nature of A\ second, the nature of B; and, third, 
 the relations at present maintaining themselves between A 
 and B. But the only way approximately to solve two of 
 these three problems is to discover the uniform modes of the 
 behavior of both A and .#; indeed, uniformity in the modes 
 of behavior of any thing affords the only answer to an in- 
 quiry after the "nature," or the "essence" of that thing. 
 
 Now, finally, the thought recurs that neither J., nor B, 
 nor any other being in the world, is ever known as behav- 
 ing according to its own nature, without at the same time 
 paying attention to the relations which it sustains to the na- 
 ture of other beings. That is to say, man's growing knowl- 
 edge of the world is a network of more or less clear and 
 definite causal relations amongst the different beings of the 
 
FORCE AND CAUSATION 293 
 
 world. Viewed in its subjective aspect, this fact shows how 
 the variety of otherwise disconnected and chaotic items of 
 experience are constructed by the intellect into a system of 
 interdependent changes in the external relations and in- 
 ternal conditions of its objects. In spite of the constant 
 presence of many items of change which refuse to show the 
 desired "uniformity of behavior," human science is growing 
 firm in the conviction that this limitation belongs to our 
 human points of view and human powers of cognition, and 
 not to the nature of the objects themselves. Viewed in its 
 ontological aspect, all the growth of man's cognitive experience 
 reveals the Being of the World as a Unity of Force, that is 
 constantly distributing itself amongst the different beings of the 
 world so as to bestow on them a temporary quasi-independence, 
 while always keeping them in dependent inter-relations, for the 
 realization of its own immanent ideas. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MEASURE AND QUANTITY 
 
 IT is a well-grounded boast of the physical sciences that 
 they are able to furnish an increasingly accurate knowledge 
 of the nature and transactions of things. This ability they 
 chiefly owe to their use of the arm of mathematics ; by its 
 aid they are constantly approximating more exact forms of 
 statement, and are also conquering new fields of inquiry in 
 accordance with the most approved scientific methods. 
 For, to recur to the symbolism employed at the close of 
 the last chapter whenever A and B are " causally related " 
 (that is, are dependency connected as respects the changes 
 they undergo), the complex problem they afford is solved 
 only by stating the exact co-efficients, a, /3, 7, S, etc., for 
 both A and B, and also the value of the X which defines the 
 uniform conditions under which they display these coeffi- 
 cients. For example, the constitution of water from oxygen 
 and hydrogen gases is scientifically established, when we 
 know how much of 0, and how much of H, must be made to 
 act upon each other ; and also under what definite relations 
 this reciprocal action takes place. The more exact our 
 measurement and enumeration of all the complex of changes 
 which actually occur in the production of H 2 become, the 
 more is our science glorified. Measuring and numbering 
 belong, therefore, to the very essence of the method of phys- 
 ical science. 
 
 But measuring and numbering are mental activities and 
 mental achievements ; to measure and to number is, indeed, 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 295 
 
 a very large part of what it is to know in a way to satisfy 
 scientific demands. Physical science, as the knowledge of 
 things and of their transactions, assumes it to be beyond ques- 
 tion that things are actually measurable and numerable. 
 
 The marked success of the more definitively physical sci- 
 ences has combined with other reasons to encourage the use 
 of the mathematical method by other more or less closely 
 allied sciences. Modern chemistry is distinguished from 
 the alchemy out of which it grew, in no other way more ob- 
 viously than by its devotion to the niceties of measurement 
 and of counting. Its most universal " law, " like the law of 
 gravitation, is designed to serve as a general formula for 
 reckoning those quantitative relations of things, in which 
 the explanation of both their more obvious and their occult 
 qualities must be found. To be sure, chemistry does not 
 assume to tell us why NH 3 and HC1 are safe, but NC1 3 is 
 highly dangerous, except by referring to the u affinities" of 
 N, H, and Cl, with one another and with other elements in 
 the environment. Why these elements have such and no 
 other affinities, our science is forced to regard as, at pres- 
 ent, an unanswerable question. In general to use another 
 example why H 2 have the affinities, so stable and mani- 
 foldly useful, which they exhibit in this combination; and 
 why the physical properties of the compound are such as 
 they actually are, etc. these are questions which teleology, 
 and not chemistry, chiefly essays to answer. Meantime, 
 refinements of measuring and numbering are the delight and 
 the boast of modern chemical science. And apparently the 
 hope of her most advanced students is that she will some day 
 take her place in this respect, among the most complete of 
 the physical sciences. 
 
 It is also proposed to introduce to biology more exactness 
 through an improved use of the mathematical method. Psy- 
 chology, too, is showing a swelling ambition to take rank 
 among the physical sciences, by use of their method for 
 
296 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 counting and measuring the various psychoses and their ele- 
 ments. We have here something more than a renewal of 
 Herbart's proud claim to constitute this as a natural sci- 
 ence, " neu gegrundet ayf Erfahrung, Metaphysik und MatJie- 
 matik." For, in the "new psychology," the " Metaphysic " 
 is to be left out, and the "Mathematic" is to be, not an a 
 priori theory of combinations of the Vorstellungen on the 
 positive and negative sides of a zero-point, but a col- 
 lection of exact formulas solidly placed upon an inductive 
 basis. 
 
 No conclusion, then, can be more certain than this; if 
 things are not " by nature " and " in reality " measurable and 
 numerable, modern science has little real truth to tell; it is 
 in no essential way distinguishable from the merely logical 
 arrangement of a system of pure mathematical concep- 
 tions. We have never held the opinion which refuses to 
 such generalizations as cannot state themselves in terms of 
 number and quantity all claim to the title " science " ; nor 
 do we for a moment believe that the numerable and measur- 
 able aspect of things is the only aspect open to the cognitive 
 powers of man. Nature may, indeed, be made to step upon 
 our scales and be weighed, or to stand up against our meas- 
 uring rod and have it applied to her. But she is often coy 
 about this ; and she does not like to be admired simply as 
 having so many pounds avoirdupois, or as being so many 
 centimetres broad and long. Like the human Self, who 
 constructs her in his own image, because he was at the first 
 constructed in her image, Nature has an inner life, an a3s- 
 thetical and spiritual meaning to reveal. On the other 
 hand, the denial that things are somehow in reality what 
 science with all its elaborate and refined quantitative esti- 
 mates affirms them to be, invalidates this science and ob- 
 scures one side of Nature. When Plato proclaimed God the 
 great geometer, the philosopher was doubtless in some sort 
 true to the inner being and meaning of the world ; although 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 297 
 
 it does not follow that God is nothing other than a great 
 geometer. 
 
 It is impossible even to talk about things, or to deal with 
 them in the most essential and practical ways, without meas- 
 uring and counting them. What our language thus empha- 
 sizes is not primarily the measuring and counting faculty of 
 the mind, but the measurable and numerable nature of 
 things. And, of course, every man's knowledge of, and in- 
 tercourse with, his fellows, is dependent upon some sort of 
 a conception as to the nature of unity, and as well upon 
 some sort of recognition given to " another " as belonging to 
 the same kind. Measuring and numbering of things are in- 
 separably connected also with all distinctions between meum 
 and tuum, and with all commercial values and commercial 
 transactions. But there is little need to illustrate this fact 
 of all human experience ; without some sort of numbering and 
 measuring knowledge itself is impossible, because no object 
 is existent for knowledge. Cognition itself is essentially, 
 though by no means exclusively, a process of numbering and 
 measuring. In order, then, to understand these categories, 
 the psychology of their genesis and development must show 
 us on what mental activities and mental postulates they rest. 
 But on the basis of such psychological analysis, metaphysi- 
 cal criticism must also try to discover what these categories 
 reveal as to the real Being of the World. Here, then, are 
 two allied problems to be solved : How is it that the human 
 mind comes to measure and number the things of its univer- 
 sal experience with such confidence in the validity of these 
 processes the applicability of them to Reality ? and, What 
 sort of a Reality must that be to which the measuring and 
 numbering activities of the human mind, in so far as these 
 enter into all its experience with things, can be applied ? The 
 answer to the former of these two questions leads up to the 
 answer of the latter. The answer of the latter is an integral 
 part of a systematic metaphysics. 
 
298 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 It is the concrete beings of the world, known as actually 
 existent in space and time, that are measured and num- 
 bered. Quantity and number belong to these concrete be- 
 ings as essential characteristics of their being at all, to 
 their qualities, their changes, and their relations, under all 
 the manifold formal conditions of both the temporal and the 
 spatial order. In speaking of things as possessed of differ- 
 ent kinds and degrees of force, and in applying to them the 
 principle of the conservation and correlation of energy, we 
 are obliged either to employ or to imply the categories of 
 quantity and of number. Particularly close is the relation 
 between this pair of twin categories and the categories of 
 space and time. All spatial measurement rests on the ex- 
 istence of time, or, the rather, on the enduring existence 
 " in time " of the thing that is measured. All estimate of 
 extensive magnitudes is spatial measuring. Even Percep- 
 tion of motion, or of change in spatial relations, is impos- 
 sible without an active measurement taking place. We can 
 apprehend clearly neither quantitative spatial qualities nor 
 spatial relations without applying some standard of measure- 
 ment, and counting the number of the applications made in 
 the mastery of the complete dimensions of the thing or of its 
 distance from other things. All such apprehension of things 
 and of their relations is, of necessity, subject to the formal 
 categories of space and time. 
 
 From the obscurity and confusion of the dawn of knowl- 
 edge, in the individual and in the race, emerge the twin 
 conceptions, quantity and number, hand in hand. In the 
 development of the majority of minds they never get far into 
 the fields of a sun-clear and consistent system. But in 
 certain minds, conceptions of quantity and number become 
 so articulated and unfolded as to form a logical whole, 
 unmatched by any other kind of human knowledge, for 
 tenacity, clearness, and consistency. Such an evolution of 
 " pure " mathematics is one of the most astonishing and sig- 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 299 
 
 nificant achievements of human reason. By the masters of 
 this system the uninitiated are assured that their demonstra- 
 tions of what must be, if only something else that is numer- 
 ahle and measurable be taken for granted, have a cogency 
 which no rational mind can resist; and yet these demon- 
 strations concern matters so unlike any entities or relations 
 of ordinary experience that not fifty men on the face of the 
 globe can even comprehend them. No one of us writer or 
 readers alas ! can hope to be of this privileged number. 
 But, as students of metaphysics, we can ask : What has such 
 a wonderful network of conceptions to tell us touching the 
 Nature of Reality ? 
 
 The psychological genesis and development of the concep- 
 tion of quantity, and the way that this conception is gained 
 and grows by the activity of measuring, affords a most inter- 
 esting and significant study. 1 A brief notice of several im- 
 portant points will suffice for the present purpose. The 
 fundamental fact of experience involved in all such concep- 
 tions is this; there are variations in the "how-much" of 
 our psychoses, and the intellect actively discriminates, asso- 
 ciates, and compares the psychoses as regarded in this aspect 
 of their change. That mental processes, as such, do vary 
 quantitatively, is as primary and incontestable a fact of ex- 
 perience as is the other closely-related fact, that they vary 
 in respect of content or complex quality. The view which 
 regards all measurement as fundamentally applicable only 
 to thing-objects, and as subsequently applied in a purely 
 figurate way to psychoses, reverses the order of procedure 
 in the evolution of mental life. These most primitive quan- 
 titative variations of sense-consciousness are probably, how- 
 ever, variations of intensity and not originally of " extensity " 
 or "massiveness. " But the admission of the claim put for- 
 ward by some psychologists, that a sort of obscure and un- 
 
 1 On this compare the monographs of Nichols, The Psychology of Time," 
 and " Number and Space." 
 
300 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 measured "bigness" belongs, natively, to all modifications- 
 of sense-consciousness, would not change the bearing of this 
 experience upon our metaphysics of quantity. The impor- 
 tant point for a Theory of Reality to notice is this : the dif- 
 ferent pulses of that stream of consciousness we come to 
 know as the Self do actually vary in the intensities belong- 
 ing to them. The life of the Self does " in reality " rise and 
 fall, increase and diminish, in the amount of that being 
 which it, by the grasp of consciousness, knows itself to have. 
 Otherwise expressed : The Being of the World actually vouch- 
 safes to you and to me, at different moments of our life in time, 
 differing amounts of its own being. 
 
 Furthermore, the mind is immediately aware of this vari- 
 ation in the intensities of its own psychoses. By activity of 
 the same discriminating intellect by which we become aware 
 of all changes in the stream of consciousness, we discern 
 these alterations of intensity in the different temporal por- 
 tions of this stream. This more primitive measurement is 
 obscure and indefinite ; it is only a vague awareness of more 
 or less of the similar, when the present is compared with the 
 just passing, or with the now expected, phase of conscious- 
 ness. Long before the infant can " put its toe into the pain," 
 it discovers and meets with characteristic expectation, or 
 retrospect, the swelling or the subsiding of the pain. These 
 changes of intensity are for it the important thing, and not 
 the exact place in which to locate its pain. These varying 
 "feeling-tones" which emphasize its interest in the waxing 
 and waning of the pressure-sensations, or the sensations of 
 sound or of light, furnish an attractive point of regard for 
 the earliest discriminating activity. 
 
 It is not necessary to trace the steps of that psychological 
 development by which the vague and indefinite quantita- 
 tive measurement of closely approximate psychoses becomes 
 a vague and indefinite measurement of the extension, the 
 forces, and the spatial relations of things. The history of 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 301 
 
 these steps involves all of that marvellous and fundamentally 
 inexplicable experience by which the mind obtains the clear 
 knowledge of a world in which the Self exists as separate 
 from, and yet related to, an environment of many self -like 
 and non-self-like things. In all this history it is the growth 
 of skill in discriminating the minutest differences of quan- 
 tity in our own psychoses which fixes the limitations for all 
 our actual measurements of real things. It is practice in 
 such discrimination which guarantees my friend, the professor 
 of physics, when he assures me that he can with unaided eye 
 place a spider's web more exactly in the middle between two 
 others than is possible by using any micrometrical instru- 
 ment. When the physicist uses any instrument for measure- 
 ment, what does he employ as the ultimate standard for his 
 knowledge of relations of quantity ? Only the same discrim- 
 inating consciousness which, under the most favorable cir- 
 cumstances, can measure with amazing accuracy changes in its 
 own phases, quantitatively considered. For, as Volkmann 
 admirably observes, 1 the magnitude of the subjective spatial 
 series is not directly comparable with the magnitude of the 
 object-thing ; and our estimate of magnitude always becomes 
 uncertain, just as soon as the opportunity to compare it with 
 the familiar magnitudes belonging to our sensation-complexes 
 is removed. Moreover, a great variety of changeable inter- 
 ests and forms of emotion furnish impulses, checks, and 
 guides, in the development of all mental measurement and 
 in the consequent conceptions of magnitude. Psychologically 
 considered, then, all actual measurement of real quantities con- 
 sists in the self-appreciation of the varying amounts of the own- 
 life of the Self. 
 
 But in respect of this category of quantity as of all the 
 other categories, the mind cannot persuade itself that the 
 conception has a merely subjective origin and applicability. 
 For here, as in all other use of human faculties, we speedily 
 
 1 Lehrbuch der Psychologie, II., p. 99 f. 
 
302 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 cease to regard the subjective changes as belonging to the 
 known reality, and concentrate attention upon making gains 
 of verifiable objective knowledge. How nicely can one dis- 
 tinguish differences of intensity in the sensations, under pre- 
 cisely such favorable or unfavorable circumstances ? this is 
 a question for the psychological laboratory. The world of 
 men will never come to take much interest in such a ques- 
 tion for its own sake. But how much does this material 
 shrink under so many degrees of cold ? is the question of the 
 builder of houses and bridges. What are the actual atomic 
 weights of the different elements ? is the inquiry of chemical 
 science. It is the measurement of things, not of sensations, 
 which is of most practical and theoretical importance in the 
 estimate of men. Such measurement cannot be accomplished 
 without reference to some objective standard; and the use 
 of such an objective standard, with the assumptions and the 
 arguments involved, with its temporary failures and its bril- 
 liant successes, is full of most important lessons for the 
 metaphysician. 
 
 The first truth to be noticed in considering the nature of 
 all objective measurement is this : such measurement is al- 
 ways an affair of relations ; it is a relating activity on the 
 mind's part, which implies, however, some sort of a correla- 
 tion belonging to the real being and actual arrangement of 
 the things measured. In its earlier forms this objective 
 measurement is a vague and uncertain affair; it is chiefly 
 adapted to, and enforced by, the simpler practical ends of 
 life. The groping of the infant in its effort to discover the 
 correct reach of the hand, which will bring to its grasp the 
 coveted object, is an example in place here. In all its 
 developing experience with things, the child's mind is "siz- 
 ing them up " if such a phrase may be pardoned ; it is 
 discovering whether they will fit its mouth, fill its hand, 
 inclose or match one another ; and how far one must creep 
 or walk to obtain possession of them. So far as these more 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 303 
 
 primitive measurements are accomplished by the eye, there 
 is comparatively little motif to introduce the conception of 
 force as the "stuff" which is being measured. But with 
 the knowledge of things that colnes through the tactual, mus- 
 cular, and joint sensations, the case is not the same. In 
 these ways the infantile physicist is constantly measuring 
 his force against the resisting or the active forces of things. 
 Every time he throws a stone or a ball, or wrestles with his 
 playfellow, he gets a new lesson in popular dynamics. And 
 few things are of more vital interest to him than the correct- 
 ness of his calculation of the amounts of forces which nature 
 has assigned to the different objects of his daily experience. 
 Thus his quantitative calculations become surprisingly exact, 
 whenever the problem concerns merely somewhat indefinite 
 increase or diminution in the amounts of the things in which 
 he is interested. This fact of experience corresponds with 
 the well-known psycho-physical law which controls the mind's 
 appreciation of the varying quantities of sensation-conscious- 
 ness, the use of mental images of past sensations as standards 
 of measurement, and the conditions which favor or hinder 
 the exactness of such appreciation in particular instances. 
 Great sensitiveness in these more primitive quantitative 
 estimates, in the case of children and of savages, for a long 
 time precedes the self-conscious and rational affair of learn- 
 ing to count. 
 
 Let it be noticed, also, what are the things that are meas- 
 ured the existent "that-which," to which the measuring 
 process is thus naively applied. That which is thus meas- 
 ured is threefold. It is, first, the extension of things 
 their size, as relative to one another and to our purposes re- 
 garding them ; second, it is the distance of things, as rela- 
 tive to us (where we are) and to one another, and as bearing 
 upon the actual or expected relations existing amongst them, 
 and between us and them ; third, it is the forces of things, 
 as the hidden causes of the actual or expected changes of 
 
304 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 these relations. The empirical basis for the doctrine of 
 geometry and of mass comes from the first and second of the 
 three ; the theory of dynamics and the law of the conserva- 
 tion and correlation of energy, comes from the third. But 
 all three forms of measurement are bound together and, as 
 it were, made available for both practical and theoretical 
 purposes by the universal fact of motion. Psychologically 
 considered, it is only with moving organs that we measure ; 
 active measuring is a function which requires the entire 
 self, imagination, intellect, feeling, will, dominating 
 and guiding the organism under the impulse to secure certain 
 ends. Were you and I not real beings, organically somehow 
 connected with the changing texture of the universe of being, 
 so as both to change it and to be changed by it, we should 
 never " measure " ourselves or other things. Geometry, phy- 
 sics, etc., all measurement is born as the child of a mind 
 that is in living commerce with things. "The limits of 
 space," it has been well said, "are for us simply the limits 
 of possible motion of a material body. " 1 This space of three 
 dimensions, in which all actual known motions occur, and 
 all conceivable motions must be imagined, is that in which 
 the axioms of the Euclidean plane geometry, as popularly 
 conceived of, are true. It is our experience with this actual 
 complex differentiation of reality in which our conceptions 
 of measure and quantity are matured. 
 
 Such vague and unchecked measurement as has just been 
 described does not, however, form a satisfactory basis for a 
 true quantitative science of things. Although it must not be 
 forgotten that nine-tenths of man's actual cognitive experi- 
 ence with things their sizes, distances, weights, forces, 
 and whatever belonging to them is measurable is of this 
 vague and unrecorded sort. Yet how accurate it can be 
 trained to be; every letter-sorter on the flying mail-car, 
 
 1 See the Presidential Address of Professor Simon Newcomb, Bulletin of the 
 Am. Mathematical Society, 2d Series, vol. iv. No. 5. 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 305 
 
 every skilled huntsman, or expert ball-player, demonstrates 
 as truly as does the physicist with his superb and justifiable 
 confidence in his unaided visual discriminations. Nor 
 must it be forgotten that a very subtle and profound theory 
 of rational correlation between the Self and Things, with an 
 assumed uniformity in obedience to law, and a steady confor- 
 mity to ideal ends on the part of both is implied in this 
 natural use of the category of quantity. 
 
 It has been said that all measurement is relative. Now 
 "the relative" implies the existence of a standard and its 
 application to a number of objects. In the more primitive 
 forms of measurement the standard is some mental image, 
 revivablc so it is assumed in a fairly constant way. But 
 the more purely subjective means are found to be, as might 
 be expected, variable and deceptive ; and although they may 
 be rendered exceedingly accurate and serviceable for certain 
 individualistic and special kinds of practice, they are not 
 trustworthy as commonly accepted standards for human 
 intercourse. Nor will subjective standards do at all as a 
 foundation on which to erect the superstructure of mathe- 
 matical and physical science. The physicist can handle his 
 spider-webs better without than with the use of a rule marked 
 off in fractions of millimetres, but he cannot be trusted as a 
 sorter of letters ; and neither he nor the mail agent is willing 
 to purchase his ell of cloth by having it measured on the 
 dealer's arm. Hence the necessity for accepted and trust- 
 worthy objective standards. The history of the rise, adop- 
 tion, and perfection of such standards of relative quantity 
 is very instructive; but it is not necessary to our argument 
 that we should follow it. 
 
 A speculative question arises at this point which is of some 
 interest to a metaphysical discussion of the category of quan- 
 tity. This question is not infrequently proposed by physi- 
 cists in the interests of the accuracy and constancy of their 
 own results. The standard of measurement which they have 
 
 20 
 
306 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 adopted is the calculated length of a selected great circle of 
 the earth. But the size of the earth is undoubtedly slowly 
 changing; and with it, of course, must go on a change in the 
 standard adopted for all physical measurements. In case, 
 then, an appeal to experience is made at any time for cor- 
 recting this standard, all sizes and distances, as measured by 
 this standard, will have to change in relation to it, if they 
 themselves remain constant quantities. But in such a case 
 these changes of relation, when taken to the standard, would 
 reveal themselves; and thus warned, we should be enabled 
 to know as to what had really changed, and as to the propor- 
 tions in which the observed changes in relation should be 
 distributed amongst the different things. For example, we 
 should know whether the reason why the distance from the 
 sun to the earth was now measured by fewer kilometers than 
 formerly was to be found in the fact that the kilometer had 
 grown relatively longer, or in the fact that the earth and sun 
 had drawn nearer together. Let it be supposed, however, that 
 all things in the universe, so far as they come under human 
 observation, including the bodies of men and the intensities 
 of sensations in the flowing stream of consciousness, are 
 changing their quantity in the same direction, but with such 
 nice continuance of the adjustment amongst their long- 
 established and well-known relations that no change in the 
 relations themselves is observable. The real universe would 
 then be actually growing smaller and smaller, indeed; it 
 would be shrinking to the size of a nutshell ; but all things 
 in the universe would retain the same relative sizes, dis- 
 tances, etc. How should we know that such startling changes 
 in the Nature of Reality were actually taking place ? How 
 do we know that this is not what is now taking place ? 
 
 In answer to such puzzles as the foregoing, three observa- 
 tions are of interest from the metaphysical point of view. 
 In the first place, all measurement of things is conducted 
 under conditions set to man's mental representation of the 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 307 
 
 world as a system of concrete existences in time and space. 
 The application of every standard, as well as the constitution 
 of the standard itself, belongs to his mental "picture " of the 
 world. Now, inasmuch as this mental picture, considered 
 space-wise, is no mere photograph or express copy of the 
 trans-subjective, all that it is essential for the Reality to be, 
 and to do, is included in the continuance of the relations in 
 such manner as to realize in things its oivn immanent ideas. 
 For, of course, measurement of things, their temporal and 
 spatial qualities and relations, as well as their manifold 
 seizures and losses of the One all-pervading Force, is neces- 
 sarily a relative affair. Subjectively considered, measure- 
 ment is relating. Absolute size, absolute distance, or bulk, 
 or force, as applied to particular things, has no meaning. 
 All objective measurement of the world as it appears to us, 
 in its time-form and space-form, is also, in its very essence, 
 relative. But, second : the relativity of all man's use of the 
 category of quantity does not diminish, but rather increases, 
 the necessity for placing this very relativity considered 
 both as fact and as a network of laws or uniform ways of 
 relating and being related upon a trans-subjective ground. 
 There must be something in the constitution and behavior of 
 things, that makes them relatable in terms of a standard 
 common to all ; and this, in spite of the constant and infinite 
 processes of change that are going on in these relations. 
 Whether certain particular things are swelling and others 
 shrinking, and this in such a way as to preserve some con- 
 stant standard of measurement, or not, does not essentially 
 affect our valid conclusions as to the inner and the constant 
 nature of Reality. And, third : in being known as measur- 
 able at all, the World reveals itself as a rational totality, a 
 system of beings actually conforming in all the varied 
 changes of their measurable and calculable relations to ideal 
 forms. In this way the objects of man's cognitive experi- 
 ence are made to constitute an ideal Unity, which comprises 
 
308 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 an infinite variety of different beings that are comparable 
 and capable of being known as quantitatively related in the 
 mind's pictorial representation of things. 
 
 This third and most important tenet of the metaphysics of 
 quantity is made clearer, more forceful, and comprehensive, 
 by a study of the "science" of measurement and of spatial 
 relations, as such. In the development of this science the 
 most important psychical activities are the imagination to 
 construct the points of departure, and the logic which con- 
 nects together into chains of demonstration the abstract 
 ideas thus obtained. If these ideas are more directly gath- 
 ered from our sensuous experience with concrete things under 
 the limitations of the space-picturing imagination, and are 
 placed in their simplest relations to one another, we have the 
 so-called " axioms " of the Euclidean geometry (comp. p. 304). 
 The demonstrations of this geometry then follow in a logical 
 way, with the constant possibility of an appeal to experience 
 for their illustration and verification by a process of progres- 
 sive approximation to an absolute exactness. But when these 
 ideas are converted into pure abstractions, the different pos- 
 sible relations of these abstract conceptions become the so- 
 called " postulates " of the modern geometry. 
 
 The demand of the Euclidean geometry is that we should 
 envisage the simplest conditions of our mental picture of 
 spatial relations and see that the thing is so. This envis- 
 agement will make the several fundamental propositions 
 "self-evident,"- -a small collection of axioms; because the 
 mind cannot help seeing that such are the relations which 
 exist between the different elements of its space-picture of 
 the world. Such so-called "axioms," however, have no 
 self-evidencing power, if the attempt is made to apply them 
 to the relations of real beings considered independently of 
 this pictorial representation. But the modern geometry, in 
 its theory of measurement, strives to free itself from all sen- 
 suous conditions. Its points of starting are, therefore, postu- 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 309 
 
 lated rather than deemed axiomatic in the sense of the latter 
 word which is assumed to be true for the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of the Euclidean geometry. Choosing freely its postu- 
 lates, the purely abstract science then proceeds to construct 
 a logical system of conclusions, all of which state those rela- 
 tions between certain abstract conceptions which follow 
 necessarily from the postulates chosen as points of starting. 
 The Euclidean geometry assumes that the relations actually 
 existing amongst the different spatial " moments " of reality 
 are, of necessity, precisely similar to man's pictorial repre- 
 sentation of the world in space. It is the geometry of 
 the senses and of the sensuous imagination; it is that 
 "pure" science of space relations which can be taught to 
 the common-sense consciousness. Its " purity " consists in 
 its freedom from the particular limitations of the sensuous 
 imagination, the " h'gurate conception " of the spatial rela- 
 tions and spatial qualities of things. But Kant was justified 
 in pointing out that it is a priori only for our " sesthetical " 
 experience. It does not, of itself, tell us anything as to the 
 inner nature of the trans-subjective ground on which its own 
 pictorial representation reposes. The modern geometry, on 
 the other hand, makes no claim to demonstrate what the 
 spatial qualities and spatial relations of real things must be; 
 and it does not ask to have its fundamental postulates veri- 
 fied as self-evident in terms of figurate conception. It says : 
 " Come, let us make all sorts of assumptions as to the values 
 of x and y, in our setting forth of hypothetical space-rela- 
 tions; let us give ourselves all manner of subtle and fascin- 
 ating problems for solution on the basis of a choice among 
 these assumptions; and then let us see where strict logical 
 argumentation will bring us out in conclusion." The perti- 
 nent and important metaphysical truth is this: Both the 
 Euclidean and the modern geometry assume the significant 
 principle that the Reality which manifests itself within, and 
 to, the mind of man, in its actively measuring and reasoning, is 
 
310 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 itself constructed as a logical, rational, and Self -consistent 
 System. 
 
 None of the " self-evident " propositions on which the 
 ordinary geometry founds its system of demonstrations are 
 " synthetic judgments " a priori, in the meaning given by 
 Kant to those words. The predicate in these propositions 
 does not add something wholly new to the subject; nor is 
 the genesis of the judgment, or the mind's confidence in it, 
 independent of all concrete experience with actual objects. 
 On the contrary, the office of the judgment itself is to pro- 
 nounce the result of our intuition of the space qualities and 
 space relations of the things known by sense-perception, 
 after these qualities and relations have been subjected to 
 the refinements of imagination and intellect; and this result 
 is stated by the judgment in the form of an identical and 
 self-consistent proposition. 
 
 The clearness, cogency, and consistency, of that system 
 of connected propositions which can be made to follow from 
 the so-called axiomatic points of starting adopted by the 
 Euclidean geometry, is due to the nature of the material with 
 which the logical faculties have to deal. This material is 
 composed of a certain number of conceptions whose marks 
 are perfectly apprehensible and definitely capable of being 
 separated from all those interdependent conditions which 
 determine the complex changes of actual things. Relations 
 of real things are infinitely complicated, and they cross each 
 other in an indefinite number of ways ; actual relations are 
 a tangled network of relations. This is true of every sim- 
 plest and meanest thing, and of every most common and in- 
 significant transaction between things. Every " Thing " is a 
 concrete realization of all the categories; it partakes of the 
 whole throbbing and striving life of nature ; and every trans- 
 action between things is an epitome of the history of the 
 universe. But the spatial qualities and spatial relations of 
 things are themselves related, and these relations between 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 311 
 
 the spatial qualities and spatial relations of things are totally 
 different in respect of the problems they propose. They 
 constitute the science of "space" (or geometry), which thus 
 differs essentially from every form of applied science; its 
 complications are matters not of observed fact but of logical 
 arrangement mainly. For example, no biologist can even 
 make a beginning toward expounding the demonstrative 
 science of a single amoeba ; but if this science could be com- 
 pletely expounded by one gifted with the power of clear de- 
 scription, we might all hope to understand it. There are, 
 however, huge volumes which contain the demonstrative 
 science of certain systems of space relations ; and the funda- 
 mental conceptions of these volumes we could all understand, 
 but few there be that can understand the complexity of the 
 arguments employed in arranging these conceptions. Yet 
 the forms of argument which all geometrical treatises employ 
 are taken from the fundamental rules of reasoning, as these 
 rules apply to every kind of material which the intellect of 
 man can make the subject of argument. 
 
 The "geometrical axioms," then, which furnish the points 
 for the departure of all the trains of reasoning employed, are 
 special and are derived from the nature of things viewed as 
 having space qualities and as existing in space relations 
 merely. But the "general axioms " of geometry are such as 
 belong to all use of the reasoning faculty. The possibility of 
 a science either " pure " or applied, by combination of the 
 two forms of axioms enforces anew the same ontological 
 principle: The mental representation of things in space is 
 indeed subjective and relative; but its subjectivity reposes 
 upon the trans-subjective Ground of an ideal and rational 
 Nature which belongs to the entire system of things. 
 
 The true metaphysical doctrine of the measurement of 
 space, with its resulting doctrine of quantity as applied to 
 realities, may fitly be illustrated by one or two examples. 
 Let, first, the so-called axiom concerning the properties of 
 
312 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 straight lines be examined from our point of view. If the 
 old-fashioned way of bringing to notice this so-called self- 
 evident proposition be adopted, the judgment certainly 
 appears to be neither synthetic nor a priori in the Kantian 
 sense. For the proposition that "a straight line is the 
 shortest distance between any two points " is, undoubtedly, 
 a purely analytic or identical proposition. What is meant 
 by the act of sense-perception, or of sensuous imagination, 
 which enables us to intuit or to construct a straight line, is 
 precisely this, a line so perceived or imagined that it 
 runs by the shortest path, and without the least bit of turn- 
 ing out, from one point to another in space. "Draw me a 
 straight line from a to b " means nothing else than this : 
 proceed with your chalk, or pencil, or with your imaginary 
 moving point, directly from a to b. In general, the idea of 
 the shortest path is identical with the idea of the straight 
 path. And " straight-line " = in quantity "shortest-line," 
 is only another way of saying that a straight line is, when 
 considered quantitatively, and compared with all other lines, 
 the shortest of them all. 
 
 Moreover, when the effort is made to test this so-called 
 axiom, we see not only that both of its terms express the 
 same idea, but also that neither the subject nor the predicate 
 of the judgment can be represented in idea, without the 
 mind's relating activity at once connecting the two under the 
 form of identity. For the idea of a " straight line " has no 
 content except by comparison with lines that are not straight; 
 and beyond doubt, the " shortest distance " means nothing 
 unless a contrast with longer distances is implied. Suppose, 
 then, it is proposed to test the so-called axiom in a given 
 instance. Let our problem be to determine whether this 
 straight line which we have just drawn between a and b is 
 really shorter than any other possible line between the same 
 
 two points. How shall we know that this line a b is 
 
 straight ? Only by comparing it with other actual or imag- 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 313 
 
 nary lines that crook or curve. How shall we know that 
 the same line is shorter than any of the crooked or curved 
 lines ? Only by measuring it and them with the unaided eye 
 or with some standard of measurement. Now for practical 
 purposes our sensitiveness to differences in the length of 
 lines, and to any departure of lines from a straight course, 
 may be assumed to be about equal. Theoretically and actu- 
 ally, too, when it comes to the utmost niceties of measure- 
 ment, this is not precisely true. But the fact is that if, in 
 the act of measuring the line a 5, in order to test its fidelity 
 to the terms of the axiom, it is discovered to be either crook- 
 ing and curving at any point, or failing in " being short, " it 
 is promptly rejected as not an example under the axiom. 
 And if, by an act of imagination, the mind passes beyond all 
 the limits of an actual testing of the character of the line 
 a 6, the same experience is found to hold good. I cannot 
 imagine this line to deviate infinitesimally from the straight 
 path without imagining, at the place of deviation, another 
 and perfectly straight path which would take the point trac- 
 ing the line by a shorter course to its desired goal. 
 
 Suppose now, however, this so-called axiom be thrown 
 into its more appropriate and useful form ; and let the state- 
 ment of the truth previously employed be relegated to the 
 place of a definition. . We are then told that " through every 
 two points in space one and only one straight line may be 
 drawn." This statement reduces the axiom to the form of a 
 postulate, an asking of us to grant the possibility of draw- 
 ing in imagination, of course a straight line between 
 any two points in space. The words " one and only one " are 
 entirely superfluous ; for the definition of a straight line is 
 "the shortest," and to think of more than one "shortest" is 
 absurd. The postulated possibility of drawing one straight 
 line between any two points in space is, for our mental repre- 
 sentation of space, a self-evident but tautological proposition. 
 For if the ends of a line are defined as "points," then any 
 
314 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 two imaginary points may, of course, be imagined as the 
 ends of any number of imaginary lines. For mere situation 
 or mere distance in space has no power to prevent the imagi- 
 nation from drawing lines; the rather is the very nature of 
 our mental representation of space such as to insure the possi- 
 bility of a perfectly free activity of imagination in this kind 
 of play. Between any a and any b an indefinite number of 
 paths of connection lie open to the imagination. And, of 
 course, one of these is the straight and shortest path which 
 starts the line with one end in a and lands it with the other 
 
 in b. This is the straight line a b. 
 
 Similar conclusions are reached, though by a somewhat 
 more complicated use of the powers of perception, imagina- 
 tion, and reasoning, with regard to another so-called axiom, 
 or postulate, of geometry. On the straight line A B, at any 
 two points, let the two perpendiculars A and BDbe erected ; 
 at points equidistant from A and B let these perpendiculars 
 be crossed by a straight line connecting the points C and D\ 
 and let the length of the line A B = x, and the length of the 
 line CD = y : then x = y. Now how do we know this ? The 
 proposition may be said to be axiomatic, or self-evident, to 
 sense-perception and to imagination ; but only after a some- 
 what complex exercise of these faculties has been performed 
 under control from those " general axioms " which apply to 
 all our reasoning processes. Finally, however, the result 
 comes to an identical judgment which is based upon inspec- 
 tion of the spatial relations of objects. If either of the 
 lines, A C and B D, leans in the slightest degree toward or 
 away from the other, the postulate is violated. But if noth- 
 ing of this sort happens, then, of course, the two lines will 
 remain the same distance apart; and other lines which 
 measure this distance will themselves be of equal length. 
 For by "distance between two lines," under the circum- 
 stances postulated here, we mean nothing else than the paths 
 traversed by the line A B between the points A and B, and 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 315 
 
 by the line CD between the points C and D. This is equiv- 
 alent to saying, x = y. 
 
 If now it were desired to submit this so-called axiom to 
 testing by any particular example, it would be necessary to 
 watch for any " leanings " in either of the perpendiculars 
 A C and BD, and for all crookings and curvings in the lines 
 AB and CD. Here, again, for ordinary practical purposes, 
 our sensitiveness to the leanings of the perpendiculars and 
 to the consequent shortening or lengthening of the connect- 
 ing lines may be assumed to be about equal. But, theoreti- 
 cally and actually, too, as tested by the niceties of experi- 
 mental methods, the relations between the least perceptible 
 differences of the angles of the parallelogram, and the least 
 perceptible differences of the lines forming its sides, are ex- 
 ceedingly complex and variable. But if I once free the axiom 
 from the limitations of sense, I cannot imagine the lines 
 A C and B D being any nearer together without leaning, i. e. 9 
 beginning to get nearer together. When a carpenter, for 
 instance, wishes to apply this axiom to the making of a 
 table's top, he uses his square both to "right" the angles 
 and to measure the sides. Only as he makes both these 
 measurements does he construct the shape and size correctly. 
 He thus illustrates his appreciation of the self-evident and 
 tautological character of the geometrical judgments in- 
 volved : Under all such relations of angles and straight lines 
 to one another, x y. 
 
 The modern geometry, however, in its striving for an ex- 
 tension of the " purity " of its system of connected proposi- 
 tions, starts from a postulated rather than from an intui- 
 tively perceived proposition. Three possible cases, it says, 
 may occur; but only three. These are, x = y; x>y\ and 
 x<y. Each of these three may be made, if once postulated, 
 the point of starting for divergent systems of space relations, 
 so far as such relations are determinable from this particular 
 point of starting. But in thus changing the axiom to a 
 
316 
 
 A THEOEY OF REALITY 
 
 postulate, and then introducing three cases of the postulate, 
 geometry falls back upon the incontestable validity of the 
 "general axioms" which apply to all human reasoning. 
 Otherwise, how does it know that these three cases exhaust 
 all the possible postulates; that x must either equal y, or 
 be greater than ?/, or less than y ? And how does it know 
 that we may reason about x and y at all ? 
 
 In similar fashion, all mathematical figures may be re- 
 garded as mere hypotheses by which experience is reconciled 
 with the fundamental laws of intellect through the help of 
 the schematizing power of the imagination. Thus, on the 
 one side, geometrical lines and figures are made copies which 
 are taken from sensuous experience ; on the other side, they 
 are abstract relations which are assumed by the intellect, 
 in order to bring the system of them into absolute agreement 
 with the demands of logic. 1 
 
 In passing to the discussion of the allied conception of 
 number, we may be pardoned for calling attention again to 
 the truths of metaphysical import which the discussion of 
 the conception of quantity has evoked. Man's actual meas- 
 urements of the world of things are all, indeed, subjective 
 and relative ; he selects his standards and his points of view, 
 and thus calculates, or discerns, in terms applicable from 
 one to another, the spatial qualities and relations of the 
 objects of his cognitive experience. This he does in the 
 carrying out of his practical ends including in the word 
 "practical," the progressive mastery of the geometrical 
 science of things. All geometrical propositions are, there- 
 fore, applicable to the mental representation of the world of 
 objects as in space, and from the point of view which regards 
 their extensive magnitude only. But man also measures the 
 amounts of physical energy the actual work accomplished, 
 or work potentially implicated which belong to things. 
 This measuring, too, is equally subjective and relative. And 
 
 1 Compare Caspar!, " Grundprobleme der Erkenntnissthatigkeit," II., p. 217 f. 
 
MEASURE AND QUANTITY 317 
 
 both kinds of the application of the doctrine of quantity are 
 made possible by his experience with the facts of motion as 
 regulated by the laws of motion whether theoretical and 
 based on the nature of space, or based on observation of the 
 actual changes of things in space. 
 
 All man's science of quantity, however, implies an import- 
 ant ontological truth as to the actual nature of things. Other- 
 wise this so-called science is not knowledge; much less is 
 it that peculiarly convincing form of knowledge to which 
 the name of " science " is properly restricted. Thus what is 
 implied in our use of the categories of space and of force, is 
 extended in the same direction by what is implied in the facts 
 of measurement and in the category of quantity. The world 
 is known as a system of quantitatively comparable and meas- 
 urable, concrete realities. To affirm this is to endow the 
 world with an ideal and rational nature so far forth, after 
 the analogy of our own. The " pure " and the " applied " 
 science of measurement and of quantity is, indeed, anthropo- 
 morphic. It applies to the envisaged pictures of particu- 
 lar things extended in space and enduring in time. But it 
 is also knowledge of a Reality over which mind rules in the 
 disposition and distribution of the one Being and Force of 
 the world. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 NUMBER AND UNITY 
 
 THAT some kind of numbering, as an activity and achieve- 
 ment of the human mind, is necessary in order to the rudest 
 objective measurement has already been implied in discuss- 
 ing the category of quantity. For it is by comparison of 
 discrete things with one another, or by successive applica- 
 tion of some one thing, as a standard, to other things their 
 extensions or their distances that all genuine measure- 
 ment takes place. In estimating amounts of physical force 
 also, some " unit " of force must be employed ; and this in- 
 volves at least a naive and crude conception of number. In 
 all those more accurate measurements which not only science 
 but also the successful intercourse of men demands, the 
 precise and intelligent use of the acquired power to number 
 is indispensable. Both the making and the recording of 
 measurements, and the whole theory of quantity are depend- 
 ent upon refinements in those conceptions with which arith- 
 metic and the allied developments of mathematics deal. The 
 science of geometry " the science of space " can advance 
 to conquer the new fields that lie opening before it only as it 
 secures support from the developed technique of the science 
 of arithmetic the " science of number. " 
 
 As the mental process of measuring lays its emphasis upon 
 discrimination of the qualities and relations of things in 
 space, so the mental process of numbering emphasizes dis- 
 crimination of the order of occurrences in time. Thus the 
 categories of space and time are, both of them, illustrated; 
 
NUMBER AND UNITY 319 
 
 and the conceptions of spatial and temporal relations are de- 
 veloped in dependence upon the rise and growth of concep- 
 tions both of quantity and of number. The one fact of expe- 
 rience upon which all this mental activity is, so to speak, 
 expended, is the fact of change constantly going on in the 
 world of spatially and temporally related objects. Motion 
 in space, estimated under the category of time this is 
 necessary to all actual measurement of the transactions 
 going on amongst things. And as the estimate of amounts of 
 motion is taking place, the process of counting goes on. 
 The " counted-up " quantitative " moments " of the motion, 
 as they follow each other in the moments of time, give the 
 solution of the problem of measurement. 
 
 Counting is the essence of all numbering; and essen- 
 tially considered all science of numbers is nothing but 
 counting. We have the clew, then, to those reflections with 
 which the category of number furnishes the searcher after a 
 system of metaphysics, when we have asked and answered 
 these two questions : What is the psychological genesis and 
 nature of the mental process of counting ? and what is impli- 
 cated, as to the ultimate nature of Reality, in the accepted 
 fact that the concrete realities of experience can be counted ; 
 and yet that they can be so counted only as parts, or 
 "moments," in the unity of the system ? In the attempt to 
 deal with this second inquiry all the ultimate problems of 
 metaphysics are involved. For the conception of " Unity " 
 and without this scientific numbering is impossible is 
 so important, so fundamental, and yet so comprehensive and 
 variable, that he who understands what it is to be One and 
 yet many has the key to some of the most profound secrets 
 of the universe. 
 
 The nature of the mental processes involved in counting, 
 and thus in the genesis and development of conceptions of 
 number, is not especially obscure. There are, to be sure, 
 certain points about which a difference of opinion may fairly 
 
320 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 exist; but the main features of these processes are, we be- 
 lieve, the following. The "stream of consciousness," al- 
 though it has, as a rule, the continuity of a stream, and 
 although no portion of that stream can be considered as 
 independent of all other portions (especially of those most 
 nearly contiguous), is divisible into so-called "states." 
 This division is not to be effected by forces lying outside of 
 the stream itself ; it is rather dependent upon concentration 
 of the force of attentive and discriminating consciousness, 
 considered as belonging to the subject of the states. Or, to 
 abandon this figure of speech, the Self does not discern its 
 own states as in any way separable from itself or from one 
 another, by contemplating and manipulating them from with- 
 out; neither are the states self -separable entities, or quali- 
 ties of beings not identical with the life of the Self. The 
 different variations in the characteristic content, complex- 
 ity, and intensity of consciousness, both determine and are 
 determined by the accompanying pulsations of attentive 
 discrimination. Thus the Self, as always both active and 
 passive, the constructor and the observer of its own states, 
 is self -known as a unity and as a discrete manifoldness as 
 well. But both the unity and the discrete manifoldness of 
 the Self are subject to the formal category of time. My 
 life, my very being, is a succession of connected and inter- 
 dependent states which have the unity they possess given to 
 them by self-consciousness, recognitive memory, and as a 
 development, under the control of immanent ideas. 
 
 That kind of the succession of conscious states, in time, 
 which most stimulates, favors, and demands, the early exer- 
 cise of the faculty of counting may be described as follows : 
 A succession of states which are interesting, strikingly simi- 
 lar in content and intensity, but separated from each other 
 by somewhat abrupt changes in the tone of feeling and in the 
 character of the transition between them. If the succession 
 of such states is somewhat rhythmical, the arousement of 
 
NUMBER AND UNITY 321 
 
 the mind to count is the more effective. Such are, for ex- 
 ample, the repeated sensations of sound caused by a clock 
 striking, the swaying of the infant's body to and fro in the 
 nurse's arms, the movement before the eyes of the pendu- 
 lum's swing or of the ball suspended from a cord. Thus 
 arises the dawning consciousness of "again and yet again " 
 that same feeling and idea, recurrent and separated from 
 the ones that have been and are to be, by the ordering of 
 time. The resultant in consciousness and memory of expe- 
 riences like these is the first vague idea of a "numerical 
 multiplicity " as distinguished from the manifoldness of parts 
 belonging to one object in space. This does not, indeed, 
 constitute the activity of counting at least not in any in- 
 telligent and scientific fashion. But it forms the impulse to 
 those more intellectual and discriminating mental processes 
 that are involved in genuine counting. And in the case of 
 children and of savages, who can count scarcely at all, but 
 who are by no means insusceptible to minute differences in 
 such numerical multiplicity, it largely takes the place of 
 counting. 
 
 The many possible variations in that terminal state of con- 
 sciousness which is produced by the repetition in conscious- 
 ness of the similar, when broken up into the separate, depend 
 largely upon the number of the repeated similar states. 
 This terminal state may be spoken of as the inchoate con- 
 sciousness of numerical multiplicity. There is a difference, 
 for example, between the conscious statewhich follows as 
 second or third, in a succession of similar states, from that 
 which follows as sixth or seventh ; and so on. Of this differ- 
 ence attentive discrimination makes us immediately aware. 
 For example, the clock has given four of the ten strokes 
 which announce an hour of interest to me ; I am awaking to 
 the fact that the clock is striking, but I have not as yet 
 counted its strokes. But now the fifth stroke arouses in me 
 a vague consciousness corresponding to that number in the 
 
 21 
 
322 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 series ; the " reverberations " of this acoustic sensation are as 
 of the fifth, and of no other stroke in the series. I therefore 
 count it " five ; " and, proceeding now to that more definite 
 repetition of the attentive, ordering, and apperceptive con- 
 sciousness in which genuine counting consists, I find, on 
 reaching the end of the series, that the entire process of 
 numbering has been correct. But the first part of the process 
 is relatively animal and infantile ; the second part is rational 
 and distinctly cognitive. Much of our adult experience 
 illustrates the difference between this vague perception of 
 degrees of "discrete manifoldness," or "numerical multipli- 
 city, " and the rational and completely apperceptive process 
 of counting. 
 
 It is probable that all genuine counting requires the devel- 
 opment of apperceptive and objective consciousness ; for as, 
 in the case of measurement, we measure things by means of 
 quantitative discriminations in our own conscious states, so 
 in the case of counting, we number things by means of the 
 repeated strokes, or pulsations, of our apperceptive conscious- 
 ness. In either case, however, it is not the quantities or the 
 ordering of our own states which interests us ; it is rather 
 the sizes, distances, and number of things. The child 
 counts objects, and not the successive conditions or im- 
 pressions of its mind. To be sure, these conditions and im- 
 pressions, too, may be made the object of the faculty of 
 numbering; and this is what' all self-consciousness is com- 
 pelled to accomplish. To be self-conscious is to be aware of 
 some particular state as one, of the successive state as an- 
 other, and as different in time ; it is also to assign both 
 states to the one subject of all the states. But in the actual 
 order of the mental development, the culture of the power to 
 count is, at first, chiefly, if not wholly gained in the mas- 
 tery of the presentations of sense. This mastery involves 
 the cognition of these presentations as separable in space 
 and time and whether similar or dissimilar in content and 
 
NUMBER AND UNITY 323 
 
 in spatial relations as capable of being given a fixed place 
 in a series. In this series it is not the characteristic con- 
 tent of the different members which is emphasized by the 
 mind's activity in counting: it is the character of the arrange- 
 ment of the members in the series. 
 
 In securing and developing the conceptions of number, all 
 the faculties of the mind are operative. But especially is 
 numbering an intellectual affair. It involves self-conscious 
 and voluntary attention, directing upon the objects in some 
 determinate time-order its repeated strokes, and meanwhile 
 being aware that these strokes are being repeated in this 
 orderly manner. It involves analysis and synthesis both 
 of them, as applied to the individual members of the series, 
 so as to give to these members individuality and yet consti- 
 tute them into the unity of the series. It requires a final act 
 of synthesis which completes the conception of that particular 
 number, of four, or five, or ten, as a unity consisting of 
 just so many members. For, as Dr. Ward has pertinently 
 said i 1 " Every act of intuition or of thought is an act of uni- 
 fying;" and if the concept of unity were an impression of 
 sense and passively received, it would, in common with other 
 such impressions, be unamenable to change. We must there- 
 fore look to the movement of attention for the origin of this 
 category. 
 
 It would be a grave mistake, however, to suppose that the; 
 mind first forms a clear conception of unity, and then by a. 
 process of addition as it were, forms the conceptions of the 
 particular numbers composed of manifold (so many, and no 
 more) units. Here, as in all allied development of the mind 
 in objective knowledge, progress is from the obscure to the 
 clear in general, rather than from the clear in one particular 
 to the clear in all other allied particulars. Without the 
 conception of more than one, no conception of unity itself can 
 
 1 Art. in Encyc. Brit. p. 79 ; and compare Lipps : " Grundtatsachen des See- 
 lenlebens," p. 590 f. 
 
324 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 be gained. The only cow on the island of Helgoland did not 
 become one cow for the children on the island until they had 
 visited Festland and seen another of the same kind. Thus 
 all development of numerical conceptions requires that 
 process of reciprocal clarifying which involves the repetition 
 of analysis and synthesis, of separating and uniting. The 
 manifold is known only in a vague way to be different from 
 the single, until this manifold is understood as dependent for 
 its nature upon the coexistence, in intuition or in thought, of 
 a series of units. On the other hand, the unity of any single 
 object can be comprehended only as this unity is contrasted 
 with a manifoldness of similar objects that must emphasize 
 its difference from them. " One " and " two," or any number 
 more than one, "part" and "whole," "this here" and "that 
 other over there" these and all similar conceptions require 
 the clarifying activity of counting the objects as they arise 
 in the stream of consciousness. 
 
 Objectively regarded, then, every objective experience is 
 necessarily both one and many, according to the point of 
 view selected for the fixation, distribution, and redistribution 
 of apperceptive attention. And this is because every object 
 is, from the psychological point of view, the construct of an 
 actual analytic and synthetic activity of the intellect. 
 
 It thus appears that all conceptions of numbers require 
 that the manifold should be consciously and actively "dis- 
 creted " by the mind if one may so speak. But in the con- 
 struction of those conceptions which answer to the different 
 numbers, the terminal synthetic act of consciousness is made 
 emphatic. I count one, and then another, and then still 
 another ; I regard the whole thus attained as a discrete unity 
 and call it "three." I note also the place which each mem- 
 ber no matter what sort of an object, otherwise regarded, 
 it may be holds in this succession. Thus the conceptions 
 of first, second, and third are gained. Each of these con- 
 ceptions both separates and unites its objects ; for all genuine 
 
NUMBER AND UNITY 325 
 
 counting is a recognition of the discreteness of objects, fol- 
 lowed by a recognition of their being now united as members, 
 each in its place, of one and the same series. Thus number 
 becomes regularly arranged manifoldness, with the selection 
 of the particular objects which shall constitute this arrange- 
 ment left to the will, in its effort to reach practical or theo- 
 retical ends, but with the law (regula) of arranging deter- 
 mined by the constitution of the intellect. That "two" 
 must follow "one," and must be itself followed by "three," 
 means simply : I count ; that is, I mind the number of things. 
 But what object, or part of an object, shall be put into the 
 place of one, or two, or three, may be as I will. And it is 
 the extent to which the activity of counting can be carried by 
 any individual or any portion of the race, and the choice of 
 points of view in the varied forms of counting, which deter- 
 mine the degree in development of men's conceptions of 
 number as applied to things. 
 
 What it is in the construction of objects which makes it 
 possible to count them at all is not now a difficult problem to 
 solve. An appeal is needed to three principles in the solu- 
 tion of every such problem, two of them more especially 
 formal, and the third more especially dynamic, in character. 
 These are continuity in space, continuity in time, and that 
 combination of distinguishability and comparability which 
 secures an actual correspondence to some idea. 
 
 First, then, a certain continuity in space must be intuited, 
 or imagined, for every object-thing to which terms of num- 
 ber can be applied ; and this secures to it in particular the 
 unity which is equally secured by the continuity of space that 
 belongs to every other object that is numbered together with 
 it. The being of the one thing is somehow known as con- 
 tinuous in space ; it is this spatial continuity which makes it 
 into a unity. But this thing can be "one among many," 
 only on the supposition that some other thing also possesses 
 its own peculiar spatial continuity. Moreover, between 
 
326 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 these two things and all other members of the same series 
 of objects, the binding influence, as it were, of existence in 
 the unity of space must be felt. For example, there are ten 
 trees in yonder row, or distributed over that adjacent plot of 
 greensward. No matter, so far as their number is concerned, 
 whether the trees are elms or maples, oaks or yews : ten trees 
 are they. This tree is here, a single object with its un- 
 broken extension, and thus constituted for sense-perception 
 and for imagination, one tree ; another is there, with its own 
 proper extension, and thus it also makes one tree; but, in 
 number, it is two. Thus straight onward we count the row; 
 or we wander in our counting over the plot where the group 
 is distributed. Spatial continuity, thus broken into a " dis- 
 crete manifoldness " by the construction and arrangement of 
 the objects, makes it possible to count them. But if one 
 choose, one may mentally seize upon any one of these ob- 
 jects and convert it, by regard to the same principle, into 
 the unity of a discrete manifold. This tree is one tree, 
 indeed ; but it has two main branches, and each of these is 
 divided into four or more branches of a secondary order. 
 Every individual member of this new system also is made 
 one by its own continuity in space; and all the individuals 
 together are numbered, as in the system, by extending the 
 principle so as to divide and yet unite them all. No matter 
 how large the object may be to which one chooses to attri- 
 bute the unity of membership in the numerical series; and 
 no matter how small, even beyond the limits of the highest 
 powers of the microscope ; both sensuous intuition and sen- 
 suous imagination bow to the laws of objective counting 
 under the principle of the continuity of space. 
 
 Continuity in time is another principle to which the con- 
 stitution of objects must conform in order to be counted and 
 numbered. The very act of counting has been seen to con- 
 sist in a series of "strokes " of attention that are recognized 
 as separate and successive in time; and the results of which 
 
NUMBER AND UNITY 327 
 
 are summarized by a terminal conception that co-ordinates 
 and synthesizes them all. The very idea of a " series " is 
 dependent upon our experience with what is successive and 
 separable in time ; but also upon the unification of the mem- 
 bers of the series under some conception of their number 
 regarded as coexistent in time. For although I must take 
 time to count, I do not number what I have counted unless I 
 regard the different things counted as a unity of beings that 
 belong to the same time. One, two, three, and so on up to 
 ten ; but " ten " cannot be conceived of otherwise than as de- 
 pendent upon the continued existence of the preceding units, 
 with which it is now joined into a new unity. This experi- 
 ence is made objective on the basis of the conditions furnished 
 by the presentations of sense. If, for example, I count the 
 strokes of the clock as it announces the hour of ten, nothing 
 remains in existence that can be regarded as corresponding 
 to the terminal conception of the number ten, except the 
 conception itself. There have occurred in reality so many 
 events; but there does not now exist in reality any corre- 
 sponding number of objects. If, however, I count the ten 
 " real " trees and finish this succession of impressions in 
 time by the judgment, "There are ten;" then this judgment 
 of numbers may be verified by any one who can count, as 
 often as one will. One may begin at either end, or in the 
 middle of the row ; one may divide the entire series with 
 pauses in the counting, into as many sub-groups as one will ; 
 but there are always ten. In order that they may be counted 
 as ten objectively and actually these presentations of 
 sense must be known as coexistent in one time. Endurance 
 of objects in time, and the objective unity of time, is thus 
 a necessary assumption of the application of conceptions of 
 number to our presentations of sense, or to the constructs of 
 intellect and imagination in terms of presentation of sense. 
 The principle of continuity in time must be observed in order 
 that objects may be counted and numbered as real existences. 
 
328 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Distinguishability from other objects, and yet compara- 
 bility with other objects, is necessary in order that any con- 
 crete reality may be intuited or imagined under the category 
 of number. In order to appear as "one," every object of 
 sense-perception or of imagination must separate itself off 
 from other objects and yet in such a way as to be comparable 
 with them. To be counted as existent in the world of real- 
 ity, each thing must be actually one, indeed; and yet it 
 must also be one among many. This implies, on the one 
 hand, that Reality itself is a System of inner Relations which 
 have been somehow set free from internal contradictions; 
 and, on the other hand, it implies in each concrete example 
 a certain steadfastness in obedience to the laws which con- 
 trol its own peculiar relations with other more or less similar 
 objects. The object must separate itself from the environ- 
 ment of objects, in order to be considered as a Thing, a 
 single being ; it must also behave in accordance with its own 
 principles of being and not fuse with or lose itself in any 
 other being, if it is to continue its claim to be counted at all. 
 Thus men ask in the expressive language of slang, whether 
 this particular thing " counts " for aught or not. The claim 
 to be counted as belonging to the world of actual beings is 
 established only by a certain steadfast action in accordance 
 with certain immanent ideas; it is this which Mr. Bradley 
 has rightly assigned, in its supreme form, only to the Abso- 
 lute, namely, that "self-consistency " which is the essence 
 of true being. For only so long, and so far, as any object 
 remains self -consistent, can it be counted as one as itself 
 (the " It " which corresponds to that particular " Self ") and 
 no other. This every meanest real thing does in its own 
 more or less perfect measure. But should any object aim to 
 push its self-consistency so far as wholly to isolate itself, 
 should it try to become an exclusive and selfish unity, it 
 would thereby lose all its being. For, in order to be counted 
 and numbered, every single being must stand up with the 
 
NUMBER AND UNITY 329 
 
 rest of the beings of the world one among many. In re- 
 spect to its number-characteristic, as in respect to all other 
 characteristics, the " individual lives and moves and has its 
 being " in the Unity of the one infinitely manifold System. 
 
 The metaphysical truth with which we have just been 
 dealing has undoubtedly been somewhat figuratively ex- 
 pressed. But the truth told by these figures of speech is truth 
 both of fact as illustrated in ordinary cognitive experience, 
 and also of principle as enforced by the axioms and generali- 
 zations of science. He speaks falsehood who affirms that 
 there are ten trees in that row, or fifty species in that genus, 
 or so many thousands of scales on that fish, or scores of 
 petals or sepals in that flower, and does not observe those 
 principles of all that is really numerable. Each object 
 of man's cognition must assert its claim to be counted as 
 "one," by its actual conformity in a self-consistent way to 
 certain ideas; but each object is counted as one among 
 many, to which it stands related by conformity, in all its 
 behavior, to certain laws which govern the entire class. To- 
 be sure, one may count things together in a quite arbitrary 
 and even freaky way, if one chooses so to do. But such 
 counting does not result in the healthy growth of man's 
 knowledge of the nature of the world in which he lives. 
 The tree is one ; the bird in its branches is two ; the squirrel 
 in the hole in the branch is three; and the fungus on its 
 trunk is four, objects all. That you and I see these four 
 things may be of some temporary practical interest to us; 
 but it is not by such loose enumeration of objects that science 
 is built up. Even in this case, our counting observes each 
 of the foregoing three principles of all application of number 
 to reality; since it recognizes the four objects of sense- 
 perception as distinguishable and yet belonging to the com- 
 mon class of the visible, under the formal conditions of space 
 and time. 
 
 If now the inquiry be raised, as to what it is that causes 
 
330 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the different objects, which get counted and numbered, to 
 differentiate and yet unify themselves in the way in which 
 they actually do, the only satisfactory reply must take into 
 account the whole system of forces, forms, and laws, under 
 which the world of things is known. This world, from the 
 point of view held by the mind that numbers its objects is 
 itself some sort of a unity of the manifold. Space and time 
 are the formal conditions of this characteristic of number 
 which all the objects of human knowledge possess. But it is 
 the manifold forms taken by the world's constructive forces 
 that must be considered as actually differentiating Reality 
 into the multitude of concrete unities which exist under these 
 formal conditions. In a word, the One Force of the World, 
 under those formal conditions of time and space which It 
 sets to our mental representation of things, by its infinite 
 differentiations also gives existence to many objects, that are, 
 for the time being actual unities, and yet have all their being 
 in manifold relations of dependence to one another. Thus 
 the category of Number depends for its application to the 
 objects of man's knowledge upon the categories of Space, 
 Time, and Force, and upon those conceptions and assump- 
 tions as to the Nature of Reality which have already been 
 found to be warranted by all these categories. 
 
 By intellectual processes similar to those which construct 
 the abstract science of space, an abstract science of number 
 is founded and developed. The actual synthesis of which 
 the senses and the sensuous imagination are capable extends 
 to only a small number of objects. The need which arith- 
 metic and its allied branches of mathematics feel, of assist- 
 ance from a system of accepted symbols is, therefore, no less 
 great than the similar need felt by geometry. To discuss 
 the systems actually in use by modern science their psy- 
 chological genesis, historical development, and metaphysical 
 import would take our thought much too far afield. It is 
 enough for present purposes to call attention briefly to the 
 
NUMBER AND UNITY 
 
 following truths : First, the essence of all arithmetical procT 
 esses is the activity of counting; and all the most funda- 
 mental rules of arithmetic simply declare the results of the 
 different ways of working this one process of counting. 
 Addition is counting on, and subtraction is counting off. 
 Multiplication is counting on so many groups which have, 
 each one, so many individuals; and division is counting off, 
 so many groups, each one of a specified number. As the 
 relations between the symbols which stand for the different 
 numerical magnitudes are complicated, the argument follows 
 the same "general axioms" of all reasoning which geometry 
 employs. Second : even the most primitive and fundamental 
 judgments in mathematics are not, as Kant affirmed, syn- 
 thetic and a priori (in the Kantian meaning of these words). 
 On the contrary, these judgments are analytically descrip- 
 tive of the results reached in the various modes of the general 
 process of counting. For example, the proposition 5 + 7 = 
 12, means simply to mark with appropriate and fixed sym- 
 bols the result of counting five, and then continuing to count 
 until seven more have been counted. But the symbols, 5 + 7, 
 may also be taken as a problem; and then they furnish a 
 challenge to perform a certain process of counting, which has 
 a subordinate terminal synthesis introduced at a certain place 
 in the entire course of the process. The conception of twelve, 
 as the predicate of the resulting judgment of equality, adds 
 nothing to the complex conception of the subject (5 + 7) ; it 
 simply states the term which has been fixed by agreement for 
 that particular member in the series of objects counted. And 
 whether we pause after the fifth, or after the seventh, or 
 after any other member of the series, in any special way, 
 makes no difference with our conception of the number 
 "twelve." The value of this number is determined by the 
 times the unit has been repeated before arriving at its place, 
 as indicated by the symbol, in the numerical series. 
 
 It has already been shown how subjective and relative to 
 
332 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 his varying physical and mental interests is the actual system 
 of numbering which man applies to the objects of his con- 
 crete experiences. What primarily determines all numbering 
 is the succession of " strokes of attention '' as, in connection 
 with the analytic and synthetic activity of intellect, they are 
 applied to the different " moments " in the life of the Self. 
 But objective numbering is determined by something other 
 than man's own choice, not to say his own caprice. The 
 numerations and calculations of science are not merely sub- 
 jective and relative to the desires, wants, and practical ends, 
 of human life. Things, as they appear to man under the 
 conditions of his sense-perception, imagination, and thought, 
 have also something to say as to how he must number them. 
 The forces that operate in and between things, and between 
 things and us, determine their number-characteristics for us. 
 This system of objective numbering takes place under the 
 formal conditions of Space and Time, and in accordance with 
 those regulated changes of things which the Force of the 
 world secures, as It manifests itself in the infinite variety of 
 objects that constitute the One World. 
 
 Taken in connection, then, with the other categories which 
 have already been critically examined, this category of num- 
 ber enforces the same truth as to the Nature of Reality which 
 we have learned from them. In those transitory and chang- 
 ing relations which furnish the conditions for the application 
 of the conceptions of unity and of manifoldness (of "numer- 
 ical multiplicity") to man's mental representation of the 
 world as in space and time, there are sure tokens to be dis- 
 covered as to the unchanging and absolute character of the 
 trans-sub jectively Real. The ontological doctrine thus de- 
 rived includes the following particulars : first, the reality of 
 certain ideal relations which always control the actual 
 changes of things; second, the actual manifoldness of that 
 Being of the World in which the relations coexist; third, 
 the reality of some unifying bond or principle, which actu- 
 
NUMBER AND UNITY 333 
 
 ally unites the elements into separate unities, and which also 
 binds them all together into higher and higher unities, and 
 at last into a supreme Unity. In one word, the metaphysi- 
 cal doctrine of number compels us to credit as ontologically 
 true the Reality of the manifold in Unity, of the One as 
 comprehending and conditioning the many. 
 
 Thus does the inquiry after the highest valid conception 
 of " unity " become an all-important problem for any metaphy- 
 sical system. In discussing this problem it is almost as 
 difficult as it is unprofitable to shirk, or to discredit, the 
 import of the facts of man's common experience. Approach- 
 ing the problem on the side of knowledge, we know that all 
 our conceptions of any manner of unity are derived from the 
 self-conscious unifying activity of the mind. In every intui- 
 tion of a single object, or of several objects, whether com- 
 bined to constitute a single group or known as contrasted 
 groups, it is the grasping together by active consciousness 
 which gives the number-qualification to the intuition. And 
 the limit of the cognition attained, both as respects its clear- 
 ness and as respects its manifoldness, depends upon this uni- 
 fying and yet differentiating "grasp of consciousness." So, 
 too, are all imagination of, and all reasoning about, numbers 
 dependent upon the same unifying actus of the mind. 
 
 But in any completed act of knowledge the object, thus 
 produced by the mind's self-activity, is also presented to the 
 mind as being really a unity. What is it really to be one ; 
 what is it to be an actual unity ? This is an ontological 
 inquiry, a question which has its place in a system of meta- 
 physics. Whenever we speak of the "unity" of Force, or 
 the " unity " of the World, or the " unity " of the origin or the 
 continued connection of all beings in One Absolute or World- 
 Ground, we surely need to determine carefully the meaning 
 of our numerical conception. But for such phrases no mean- 
 ing can be found which is not framed after a more or less 
 perfect analogy of the self-known unity of the Self. It is the 
 
334 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Self which is the source of the logical formulas and the 
 typical example of every kind and degree of unity. 1 The 
 same Ego, which actively constitutes all the known unities, 
 knows itself as the highest type of what it is to be one, in 
 truth and in reality. 
 
 Things possess unity only in a way inferior to that unity 
 which the self possesses in the highest degree. Let there 
 be no mistake here : it is not the imagined rigidity of the 
 steel bar which constitutes the highest kind of an actual 
 unity. This particular piece of metal, which has just been 
 cut off at the rolling-mill, is indeed " one " in a very solid 
 and permanent way. It will require no small expenditure 
 of force to divide it into two or more parts ; it will take no 
 little time to dissolve its unity into a multiplicity by the 
 slow consumption of the natural forces of heat and cold and 
 moisture, etc. Although it is a unity of a certain sort, it is, 
 nevertheless, undergoing constant change; it is, indeed, a 
 different thing every moment of its seemingly unchanging 
 existence. The mind regards it as the same, one Thing 
 through all its minute and invisible changes, the same $, 
 
 because the changes run through the series, &, S a , Sp 9 S y , 
 
 $,, and so obey the laws, or immanent ideas, that control 
 the being of this /SI Even thus, however, we cannot frame 
 any conception of what it is for S the single bar of steel 
 
 to be an actual unity without appealing to the' analogy 
 of our experience with ourselves. 
 
 Any such thing as a bar of steel is really a vast collection 
 of elements that are united, under the conditions of space 
 and time, in accordance with certain relatively simple ideal 
 forms. But in the case of those unities that develop from 
 relatively simple and homogeneous beginnings into exceed- 
 ingly complex and variable products, the conceptions of 
 number, as they apply directly to the life of the self, become 
 more apprehensible and exact. What is it, for example, 
 
 1 Compare the author's "Philosophy of Mind," chap, vi., "The Unity of Mind." 
 

 NUMBER AND UNITY 335 
 
 that gives unity to those forms of life which undergo such 
 astonishing transformations of material, shape, and func- 
 tions, as certain plants and animals exhibit? It is, obvi- 
 ously, the subjugation of the manifold in space and time to the 
 unity of ideas. It is only, however, when the ideas become 
 such conscious states in the being which undergoes the 
 changes as to form incitements and guides to its will, that 
 we reach the highest kind of unity, and the richest variety of 
 content as well. So that the more like the self any other 
 being is known to be, the higher is the unity which that being 
 possesses, because constructed more closely after the pattern 
 of the self. And among selves, that One is the highest 
 actual unity that is the most of a genuine Self. 
 
 In discussing the categories of change, being, time, space, 
 and force, frequent reference was made to the conception of 
 unity. In order that change may be more than change, 
 some unifying principle must be discovered or assumed. In 
 order really to be, the being that claims existence for human 
 cognition or human thought must behave itself in accordance 
 with some ideal, harmonizing principle, comprehensible by 
 the human mind. Time, space, and force all these cate- 
 gories have number applied to them ; and the whole mani- 
 fold complex of changing and moving things is bound into a 
 system by the unifying of time, and space, and force. But 
 mere force will produce no actual unity ; and when physics or 
 metaphysics speaks of the unity of force, as though it were 
 an explanatory principle, unless some secret reference is made 
 to the self-consistent and rational activity of a Will, the con- 
 ception is not advanced a whit beyond the bare statement of 
 the fact of universal interaction. Nay: action and interac- 
 tion do not mean anything real and vital to man's cognitive 
 experience, unless they are referred for their interpretation 
 to the way in which the Self maintains itself as a unity, in 
 spite of, and by virtue of, its manifold forms of the com- 
 merce with things. Without admitting thus much, all meta- 
 
336 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 physical discussions of man's conceptions of number seem 
 doomed to end with the closing sentences of Plato's 
 " Parmenides " : 
 
 "Then let us say this; and further, as seems to be the 
 truth, let us say that, one is or is not, one and the others 
 in relation to themselves and one another all of them, in 
 every way both are and are not, and appear and appear 
 not. 
 
 "That is most true." 
 
 If, then, the World constitutes a real unity of a kind at 
 once most comprehensible and most effective to account for 
 all man's experience with himself and with other things, 
 this unity is that of an Absolute Self. Its manifold separate 
 realities have their being as manifestations, or "moments," 
 in Its Unity. That this is so, is further indicated and en- 
 forced by conceptions which have not yet received critical 
 examination. But the more complete and satisfying concep- 
 tion of the nature of that oneness which man's progress in 
 knowledge justifies him in applying to the system of known 
 realities requires considerations to be drawn from the phil- 
 osophy of the ideal, from ethics, aesthetics, and religion. 
 For it is only the self-conscious and self-consistent realiza- 
 tion of the highest ideals which can reveal to the mind of 
 man the nature of the highest kind of that Reality which is 
 -entitled to be called "One." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FORMS AND LAWS 
 
 CONCEPTIONS corresponding to the words which stand at the 
 head of this chapter compel the extension of our reflections 
 in the effort to discover that Theory of Reality which shall 
 most satisfactorily explain all the facts of man's cognitive 
 experience. " Phenomena" so-called are never appearances 
 of mere, undefined beings, or of unrelated beings, or of beings 
 that follow no particular order in their construction and their 
 behavior. On the contrary, the objects of man's knowledge 
 are always particular beings, constituted in definite form and 
 behaving in more or less uniform manner, whose so-called 
 " natures " may be represented conceptually, and whose be- 
 havior he may properly attempt to formulate and to explain as 
 an obedience to the laws of Nature in general. Even the 
 most sudden and surprising changes in the construction or 
 the relations of things do not take them out of the sphere to 
 which the mind deems its conceptions of form and of law to 
 be applicable. For actual changes never move from the 
 wholly formless or chaotic to the fully formed, but only from 
 one form to another more or less distantly allied form ; nor 
 does any thing ever change from the wholly unrelated to the 
 precisely related, a jump from the unconditioned to the 
 definitely conditioned, but only from one set of relations 
 into another. 
 
 On the one hand, without change the very conception of 
 form and law have no significance in reality. On the other 
 hand, change that has absolutely no regard to form and law 
 
 22 
 
338 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 can never get any place in reality. All the particular beings 
 the selves and the things which are known or can be 
 imagined, are really what they are, because their different 
 constituent elements arrange themselves in an ideal way, and 
 function together or in sequence, under conditions of recipro- 
 cal dependence. This way of their behavior always makes a 
 demand upon us for "reasons" which shall show why the 
 behavior is thus rather than otherwise ; and why the series of 
 changes in form, or in relation, follows this particular rather 
 than some other regular course. 
 
 It is true that the metaphysical way of interpreting the 
 conceptions of form and law as applied to selves and to things 
 does not seem, at first sight, to answer perfectly to the common- 
 sense view. It is enough for the understanding and practical 
 purposes of the " plain man " that he shall consider the form 
 of things as something that is fixed, and belongs to them as a 
 sort of gift or compulsion from without. So does he, with his 
 carpenter's tools, shape the table or the box ; the thing thus 
 shaped, unless some subsequent accident or other formative 
 agency comes upon it, abides in the same shape in which it 
 was put. So, too, does he afterward set the table or the box 
 in such relations as he will to other things ; and when he has 
 willed these precise relations, the thing stays where it was 
 set. Little reflection is needed to show that science in its 
 complicated dealings with such transactions simple as they 
 appear to the " common-sense " consciousness has a differ- 
 ent tale to tell. The form imparted to the table, or to the box, 
 was not originally given to it without respect to the form 
 that the material out of which these new things were con- 
 structed, already possessed. The new form was itself due to 
 the characteristic modes of reaction that were given by the 
 material to the formative forces which acted upon it. These 
 modes of reaction themselves were due to the form already 
 belonging to the material, this old form being the expres- 
 sion of certain forces of cohesion and atomic affinity which 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 339 
 
 had previously been called out by the action upon the ele- 
 ments of the formative chemico-physical forces under which 
 the wood grew. Nor was the form-giving energy exerted by 
 the carpenter of an essentially different order. It was his 
 saw, plane, and hammer, which shaped the wood into these 
 new relations. But the constantly changing relations of 
 these tools to the wood, as they were shaping it, were them- 
 selves produced by changes in the form of the muscles of the 
 carpenter ; these latter changes were shaped by those myste- 
 rious processes which go on in the efferent nerve-tracts ; and 
 these were due to influences that may be traced back to the 
 motor centres of the brain. Nor is there the slightest valid 
 reason in experience to stop here ; for it was the formative 
 influence of the stream of consciousness ideating and will- 
 ing on which these motor centres reacted according to their 
 own nature and in obedience to the laws relating them with 
 the mind, which initiated the entire series of connected 
 changes. For this is what form, as belonging to all particu- 
 lar beings, actually is ; namely, the ideal manner in which the 
 forces immanent in things react upon the changes in their rela- 
 tions to one another. In reality, every particular being is cease- 
 lessly forming itself and being formed. No actual form is 
 ever statical and fixed. The actual form of every Thing is the 
 changing expression of the nature of that thing, as dependent 
 upon the particular part which it is playing at that instant in 
 the total Being of the World. 
 
 Similar conclusions follow a critical examination into the 
 meaning, for reality, of that aspect of our common experience 
 which leads to the conception of physical and mental " laws," 
 and to the scientific assumption of a " reign of law " which is 
 universal in the realms both of mind and of matter. In the 
 popular thought the law, like the form, which applies to any 
 particular case is customarily regarded as though it were 
 pre-existent to the beings to which it is applied, dominating 
 or ruling over them ; to " It " they are subject as to a sovereign 
 
340 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 whose allegiance has been involuntarily and unthinkingly 
 assumed. Modern science, especially, seems by its phrase- 
 ology to insist upon making an entity, or explanatory realistic 
 principle, out of its conception of " Law," which it regards as 
 somehow separable from the facts, and as belonging to a higher 
 and more invulnerable order of existences. Not infrequently, 
 the total collection of so-called laws, suspected or definitively 
 ascertained, is thus converted, in thought, into a perfectly 
 rigid and unchanging system of rules, that binds fast, while 
 it wholly explains, the character and the sequences of the 
 phenomena. 
 
 In reality, all physical laws are only convenient and often 
 temporary formulas for stating the ways in which things seem 
 actually to behave under a variety of changing relations to 
 one another. Man's knowledge of the world in the midst 
 of which he lives does not begin with, or depend upon, the 
 conviction that the actual facts of his experience are forever 
 and irresistibly bound together under unchanging and uni- 
 versally applicable formulas. The order of mental develop- 
 ment proceeds, indeed, from observation of the concrete facts 
 to the conception of a regular connection amongst the facts. 
 But even the modified way in which Lotze states the a priori 
 doctrine of this conception of a connection, " in law," for 
 the entire course of tilings, as antedating experience (steht 
 vor oiler Erfahrung fest\ l is not warranted by the actual 
 facts of man's mental development. Chemical laws, for 
 example, can not be spoken of as actually in existence, 
 while as yet all of the necessary elements have not come into 
 the precise relations necessary to their particular forms of 
 chemical union. The laws of physiological chemistry cannot 
 antedate the facts of life. And as to the universal " reign of 
 law," this is a most complicated and intensely modern concep- 
 tion. In its ordinary acceptation, it is an exceedingly figura- 
 tive and still doubtful affair. Whatever form of interpretation 
 
 1 See his "Metaphysik," Einleitung, p. 8 f. 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 341 
 
 is given to this seductive phrase, the conception answering to it 
 remains something far short of a demonstration or even of a 
 legitimate a priori assumption. 
 
 While, however, much uncertainty of application belongs 
 to the conceptions of " form " and " law," as these conceptions 
 are held and employed by modern science, both of them are 
 fitly employed in witness of certain forms of cognition which 
 are entitled to be considered forms of reality as well. That 
 is to say, the words express certain categories. No wholly 
 formless Thing can really be ; and if such a no-thing ( Unding) 
 could exist, it could not be known to exist. No wholly form- 
 less, or unshaped, series of changes can take place in the 
 being of any thing : a real being cannot thus violate the law 
 of its nature, even when feeling the utmost compulsion from 
 outside influences, to change its " manner of life." No 
 wholly formless transaction can occur in which several things 
 take different parts; in every transaction that involves a 
 number of different beings, each individual being must take 
 its own proper part in the form that fitly belongs to it, 
 whether it be some form of action or of suffering. But in all 
 such use of the words " form " and " law," and in all use of 
 similar or cognate terms, one and the same truth is meant. It is 
 meant to apply ideas to things, and to the behavior of things. 
 Shaping and being shaped, formative action and forming re- 
 action in response to such action, are both alike significant 
 of the direction of immanent forces in conformity to immanent 
 ideas. All so-called " obedience to law " is voluntary or 
 enforced submission to ideas. No other meaning, and no 
 meaning whatever which excludes this meaning, can be given 
 to any of these terms ; expressed in one word, the truth is 
 this : Everything that is, and every event that happens, comes 
 under the category of the Idea. 
 
 In illustration of the essential thought on which all such 
 terms concentrate attention, the way that men employ the 
 two words, " form " and " law," deserves further recognition. 
 
342 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 In the case of that relatively unchanging material which is 
 seemingly shaped wholly from without, the conception of form 
 overlays and obscures the conception of law ; and the truth 
 that both form and law are essentially ideal comes to be re- 
 garded as an insignificant common-place. No one thinks of 
 denying that the idea of the carpenter determines the form 
 which the table or box shall have. But, to search the deeper 
 truth, it is the obscure and complicated action and reaction of 
 innumerable factors, mental and physical, under a great num- 
 ber of laws, that determine the form of the finished product. 
 Brain cells, nerve-tracts, muscle-fibre, tools of wood and iron, 
 material of wood and iron all have been both forming and 
 being formed, according to the several laws of their reciprocal 
 relations. Not one of the millions of factors which took part 
 in this transaction will ever return to its original form ; 'and 
 no other table, or box, which called out the same concentra- 
 tion of laws has ever been formed, or ever will be formed 
 again. The combined psychical and physical forces involved 
 have changed the form of all the beings engaged in the trans- 
 action ; the entire World of Being will neve> be the same 
 again. The event seems trivial enough ; but in it the whole 
 system of reality has actualized once for all a particular 
 series of its ideas ; and IT never needs to do things twice 
 alike. Form and law have directed force, and things have 
 changed in conformity to new ideal conditions. The interior, 
 mysterious nature of all this, the silent but marvellous obe- 
 dience of the concurring factors to the suggestions and 
 directions of the idea, are not to be overlooked or mistaken 
 because the transaction appears to the popular mind so coarse 
 and common-place. For this is just what the conceptions of 
 " form " and of u law " always mean ; the changes which the 
 forces immanent in the beings of the world effect, whether they 
 are changes of the condition of the beings themselves or changes 
 of their mutual relations, always must be known as conforming 
 to ideas. 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 
 
 343 
 
 From the point of view held by the student of the psycho- 
 logical genesis and development of these conceptions, the 
 subjective and relative character of all man's knowledge of 
 forms and of laws is most obvious. Every real Thing, no 
 matter how fixed, essential, and independent of all mental 
 activity it may appear to be, has in truth an indefinite number 
 of forms and obeys an indefinite number of laws, according 
 to the mind's voluntary or involuntary changes in its points of 
 view. " Pure " form or " pure " law is a pure abstraction ; 
 actual form and really established law require the construc- 
 tive and relating activity of mind. The psychology of these 
 conceptions shows that they are imparted to things by the 
 mind of man. Forms are given to things by the formative 
 activity of the observing and reflecting mind ; laws are im- 
 parted to events by the relating and reflecting mind. Forms 
 and laws are mental representations, figurate conceptions, 
 ways in which the senses apprehend and interpret the modi- 
 fications of the stream of consciousness. No other kind of 
 form seems so well entitled to be the possession of the thing 
 in itself, fixed and independent of all relation to the knower, 
 as its shape or its size, especially in the case of the solid 
 and unyielding sorts of material. How, for example, are 
 the length and the weight of a steel rail, or the relation which 
 two lines of steel rails sustain to each other over the miles of 
 road-bed from A to B, dependent upon any man's perception, 
 imagination, thought ? But the discussion of the categories 
 of quality, relation, and space has already answered this and 
 all similar inquiries. Length and weight have no meaning, 
 independent of the measuring activities of mind, and of the 
 sensations and feelings of effort called forth by the changing 
 relations of the mind to the things that possess the qualities. 
 
 Moreover, if one attempt to learn the entire doctrine of 
 form as it applies to any single thing, or to compass the list 
 of so-called laws which any particular being is obeying at any 
 instant of its existence, one will need to exhaust all human 
 
344 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 knowledge ; and still one will be far enough from reaching a 
 complete fulfilment of one's aim. As to space-form, every 
 single thing embodies all the formal principles of the Euclid- 
 ean geometry, and offers suggestions which lead the thought 
 out into the wide and airy regions of the new geometry. As 
 to the form of the forces that are centred in each thing, or 
 are concentrated upon it, there is need to invoke for its com- 
 plete understanding the entire modern theory of dynamics. 
 Heat, light, electricity, magnetism and more beyond are 
 all expressing their will in the form which every particular 
 being has assumed, and in the form of the changes it con- 
 stantly undergoes. 
 
 What a mockery of an explanation it is to regard any deed 
 done by any thing as an event under the reign of laws that 
 are totally unrelated to the points of view chosen by the law- 
 giving mind which observes and thinks upon the event ! The 
 vase falls to the floor and is broken into a score of pieces. 
 Its fall and breaking appears to me as one continuous, 
 unanalyzable event. Instantly, and at the right moment, 
 when the careless servant's hand struck it, the whole thing, 
 and every part of it down to the separate atoms, knew what to 
 do. Of its own will it moved to the floor, to which it was 
 drawn ; it then broke itself, just precisely as it was broken, 
 because the molecules and the atoms all knew what was 
 required of them, each one, under such definite but com- 
 plicated and unaccustomed circumstances. Neither the vase 
 as a whole, nor any of its parts, had ever behaved in any 
 such way before ; and certainly they will never have the 
 chance to behave in similar manner again. Yet this its be- 
 havior was an inconceivably complicated affair, a unit- 
 transaction involving the solution, by millions of elements, of 
 an infinitely complex problem which they had never been 
 called upon to solve before. You and I, two human minds, 
 perhaps objecting to the servant's explanation that the 
 vase " broke itself " begin to pick the event in pieces, to 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 345 
 
 analyze it, to consider its unique particularity as a combining 
 of millions of factors, from a score of different points of view. 
 From the point of view of ethics, we blame the careless hand 
 that initiated it ; but with the wisdom of modern science, we 
 declare : " It happened according to law." What law, indeed ? 
 It would seem that the law of gravitation was most promi- 
 nently concerned in this particular transaction. But the law 
 of gravitation is no somewhat that existed antecedent to this 
 particular fact, and presided over it ; nor had this law any- 
 thing to do with more than one possible aspect of the total 
 complex transaction. The so-called laws of the cohesion of 
 molecules under the influence of heat, and of their separation 
 under mechanical force, must also be summoned to help 
 account for this event. These physical formulas afford us a 
 partial satisfaction in the explanation of another aspect of the- 
 whole event. The laws of those untrained minds that work 
 without conscious regard to law may also, well enough, be 
 regarded at this point. 
 
 Laws many and forces many which seem to change them- 
 selves in character as we^change our points of view and sum- 
 jrnon more or less of the world's scientific acquisitions to our 
 'aid certainly get concrete expression in every single trans- 
 action between things, no matter how apparently simple* 
 Every such transaction is an epitome of the physical universe. 
 Man's attempt to understand it succeeds only in the measure 
 in which he is permitted to read into the event his own ideas. 
 For to discover and to declare the " forms " of things, and to- 
 regard them as obeying " laws," is undoubtedly to impose 
 upon trans-subjective realities our human ideas. The Forms 
 oLBeality..are the ideal_way_s in which real beings appear Jo us, 
 as we assume toward them various relations determined by 
 selected points of view. The Laws of Reality are the concep- 
 tual forms of behavior which~~emphasize our attempts at 
 explaining the transactions of real beings, as we reflect upon 
 the many possible aspects which these transactions present. 
 
346 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 If now, however, all trans-subjective application or onto- 
 logical basis for man's conceptions of form and law be 
 denied, the attempt to frame a rational theory of reality 
 must, of course, be forever abandoned. For the conformity 
 to ideas of those unseen forces which our ordinary or our 
 scientific knowledge ascribes to things, is both a postulate 
 and a conclusion of all objective knowledge. The illustration 
 and enforcement of this truth is dependent upon consider- 
 ations so similar to those which have already been repeatedly 
 presented that our treatment of it may be, at this point, very 
 brief. The knower necessarily conforms his object since 
 the process of knowing is his conscious activity and no mere 
 receptivity or process of copying-off to his own sensuous 
 and intellectual life. The object known, however real a thing 
 it may be, is never a construct, in respect of form or of relation, 
 independent of the knower's Self. If, then, the word " idea " 
 be used in one of its several possible significations (idea=cog- 
 nition objectively regarded), then every object of cognition, as 
 respects its form and as respects the laws of its relation, is an 
 idea. As said Schopenhauer : " The World is my Idea." As 
 Kant taught : The laws of nature are determined by the 
 functioning of the intellect under its several constitutional 
 forms, the twelve so-called " categories." 
 
 But, on the other hand, no object of any form of human 
 cognitive experience is merely man's idea. Its being, as an 
 object of knowledge, is also the product wrought by a will 
 " of its own," an activity that is principled according to its 
 own appropriate set of ideas. The moment I begin to regard 
 my object as a real existence, I recognize that it actually con- 
 tributes its quota to the transaction between us in which I get 
 my idea of it, and learn the laws of its nature and of its 
 behavior toward other things. I can, indeed, observe this 
 object from different points of view, and then regard it as an 
 appearance to me, in conformity with the forms and laws of 
 my ideating and thinking Self. But, on the other hand, I 
 
FORMS AXD LAWS 347 
 
 cannot dictate to it how it shall appear, regardless of that 
 group of ideas which constitute its formal nature, and the 
 so-called laws of its relations to other beings in the system of 
 things. Nothing else so shocks common-sense and so destroys 
 all the foundations of science, without in the least contribut- 
 ing to the psychological or philosophical explanation of the 
 facts of experience, as the claim that the forms and laws of 
 real things are determined merely by the ideas of man. 
 
 That the forms and laws ascribed by the intellect of man 
 to things have a trans-subjective basis, and are not merely 
 imparted to things by the mental act of knowledge, is one of 
 the ontological assumptions which metaphysics has a perfect 
 right to receive from a critical theory of knowledge. The 
 proper metaphysical (as distinguished from the epistemolog- 
 ical) inquiries are these : What is it really to have form, or to 
 assist in forming reality ? and, What is it, in reality, to obey 
 or to follow laws ? or, finally : What view of the Nature of 
 Reality follows from the observed facts that the world of 
 things is a system of formed beings, of formative forces, and 
 of the connected interaction of individuals under the so-called 
 " reign of universal law ? " 
 
 Things actually have forms ; they really act in formative 
 ways upon one another ; and they do actually obey laws. 
 These and similar phrases express an ontological truth which 
 all man's experience with things enforces, and which a criti- 
 cal treatment of the categories can neither gainsay nor neglect. 
 But what that goes on in reality, what that is attributable to 
 the concrete real beings and their actual behavior, is meant 
 by such phrases? Truths of the process of cognition they 
 plainly set forth ; but what are the truths they assume as to 
 the construction and processes of reality ? 
 
 Any direct and satisfactory answer to such inquiries as the 
 foregoing comes only when reflection turns toward our self- 
 conscious and indubitable experience with our Self in com- 
 merce with Things. I know well what it is for me to form 
 
348 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 something else, or to be myself formed by some other, and 
 to obey or to evade the laws of my own being : It is to will 
 according to my own ideas, in reciprocally determining rela- 
 tions with other wills. To take any part in forming one's 
 self or others, means to direct my action in pursuit of my 
 own ideas, and yet in recognition of variable relations 
 between myself and other beings. For without recognition 
 of the ideas according to which these other beings act in 
 their relations to me, I cannot avail myself of them, either 
 to form myself by them or to form them to my will. Whether 
 the influence of the idea, in its direction of the stream of 
 consciousness, extends only to the choice of an apple out of 
 a plate-full, or contemplates the forming of a finished moral 
 character, the necessity is the same. All man's different 
 bodily movements, and the different " moments " in his 
 psychical development, must be regarded as co-operating 
 forces, acting and reacting under the direction of ideas. 
 This, too, is precisely what is meant when we regard our- 
 selves as shaping some external and material thing so as 
 to render it an example, in reality, of our own ideas. 
 
 The actuality of this ideal interpretation of the words 
 form and law, as applied to the system of things, does not 
 admit of question or debate in respect to one class of ex- 
 ternal or thing-like objects. This class comprises all other 
 selves than our self, for each man, his fellow-men. And 
 here it must not be forgotten that for every knower there are 
 only two possible kinds of objects, which can claim for their 
 reality the immediacy of an incontestable knowledge ; these 
 are the Self, and Things. As the knowledge of the self 
 changes and develops, the more external and less central 
 factors of this object the members of the body as viewed 
 from the outside and even the brain as imagined or thought 
 become, for the Self, other things than itself. Always the 
 primary evidence for the existence and the activity of all 
 other selves is the knowledge of things ; for each Self, every 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 349 
 
 other being other men included is known as a " Thing." 
 What is really indicated by the vague and mischievously 
 figurative conception of a so-called " social self " is nothing 
 but a collection of thing-like existences whose changes I 
 interpret in terms of the self-conscious processes of feeling, 
 ideating, and willing, which I know myself to have. All this, 
 however, amounts to saying that the changes of form, passively 
 endured or actively accomplished, and the changes of relation 
 in obedience to law, of these things are known to me as ex- 
 pressions of other will, and other ideas, than my own. 
 
 If now the grounds be examined on which such an interpre- 
 tation of the actual significance of the behavior of things 
 reposes, it appears in no essential respect peculiar, much less 
 unique, when it is applied to other selves. The way is open 
 for the advocate of a pure subjectivism, in treating this cate- 
 gory, too, to go through his customary series of tedious and 
 ineffectual objections to any form of realism. You are, for 
 me, merely existent in my idea as the idea of a thing. 
 You are, for me, mere fact of sensation, and fainter, recurrent 
 image of sensation, and expectation of the renewal of sensa- 
 tion, etc. And sitting in your academic chair, with your 
 agnostic pen in hand, you may write me down as a maker of 
 unverifiable assertions when I maintain that I know you as a 
 trans-subjective entity, not dependent for your real being, or 
 actual behavior, on my stream of consciousness. But this 
 agnostic asseveration itself is so absurd and self-contradictory 
 that it cannot be stated in other than suicidal terms. And 
 upon the confidence of all men that it is not true nay, that 
 it has not so much as a faint shadow of truth to urge in its 
 behalf all men's knowledge of each other, of life, of society, 
 of history, and even of themselves in the last analysis, is seen 
 to repose. Yet the confidence itself, in the last analysis, is 
 nothing other than confidence in the interpretation of the 
 changes of things in terms of ideas. 
 
 Now, so far as all that is essential to the categories of Form 
 
350 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 and Law is concerned, other things, which are not other selves, 
 do not differ from other selves. Things differ from selves in 
 respect of the forms they assume and impress upon one 
 another ; they differ also in respect of the particular laws 
 which they obey or treat with disregard. The stone will not 
 change its color-form when you insult it ; nor will it be 
 recreant to the law of gravitation in answer to your beseech- 
 ings. The limitations that it acknowledges in the series of 
 formal changes through which it passes are different from 
 those acknowledged by you and by me. But the limitations 
 of form and law acknowledged by this particular stone are 
 also different from those which are acknowledged by another 
 species of stone ; or by the feather which the stone, when 
 thrown, dislodges from the bird's wing. There are, in reality, 
 many kinds of things ; and each kind obeys some of the laws 
 and carries out some of the ideas of all other things ; but each 
 kind has ideas of its own, and makes, by its actual concrete 
 behavior, combinations of laws peculiar to itself. To no kind 
 of things, however, can the conceptions of active and passive 
 form, or of law, be applied without express or tacit recognition 
 of the influence of immanent ideas. 
 
 Undoubtedly, as the analogies to the Self, by which we 
 interpret the constitution, changes, and relations of things, 
 become more vague and remote, we begin to lose confidence 
 in the perfect validity of our interpretation. We begin to 
 hesitate as to where we shall locate the explanatory principle. 
 But this point of vacillation is not a point of higher privilege 
 and of profounder knowledge. On the contrary, it is a point 
 which marks the deepening shadows of human 'ignorance. 
 Everywhere, in everything and in every transaction, appears 
 the presence of ideas so far as any feature or form of be- 
 havior clearly appears. But we anon commence to ask : To 
 whose being does this particular idea belong ? or, What, after 
 all, is the exact idea expressed by this feature or behavior of 
 this thing ? The same questions are often enough asked by 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 351 
 
 every one with reference to one's fellow-men ; they are even 
 sometimes pertinently asked with regard to one's own self. 
 No man can claim to know throughout all the ideas which he 
 actually realizes, much less his own entire nature and all 
 the laws which it obeys. The knower, too, is constantly ex- 
 pressing ideas not, from the first and wholly, his own. The 
 very growth of self-knowledge is the increasingly clear, com- 
 plete, and satisfying interpretation of the actual facts of 
 one's own development in terms of the appropriate ideas. 
 
 In the case of the forms and laws of the higher animal life, 
 we do not hesitate to claim a valid trans-subjective use of this 
 same category (the category of the " Idea "). The dog, the 
 elephant, the raven, manifest (as no one can doubt) in certain 
 of their changes of form and relation in the nature and 
 laws of the species and of the individual the presence and 
 influence of ideas. Some of the ideas they express are their 
 own ; but relatively few and feeble are these ideas which have 
 actuality in the streams of consciousness, the psychic exist- 
 ence, of these animals. In a yet more wonderful way does it 
 seem to us because here the analogies are more remote 
 that the insects generate, and grow, and enter into compli- 
 cated social connections, changing their forms and obeying 
 the " laws of their being." The cilia in the mucous mem- 
 brane of the frog's throat, and the corpuscles in his blood, and 
 every amoeboid element in every living structure, behaves also 
 as though it had its own outfit of controlling ideas. Nor is 
 this much less true of the way the rootlets of trees seek the 
 gases and the moisture they require ; or the way that flowers 
 form and unfold at their appointed time. And, as a great 
 astronomer has said, every planet always behaves precisely as 
 though it knew just what is expected of it in view of the com- 
 plicated and changing relations it sustains, at each moment, 
 to all the other members of the solar system. What is 
 expected is never twice exactly alike. But the ideas that 
 suggest the proper combination remain unchanged ; and the 
 
352 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 planets behave themselves according to the particular propor- 
 tions required by each special combination which actually 
 takes place. 
 
 When it is claimed that the popular or scientific recognition 
 of forms and laws in any single case, and the extension of 
 these conceptions over the whole realm of objective knowledge, 
 imply man's confidence in the universal and valid application 
 of ideas to reality, several objections are wont to be proposed. 
 But, as has already been indicated, such objections do not 
 affect the truth that these principles are coextensive with all 
 human knowledge ; they are only confessions as to the pres- 
 ent limits of some particular branch of knowledge. As far as 
 man's present knowledge extends, and as far as knowledge 
 can be conceived of as extending itself in the future, so far 
 extends the actuality of immanent ideas. The objections do 
 not hold against the category of the Idea : they only inform 
 us of what we knew before ; namely, that in a vast number 
 of cases we do not yet know what particular ideas are being 
 realized. 
 
 It is in vain to object that physical science does not intend 
 to be thus " anthropomorphic " when it discourses of causes 
 which operate among things in a formative way, or of laws 
 that apply to beings which give no sufficient token of acting 
 under the influence of their own conscious ideas. Physical 
 science does not, indeed, intend to recognize the reality of 
 immanent ideas, by its doctrine of forms and laws ; it intends 
 only to state the uniform rules afforded by its generalizations 
 from facts. The rather are all its laws, when regarded from 
 its own point of view, nothing other than generalized physical 
 facts. They summarize the statement ; the event happened 
 thus and so, in fact, once and again ; when a and b were given 
 in fact, under the actual circumstances n q, then x followed, 
 in fact, according to the formula x ( -f b) \J n q. The 
 cause of the event x is, therefore, to be found in a and b, 
 which combine to produce it in measures indicated by nq; 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 353 
 
 and the law of such combinations is given in the formula, 
 (a + >) \j n q. 
 
 But to all such representations of physical science the reply 
 is pertinent that, in truth, the facts of experience are not fairly 
 stated in this way ; nor does this statement cover all that 
 science means by its discourse about forms and laws. Just 
 as the essential factor in the conception of cause is a cognitive 
 experience of forces, so is the essential factor in the concep- 
 tions of form and law a cognitive experience of ideas. Crude, 
 unformed, unidealized facts cannot constitute the basis of a 
 scientific induction. The mind of man knows nothing 
 about mere facts about bare, untransformed occurrences in 
 nature or in the self. Facts, when known, are no longer mere 
 occurrences, or mere deeds ; they are known as the behavior 
 of real beings that have certain ideal forms and that act in 
 certain ideal ways. What, indeed, is that "particularity" 
 of the beings which takes part in the transaction, but their 
 complex form, or ideal ways of existence ? What is the par- 
 ticular deed they accomplish but their ideal way of behavior ? 
 What is the law that defines the uniform action of physical 
 beings under definite relations, but the ideal way which they 
 have of behaving toward one another ? Physical science 
 itself is essentially a system of judgments which predicate 
 ideas (universals) of concrete realities (individuals). If by 
 " fact " mere doing is meant, then there is no such scientific 
 knowledge as " knowledge of fact ; " for, indeed, every fact is 
 scientifically known only as it appears in its connections and 
 relations with other facts under conceptions of causation, 
 order, and law. 
 
 Moreover, mere statement of fact, in the way of generaliza- 
 tion and without any recognition of the ideal shaping of the 
 facts and of their relations, is not all that science means by its 
 discourse concerning " forms " and " laws." The insincerity 
 or the flippancy of such a claim is apparent at once when 
 these categories are examined from the point of view furnished 
 
 23 
 
354 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 by another objection. Granted, it is now urged, that man is 
 obliged to understand all the being arid changes of things as 
 conformable to immanent ideas ; still, this is only his manner 
 of conception, or of impressing his ideas upon things. Such 
 a view of reality is anthropomorphic. The ideas are ours; 
 there is no good reason to believe that they actually belong to 
 things. Now, this objection is undoubtedly impressive ; but 
 it should, first of all, be noticed that it contradicts in an 
 important way the objection first raised. It was then alleged 
 that scientific cognition, at least, and whatever may be said 
 for the popular mode of thinking or for a few remaining ad- 
 herents to a discomfited, idealistic metaphysics regards 
 both the interior and the reciprocal transactions of things as 
 " mere facts," with no ideas in them at all. Now, however, 
 it is alleged that, of course, physical beings and events have 
 ideas in them; but these ideas are unwarrantably put into 
 them by the minds of the observers. Of course, even a scien- 
 tific man is an anthropos ; therefore, his cognitions are neces- 
 sarily " anthropomorphic." 
 
 We entered upon this attempt at a system of metaphysics, 
 after having put ourselves on good terms with all the cate- 
 gories. That the universal and necessary forms of knowledge 
 are the forms of reality, was the epistemological postulate 
 which we took into our cheerful confidence from the very first. 
 What a criticism of the categories has shown is this : without 
 accepting the existence in reality the trans-subjective 
 character of forms and laws, knowledge is impossible. 
 Knowledge of things involves the understanding of things as 
 actually conforming to immanent ideas. In other words, 
 the " immanent idea " is a category, under which all reality is 
 known by us to fall. 
 
 At this point, finally, the objection to fixing a meaning for 
 the word " immanent " in the use already made of it be- 
 comes more powerful and more difficult to answer. But this 
 objection is chiefly due to the obscurity and doubt which 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 355 
 
 hang over the answer that must be given to the problem of 
 " localizing " the ideas that are known somehow to belong to 
 the reality of things. To speak of ideas as " immanent " in 
 any being suggests at once a relation which is primarily of a 
 spatial order, and to which there clings almost inevitably the 
 original suggestions derived from the perception and the 
 imagination of things as " in space." Thus those conscious 
 ideas which are always the partial, and are often the more 
 obvious, explanation of the changes actively produced in our 
 bodies, and in other things, as well as certain changes more 
 passively experienced as due to the action of things upon one 
 another, are said to exist " in " us with at least a semi-local 
 meaning to the phrase. It is inevitable that we should regard 
 the ideas of other men, and of the higher animals, as seated 
 (or " immanent") in those thing-like objects which constitute 
 for immediate sense-perception the realities themselves. But 
 surely, in all such cases, it is not necessary to regard ideas as 
 entities that are locally situate, under terms of our spatial 
 picture of things, within the things themselves, in order to 
 justify our use of this form of conception ! 
 
 A relation of spatial extension, or of position after the 
 analogy of a mathematical point within a plane or solid, is- 
 not what is intended by the actual "immanency of the 
 Idea." It is, the rather, meant that ideation in the most 
 general meaning of that word is an essential factor in all 
 man's cognition ; and that when ideation reaches the certainty 
 and rational construction which all cognition implies, it 
 guarantees its own reality as belonging to the objects known. 
 If, from the episteinological point of view, I am compelled to 
 acknowledge that I impress my ideas upon all other things ; 
 still, from the ontological point of view, I am equally com- 
 pelled to believe that things reveal their ideas to me. My 
 entire known world does, indeed, show the constructive work 
 of the formative principles of my intellect ; but I am a part 
 an exceedingly small part, without doubt of a world that 
 
356 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 is far larger than I, and that includes me and all other 
 ideas and other things. The world is known by man to be 
 
 in every particular, as well as when regarded in its totality 
 
 a system of intellectual formative principles, to which his 
 own mental existence and mental activity are due. So that 
 there is even more reason to affirm that the ideas immanent in 
 things account for man's ideas, than to find the entire account 
 of this ideal appearance of things in man's ideating activity. 
 
 A brief recall of certain conclusions already reached will 
 assist us further in the effort to understand what is properly 
 meant by recognizing the principle of " immanent ideas " as 
 among the most undoubted of ontological truths. In discuss- 
 ing the category of space it was shown that a critical metaphys- 
 ics does not for a moment suppose that man's subjective and 
 relative space-picture of the world is a copy of the trans- 
 subjective and absolute Reality. But it was also shown that 
 the ultimate explanation of this universal and necessary form 
 of man's mental representation must be found in regarding 
 .Reality as possessing a principle of differentiation, upon 
 whose activity all separate real existences, as well as man's 
 mental representations of them, continually depend. This 
 conclusion regarding the real nature of space involved the 
 category of force, without which no trans-subjective ground 
 for the formal category is conceivable. Space is that form of 
 the differentiation of One Force which secures, in the unity 
 of one system, a multiplicity of different things. But now we 
 have seen that man's cognitive experience will not tolerate 
 an explanation which leaves this self-differentiating and self- 
 distributing Force, to whose work all the actual changes of 
 condition and relation in the world's being are due, bereft of 
 ideas. For the very essence of things is in their form ; the 
 " whatness " of every being is always an ideal affair. And 
 the essence of the behavior of things is found in the laws 
 they obey while changing their relations to one another, 
 the ideas to which they customarily consent. To join ideas 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 357 
 
 with force in all our knowledge of things, the ideas, as well 
 as the force, not being considered to be merely a subjective 
 form but also the real possession, the essential constitution of 
 things, this is to assert the " immanency " of ideas. For 
 ideas are not immanent in reality, when they are im- 
 agined as spatially enclosed by the reality, but when they are 
 rationally, and in a certified way, included in our cognition of 
 reality. The " immanent idea " joins hands with " immanent 
 force" to explain to the mind the inmost nature of that real 
 Being to which they both belong. 
 
 It is instructive to notice how ready men are to recognize 
 the presence in tfieir own bodily and mental existence of 
 ideas and forces not consciously their own. You can easily 
 explain to the unlearned man that his heart beats, his eyes 
 move, his blood flows, his brain functions, his glands secrete, 
 and his thoughts, volitions, and emotions come arid go, only 
 very partially as he consciously wills and knows what actually 
 takes place. This is to say, that the forces and ideas of 
 nature account for much which is effected in himself. His own 
 ideas assist in the explanation of what he is, and does, only in 
 a limited way. Each human being, body and mind, in respect 
 of his changes of internal condition or of external relation, 
 is only partially his own ; he is very largely the child and 
 possession of nature, the continuous product of that larger, 
 other Being, which everywhere penetrates his Self, and yet 
 which must be thought of, and known, as not identical with that 
 self. That is to say, his own conscious force and ideas, and 
 the forces and ideas of an Other, of which he is not conscious, 
 are both always immanent in the complete self-hood of 
 every man. By immanency, in both cases, is meant that 
 inner necessity of relation which belongs to an indispensable 
 explanatory principle. 
 
 Again, then, we repeat that the reality of the immanent 
 idea as a category is indisputable. Objections to this view 
 are due either to ignorance or to the misapplication of terms 
 
358 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 by a limited and merely figurative use of them. The legit- 
 imate and necessary use of this category is limited only by 
 the extent of human knowledge. Without it knowledge is 
 impossible ; and therefore, all reality is known to man as a 
 system of active and formative ideas. The world of things 
 known by the senses and by self-consciousness is a Unity 
 of Will, everywhere manifesting itself as an infinite variety 
 of different beings under the guidance of immanent ideas. 
 The effort to escape from this conclusion only reacts upon 
 itself. Could the effort completely succeed, it would result in 
 the complete nullification of knowledge. For the subjection 
 of reality to the idea is necessarily co-extensive with the 
 entire extent of human knowledge. Indeed, that is just what 
 knowledge is, the recognition of the ideal character of 
 concrete realities and of actual events. 
 
 Whose ideas are these that are immanent in the World of 
 selves and of things ? A partial answer to this lofty and 
 somewhat vague but most important inquiry has already been 
 gained. We are irresistibly led on from the facts of the in- 
 teraction of elements under law to the existence of a supreme 
 Unity which may serve as a real locus for the existence of 
 controlling ideas. As Teichmiiller, in his Darwinism and 
 Philosophy, says : " The interaction of all the elements pre- 
 supposes laws which go beyond the existence of each sepa- 
 rate element, and embrace all particular things in a unity. 
 Whoever, therefore, assumes any laws of nature whatever, 
 must also assume a system of laws, and must consequently 
 refer to one ultimate unity or to an ultimate end." The ideas 
 therefore, belong to that Being whose Force has been rec- 
 ognized as the "unchanging core" of all concrete realities, 
 the Cause of all change, the Principle of all becoming, the 
 trans-subjective Ground of the formal categories of time and 
 space ; and the nature of whose existence authenticates all 
 pure science as the result of man's measuring and calculat- 
 ing activities. The ideas, in reality, must be joined with this 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 359 
 
 Unity of Will. But to join Will and Idea together as com- 
 bined explanatory principles of all real existences and all 
 actual occurrences, is to provide the most essential factors 
 in the conception of an Absolute Self. It is, indeed, to con- 
 struct the Being of the World after the analogy of the Self. 
 It is anthropomorphic. But it is a species of anthropomor- 
 phism, from which human knowledge can in no way free 
 itself ; and without which we are obliged to confess that not 
 only the metaphysics of the schools, but also the metaphysics 
 of science and the metaphysics of life, becomes self-contra- 
 dictory and absurd. 
 
 It is, finally, in connection with the elaborate scientific con- 
 ceptions of law that the principle of causation returns upon 
 us for further consideration. The connection of the more 
 primitive conception of causation with the exercise of force 
 in relation to objects, and with the intent to carry out our 
 own ideas by effecting changes in things, has already been 
 noticed. It is only as a result of the mature developments 
 which require a growing experience of the system of things, 
 that a conception corresponding to that which modern men 
 attach to this principle is attained. The immature will acts 
 in ways that are full of caprice and ignorance. It neither 
 knows itself, what it wants, nor things, what they can do to 
 it or will suffer from it. This raw, irrational self, whether 
 in the individual or in the race, constructs its conception 
 of nature, or of the gods, after its own pattern. In doing 
 this, it has the warrant of all that lies deepest in human 
 nature, and of all that is most potent in the history of human 
 development. Its essential metaphysics is not so much at 
 fault ; but its ignorance is its curse. The modern concep- 
 tions of a " universal reign of law," of a rigid " uniformity of 
 Nature," or a Unity of blind, unreasoning Force, are personi- 
 fications of the forces and ideas, projected into things on the 
 basis of a postulated analogy between them and us, in essen- 
 tially the same way. At bottom the modern conceptions are 
 
360 A THEORY OF REALITY. 
 
 just as truly anthropomorphic as the earlier conceptions were. 
 But the man whose " form " the conceptions bear is a some- 
 what improved man, more rational, more influenced by 
 definite ideas, and better acquainted with the truth that his 
 own brief, self-centred life is surrounded and controlled by 
 an all-inclusive and eternal Life. 
 
 Just so long and so far, however, as the principle of cau- 
 sation is made the equivalent of a rigid and machine-like 
 construction of Reality, it suffers inevitably from the imper- 
 fections and errors that belong to such a conception. It 
 becomes increasingly necessary to recognize the truth as 
 a truth stamped into the very nature of the human mind and 
 set in every feature of the Mind of Nature that all talk of 
 a " principle of causation " which does not mean to recognize 
 Will and immanent Ideas at the Ground of things, deals with 
 unmeaning and senseless figures of speech. That is, indeed, 
 just what a " principle of causation " necessarily means 
 Will energizing in conformity to ideal forms and aims. 
 
 In further proof of the metaphysical doctrine of forms 
 and laws, let it be noticed to what all our so-called causal 
 explanations really amount. The mind regards the principle 
 of causation as fully satisfied only when the different real 
 beings of the world are considered as so connected that the 
 forces, to which their internal changes of condition or their 
 external changes of relation are referred, follow some law or 
 regular order of occurrence. It is this which is involved in 
 all those defective and questionable forms of statement which 
 the particular sciences have adopted for this principle. 1 A 
 Unity of Force distributed in accordance with immanent 
 ideas, this is the ontological implicate of the modern scien- 
 tific view of the world of reality. Every thing, and every 
 element of every thing, behaves in accordance with both its 
 own nature and also its relation to other things and elements, 
 
 1 For the discussion of this principle from the epistemological point of view, 
 see the chapter on " Sufficient Reason," chap, x., Philosophy of Knowledge 
 
FORMS AND LAWS 361 
 
 in the unity of a connected system. With less metaphysics than 
 this, the entire modern conception of the universal application 
 of the causal principle, or the so-called " reign of law," must 
 be left where Hume left it. Nothing remains of the principle 
 but subjective custom, together with the feeling of expecta- 
 tion which custom creates. For when criticism adds to this 
 purely subjective description of the principle an a priori, and 
 so objective, explanation, like that given to it by Kant, this is 
 clone in reliance on an acquaintance with the ontological 
 secrets of the Self. A unity of mind-force, functioning ac- 
 cording to its own immanent ideas (the so-called categories), 
 creates, we are told, the causal connections, the objective 
 laws, of Nature. Thus the principle of causation has its met- 
 aphysical source revealed in that it is recognized as belong- 
 ing to the inmost constitution of man's intellect. Even the 
 illusory and sceptical result which follows the attempt ta 
 apply the category beyond the realm of the phenomenally 
 real is, according to the Kantian doctrine, a revelation of the 
 ontological doctrine of mind. This view of the principle of 
 causation, however, leaves man, both on his physical and on 
 his rational side, cut off from all actual connection with the 
 extra-mentally Real. Nature is, indeed, the child of man ; 
 but whose child is man himself ? To this question science 
 replies that he is the child of Nature. But Kant can only 
 reply by a non-scientific, vacillating, and often wholly un- 
 intelligible reference to an unknowable " Thing-in-itself " 
 Being of the World, which somehow becomes (we cannot say 
 " causally ") related to an unknown " thing-in-itself " being 
 of man. 
 
 The moment, however, the nature of those categories which 
 are implied in the principle of causation is clearly discerned, 
 the principle itself becomes a guide to the central truth of 
 metaphysical system. For this principle shows how far the 
 intellectual and scientific development of man has gone in 
 bringing before his own clear consciousness the truth of 
 
362 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 all Reality : All selves and all things have their changing 
 places and functions in the one system, because the connec- 
 tion of them all is guaranteed and accomplished by the One 
 Will in its progressive realization of its own Ideas. The 
 whole of Reality is, in fact, 
 
 "An endless weaving 
 
 To and fro, 
 A restless heaving 
 Of life and glow." 
 
 But the meaning of this fact is found, and its ultimate cause 
 discoverable, only when we introduce the conception of an 
 eternal, omnipresent u formative Spirit." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 TELEOLOGY 
 
 No other topic connected with the attempt to frame a valid 
 Theory of Reality has been more thoroughly discussed for 
 two thousand years than the conception of final purpose. 
 One's views upon the subject of teleology may, therefore, be 
 fitly thought to decide in large measure the essential character 
 of the system of metaphysics one is inclined to espouse. 
 What do you conclude as to the objects of your experience 
 both selves and things in their relations to ideal ends ? 
 The answer which is given to this question goes a long way 
 toward fixing the entire mental and practical attitude toward 
 Life and toward Reality. But the very thoroughness and 
 vigor with which the discussion of the teleological problem 
 has been conducted for so many centuries obviates the neces- 
 sity for ourselves going over the same details. The facts 
 upon which the different views are made to depend remain 
 essentially unchanged. They may seem to be increased or 
 diminished in number, and to deepen or fade away as respects 
 their vital coloring; but their significance and the problem 
 they propose for the thinker's solution abide ever the same. 
 Nor is it reasonable to suppose that the arguments for, or 
 objections against, any of the different main positions which 
 have hitherto been adopted by the world's thinkers can be 
 altered in any important way. 
 
 It is needful for our purpose, therefore, only briefly to 
 define our own positions with reference to the facts, argu- 
 ments, and conclusions covered by the word " Teleology." 
 
364 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 The question proposed in this chapter is scarcely more diffi- 
 cult than the following: How does the Theory of Reality 
 which has already been advocated orient itself with reference 
 to the principal conceptions which are gathered into the doc- 
 trine of final purpose, or ideal ends ? But even this com- 
 paratively simple question will be furthered if its answer 
 is introduced by three remarks which a study of the history 
 of opinion suggests and confirms. First: there are certain 
 facts about which no dispute is possible ; and these facts are 
 themselves of such a nature that they cannot even be ex- 
 pressed without introducing the conception of ideal ends as- 
 necessary to the interpretation of the facts. Just as concep- 
 tions of form and of law, when applied to the objects of man's 
 knowledge, have no meaning unless the actuality of ideal for- 
 mative principles be admitted, so conceptions of serviceable 
 internal relations between the parts of things, or of external 
 relations of the fitness of one thing to another, prove utterly 
 meaningless unless the influence in reality of ideal ends be 
 admitted. In a word, these facts cannot be stated as mere 
 facts, separate from ideas ; as facts, they are transactions of 
 things that are necessarily interpreted as conforming to ideas. 
 The point where reflection refuses to recognize the signifi- 
 cance of the facts determines one's theory of final purpose as 
 an explanatory principle of Reality. 
 
 Second : the difference in the position along the line of fact 
 at which different thinkers refuse to admit in their theory of 
 reality the actual presence and formative influence of ideal 
 ends is significant of a vacillation that is of a logical and epis- 
 temological order. The objector to the refusal, at whatever 
 point it comes, might well enough say, " Either all or none." 
 Either admit the principle of " purposiveness," everywhere 
 in the known system of selves and of things, and give to 
 the principle wherever found the same sincere and whole- 
 hearted interpretation; or else deny its objective existence 
 anywhere and reject it throughout as explanatory of the 
 
TELEOLOGY 365 
 
 being and transactions of things. But it is impossible to 
 deny that actual final purposes are explanatory principles 
 of the changes in condition and relation of some things. 
 Such scepticism would undermine all knowledge and render 
 social life, and individual and generic development, absolutely 
 impossible. The exact place, where scepticism begins, or 
 knowledge ends and agnosticism triumphs, is differently 
 selected by different thinkers. It is always very instructive 
 to notice the alleged grounds on which this exact place is 
 selected; if, indeed, it can be fixed even by the thinker him- 
 self. In few cases, if any, can the arrested development of 
 interpretation by the principle of purposiveness be defended 
 with a strict logical consistency. The metaphysician who 
 hesitates in his teleology is almost certainly doomed to be 
 convicted of a half-cowardly inconclusiveness in his dealing 
 with the actual behavior of the concrete beings of the world. 
 Either all, or none, of our known Reality sooner or later 
 feels the influence of this form of the Idea. 
 
 But, third, when one seeks for the motif of these intellectual 
 differences in the teleology of different systems of metaphysics, 
 - whether by way of avowed and rational conclusion, or of 
 naive, unconscious submission to unrecognized influences, 
 some admixture of the ethical and the religious is almost cer- 
 tain to appear. It is not an unmeaning fact of human history 
 that a positive and even dogmatic ethics, or theology, has 
 been accustomed to espouse and defend a pronounced and 
 extended teleology ; while agnosticism, or negation, in matters 
 of ethical and religious reflection has customarily taken the 
 opposite position toward the doctrine of final purpose. Theism 
 has always based itself upon the so-called " teleological argu- 
 ment," in one form or another ; materialism and atheism have 
 always either rejected wholly or greatly minimized the same 
 argument. This they have done by refusing either to accept 
 the alleged facts or to interpret the principle of purposiveness 
 in the theisth way. Unbiased judgment and calm reasoning 
 
366 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 if by these words one is to signify freedom from influence 
 by, and interest in, ethical and religious considerations is 
 almost nowhere to be found in the discussion of this problem. 
 He who claims such freedom may easily be suspected either 
 of ignorance or of the intention to cover up the real issues of 
 the problem he is attempting to handle. For what is, in fact, 
 at stake in all these discussions is just this, namely, the 
 idea which humanity shall find itself justified in entertain- 
 ing as to the Nature of Reality, and so the practical attitude 
 which man shall assume toward this objective Idea. 
 
 Upon all these three contested matters the course of the 
 critical discussion which has already been followed leads us to 
 take our positions firmly. Nothing short of complete thorough- 
 ness here would comport well wifch the critical work already 
 accomplished. In the first place, we find it impossible to limit 
 anywhere the conception of final purpose in its application to 
 the concrete facts of reality, anywhere, that is, in a logical 
 and principled way. The ignorance of man, which is either 
 partial or almost complete in every realm of inquiry, limits his 
 ability to recognize the particular final purposes served by the 
 concrete facts of his experience. The obscurity which hangs 
 like an impenetrable cloud over the beginning and the conclud- 
 ing portions of the present system of things makes it im- 
 possible for him to demonstrate the final aim of the World's 
 course. The scale of rising ideas, that tower one above 
 another until they lose themselves in the heights of the loftiest 
 sesthetical and ethical ideals, or that lie one below another 
 until imagination cannot longer conjecture the ultimate foun- 
 dations of reality, is too vast for his intuition to discern surely 
 or for his calculation to measure precisely. But wherever 
 man's knowledge does go, there does it find the presence in- 
 dicated of formative principles due to ideal ends. In other 
 words, the facts of purposiveness seem coextensive with the 
 facts of knowledge. All things and all minds in their struc- 
 ture, development, and relations give token of ideal ends to 
 

 TELEOLOGY 367 
 
 our cognitive faculties. And without the significant influence 
 of this category there is not a thing or transaction known that 
 is really and satisfactorily known. The Idea as an explana- 
 tory principle of the course of events whether that course 
 consist in changes of internal condition or in changes of 
 external relations is coextensive with all known Reality. 
 
 On the second point, also, we cannot allow ourselves to 
 falter in the logic which draws conclusions as to the signifi- 
 cance of human cognitive experience. All Reality is, as 
 known to man or conceivable by man a system of beings 
 and processes co-operating in the realization of ideal ends. 
 This system is, in reality and in its inmost nature, purposive. 
 Ideas guide it all, not only in respect of the forms which its 
 particular beings take and its particular events follow, but 
 also in respect of the final purposes it pursues. We do not 
 simply imagine that this may be so, or think that it ought to 
 be so ; we know that it is so. The shaping of the changes 
 that go on within the individual, or between related things, so 
 as to realize ideal ends, is an integral part of man's expe- 
 rience with things. When these ideas, too, are declared to be 
 " immanent," the adjective is not used with a spatial or purely 
 figurative meaning ; it is only asserted that this aspect of the 
 ideal is a necessary factor in the rational explanation of con- 
 crete realities. For Reality, in general, is known as actually 
 being a Unity of Force guided by ideas of form and law into 
 processes that conform to ideal ends. Indeed, final purpose is 
 only a further extension of the Idea beyond that given to it 
 by the doctrine of real forms and actual laws. Scepticism 
 and agnosticism have their legitimate place in contesting all 
 rash and inconsiderate conclusions as to what are the ends 
 served by particular beings and particular events, or by the 
 entire system of selves and things. On the other hand, the 
 whole known and knowable world must be conceived of as 
 somehow conforming to the principle of teleology. 
 
 And with reference to the third position we do not hesitate 
 
368 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 as to where our theory of reality requires us to be found. To 
 make universal and far-reaching the immanence of the ideal, 
 is, of course, to philosophize in a way serviceable to the 
 interests of morals and religion. But, then, this is itself 
 chiefly because teleology gives continuity to human knowledge, 
 and brings within the ken of the same cognitive activities all 
 the varied forms of human experience. The whole subject of 
 that deplorable schism between the natural and the moral, be- 
 tween the object of knowledge and the object of faith, between 
 the merely ( ?) mechanical and the purely ideal, or the phenom- 
 enal reality and the Thing-in-itself, comes to the fore in the 
 discussions of teleology. This schism we distrust and abhor. 
 It is not, however, by the identification of what is essentially 
 unlike, or by the neglect of all the truths and interests which 
 belong on either side of the chasm, that one may expect the 
 chasm to be crossed. It is rather by intelligent recognition 
 of the nature of that ideal Unity which belongs to the knower, 
 and as well to all the objects which he knows or can ever expect 
 to know. The knowledge of this knower is one, a unity that 
 is a continuity of development under guidance of the ideal. 
 This ideal is that of the perfect Self ; and this perfect self 
 cannot be a mere knower, much less a mere knower of things, 
 without knowledge of its own self, and of that larger and uni- 
 versal Self which unifies all other selves and things. And 
 just as there are assthetical and ethical "momenta" in all 
 knowledge, so there are at least fragmentary and shadowy 
 sesthetical and ethical factors in all things. All Things 
 actually serve some ends. The teleological construction of 
 the system of things and selves is, therefore, a most important 
 conception to cherish; but the conception must be subjected 
 to criticism, if one would not willingly be divided against one's 
 self, in a World that would thus be made at hopeless contra- 
 diction with its larger Self. 
 
 All things and events are in fact purposeful; the conclusion 
 is legitimate, which recognizes in the real world the universal 
 
 I 
 
TELEOLOGY 369 
 
 presence of immanent ideal ends; the basis, but not the 
 completion, of the edifice of moral and religious ideals as 
 belonging to the inmost Nature of Reality is thus made a 
 rational tenet of metaphysical philosophy; such are the 
 three important positions to which we find ourselves brought 
 by reflection upon the fundamental facts and primitive truths 
 of man's experience with both selves and things. 
 
 The psychological genesis of the conception of final purpose 
 is not at all obscure, although it is complex. This conception 
 arises in experience primarily when the satisfaction of some 
 desire is willed, and then those means for its actualization are 
 employed which it is apprehended will result in actual satis- 
 faction of the desire. The completer conception is, indeed, 
 that of intelligent and purposeful willing, of action guided 
 by ideas in the plan to attain the ends set by ideas. Thus there 
 is ground in experience for the description which Yolkmann 
 gives of all the higher forms of behavior on the part of the 
 Willing Self. 1 
 
 No immediate causal connection exists, however, for man's 
 apprehension, between any particular desire and its satisfac- 
 tion ; and all that the later developments of desire can do is 
 to lend to the desire an ideal form which opens or expands 
 the outlook to its satisfaction. A detachment of the desire 
 from the original idea is, therefore, necessary ; and as well, a 
 further attachment of the desire to that series of ideas which 
 experience has found to lie between it and the original desire 
 (the "means "to the "end"). The means themselves then 
 become desired and selected as means to an ideal end. Thus 
 the causal activity of the self comes to have fuller play with 
 the first and last pair of the members to the series in its own 
 inner world ; while the causal activity of things determines 
 the median members of the series in the external world. We 
 can choose the ends we will try to secure and the course of 
 actions we will follow in the effort to attain them ; but these 
 
 1 Lehrbuch der Psychologie, II., p. 451 f. 
 24 
 
370 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 very choices link us in with those courses of extra-mental 
 changes that lie beyond our choice, and often beyond the 
 reach of our ideas. Thus does final purpose, or the willing of 
 desired ideal ends, mediate and bind together the combinations 
 that constantly go on between the life of the self and the 
 world of external things. 
 
 It is not necessary to trace the development of this concep- 
 tion of final purpose, or its application to the entire being and 
 life-course of the Self. As we have elsewhere said, on gather- 
 ing together the conclusions of a detailed descriptive history 
 into those principles which are most fundamental and univer- 
 sal in their control over human life and destiny : " Activity 
 to some purpose is the ruling principle of mental development." 
 In this complex life, under the keener eye of trained experi- 
 ence many final ends of a physical and psychical sort, which 
 the self at first unconsciously serves or attains, become con- 
 sciously discerned and followed. Indeed, the growth of self- 
 knowledge is largely just this, namely, the making of the 
 ideal ends which our so-called " nature " sets for us to be our 
 own consciously and intelligently adopted ideas. To attain 
 genuine self-knowledge one must know what the self is meant 
 for, as truly as what is the matter-of-fact working of its 
 mechanism of body and mind. But, on the other hand, under 
 the laws of practice and habit, many ideal ends, that were at 
 first realizable only through conscious discrimination and 
 voluntary effort, come to realize themselves smoothly and 
 unconsciously, in a so-called automatic and mechanical way. 
 For the teleology of the human being requires that in the 
 pursuit and attainment of many ends the interference of con- 
 scious ideas shall be removed. Thus do art and genius often 
 show the man as he is swayed and guided by the ideas of 
 " another " into a path whose end is the more perfect realiza- 
 tion of the highest and noblest ideals. A human being that 
 were not through and through actually penetrated with pur- 
 posiveness would not rise to the rank of the lowest conceivable 
 
TELEOLOGY 371 
 
 physical and psychical mechanism. For, as will appear sub- 
 sequently, the very conception of a " mechanism " is meaning- 
 less without illumination from the idea of means and ends. 
 And, in fact, the more I know of myself, the more do I know of 
 those ideal ends of my being which I have been consciously or 
 unconsciously realizing. The lamentation that no one knows 
 surely, or with any approach to completeness, what is the last 
 and highest end of his particular existence and development, 
 is a valid confession of ignorance ; but it is not, in the slightest 
 degree, a fact which prejudices the universal applicability of 
 the conception of final purpose in self-knowledge. 
 
 The validity of this form of knowledge for the being of 
 man is, like that of every other category, within the neces- 
 sary limitations of all human mental life, immediate and 
 undoubted. If I examine that " stream of consciousness " I 
 call myself, as such, I find that its nature and its course 
 require the conception of final purpose for its interpretation. 
 I know indubitably that I reach the satisfaction of my desires 
 by willing a certain series of occurrences which involve both 
 subjective and objective factors, causally connected and result- 
 ing in the actual satisfaction of these desires. And the de- 
 veloping science of humanity consists, in no small measure, in 
 learning how certain ideas, which arise within the stream of 
 consciousness (ideas of the final purpose of man in general 
 and of the individual in particular) , enable one better to under- 
 stand the nature and connections of the entire stream. This 
 is the meaning of the modern tendency to render all the 
 sciences of man more thoroughly psychological. 
 
 Nor can there be reasonable dispute over the contention 
 that certain thing-objects are known, in respect of their own 
 structure and development, to come under the conception of 
 final purpose. The judgments which affirm that this concep- 
 tion is applicable to certain physical beings are as truly and 
 indisputably cognitive as any judgments can possibly be. 
 The fact which such judgments affirm is precisely this, the 
 
372 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 complex fact of purposiveness as belonging to the very exist- 
 ence and essence of the thing. To take the stock example 
 much used and much derided : the entire structure and all 
 the functions of the human eye are known as coming in fact 
 under the conception of final purpose. This statement is as 
 true of the picture of this organ when given by the most 
 elaborate modern treatise on anatomy and physiology as it is of 
 the most nai've and uninstructed conception of the same organ. 
 Indeed, what the modern treatise does, for the most part, is to 
 elaborate and give precision and detail to the teleology of this 
 particular thing. For without the conception of final purpose, 
 " structure " and " functions " are words that have no mean- 
 ing. The very term " human eye," means a structure whose 
 function is to enable man to see. Every part of this complex 
 mechanism answers with equal promptness and cogency to the 
 same demand of the inquiring mind. A " lens " is an arrange- 
 ment of elements whose behavior serves the end of transmit- 
 ting and reflecting light ; and the lenses of the eye have, in 
 fact, this final purpose in the structure and functions of the 
 eye. The retina is a complex structure, about the details of 
 which there are still some doubtful points; but about the 
 final purpose of this part of the organ, there exists no doubt ; 
 it has the ideal end of serving as a sensitive, nervous screen on 
 which the image of the object can be formed, and from which 
 the appropriate nervous changes can be transmitted to the 
 visual areas of the brain. 
 
 To say that all such teleological statement of fact is 
 " anthropomorphic " has absolutely no influence on a conten- 
 tion like ours. For our contention is just this, that the facts 
 of many of man's most assured cognitions are concrete examples 
 of the rule of final purpose over things. Or, to put the case in 
 a slightly different way, certain things are known, as a matter 
 of incontestable fact, to be composed of parts and elements 
 which are arranged, and which function together, so as actu- 
 ally to secure ideal ends. To call such cognitions " anthropo- 
 
TELEOLOGY 373 
 
 morphic " is to do them honor rather than to discredit them. 
 It is cowardice to be frightened away from the legitimate logi- 
 cal fruits of such a many-branched tree of knowledge ; and it 
 is folly to deny the existence of these fruits, simply because it 
 is with the eyes of reason that we see them hanging there. 
 Knowledge is not less trustworthy, and things are not less real, 
 when things are known to have such a structure and such 
 functions as to comport, in reality, with ideal ends. 
 
 The comparative crudity of the physico-chemical science of 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with which Kant was 
 acquainted, led him to limit the facts of final purpose to 
 certain more obviously organic natural products. " Things," 
 he declared, u regarded as natural purposes, are organized 
 beings ; " 1 and " only a product of such a kind can be called a 
 natural purpose, and this because it is an organized and self- 
 organizing being." Elsewhere he even affirms that such an. 
 organized and purposeful being must have its cause, " not in 
 the mechanism of nature, but in a being whose faculty of 
 action is determined through concepts : " in short, " it is 
 requisite that its form be not possible according to mere 
 natural laws." It is scarcely necessary again to remind our- 
 selves that the very words " form," " mechanism of nature," 
 and u natural laws," are devoid of meaning unless applied to 
 forces that act causally in conformity to ideas. Indeed, man's 
 entire thought of nature is only that of a Being whose action 
 is determined through concepts ; other action than this is in- 
 conceivable as resulting in any such "mechanism," " system," 
 " unity," collection of forms obeying laws, as is fitly meant by 
 the word Nature ; and surely not less when we personify the 
 word enough to spell it with a capital. 
 
 But special attention must be called to the important change 
 which modern evolutionary science has made in such a term 
 as that employed by Kant, " an organized and self -organizing 
 
 1 Kritik of Judgment, Part II.,Div. I, heading of 65. The other sentences 
 are taken from this and the preceding article. 
 
374 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 being." Chemistry and biology not to speak of psychology 
 have outstripped mathematical physics in the conception 
 which they have prepared as a content for this Kantian phrase. 
 By this statement it is not meant that the distinction between 
 living and non-living beings has been abolished or made less 
 important by modern science. On the contrary, this distinc- 
 tion is now more clearly established than it was in the time of 
 Kant. For it is now known, somewhat better than was then 
 known, what is the " Technic of nature ; " although we know 
 scarcely better whether the " womb " of " mother Earth " can be 
 supposed at any time to have tolerated such a generatio cequi- 
 voca as Kant pronounced absurd (namely, the production of an 
 organized being through the mechanics of crude, unorganized 
 matter). What is known clearly, however, and in spite of 
 all continued doubt about the problem of the beginnings of life, 
 is this : Everything is u an organized and self-organizing 
 being," in no insignificant meaning of these words. 
 
 The chemico-physical and biological sciences we repeat 
 in their most modern form compel us to regard every physi- 
 cal thing, whether living or non-living, as an " organized and 
 self-organizing being." They emphasize the declaration of 
 Schelling : u The peculiarity of nature rests on the fact that 
 with all its mechanism it is yet full of purpose." Crystals 
 do not grow, indeed, but they are organized in teleological 
 fashion and by " self-organizing " processes. The same truth 
 follows with respect to the interior structure of every real 
 Thing, as a necessary corollary from the very nature of the 
 physical elements themselves. Every so-called " natural " 
 being is a composite of these elements, that have arranged 
 themselves in definite ways, and that act and react upon each 
 other as parts of a quasi-organic totality. Strictly regarded, 
 this totality is perpetually organizing itself anew, in accord- 
 ance with the specific idea which belongs to its own kind of 
 existence. 
 
 The more completely the grounds of this organific proced- 
 
TELEOLOGY 375 
 
 ure of all things are carried back to the original and unchang- 
 ing constitution of the atoms themselves, the more is the 
 " self-organizing being " of the atoms loaded down with an 
 ever-increasing weight of content. For if the atoms are not 
 themselves organized under the guidance of ideas, by the ac- 
 tivity of still more primitive elements, they none the less bear 
 the marks of " manufactured articles." That is to say, their 
 nature and outfit shows them adapted, from the first, to serve 
 an almost endless variety of ideal ends. If they are regarded 
 as not developing the faculty of " action as determined through 
 concepts," it is because they are regarded as possessing this 
 faculty from the first ; and only thus can any organization or 
 building take place, whether of living or non-living things. 
 A circle, or regular hexagon, inscribed in the sand, Kant 
 thinks, any man might well consider a sure sign of final 
 purpose ; but why not the geometrical structure of the sand 
 itself, considered as the result attained by the action, in time, 
 of organific forces ? 
 
 To return to a categorical truth emphasized in an earlier 
 chapter (chap, v.) : " really to be" a Thing is to possess some- 
 how the faculty, or power, of running through a certain series 
 of changes of active doings and passive impressions that 
 corresponds to the concept of that particular thing. When 
 any being ceases to have this faculty or power, it loses all 
 means of manifesting itself to man's mind as really in exist- 
 ence at all. The inherent teleology, or purposeness in fact, of 
 every real thing belongs to its very being as a " Thing" 
 
 That conception of final purpose which simply covers the 
 bare being of a thing, considered as a collection of self-organ- 
 izing material elements (the physical " in-itself-being " of the 
 natural product), is indeed very inadequate. Men do not 
 make things, and keep them in existence, with the simple 
 purpose of having the things exist ; men make things as 
 means either to an enjoyment of them, or to the attainment 
 of other ends which lie beyond and above the manufactured 
 
376 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 articles. Here is where the objection of Kant to what he 
 considered an unwarrantable extension of the very conception 
 of purposiveness found an entrance into his teleology. " For if 
 all things," he argues, " must be thought as purposes, then to 
 be a thing is the same thing as to be a purpose, and there is 
 at bottom nothing which especially deserves to be represented 
 as purpose." Here, indeed, is a most curious and instructive 
 mixture of truth and error. It does not, indeed, follow that 
 " being a Thing " = " being a purpose," because real things 
 are much more than mere purposes ; on the other hand, no 
 thing can be real, can really be, unless it conforms its elements 
 and their functions to the ideal ends of that particular kind of 
 thing. Or to speak the same truth from another point of 
 view : the physical elements, in their combining and reciprocal 
 functioning, must organize every physical being in accordance 
 with certain ideal ends. For atoms are not " manufactured," 
 simply to exist themselves. They are so made as to serve the 
 higher uses and manifold purposes of the things which are 
 composed " of" them. 
 
 In man's complete cognitive experience with things, they 
 serve his ends and he serves theirs ; and he also observes, or 
 infers, the different things to be serving each other's ends. 
 This is what Kant calls 1 " external purposiveness," or " that 
 by which one thing of nature serves another as means to a 
 purpose." And about this kind of purposiveness he makes 
 the following truly amazing observation : " There is only one 
 external purposiveness which is connected with the internal 
 purposiveness of organization, and yet serves in the external 
 relation of a means to an end, without the question necessarily 
 arising, as to what end this being so organized must have ex- 
 isted for." This is the organization of the sexes in their 
 mutual relation as propagators of their kind. But a more 
 refined biological study of this very example leads us to see 
 that the entire system of plant and animal life is one complex 
 
 1 Kritik of Judgment, Part II., Appendix, 82. 
 
TELEOLOGY 377 
 
 net-work of relations under the principle of combining internal 
 and external purposiveness, in order to carry out an indefi- 
 nite variety of nearer or more remote ideal ends. 
 
 Nothing is more mysterious and impressive than the interac- 
 tion of natural forces both those that are internal to the 
 organism and may be called vital, and also those that are ex- 
 ternal and may be assigned to environment in the propaga- 
 tion and development of species. Small wonder, indeed, that 
 Schopenhauer found in this arrangement some of the shrewdest 
 devices of the " Will-to-live," in its subjugation of all existences, 
 under the limitations of space, time, and causation, to its eter- 
 nal and relentless purposes ! It is not the single pair alone 
 that is concerned, in a purposeful way, in the interests of the 
 perpetuation of life. Biological evolution regards every thing, 
 and every transaction of the physico-chemical order, in the 
 light of this conception of " Life," and of the progress of liv- 
 ing forms toward higher and still higher life. Thus, under 
 the conception of ideal ends, modern biology arranges all the 
 beings and transactions of living and non-living things as 
 somehow terminating in man. Arrived at this stage in its 
 pursuit of the final purpose of the world's course, it does not 
 stop here. It transfers all the principal conceptions and funda- 
 mental laws of biology to the life of the individual man, and 
 to the life of the human race in history. Undoubtedly much 
 of this so-called science, whether it take the name of " genetic 
 psychology," "anthropology," or "sociology," amounts to 
 rather a vague and uncertain generalization of facts that 
 belong to man's descriptive history, the expression of 
 which in accurate terms discloses no little illusion and use of 
 misleading and inapplicable figures of speech. For it is by 
 no means self-evident what that corresponds to any actual 
 processes, or to any real connections, is meant by such phrases 
 as " heredity," survival of fittest," " struggle for existence," 
 " generatio univoca" and " generatio cequivoca" " epigenesis " 
 and " biogenesis," etc., when applied to these not strictly bio- 
 
378 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 logical sciences. But that the concrete beings with which the 
 theory of biological evolution primarily deals are " organized 
 and self-organizing," there can be no doubt. Thus this theory 
 distinctly extends what Kant called the conception of "ex- 
 ternal purposiveness " over all the phenomena which it attempts 
 to handle. Thus the most thorough biologist, from the top- 
 most peaks as his scientific standpoints, describes the meaning 
 of that part of the universe which his science gives him to 
 know as already past, in the words of Browning : 
 
 " So far the seal 
 
 Is put on life ; one step of being complete, 
 One scheme wound up ; and from the grand result 
 A supplementary reflux of light, 
 Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains 
 Each back step in the circle." 
 
 From the same point of view the man of science looks for- 
 ward, and in the name of science confirms the hopeful pre- 
 dictions of the same poet : 
 
 " For things tend still upward, progress is 
 The law of life, man is not Man as yet." 
 
 There are always 
 
 " August anticipations, symbols, types 
 Of a dim splendor ever on before 
 In that eternal circle life pursues." 
 
 To object that such forms of knowing the relations of 
 things, and the series of changes that are taking place in the 
 world, are mere statements of fact, and may be wholly 
 abstracted from the idea of final purpose as necessary to 
 explain the fact, is a complete mistatement of the case. For 
 the general fact is itself precisely this : the fact of a series 
 of infinitely complex and constantly changing transactions, 
 entered into by all the concrete beings concerned, in such a 
 way as actually to realize ideal ends. That is to sa,y, facts of 
 the sort which the theory of evolution considers cannot be 
 
TELEOLOGY 379 
 
 known at all, otherwise than in their relation to some teleolo- 
 gical conception. The meaning of the entire series of facts, 
 as actually arranged and viewed in the light of the ideal 
 ends to be secured, is essential to the knowledge of the 
 facts themselves. 
 
 Any one instance of the requisite kind, when all that is 
 implicated in its description has been critically considered, is 
 quite enough to show that " external purposiveness " is every- 
 where an actualized idea in Nature. Let one reflect, for 
 example, over the following description of the manner in 
 which the " Perigord Truffle " realizes its " will to live," and 
 to possess as much as possible, according to its own nature, of 
 that Nature from whose womb it springs. The following is 
 said to be its behavior, " for a fact : " " The spores of the 
 truffle are of different sexes. In favorable conditions, and 
 after rupture of the envelope of the mother-cell that incloses 
 them, the male spores emit a thin, translucent filament, 
 terminated by a spore of secondary formation, a pseudo- 
 spore, in which the fertilizing plasma is contained. This 
 pseudo-spore, whether it remains on the surface or is formed 
 under the epidermis is impelled, as by a mysterious instinct, 
 to move out toward a female spore, which it reaches either 
 directly or by putting forth a new sprout. . . . The fertiliza- 
 tion, which may begin a week after the spores have been set 
 free, ordinarily takes one to two days. When it has been 
 accomplished, the female spore gives out what are called 
 teleutospores, which, falling to the ground, give rise to the 
 mycelium or thread-like vegetation, more or less temporary, 
 which in its turn produces the tubercles." 1 
 
 Nature abounds in just such series of facts as that above 
 described. Indeed, this is what is meant by " Nature," in the 
 larger significance of the word ; namely, a vast and intricate 
 system of beings that have been during indefinite time, are 
 now, and will be, moving onward in a course of realizing, one 
 
 1 Taken from " La Nature," Feb. 12th, 1896. 
 
380 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 after another, an indefinite multitude of ideal ends. These 
 ends are far too numerous and intricate for man fully to know. 
 The one ultimate and supreme end, if only one such there be, 
 the human mind may easily enough be far from able to define 
 or even dimly to descry. The final purposes of this system 
 of beings are as intricate and even more hidden than are its 
 efficient causes, and its net-work of so-called laws. But 
 sooner will we follow Clifford in his dream-like theory of a 
 universally diffused " mind-stuff," or Fechner in his theory 
 of souls in plants, than believe that the structure, develop- 
 ment, and relations of things can be understood within the 
 Unity of that process of Becoming which our cognitive ex- 
 perience presents, without recognizing the guidance of nature's 
 forces by immanent ideas. 
 
 In a word, the nature of knowledge, as epistemology in- 
 vestigates its problem, l shows us how the mind, in judgment, 
 reasoning, investigation, and reflection, illustrates by all its 
 cognitive activities its own immanent teleology. The knower 
 knows his own being and doings as linking him in with all 
 other beings, with the objects known, in the realization of 
 ideal ends. So, on the other hand, all progress in objective 
 knowledge, in the science of the structure and relations of 
 things, as they play their several parts in the boundless and 
 unceasing Process of Becoming, emphasizes the trans-subjec- 
 tive application of the category of final purpose. It is in the 
 use of this category, and in the confidence of his ability to 
 understand Reality in terms of this category, that man's 
 knowledge constantly enlarges its sphere. And were it not 
 for certain objections designed to forestall the more uncertain 
 conclusions from this line of argument, when it is carried 
 somewhat too smoothly over from the metaphysics of physics 
 to the metaphysics of ethics, aesthetics, and religion, it is 
 hard to see why some such theoretical position should not be 
 universally accepted. 
 
 1 On this point, see the author's "Philosophy of Knowledge," Chapter xvi. 
 
TELEOLOGY 381 
 
 Since we must postpone the discussion of teleology within 
 the realm of the higher ideals of conduct, art, faith, and 
 worship, we might safely leave this form of the category of 
 the Idea to take its place among the others in a metaphysical 
 system that aims to build itself upon a foundation of objec- 
 tive facts. But a few words to indicate how the objections 
 so often presented and answered in the history of teleologi- 
 al discussion bear upon the positions assumed hitherto, 
 will be found serviceable at this point. 
 
 The old-fashioned, external, and non-vital manner of regard- 
 ing the final purposes of nature was brought to a close by the 
 triumphs of biological evolution. Such teleology was made 
 impossible to minds thoroughly imbued with the facts 
 and spirit of modern science. But most of the arguments 
 recently urged against the idea of final purpose as applied to 
 physical realities are as little calculated to remain influential 
 in their original form as were the conceptions they are in- 
 tended to refute. This is perhaps especially true of the 
 argument from alleged instances of useless, or defective and 
 even injurious organs, within the system belonging to certain 
 highly developed animal organisms. One not invaluable 
 result of much controversy has been that both parties to it, 
 since they have grown wiser as to facts, have also grown less 
 sure of their own immature interpretation of facts. And if 
 theologians have become more inclined to leave biologists and 
 physiologists free to tell what functions particular parts of 
 " organized and self-organizing beings " actually perform, the 
 latter have received some well-merited rebukes for their 
 earlier efforts to characterize as useless, or injurious, certain 
 parts of various organisms. Striking instances are to be found 
 in the history of modern opinion with reference to the final 
 purpose of the so-called " internally secreting glands." Twenty 
 years ago it would indeed have required extraordinary cour- 
 age to affirm that human life could possibly be maintained in 
 default of the functions of the stomach, about the use of which 
 
 
382 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 in the economy of the human body, no room for doubt seemed 
 possible. At that time, however, it was not at all " unscien- 
 tific " to consign to the class of worthless or injurious lumps 
 of tissue, as remnants of past stages of evolution, the thyroid, 
 para-thyroid, and auxiliary thyroid glands. But it seems now 
 a demonstrated fact that the highly complex organism of man 
 can continue its existence after losing the services of the 
 centra] part of its digestive system. On the contrary, recent 
 discoveries show that, in some manner which awaits de- 
 tailed explanation, these more obscure and smaller gland-like 
 portions of man's body are absolutely essential to the vital 
 physiological rhythm of the entire structure. He that loses 
 these despised bits of matter dies more surely than he that 
 loses the more imposing organ. With this discovery comes 
 the proposal to use thyroid glands, excised from our humble 
 brethren the sheep, for the cure of monstrous diseases of the 
 same glands, and their dependent tissues, in man. Nor does 
 the medical expert think fit any longer to sneer at this ex- 
 ample of the way in which the lower animals are actually 
 made to serve the final purposes of man, at least, until 
 perchance he hears of some theologian suggesting that God 
 gave thyroid glands to sheep for this express purpose. Pos- 
 sibly in time it will be a matter of equally well assured 
 knowledge that thyroid glands in sheep have both an " in- 
 ternal " and an " external purposiveness ; " and that the two 
 final purposes, if not to be defined in any single sentence, are 
 not by any means necessarily contradictory. 
 
 The pineal gland too has had a not uhinstructive history 
 during the recent years of active physiological research. 
 After falling from the high estate given to it by the Cartesian 
 philosophy, which found there a fitting seat for the soul, it 
 seemed entitled only to the rating accorded to any useless 
 fold of membrane, a senseless bit, left over from those pro- 
 cesses by which nature had worked her way upward to that 
 most wonderful of all her products, the human brain. But 
 

 TELEOLOGY 383 
 
 recent investigations here also tend to show that this part of 
 the organism, which bulks little and puts forth no sign of any 
 purpose to serve definite wants, is, after all, a very essential 
 part of the cerebral substance. Meanwhile the honors for 
 abject uselessness, and even mischief-making functions, 
 must probably be awarded to the human appendix vermifor- 
 mis. It would be well, however, to reserve final judgment 
 about this piece of " organized and self-organizing " matter 
 until further more definite information has been obtained. 
 Doubtless to take another example it may be held, in 
 view of present facts, that plant-lice were made for ants to 
 pen up and milk as their cows, and for lady-bugs to feed upon 
 entire ; while in this way the ants themselves render services 
 to man in a slight measure compensatory for the mischief 
 they otherwise do, and the lady-bugs become his valuable 
 coadjutor in the culture of roses ; etc., etc. 
 
 Jesting aside, the argument ab ignorantia in general, 
 whether urged for or against the principle of teleology, is 
 an increasingly unsafe argument for the student of Nature. 
 Indeed, such an argument would seem to have no relevance to 
 the conclusion aimed at. For this conclusion is not to the 
 effect that man knows, or ever can know, all the final purposes 
 of nature, or of any one natural object, or even of any portion 
 of any object. The teleolbgical argument affirms the rather 
 that the recognition of ideal ends, of internal and external 
 purposiveness in all things, is an integral part of our fuller 
 knowledge of them ; and that we find things, in fact, answer- 
 ing to our repeated and persistent attempts to make their 
 acquaintance in this way. No sooner is any startlingly new 
 natural product, or force, or transaction, or relation, discov- 
 ered by the mind of man, than he begins to raise his question- 
 ing after one or more of the final purposes involved. And the 
 answers he gets to this questioning swell the bulk and improve 
 the quality of the current stock of human knowledge. Is not 
 the world of physicists just now interested in the mixed theo- 
 
384 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 retical and practical inquiry : What ends, in the world of 
 things, are served by X-rays ; or by liquefied hydrogen ? 
 And, if the former can be seen to serve surgical science, and 
 the latter to improve the art of producing explosives, we shall 
 know more about both. The thinker is as truly convicted of 
 the attempt to reconstruct an obsolete " carpenter theory " of 
 Reality who denies the immanent presence of ideas in their 
 known realizations of the factual order, as is the thinker who 
 tries to reduce the causal explanation and total significance of 
 the X-rays, or of liquefied hydrogen, to these two limited 
 forms of human ideal ends. 
 
 Substantially the same points of view must be maintained 
 when it is discovered that much of the mechanism of nature 
 is defective, or injurious, as regards the realization of certain 
 human ideals. Here the ordinary jests of the opponents of the 
 principle of teleology become sorry enough. For example, 
 that oft-repeated declaration of the German professor, who 
 declared the human eye to be so poor a piece of mechanism 
 for the purpose of perfect vision that he would not accept its 
 like from any maker of optical instruments. This particular 
 jest would be no less sorry if it could not easily be pointed 
 out that a perfect optical instrument would be of compara- 
 tively little practical use when set in the human forehead. 
 For it is just that self-adjusting, that vital and perpetually 
 " self-organizing," activity of this organ which most compels 
 the intelligent recognition of its internal and external pur- 
 posiveness. Nor is the purposiveness of this organ the less, 
 but vastly the more impressive when we trace its evolution 
 from the beginning, and its multiform self-adaptations to the 
 great variety of organs and of environments in which its pur- 
 poses must be attained. Were this not so, however, defective 
 organs may be no less purposive than are perfect organs. In 
 order to maintain the application of the idea of final purpose 
 to all the known productions and transactions of nature, it is 
 not at all necessary that she should be considered as ideally 
 
TELEOLOGY 385 
 
 exact in her work. If she seems to waste her tools, so 
 does she also seem to waste her energy. And time, with 
 its infinite opportunity for repeated trials in the effort to 
 perfect her work, belongs without limit to the opportunity 
 of nature. 
 
 Nowhere else is the current logical inconsistency with re- 
 gard to the teleological conception of nature more apparent 
 than in certain circles of biologists. As students of a natural 
 science, they are eager to throw the light of ideal ends upon 
 every portion of natural mechanism, and upon the whole 
 course of nature's working from the remotest discernible, or 
 conjectural, past down to the present hour. Each individual 
 plant and animal is described by them as a beautiful whole, 
 illumined in every part by the light of the ends served by 
 each part. Teeth, jaws, intestinal tract, muscular connections 
 of the limbs and the terminal claws, have mutually reacting 
 functions as bound together by the principle of internal pur- 
 posiveness. But these same organs, as related to the pres- 
 ervation and development of the individual and of the species, 
 serve as instances of external purposiveness as well. Modern 
 evolution makes no complaints over waste of life, or waste of 
 time, or suffering through fierceness of struggle, or extinction 
 of many species and exhaustion of many environments, if 
 only the great totality of the World-Process may go on toward 
 its obscure and far-off goal. But let attention once be di- 
 rected from the actual causal efficiency of the mechanism 
 definitively to the ideas that set the ends to the mechanism, 
 and let the suggestion be made that these ideas, too, must 
 somehow find their resting-place in Reality, and how quickly 
 is the attitude changed toward the teleological explanation. 
 That Nature (or, if you please, God) should " deliberately 
 intend," should " will in conformity to ideal ends," that ani- 
 mals should struggle ceaselessly together, should devour each 
 other, and proceed upward in the biological scale only by 
 rough and blood-stained paths, that Nature should behave, 
 
 25 
 
386 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 indeed, as scientific evolution claims that she has behaved, 
 is now made the occasion of scornful denial or of flippant jest. 
 But why should this be, unless it involves a recognition of the 
 potency, in the interpretation of the objective facts, which 
 belongs to man's aesthetical and ethical ideas ? Nature has 
 not indeed brought forth, from her prolific womb, her chil- 
 dren in accordance with the most refined ideas of the more 
 highly correct way. She has not followed modern bedroom 
 or drawing-room manners in her conduct of life. But this 
 very criticism itself is a positive proof of the inescapable char- 
 acter of man's cognition of all things. He will not be 
 thwarted in the general obligation to ascribe ideal ends of 
 some sort to natural processes and to natural developments ; 
 but he may well enough practise caution, and confess igno- 
 rance, when asked to declare what, in particular, these ends 
 are. Such a limitation, however, belongs to man's science 
 quite as much as to his ethical and religious faith. Its lesson 
 may well be that Nature (or God in nature) must be taken as 
 you find her. The final purposes she follows are to be learned 
 from her, not dictated to her. 
 
 It is in connection with the modern idea of mechanism, 
 and the extension of this idea to a complete supremacy over 
 the whole realm of concrete existences, that some of the 
 stoutest objections have been raised to a teleology which 
 advocates rather a supremacy of ideas of ends. To these ob- 
 jections, it has been customary for a certain class of writers 
 to answer that the two principles are not mutually exclusive ; 
 mechanism and mechanical causation, on the one hand, and 
 purposiveness and ideal aims on the other hand, may at least 
 coexist, if they do not assist each other. Kant, however, 
 claimed that the union of these two principles is not 
 rationally comprehensible. 1 The principle of mechanism 
 must be held as the universal and necessary the a priori 
 form of all cognition of physical events ; the principle 
 
 1 See the "Kritik of Judgment," Part II., Appendix, 81. 
 
TELEOLOGY 387 
 
 of purposiveness is only a tenable article of a faith which 
 answers to the need that God, as the postulated moral 
 World-Cause, should thus render an obvious support to the 
 keeping of the moral law. We know that things actually 
 exist, and events really happen, under the principle of 
 mechanism ; we are entitled to act as though physical 
 things and events, were parts of the ideal plan of a right- 
 eous and almighty Ruler, in the interests of the moral de- 
 velopment of mankind. In all his discussion of these two 
 principles, in their mutual relations, Kant gives away with 
 one hand far more than he need, while with the other hand 
 he takes back far more than he can rightfully claim or suc- 
 cessfully hold. We are warranted in going far beyond the 
 Kantian teleology with the claim that the purposiveness of 
 Nature both internal and external is a truth established 
 by all man's growing knowledge of natural things and natural 
 events ; but we cannot rise, as the great critic does, with one 
 gigantic flap of the wings of faith to the serene heights of 
 a confidence that man's moral development is the sole, su- 
 preme aim of the entire system of natural things and natural 
 events. To reach these heights requires a prolonged critical 
 examination of the foundations and the trustworthiness of 
 man's ideals ethical, assthetical, and religious. 
 
 The entire substance, as it were, of the philosophy of knowl- 
 edge and of the general philosophy of the Real, guarantees 
 the very opposite of the Kantian position respecting mechan- 
 ism and purposiveness. Without union of the two principles, 
 whose union the author of the Critique of Judgment declares 
 not to be " rationally comprehensible/' no rational and valid 
 comprehension of the products or the transactions of Nature 
 is possible. The conception of mechanism cannot be held 
 even in its most meagre and outline form of statement, with- 
 out implying the conception of final purpose. And the most 
 elaborate and comprehensive form of the mechanical theory 
 the modern scientific and all-inclusive theory of evolu- 
 
388 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 tion does not at all dispense with, but rather enhances and 
 applies in multiform ways the ideas of teleology. 1 
 
 By what has just been said we mean to advocate the ne- 
 cessity of taking a position which goes beyond that taken by 
 Lotze in the " Microcosmus." The design of this work, says 
 its author, 2 is to show " how absolutely universal is the extent, 
 and at the same time how completely subordinate the signif- 
 icance, of the mission which mechanism has to fulfil in the 
 structure of the world." In Lotze's opinion the mechanism 
 which science investigates and portrays only serves as the 
 means which the Idea assumes for its own realization. What 
 we have attempted to show, however, is this : The principle of 
 mechanism and the principle of purposiveness are, epistemologi- 
 cally considered, the same essential forms of the Self 's function- 
 ing in cognition ; and they are also both, ontologically considered, 
 essentially the same forms of the world's Self -like Being and 
 Life. " Mechanism " means nothing less than this : a system 
 of individual existences which act and react upon one another, 
 according to forms, and in obedience to laws, that are neces- 
 sary to the attainment of ideal ends. No such conception as 
 a " mechanism of nature," or a " structure of the world," 
 is tenable without the implicate of purposiveness. A critical 
 metaphysics has, therefore, no need to effect a union, or 
 apologetically to harmonize a seeming conflict, between these 
 two principles. The two are in union, essentially one and the 
 same, both as noetical and as ontological principles. Both 
 affirm one and the same great truth ; man knows Reality 
 only but knows It indubitably as a system of causally 
 connected beings and transactions conforming to the ends 
 set by " immanent ideas. " Ideas are essential explanatory 
 principles of all that is real ; no real being exists, or actual 
 transaction occurs, as cognizable or conceivable by man, 
 without the causal influence of ideas. To talk of conflict here 
 is foolishness ; to attempt reconciliation, there is no need. 
 
 1 Comp. Wundt, "System der Philosophie, " p. 326 f. 
 
 2 Introduction, near its close. 
 
TELEOLOGY 389 
 
 Nothing in all the development of the Kantian philosophy 
 is more interesting than are those concluding portions * of the 
 Critique of Judgment in which this masterful critic discusses 
 the " Methodology of the Teleological Judgment." Here the 
 real Kant comes to the fore, the man of intense and 
 profound moral convictions and of deep and sincere religious 
 nature. At the end of its long, reiterative discussion of the 
 principles of all scientific and philosophical knowledge, criti- 
 cism essays the world-wide, heaven-high, and inimitably deep 
 inquiry after the " ultimate purpose of nature as a teleo- 
 logical system." 2 At once the founder of the modern agnostic 
 stronghold leaves the advantages of the position in which he 
 has intrenched himself; on the wings of moral faith he 
 sgars away beyond all the confines of time, of space, and of the 
 sensuously and cognizably real. No religious fanatic ever 
 exhibited more than does Kant, at this point, of that splendid 
 courage with which certain minds answer the appeal to turn 
 from the known actual to the realm of unknown and un- 
 knowable ideals. With an authority patterned after the form 
 of mathematical and physical a priori demonstrations, the 
 critic assures us that man must find in himself the ultimate 
 purpose of nature, and that his moral culture alone can be this 
 ultimate purpose. 
 
 The positions taken by Kant in the passage just quoted 
 cannot be argued to a satisfactory conclusion on grounds of 
 a general metaphysical system. They require, as has been 
 said already, all of the light which can be shed upon them 
 from studies in ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of 
 religion ; and where Kant becomes most ready to transcend 
 the limits of man's knowledge, we may well enough begin to 
 temper our confidence in the conclusions of our cognitive 
 powers. For neither of the three theoretical statements 
 which his positions assume can be made either a matter of 
 
 1 Marked, indeed, as an Appendix in the second edition. 
 
 2 Part II., Appendix, 83. 
 
 
390 A THEORY OF EEALITY 
 
 objective knowledge or a matter of incontestable moral and 
 religious faith. 
 
 It is indeed given to man to know the world of concrete 
 real beings and of actual events as falling under the principle 
 of final purpose. This world is known to be a teleological 
 system, a construction controlled by immanent ends. But 
 it is not given to man to " know " what is the one ultimate 
 end of the world ; or whether the world's cause has only one 
 such end ; much less, whether this one ultimate purpose of 
 Nature of the world's system and course of things and of 
 selves is the realization of man's moral ideal, as Kant con- 
 ceived of it. With regard to each of these three teleological 
 problems, although they are all essential factors in the one 
 problem of teleology, as this all-inclusive problem is viewed 
 in the Critique of Judgment, only the better hope or the 
 more reasonable opinion is, at best, attainable. For neither 
 of the three can rightly claim the dignity of a postulate of 
 moral reason ; nor is either of them essentially connected 
 with any so-called " ethico-teleological " proof for the Being 
 of God. 
 
 First, and strictly speaking, an " ultimate " purpose of 
 the world's being and course, as such, may well seem some- 
 thing unattainable and even inconceivable. The End to be 
 attained cannot be regarded as the complete cessation of the 
 process of its own attainment. The ultimate purpose of 
 Nature cannot be a statical condition. The very idea of tele- 
 ology is an incitement to strive on and live on ; the idea itself 
 perishes in its own completed realization. To be sure, indi- 
 vidual men get tired and come to consider Nirvana as the 
 ultimate ideal ; or they get pessimistic, and regard the condi- 
 tion, when the world shall be a burned-out coal, as some- 
 thing devoutly to be wished. But the World itself is not 
 tired ; and the strictly " ultimate " purpose is always beyond 
 where man's hope and faith not to say, man's knowledge 
 can go. 
 
TELEOLOGY 391 
 
 Moreover, second, the most ultimate purpose which we can 
 conceive is not one purpose ; it is not an ideal end that can be 
 brought under any strict unity of conception. Some sort of a 
 Unity, the final purpose of the World's course undoubtedly must 
 be. But the higher the sort of unity is, the more complex and 
 inclusive is it of every conceivable form of good ; and of 
 yet more beyond. Who shall define to knowledge, or describe 
 to faith and hope the single, the alone ideal end which it shall 
 seem a worthy end of all the world's Force to realize through 
 the infinite Life of the world's time ? A certain singleness 
 of aim is necessary for the physical and mental resources of 
 finite mortals. Yet there is no real thing so mean, so limited 
 in resources, so meagre in time, and so single-handed in ser- 
 vice as not to have many ends to attain. The only worthy 
 aim which the most exalted human intelligence can set for 
 itself is to play its assigned part well everywhere in the in- 
 finitely varied and ever changing system of selves and things. 
 This is the true service of Self, of the World, and of God ; 
 but its unity is best expressed in an indefinite variety of actual 
 transactions, and of diversified forms of being. 
 
 Nor, finally, can man attain the assurance of faith that his 
 own moral culture forms the one ultimate purpose served 
 by the Nature of which he is, or esteems himself to be, the 
 crowning product. No word of ours shall ever depreciate or 
 minimize the moral Ideal. Without its light to shed upon 
 the course of physical things, down to their lowest depths 
 and into their minutest details, this course is darker than it 
 otherwise need be. But not even the most exalted religious 
 faith which raises man to the rank of a child of God, and 
 grasps, as its supreme ideal, the redemption of the race, 
 justifies exactly the confidence which Kant assigns to this 
 postulate of reflective teleological judgment. Indeed, the 
 conception of " moral culture " may be so pressed as to divide 
 human nature against itself, separate human nature from 
 other nature, and even take man out of sympathy with the 
 
 
392 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 well-being of God. For man is not all ethical, in the Kan- 
 tian conception of " the ethical ; " neither is the ethical so 
 strictly set apart from the natural as that the one can dis- 
 pense with the truths of the other. Nor, finally, is God an 
 unattainable Ding-an-Sich to knowledge, but a necessary pos- 
 tulate of moral realities ; and yet altogether without a warm 
 and vital co-conscious indwelling in his own children. 
 
 The conclusions of our discussion of the teleological prin- 
 ciple, so far as they bear in a preliminary way upon the gene- 
 ral problem under investigation, may be briefly stated. They 
 advance one stage further the final conclusion that the world 
 of things and of selves is an Ideal Reality, constituted after 
 the analogy of the self-known Self ; for it has been shown that 
 the idea of final purpose is known as not belonging merely 
 to the " Appearance " of the world, but as the universal and 
 essential characteristic of its " Reality." This conclusion is, 
 indeed, only a further extension of that knowledge of what 
 all things and all selves actually are, which includes also the 
 conceptions of form and of law. Knowledge, both of selves 
 and of things is knowledge' of their forms and of the laws 
 which they obey. Equally true is it that knowledge of all 
 real beings is an acquaintance with the reciprocally dependent 
 functions of their elements, factors, or parts, of the adapta- 
 tions they display, the adjustments they perfect, and the 
 courses of mutually assisting or hindering development 
 through which they pass. But this is nothing else than the 
 teleological knowledge of Reality. 
 
 Translated from the figures of speech which ordinary and 
 scientific knowledge are fully justified in employing, all such 
 terms as " form," " law," " function," " specific variation," 
 "effects of environment," etc., testify to the same ultimate 
 truth of metaphysics. The World is known ~by man as a sys- 
 tem of beings, mutually interacting in a process of becoming for 
 the progressive realization of ideal ends. If, then, we represent 
 the infinity of the World's Being at any moment of its exist- 
 
TELEOLOGY 393 
 
 ence by the proper symbol ( oo), and its eternal Life and pro- 
 cess of Becoming by a series of such symbols ( oo 1? oo 2 , oo 8 . . . 
 oo n ),the coefficients attached to these symbols may then be 
 arranged so as, in their relations to each other, to symbolize 
 the "final purpose" of the World. Its one ultimate final 
 purpose, if such there be, remains the insoluble problem indi- 
 cated by the coefficient of an irreducible X. 
 
 If, however, by increasing our knowledge of the relations 
 of the coefficients in the World's course, so far as that 
 course can become known to us, we arrive at a reasonable 
 conjecture as to the meaning and value of this X, we are 
 entitled to add also this conjectured meaning and value ta 
 our metaphysical system. Such a value to the X is afforded 
 by the hope and the faith attained through the thoughtful 
 study of the philosophy of the Ideal in the forms of conduct, 
 art, and religion. Thus our Theory of Reality embraces the 
 Ideas which the Will of the Absolute is setting into the 
 World's actual historical development. That this Will is 
 guided by ideas of ends to be gained in every form, law, 
 and relation that are served by the objects of man's experi- 
 ence is a truth belonging to all man's objective knowledge of 
 the World. This World is, fundamentally considered, known 
 to man as a Will guided by immanent ideas ; and among 
 these guiding ideas are the ideal ends, already actually 
 secured, and to be secured, by the action of this Will. 
 
CHAPTER XY 
 
 SPHERES OF REALITY 
 
 THE detailed critical analysis which is necessary to found 
 upon the cognitive experience of men a defensible Theory of 
 Reality has heen substantially finished. In the attempt to 
 frame such a theory we began under the impulse of that 
 craving to which Matthew Arnold so aptly referred : " We 
 want first to know what Being is." This is a want, however, 
 which can never be satisfied either wholly without, or solely 
 with, regard to what all men know by the senses and by self- 
 consciousness, or to what a few favored individuals know by 
 aid of the advances of the particular sciences. Metaphysics, 
 on the one hand, in order to have truths about realities at the 
 bases of its structure, must build on the facts and formulas 
 of our common experience. But, on the other hand, in order 
 to apprehend aright and to fulfil its mission, metaphysics, 
 after subjecting its varied materials to critical inspection, 
 must carry its structure upward toward that one Truth of 
 Reality which unites all these subordinate truths in itself. 
 Thus the perfection of metaphysical system requires that 
 speculative and reflective synthesis should follow critical 
 analysis. 
 
 In accordance with our conception of correct method, reflec- 
 tive analysis has been employed in the effort to show what, 
 as to the actual nature of particular beings, is implied in the 
 very terms under which they are always, and necessarily, 
 known by man. It is indispensable here only briefly to sum- 
 marize the results of this detailed analysis. Every individual, 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 395 
 
 concrete reality (whether a so-called Self or a so-called Thing) 
 has been seen to unite in its being, as a necessary precon- 
 dition of its really being at all, every one of the categories. 
 Concrete realities are particular combinations of the cate- 
 gories. Thus, " being in reality " is never a simple and easily 
 intelligible affair; the rather is it always an affair which 
 requires, for its simplest apprehension, all the faculties of 
 the developed mind, and which, for its perfect comprehension, 
 far surpasses the limits of the most expanded mental devel- 
 opment. But our experience is no warrant for the agnostic 
 conclusion, that man knows not what it is really to be ; it is 
 rather token of the inexhaustible wealth of the content of 
 Reality. It is also a sign that the completed, or perfected, 
 knowledge of any concrete reality would seem to involve the 
 essential significance of all that is real. 
 
 The moment, however, an attempt is made to translate 
 into their ultimate significance those terms which man is 
 compelled to employ in the description of what he knows real 
 things to be, the virtual character of all human knowledge 
 becomes obvious. The knower has somehow attributed to 
 things, regarded as trans-subjective and independent of his 
 knowledge, those qualifications which he knows himself to 
 have and to exercise in his more immediate and mutually 
 dependent relations with things. That is to say, all man's 
 knowledge of what things really and, as it were, "in-them- 
 selves " are, is gained on the basis of his right to judge that 
 the real being of things is essentially similar to his own. 
 
 Our previous analysis of the categories has verified the 
 foregoing postulate in all its essential particulars. In know- 
 ing himself as really being, and actually doing, man comes to 
 know the reality of the being and the actuality of the trans- 
 actions of things. He, the knower, is conscious of self- 
 activity, which is inhibited by a " that-which," not to be 
 identified with the Self. This "other," this "non-self" is 
 accordingly known as self-active, and yet as always inhibited 
 
396 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 by beings that cannot be identified with itself. Man is also 
 conscious of actively relating himself, and of becoming pas- 
 sively related, either without or in spite of his will, to all 
 other things. These other things, too, are known as being in 
 real relations after the analogy of the observing, judging, and 
 thinking Self. Man is conscious of force as followed by 
 changes in himself and in other beings, in conformity with 
 ideal ends. These other beings, too, are therefore known as 
 employing their forces, within themselves and upon one 
 another, so as to change themselves and to induce in one 
 another changes that conform to established types, or laws, 
 or functions, or mutual services, that is, to ideal ends. 
 Man measures and enumerates the different ideally separable 
 " moments " in the one stream of his consciousness ; he thus 
 knows his object-things as actually having quantity and 
 number belonging to them. He then employs them to judge 
 and to estimate one another. He is conscious of the flow of 
 his own life in the so-called stream of time ; but this flow is 
 objectively determined ; and he, therefore, knows the life of 
 things as occuring and lasting in the same stream of time. 
 And although the essential character of that space in which 
 all thing-like beings have their existence and their changes 
 seems, of all the foreign conditions of things, most foreign 
 to man's own self-hood, this character also proves, after all, 
 the same important truth. For the knower knows himself as 
 entering into actual relations with other beings even with 
 other selves only under the formal conditions of space. 
 
 When, therefore, a critical analysis has laid bare the signi- 
 ficance of the categories, for all men's knowledge of reality, we 
 see that things are not essentially foreign to the self. For 
 we see that they join with the self in furnishing the manifold 
 principles of differentiation which are needed for the mani- 
 festation of the Idea in a system of inter-related selves and 
 things. And the deepest significance of this common use of 
 the categories, in their joint application to selves and to things, 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 397 
 
 becomes apparent only when the truth is recognized, that the 
 one fundamental distinction which the act of knowledge must 
 maintain is the distinction between the knower and his 
 " other " the object known. 
 
 It is, then, in a profound and comprehensive conception of 
 Selfhood, its nature and its validity, that metaphysical system 
 must find the means for a synthesis which shall be faithful to 
 all the facts and truths of its critical analysis. This is a 
 conclusion which has been gradually gathering and strength- 
 ening in our minds during the long course of previous epis- 
 temological and ontological discussion. Especially insistent 
 has this conclusion seemed during the later stages of the 
 discussion. For these have made it apparent that all the 
 attributions of form and law, and final purpose, which both 
 the ordinary and the scientific knowledge of man finds it 
 necessary to ascribe to things, are essentially ideal. They are 
 ways of the self-recognized behavior of man in all his action 
 and development, amidst the environment of natural objects. 
 They are necessarily attributed to these objects, and to Nature 
 at large, as defining the character of the reality in which she 
 includes them all. But this means that all natural objects 
 are known to man only in terms of his own selfhood ; 
 and that Nature is known as Will which is progressively 
 realizing its own immanent ideas. To change the phrase, 
 without intending at this point to change the doctrine : The 
 World of beings, both selves and things, is known as having 
 its essential reality in being an " Absolute Self." 
 
 The phrase just employed " Absolute Self " has already 
 several times been referred to, in the analytical criti- 
 cism of the categories. The conception answering to the 
 phrase has, indeed, thus far been left in a vague and unsatis- 
 factory form. The moment one proposes to subject it to the 
 tests of reflective criticism, one is made aware of an attempt 
 to cross what not a few will consider to be the limits of hu- 
 man knowledge and even of legitimate speculative endeavor. 
 
398 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 In our judgment, too, it is not permissible, and it is, as a rule, 
 the opposite of truly serviceable, to claim such a degree of 
 objective certainty for this conception as to identify it with, the 
 sum-total of all Reality. That I immediately know the entire 
 system of all known and conceivable beings in terms of an 
 " Absolute Self " is not a conclusion which follows in a strictly 
 logical way from what has been accomplished by the pre- 
 vious analysis. Yet some such synthesis as this may be made 
 valid by this analysis; and the synthesis may be so con- 
 nected with the analysis as to afford a Theory of Reality that 
 shall repose on foundations firmly laid in the sum-total of 
 man's cognitive experience. 
 
 To further the interests of successful speculation, two 
 lines of effort need to be followed in the interests of improv- 
 ing the conception just introduced. The first of these is the 
 effort to perfect the conception itself. Its content needs to 
 be made more clear and self-consistent, and its value must be 
 raised to higher potencies and grander measures of extension. 
 For the question whether the noun and the adjective here 
 joined together do not refuse all vital union whether to 
 speak of an " Absolute Self " be not a contradiction in terms 
 is not altogether a vain question. Especially is it neces- 
 sary if the conception of selfhood is to be extended so as 
 to cover all the objects of man's knowledge, in their mutual 
 relations and in their extension over all times and spaces, 
 that this conception shall itself be worthily conceived. 
 
 But, second, it must be our effort to place this conception 
 of an Absolute Self, as summing up all man can know, or 
 think, that is highest and best about the essential Being of 
 the world-system, in satisfactory theoretical and practical 
 relations with the facts it is intended to explain. The parti- 
 cular selves and particular things man knows imperfectly, 
 to be sure, but with a continuous increase in the depth, 
 breadth, and certainty of cognition belong together in the 
 great system of which they are all members or parts. We 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 399 
 
 have found ourselves constantly approximating the concep- 
 tion of an Absolute Self, as the endeavor has gone on to 
 understand the ultimate significance of all these particular 
 cognitions, and the ultimate nature of that reality to the unity 
 of whose being the particulars belong. But such progress 
 only leads the mind nearer to that philosophical problem 
 which, says Lotze, 1 " we may therefore consider as the final 
 problem of Ontology a problem not yet satisfactorily solved 
 - this inquiry after the connection between the necessary 
 Unity and the alike necessary manifoldness of the Existent." 
 Or, as it seems to us better to express the problem: What 
 are the relations in reality between all the particular beings, 
 which are known under the formal conditions of space and 
 time, and that Absolute Self whose Being must be so con- 
 ceived of as to offer the explanatory principle of all that they 
 are, and do ? In the attempt to solve this problem, different 
 thinkers lay emphasis on ideas of " identity," or " manifesta- 
 tion," or " realization," or " evolution," or " creation," etc. 
 
 To frame a consistent and worthy conception which shall 
 synthesize all^the legitimate conclusions of metaphysical analy- 
 sis, undoubtedly requires assistance from reflective thinking 
 upon human ideals. The highest and worthiest selfhood 
 with which man has acquaintance is the Self that is self-active 
 in pursuit of the ideals of knowledge, of conduct, of art, and of 
 religion. This is our real being, as known to us to be a spirit- 
 ual life. Here, in the actual experience of the self, the 
 " most real reality " if such an expression may be pardoned 
 and the highest ideality are united. Therefore the work 
 of philosophy in perfecting the conception of an Absolute 
 Self, if this work be possible at all, certainly cannot be 
 accomplished without ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy 
 of religion. But since these branches of philosophy deal 
 rather with man's ideals than with the concrete actualities 
 known to man, with actual selves and actual things, 
 
 1 In his " Outlines of Encyclopaedia of Philosophy/' close of 14. 
 
400 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 they require and permit larger influxes of the emotional and 
 practical life into their conclusions. It is customary to speak 
 of their invisible and intangible entities as objects of faith, 
 while the invisible and intangible entities of physics, chemis- 
 try, and biology are called objects of science, of assured and 
 verifiable knowledge. 
 
 It is not the intention of the present investigation to dispute 
 or invalidate some such distinction as that to which reference 
 has just been made. But if the distinction is taken so as to 
 create a schism between faith and knowledge, between the 
 entities that are ideals and the entities that have been shown 
 to implicate the immanence of ideas, between the philosophy of 
 man's ethical, aesthetical, and religious nature, and the philoso- 
 phy of his scientific and cognitive nature, then all our previous 
 investigation offers a network of insuperable objections. For 
 the foundations of a system of metaphysics reach down to the 
 ultimate and universal facts of man's cognitive experience ; and 
 in examining these facts we are made to know that man is an 
 ideal and spiritual being, and that this ideal and spiritual 
 being essentially modifies his knowledge of every form and 
 semblance of reality. As a Spirit, or Mind, man knows the 
 reality of himself and of all other beings. 
 
 It remains, then, to carry the structure already begun up 
 to the place where the more definitive forms of human ideals 
 ideals of the ethical, artistic, and religious Self can employ 
 these foundations for their peculiar work of extending the 
 superstructure. For the completed work of metaphysical 
 synthesis, it was necessary first to consider what is the known 
 nature of a self, as this being actually exists and knows itself 
 to be, and to be related to its environment of things. If all 
 existences have a self-like nature, whether as known under 
 the forms of the most ordinary or of the most strictly scientific 
 cognition, then the more profound and well certified our 
 knowledge of the self becomes, the more shall we know of the 
 true and ultimate nature of all reality. 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 401 
 
 But the unity which this conception imparts to all the 
 objects of knowlege must not be conceived of in a way that is 
 incompatible with the real variety of these objects. All things 
 and all selves are known as somehow related manifestation, 
 emanation, revelation, dependent creation to an Absolute 
 Self. All things are known only so far as they are conceived 
 of, or envisaged, in terms of the selfhood of man. Yet selves 
 and things must not be identified, either in general or in par- 
 ticular; neither must the individual existences lose their 
 reality by being theoretically merged in the Unity of the 
 World, of which they are a part. In order, then, to reap the 
 legitimate fruits of analysis, and not the rather to destroy or 
 surrender them all, by the act of synthesis, the reality of 
 spheres of being must be maintained. I am ; you are ; things 
 are ; and the Absolute, that somehow embraces me, and you, 
 and all things in his Being, is. To all, the conception of self- 
 hood somehow applies. It is the grasping on to more or less 
 of selfhood which relegates each particular being to its 
 appropriate sphere of reality. It is the absoluteness of the 
 Divine Selfhood, which makes its Unity of Reality include the 
 particular realities of all finite things and finite selves. The 
 different spheres of reality as known by man are distinguished 
 by the amounts of essential selfhood which they possess. 
 
 The line of argument leading to the supreme synthesis of 
 metaphysics, the philosophy of the real, may therefore be 
 briefly described as follows. In the individual man, and in the 
 human race, the growth of the most immediate and assured 
 knowledge reveals what it is really to be, after the type of the 
 self-conscious knower and doer, in all the varying relations of 
 his- changing existence toward his objects whether other 
 selves or things. Reality is envisaged as a commerce between 
 the self and the not-self, in which the former knows that it is 
 and what it is, and knows that the latter is, and is not itself. 
 But what the not-self really is, becomes known only as it is 
 apprehended after the analogy of the self. All other men are 
 
 26 
 
402 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 known to me as not-my-self, but as self-like things com- 
 pletely self-like, so far as all the important characteristics of 
 the actual being of a self are concerned. Still other things 
 animals and plants, for example are known as less com- 
 pletely self-like ; yet they, too, so far as known at all, are 
 known only as their existence is apprehended, or conceived 
 of, after the analogy of the self. And in the last analysis, 
 the same procedure turns out to be verifiable in the case of 
 those things that are most unlike the willing, feeling, thinking 
 Self. Mere things, " brute inanimate matter " whatever 
 one may call those forms of existence which give less sure 
 token of being, in reality, of the same kinship with ourselves 
 
 are known only on essentially similar terms. They are 
 indeed the least obviously and fully self-like of all known 
 forms of existence. But they, too, so far as known, or even 
 as at all conceivable, are somewhat self-like things. All the 
 qualifications they are known to show, or are conjectured to 
 possess, appear in reality, essentially the same as certain 
 fundamental qualifications of the knowing and willing self. 
 
 No matter how much physical science may strive to regard 
 physical beings and events merely as " in-themselves " existing, 
 all the terms it employs still recognize the same metaphysical 
 truth. Of this truth there are both a negative and a positive 
 side. The former recognizes the fact that we do not know 
 some of our own forms of being and behavior to belong, in 
 reality, to things ; but the latter assures us that all the forms 
 of being, and behavior which we do know things to possess are 
 essentially the same as our own. The former and negative 
 position is largely taken in our ignorance. Man so to say 
 
 cannot get into interior relations with things ; he cannot 
 hold with them the same satisfying and informing intercourse 
 which is possible between selves. We may even speak, with 
 that sweet saint of the Middle Ages, of our " dear brethren, 
 the birds." But the kinship of being which is between souls 
 and stars or stones does not, on the surface at least, warrant 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 403 
 
 our going so far as to address them in fraternal terms. Yet 
 the more profound acquaintance which reflection upon the 
 nature of knowledge and the nature of existence brings, makes 
 even more emphatic the positive and informing side of man's 
 cognitive experience with the system of physical beings and 
 physical events. They really are for man, only so far as they 
 show to him the evident tokens of the will and the mind that 
 is in them. It is their actual construction after the pattern 
 of his own self -hood, their substantiality as centres of an 
 activity that functions in obedience to immanent ideas, which 
 makes them knowable, or conceivable, by the human mind. 
 
 Combining these two aspects of the same truth the nega- 
 tive and the positive, the view ab ignorantia and the view 
 which embraces all that is called scientia we arrive at a 
 knowledge of the completed whole. Things are known as 
 imperfect and inferior selves. They have a smaller share in 
 reality than man possesses. Among the ranks, or spheres, of 
 Being, they lie lower down, as it were. This relative imper- 
 fection and inferiority to us must be determined by the 
 relations in which they and we stand to the Absolute Self. 
 
 From the epistemological point of view, this doctrine of 
 things amounts to saying that no objects of man's cognitive 
 experience can be envisaged, or conceived of, in independence 
 of the active and ideal nature of man himself. From the onto- 
 logical point of view, the very same result takes the form of a 
 declaration that all beings in reality have an active and ideal 
 nature analogous to that possessed by man. But this nature 
 they possess, and reveal, in different degrees of certainty and 
 of fullness. First of all, every Self knows with the highest 
 degree of certainty and fullness what his own real being is. 
 Second, and as essentially interwoven with this knowledge, 
 every Self knows what is the actual being of those things that 
 behave most like himself. They are other selves his 
 "fellows " belonging to the species, man. Third, all living 
 beings are known as sharing with the Self some of the more 
 
404 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 important characteristics of that actual life which the Self 
 knows as its own. And, fourth, there are those non-living 
 things, about whose reality that they are we often think 
 ourselves most assuredly convinced ; but about the actual 
 nature, the trans-subjective characteristics of which what 
 they are we are most in doubt, and find all our conceptions 
 even the most scientific, very obscure. It is the nature of 
 things, and not the nature of ourselves, which offers the most 
 obscure depths and the more fathomless abysses of mystery. 
 Within each of these four classes of the objects of man's 
 cognitive experience, there is an almost indefinite gradation 
 of knowledge, both as respects its clearness and its fullness. 
 And between any two adjoining classes the lines cannot at all 
 times be strictly drawn. Different individuals and different 
 races of man have self-knowledge with greater and less 
 degrees of approach to clearness and fullness. The race is 
 advancing, as the history of speculation and of institutions 
 social, political, ethical and religious sufficiently shows, 
 in all the knowledge that answers to the very word " Self." 
 This growing knowledge of man's own historical growth, and 
 the facts and principles of comparative psychology, is giving 
 to each student of the subject a less obscure and more broad 
 doctrine of the nature of man. Some portions of the human 
 race there are, whose real nature is as yet scarcely so well 
 known to modern science, as is the nature of many of the 
 lower animals. And biology is constantly revealing new 
 wonders and unsolved problems as to the actual, the matter- 
 of-fact nature of the lower animals and of the plant-life with 
 which the destiny and behavior of the animals are so closely 
 related. Meanwhile physics and chemistry are showing how 
 profoundly mysterious is this so-called " brute and inanimate 
 matter." What a picture do these sciences present ! Not 
 " brute " or " inanimate " ; it is rather one seething sea of mov- 
 ing, interacting molecules and atoms orderly, terrible, vin- 
 dictive yet benevolent, resistless energy and divine Force, in 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 405 
 
 which, as a universal environment, all selves and all things 
 " live and move and have their being." 
 
 All selves and all things are, however, known as constitut- 
 ing some sort of a Unity, and as moving together toward some 
 far-off goal. Their processes of becoming do not take place 
 without principles that compel a certain oneness as well as 
 multiplicity. Their changes are in one space and one time. 
 Their energies are capable of correlation under the conception 
 of one force ; but this is not as though they were forms of a 
 single blind impulsion that knows not how to differentiate 
 itself, to combine and to separate, for the attainment of ideal 
 ends. Individual realities are all ideal unities : and yet they 
 belong together in the one World. What sort of a real Being 
 of the world can serve as the correlate of such a well-founded 
 conception of oneness as this ? An ontological doctrine or 
 theory must answer this inquiry. We cannot refer this unity- 
 to the merely subjective, unifying activity of the mind of the 
 knower. The rather is it a unity which his knowledge compels 
 him to recognize as belonging to the actuality of the system 
 of interacting selves and things. We can provide no other 
 semblance of a satisfactory answer to this problem, which the 
 supreme synthesis of philosophy undertakes, than the answer 
 already suggested. This unitary Being of the World can be 
 secured and accounted for, only if all particular beings are 
 known as having their Ground in an Absolute Self. 
 
 In justification of such a metaphysical synthesis as this it 
 now becomes necessary briefly to describe the content of the 
 conception we have employed, and to show that this conception 
 may be made valid for the work which the study of reality re- 
 quires of it. First : Can this conception of an Absolute Self be 
 made clear and self-consistent ? And, second, can it then meet 
 the demands made upon it for service in the realms of Matter 
 and Mind, Spirit and Nature, the Real and the Ideal. To 
 answer these inquiries, so far as general metaphysics can 
 without definitely entering upon the discussion of problems of 
 
406 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion, will occupy 
 us in the concluding chapters of this book. 
 
 What right has the searcher for a system of metaphysics so 
 to enlarge and elevate the conception of Self as to prepare it 
 for union with a conception like that fitly answering to the 
 word " absolute " ? The answer to this inquiry can be the 
 more summarily given here, because it has elsewhere been 
 made the subject of detailed analysis and reflection. 1 
 
 Study of the history of conceptions answering to the word 
 " Self," or to similar terms, shows them to have been the sub- 
 ject of a most significant development, both in the individual 
 and in the race. This development, like every other which is 
 significant, has not served to simplify and reduce to the low 
 level of a perfectly comprehensible truth, either the concep- 
 tions or the reality which is the correlate of the conceptions. 
 The rather has progress taken the direction of enriching the 
 content of human thought, while clearing it of certain inter- 
 nal contradictions and elevating it toward its ideal, and ideally 
 most valuable form. If, then, these conceptions are consid- 
 ered from the anthropologist's point of view, many diverse and 
 curious opinions are brought to light, as to what the known 
 characteristics of selfhood actually are. The personification 
 of things and the materialization of persons are found to re- 
 sult from tendencies most curiously interdependent and mutu- 
 ally involved. All the abnormal conceits and hallucinations 
 of the hypnotic and the insane with regard to themselves have 
 their parallels in views and practices which have been recog- 
 nized as sane and normal at some stage in the evolution of 
 the race. To write the history of these conceptions in a man- 
 ner at once accurate and philosophically critical, would be to 
 trace the moral, social, and speculative progress of mankind. 2 
 
 1 See the author's " Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory," chap. xxii. : 
 " The Knowledge of Things and the Knowledge of Self ; " " Philosophy of 
 Knowledge," chap. vii. : " Knowledge of Things and of Self ; " and the entire 
 volume, " Philosophy of Mind." 
 
 2 Comp. the masterly summary of Volkmann, " Lehrbuch der Psychologic," 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 407 
 
 If the architectonic of these conceptions be regarded from the 
 psychologist's point of view, one may distinguish the " Material 
 Self," "the Social Self," and the " Spiritual Self; " and one 
 may find all these, and other modifications of the results of 
 reflective thinking, ambiguous and confused, in themselves 
 and in their relations to one another. 1 By carrying the analy- 
 sis forward in a destructive rather than a constructive fash- 
 ion, it is even possible to show that no one of the several 
 forms of the self's appearance can be identified with its 
 reality ; therefore, it is not a " true form " of experience, and 
 " does not give us the facts as they are in reality," but is a 
 " mere appearance," a " mere bundle of discrepancies." 2 
 But to leave in confusion the testimony of the historical de- 
 velopment of man's conception of his own selfhood ; or simply 
 to pass judgment upon that ambiguity in its use into which all 
 men necessarily fall ; and, especially, to convict the concep- 
 tion of such internal contradictions as render all its witness 
 to any form of truth absolutely valueless ; all these are, 
 in our judgment, either inadequate or misleading ways of 
 handling one of the most important problems of philosophy. 
 Two truths, which are established by the historical study, 
 the psychological analysis, and the metaphysical criticism of 
 the conception of Self, need recognition and enforcement at 
 this point. First : the physical, or " thing-like," manifesta- 
 tion of the self is essential to its existence in any kind of re- 
 lations with other beings, under the formal conditions of 
 space and time. But, second, this very manifestation is itself 
 of such a character as to lead us to the conclusion that the 
 truest and most essential Self is that nature which is envis- 
 aged as its own Life in every act of self-consciousness. In 
 the concrete, when thus conceived and stated, one side of the 
 
 3 te Aufl., I., pp. 54-216 ; and compare Eucken, " Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart; " 
 and a monograph on "The Development of the Doctrine of Personality in 
 Modern Philosophy," by Wm. H. Walker. 
 
 1 See James, " The Principles of Psychology/' I., chap. x. 
 
 2 Comp. the conclusions of Mr. Bradley, " Appearance and Reality," chap. x. 
 
408 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 truth of man's experience is this : I know myself as related, 
 under the conditions of space and time, to other things only 
 as I take up into my selfhood the same physical and external 
 forms of existence which all these other things manifest to 
 me. But I have also another side to my self-conscious expe- 
 rience ; and this shows me that I am a self-active knower and 
 producer of a continuity of conscious states. These conscious 
 states, taken together, have an ideal value, ideal ends of their 
 own, and a significant connection with one another. It is this 
 cognitive and voluntary realization of ideal ends which reveals 
 to me my inmost being. Speaking popularly, both sides 
 might be said to unite in validating the familiar declaration : 
 I am an embodied spirit, and so constituted a complete 
 Self in a system of selves and things. 
 
 Translated into the general propositions of systematic meta- 
 physics, the same conclusion may be stated as follows : Mat- 
 ter, or the generalized conception of things is a manifestation 
 of Spirit, the realization of the inmost Being of the World, 
 under the formal conditions of space and time. Thus the 
 true and essential nature of the material world is only known 
 by means of our self-conscious recognition of our own spirits 
 as the inner and higher principle of cognitive experience. 
 The essential and real nature of matter, in the full signifi- 
 cance of the word " Reality," is to be known only in terms 
 of the Life of Spirit. 
 
 Carried out into the large, and applied to the attempt of 
 philosophy at a supreme synthesis, these two sides of man's 
 experience with himself, and with things, unite in the following 
 conception. That system of interrelated beings, which con- 
 stitutes the world as known to man, is the " manifestation," 
 under the formal conditions of space and time, of an infinite 
 and eternal Spirit. How the formal conditions of space and 
 time are applicable to the reality of this Spirit has already 
 been sufficiently explained. The justification and interpreta- 
 tion of the word which has just been chosen (or, indeed, of 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 
 
 any other words which might be chosen in its place) to indi- 
 cate the relations between the whole world of man's actual 
 experience and its own inmost and true Being, require further 
 reflection. But for the present we may let the term " mani- 
 festation " suggest what further reflective thinking must try 
 to define. What is meant by Spirit, however, is, in its essen- 
 tial characteristics, already perfectly clear. A Spirit is a Will 
 self-active in the realization of ideal ends. Spirituality is, 
 then, for us, as individual and finite selves, and for the exis- 
 tences which constitute the unity which we know the world 
 of selves and of things to be, the innermost essence of all 
 Reality. 
 
 The truth as respects the individual self is illustrated in 
 the development of every man, and in the entire development 
 of the human race. With the child and with childish men, 
 by the " person " is understood the sensitive, the feeling, 
 thinking, and active body. Such parts of this body as are 
 the more obvious objects of sense-perception or of sen- 
 suous imagination may be, by turns, and in accordance with 
 theoretical or practical ends, identified either with external 
 things, or with the real self. They are the factors, as it were, 
 which serve to bridge over the stream of consciousness between 
 the wholly external world, the things that are essentially not- 
 self and yet are liable at any moment to become necessary 
 parts of the manifested self, and those inmost experiences 
 which cannot be separated from the idea of any conscious 
 existence whatever. Thus even the crudest conception of 
 the Self, as related to a system of not-selves, contains the 
 beginnings of that process which eventuates in the doctrine 
 that mind and matter are separated by " the whole diameter 
 of being." 
 
 The growth of the scientific knowledge of human nature 
 serves a double purpose in the direction already indicated. 
 The more we know of ourselves, of man, the more clear in 
 character and detailed in particulars does the conception of 
 
410 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 his physical organism become. This organism is found to be, 
 in its component parts, precisely identical with other things ; 
 from this point of view, it is only one thing among countless 
 others, built up, moment after moment by the constructive 
 energy of the restless atoms. As respects its form, its laws, 
 the causal connections which bind its beginnings, its changes, 
 and its ceasing from existence, in with the great World- 
 Course, the human body belongs to the realm of the physical. 
 The knowledge of it is given in physics, chemistry, biology, 
 the science of things. But the growth of our scientific 
 knowledge of human nature takes also another direction. 
 This is the direction of deepening, elevating, and enriching 
 the content of the conception of a finite, personal Spirit. 
 
 Suppose, then, an answer is required from the most ad- 
 vanced conclusions of the physical and the psychological 
 sciences to the question : What is the reality of the human 
 Self as involving both body and spirit ? The answer, when 
 these sciences have told all that they know or can know, has 
 divided the reality into two parts, so as to give one part over 
 entirely to the world of things, and leave the other part self- 
 conscious although incapable of communication with or of 
 playing a part in this world of things. For the body is 
 known to these sciences only as a system of physical elements 
 which, coming from the great stream of material nature, 
 under exceedingly complex and obscure influences from inter- 
 nal atomic forces and as modified by the action of their 
 environment, attain temporarily a certain morphological and 
 physiological unity ; and which go through a peculiar course 
 of development. By Spirit, however, we are left to under- 
 stand the Subject of a conscious and ideal development which, 
 by its own activity as knower and doer, makes itself a real and 
 unitary being, with non-physical modes of its self-realization. 
 Thus the innermost, the supreme, and the essential reality of 
 the Self its " in itself being," if so uncouth a phrase may 
 still be pardoned is the spiritual reality it knows itself to 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 411 
 
 be in the voluntary and self-conscious pursuit of its own ideals. 
 Its highest real unity is also attained in the same way, 
 namely by a conscious and voluntary unifying of the life of 
 consciousness in its direction toward selected ends. 
 
 But our doctrine of the reality of the human self, as both 
 body and spirit, when left in this, its completed scientific 
 form, lacks the theoretical and the practical unity which it 
 requires in order to meet the demands, both of philosophy 
 and of the life of moral conduct, artistic endeavor, and re- 
 ligious faith. How impotent to effect this required unity, is 
 any conception logically covered under the term " parallel- 
 ism," we have shown in other connections, over and over 
 again. Mere parallelism explains nothing ; nor can such a 
 relation eventuate in or even express any actual connection 
 between the events which run parallel, whether in space or in 
 time. Only real beings, whose forces have regard to each other 
 in accordance with some system of ideas common to them all can 
 effect any kind of actual unity. But if it be denied that the 
 Self, as both body and spirit is, in reality, any kind of a unity, 
 then each stream of human consciousness is so isolated from 
 the Being of the World from all other selves and all things 
 that, as a will, it can effect nothing in this world, and as 
 feeling and thinking, it can nohow mentally represent the 
 truth of this world. 
 
 It is absolutely necessary, then, for metaphysics to recog- 
 nize the fundamental truth that man's selfhood, as body and 
 spirit, has its total being in dependence upon that same Unity 
 of Reality to which all other beings belong. This Reality 
 makes us to be the unity we are. It furnishes the vital 
 cement so to speak, the interlacing network of connections 
 which temporarily bind the body and spirit into one self, and 
 also unite this one self with the other beings of the one 
 World. The most immediate and indubitable experience 
 which the mind has of any causal relation is that of the 
 peculiar relation which exists between the spirit and the body 
 
412 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of the individual man, in their correlated actions. Through 
 the organism and so far as thoroughly well certified exper- 
 ience now goes, through it alone the innermost and essen- 
 tial self is wrought upon by the forces of the external world. 
 Through the same organism and so far as thoroughly well- 
 certified experience now goes, through it alone the inner- 
 most and essential self manifests its being, and gets its will 
 and ideas realized by the forces of the external world. The 
 body, which is, from the scientific point of view, but a tem- 
 porary cross-section, as it were, in the current of the world's 
 physical and non-self-like beings, conditions and influences 
 the stream of cognitive and voluntary states of conscious- 
 ness. The stream of conscious states, which, in the highest 
 and most ideal stages of its flow, shows to itself the real 
 nature of the spirit, conditions and influences so much of 
 physical nature as it can reach in, and through the body. 
 Thus the self knows itself as a part of physical nature, linked 
 in as a thing with all other things ; but thus, also, the self 
 knows itself as a spirit, rising ideally above and dominating 
 over physical nature. 
 
 The metaphysics of Selfhood, then, can neither consider 
 man's body as the producer and effective cause of man's 
 spirit, nor consider his spirit as the framer and builder of his 
 body. Nor can it leave the two merely to run parallel, in 
 reality disconnected, side by side. On the one hand, the 
 total human Self perceives itself as a thing-like existence ; 
 on the other hand, it envisages itself, as a cognitive and feel- 
 ing Will, a non-thing-like and spiritual existence. Without 
 the one kind of experience, it could have no real being capable 
 of entering into actual relations of living commerce giving 
 and taking, putting forth and receiving with other beings 
 in that system of selves and things which constitutes the 
 known world. Without the other kind of experience the self 
 would be a mere thing; or, rather, without participation in 
 the nature of spirit, neither self-conscious recognition, nor 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 413 
 
 intercourse between selves, is conceivable.- The one all- 
 inclusive Being of the World, the Unity of Reality, is respon- 
 sible for the union of body and spirit in each human Self, and 
 of each Self with other selves, and of all selves with all 
 things. 
 
 If now, however, the language which it has been found 
 necessary to employ in all our explanation of the reality of 
 the Self, as dependent for its being and its manifestation upon 
 the Being of the World, is translated over into the thoughts 
 already provided for it, we are led again to the conception of 
 an Absolute Self. For every characteristic of this Being of the 
 World, in which all concrete beings u live and move and have 
 their being," is constructed after the analogy of the Spirit's 
 cognitive and self-active life, in the pursuit of ideal ends. 
 This is what the previous extended analysis has shown in 
 detail. To have the unitary being, which knows itself as a 
 will that is active in the realization of ideal ends, in a word, 
 to have true interior selfhood, this is what we know our 
 own most significant and real existence to be. This is the 
 highest and supremely ideal unity of what we call " Spirit," 
 or " Mind." 
 
 Regarded as providing for a unity of force, the real princi- 
 ple, which accounts for the world as known by man, must be 
 conceived of as one Will. Regarded as the ground of all the 
 relations which are recognized as actually existing at any 
 moment in the world's history, this same principle must have 
 " self-consistency." It must provide for that adjustment of 
 innumerable factors to each other, in accordance with the 
 demands made upon each by every other, which is realized in 
 the highest degree by a well-ordered self. Regarded as 
 adequate to that formal unification which characterizes all 
 man's experience of things, as external and extended, as 
 " occupying space " of measurable quantity and so divisible into 
 many beings existing side by side in the unity of the one 
 world, this real principle must be a Will that differentiates 
 
414 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 and distributes, itself over a variety of individuals and yet 
 binds them together into ideal forms. It must account for the 
 One and the many ; it must accomplish the reality of particu- 
 lar beings in the unity of a single system. As the explana- 
 tion of the entire world's course, and as setting the goal to 
 that process of development of which It is itself the never- 
 failing Source and innermost Life, this principle must give 
 forms and laws to an ontological process of becoming. But the 
 very conception of such a Principle of becoming is realizable 
 only in the nature of a Spirit which can set into reality, as a 
 process in time, its own ideals. 
 
 The only true and highest Unity conceivable by man is that 
 possessed, in reality, by the Life of a Spirit. Or, in other 
 words, it is the unceasing, inner activity of the Self, which by 
 self-consciousness, recognitive memory, and rational thinking 
 unifies the different " momenta " of experience, that consti- 
 tutes the essence of its own unitary being. As we have else- 
 where said : " that, and nothing else is the essence of the uni- 
 tary being of mind. With such unity a great variety of so- 
 called faculties is in no way inconsistent. The rather is the 
 unitary being of the mind dependent upon the exercise in the 
 fullest way, of all the faculties ; for they are all implied in 
 every act of self-consciousness ; the completer their activity > 
 the more truly one is this mind." 
 
 That which is known to be true of the most real of all 
 unities sets the conditions under which we must conceive of 
 the Unity that in some sort, the totality of things is known to 
 possess. It is the oneness of the Spirit which is in them which 
 gives to things their ontological Unity. Without this concep- 
 tion of them, the seeming unitary Being of the World is mere 
 seeming ; it is only the temporary resultant of subjective con- 
 ditions and of the unifying mental activity of the observer's 
 mind. Without this conception, the World is, in no sense 
 whatever, a Unity of Reality. It does not even possess so 
 much of actual oneness as belongs to the stream of the indivi- 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 415 
 
 dual's consciousness ; and this regarded as mere stream is only 
 succession of states, which slips away unceasingly. It never is ; 
 it is always becoming. Therefore, the Unity of the entire world's 
 being and course, unless it has reality in the Life of some self- 
 conscious Spirit, consists only of countless millions of separate 
 streams, that never unite in one stream, but keep slipping away 
 unceasingly, in diverse and indeterminate directions. 
 
 If, however, we try to take the crudely realistic point of view,, 
 then the Unity of Reality becomes nothing but bare totality of 
 countless millions of things u crude lumpishness " of exist- 
 ences that are void of so much of actual unification as belongs 
 to a heap of grains of sand. Here, again, the instant any 
 attempt is made to give intelligible terms to that unity which 
 our experience compels us to ascribe to things, the familiar 
 talk begins of specific " forms," of " obedience to laws," of 
 " conformity to ends," of " actions " and " interactions " 
 resulting in ideal results, of a course of " development " reach- 
 ing onward toward some far-off goal. But all these are term& 
 which have meaning only for a Spirit, conceived of as a Will 
 energizing so as to set into reality its own ideas. In brief, to 
 ascribe any Unity in Reality to the multitude of concrete beings 
 and transactions of the world as known to man, is to affirm 
 that this world is the manifestation of a Spirit's unitary Life. 
 
 For the fuller interpretation of all such words as are 
 designed to indicate the relations existing between the Being 
 we have called an " Absolute Self " and all finite selves and 
 things, we must ask the patience needed for a brief waiting. At 
 the present moment we wish briefly to state the conclusion at 
 which it was desired to arrive by the discussions of this chapter. 
 
 1. As regards the nature of Reality, the sphere of man's 
 assured and defensible knowledge is, both for the individual 
 and for the race, one of enlarging extension. This is true, 
 whether the particular kind of reality sought, be that of one's 
 self, body and mind, or of other selves, or of material 
 things. What sort of a being the human spirit really and 
 
416 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 essentially is, will constantly become a subject of clearer and 
 better certified knowledge ; man knows himself as spirit, with 
 an increasing wealth of content and assurance of conviction. 
 Modern science is throwing floods of new light upon biological 
 problems, hitherto obscure or even undreamed of ; and all this 
 light is reflected upon that most complicated of all living 
 forms, the bodily organism of man. Historical, anthropologi- 
 cal, and psychological researches are increasing the world's 
 stock of information regarding the actual nature of man, in his 
 sexual, political, and other social relations. Although the 
 term " social self " is a complete misnomer, and the use of the 
 term even with a figurative reference likely to be mischievous, 
 certain truths for which the conception stands are firmly 
 established. Meantime the cheniico-physical knowledge of 
 mere things so-called has been growing apace. And all the 
 growth in spite of many deficiencies, gaps, and discrepancies, 
 and of much admixture of error, cannot be denied to have 
 reference to the evolution of man's knowledge of Reality. The 
 field won at the expense of so much human toil and suffering 
 cannot be surrendered to those who plead either the mistakes 
 and limitations of science or the doubts and denials of an 
 agnostic philosophy. 
 
 2. It may also be claimed, as an assured result of human 
 knowledge, that all the beings and all the transactions of the 
 world constitute some sort of a unity. All so-called laws, 
 indeed, seem to admit of exceptions. Strictly demonstrative 
 proof is nowhere applicable in the attainment of knowledge as 
 to the universal and unchanging nature, even of physical 
 beings and physical events. Wandering stars there are; 
 kinds of atoms that seem not to enter at all freely into the 
 mixtures upon which the existence and the serviceableness of 
 things depend ; monsters that appear as whimsical departures 
 from the onward march of life towards its crowning achieve- 
 ments ; caprices in the conduct of nature not a few. Human 
 history and human development, not infrequently, seems void 
 
SPHERES OF REALITY 417 
 
 of all control under intelligible ideas. Yet the totality is a 
 Cosmos, an orderly whole ; the world's course gives increas- 
 ing tokens of a movement toward some sort of an ideal and 
 unifying end. Reality is, in its trans-subjective character, 
 as regards its " in-itself " Being, a Unity ; it is not 
 merely the shadow cast on a dark background of chaos, by 
 the unifying actus of man's conscious mind. 
 
 3. But what every knower knows most immediately and 
 assuredly by an envisagement which carries with it a clear 
 but incomplete picture of the " what," and which attaches this 
 picture to the consciousness of a " that " is the here-and-now 
 being of his self-conscious, willing, and cognitive Self. Analy- 
 sis of the nature of knowledge shows that in the cognitive pro- 
 cess itself all the spirit of man intellect, feeling, and will 
 takes part. For this highest and most assured knowledge 
 is the envisagement of the nature of reality as a self-conscious 
 spiritual life. Further analysis of those characteristics which 
 all men agree to ascribe to external things shows that their 
 reality, too, is known though much more obscurely and 
 with fainter conviction as consisting in the possession of 
 characteristics like those which the knower knows himself to 
 have. And even as the individual man comes to regard his 
 own body in its manifold relations to the life of the spirit 
 that " is in him," he finds the same truth exemplified. This 
 body is a thing among things ; but it joins the spirit in the 
 temporary work of constructing the unity of a Self, because 
 it, too, partakes in the characteristics of spirit though not 
 identical with the spirit of the self-conscious knower. .It is a 
 loan from nature, borrowed on terms which indicate that the 
 temporary partnership thus formed is significant as to the real 
 nature of the human body as well as of every other thing. 
 
 4. And, finally, the object which the supreme synthesis of 
 reflective thinking constructs cannot, without qualification, 
 be said to be an object of knowledge ; but neither is it an 
 object of pure imagination, or of faith that reposes on grounds 
 
418 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 warm with emotion but bare of knowledge. Like all other 
 legitimate syntheses, this synthesis of speculative philosophy 
 has its grounds in knowledge ; and it has reference, not to 
 mere forms or laws of thinking but to the constitution of the 
 real, to that which is " trans-subjective " in the sense of being 
 independent for its own actualization upon the cognitive activ- 
 ity of man. For this reason we have called our discussions a 
 " Theory of Reality." And, indeed, metaphysics, like all 
 serious pursuits of the reflective mind, starts with knowledge. 
 In its analysis of the categories and its interpretation of their 
 meaning as applied to selves and to things, metaphysics is 
 knowledge. Thus far pursued, it states its results in some- 
 what like the following terms : The world of concrete reali- 
 ties, existing under the formal conditions of space and time, 
 is known as some sort of a unity after the analogy of the 
 self. This larger Self, which somehow comprehends myself, 
 body and mind, and all other selves and things, we have 
 ventured to call the " Absolute Self," with the promise to 
 consider whether there is any necessary impropriety, not to 
 say self-contradiction, in such a compound term. Having, in 
 reliance upon the advanced development of the knowledge of 
 the race, felt the impulse to frame a theory which shall express, 
 upon the basis of this knowledge, the highest ideals of what 
 really is in each self, and of what ought to be realized in the 
 world at large, philosophy attempts its supreme synthesis. 
 The inner reality of all beings is /Spirit ; the system of known 
 selves and things is the " manifestation" in time and space of 
 this Spirit. 
 
 Only ethics, art, and religion, can properly expand, support, 
 and glorify such a conclusion as the foregoing. At the same 
 time, this is a legitimate conclusion of reflective thinking 
 upon a basis furnished by an analysis of undoubted cognitive 
 experience. It remains for the present treatise only to ex- 
 amine this synthesis in comparison with others that are 
 founded upon the same experience. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MATTER 
 
 AMONG the conceptions under which the reflective thinking 
 of man has endeavored to summarize the permanent and uni- 
 versal characteristics of the being and behavior of things, 
 there is one which seems most remote from the conclusions- 
 reached by our previous metaphysical discussions. The term 
 answering to this conception is " Matter ; " and the specula- 
 tive synthesis which rests satisfied with this term as affording 
 an acceptable explanatory principle is called " materialism." 
 In the history of philosophy, at least so far as philosophy has 
 been pursued by those who aim at a comprehensive and sys- 
 tematic technique, so-called materialism has commonly been 
 more or less in disrepute. Especially at the present time is 
 it true that few, or none, who cultivate the metaphysics of 
 the schools are willing to espouse and defend the term, how- 
 ever much of its ancient or more modern tenets they may actu- 
 ally credit. Therefore, lively polemics or attacks in front as 
 directed against materialism, are at present destined to be 
 regarded as similar to the thankless task of fighting ghosts 
 or of pulling down men of straw. Nor does the case of the 
 writer who undertakes this task seem improved after ifc has 
 been shown that the evil remains, though its title be changed ; 
 or even that the materialistic way of regarding the world and 
 human life is all the more intellectually seductive and prac- 
 tically mischievous because its advocates will not frankly 
 acknowledge their true allegiance by adopting a time-honored, 
 name. 
 
420 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Polemics, however, even if they were at all likely to be 
 grateful and effective with present day students of meta- 
 physical system, would not accord with the most cherished 
 purpose of this book. It is not so much dialectics even as 
 it is a receptive and genial criticism, which we think it right 
 to employ in discussing any " theory of reality " that is a 
 rival of our own. Nor are we inclined to make an exception 
 in the case of that theory which might properly enough be 
 called " Modern Materialism." For the term " Matter " is 
 convenient and even necessary. And the conceptions which 
 the term embodies, though in a somewhat unwarrantably 
 loose and confused manner, are valid for the philosophical 
 as well as for the scientific understanding of reality. In- 
 deed, they are, in part, the very conceptions with which we 
 have been familiarizing ourselves ; and for the valid applica- 
 tion of which to the real being and actual transactions of all 
 things ("non-selves") we have been contending. 
 
 But what is the meaning of the experience which justifies 
 so large and loose a formation as the conception answering 
 to the term Matter ? It is no less than that involved in the 
 following line of thought that leads up to a conclusion which 
 one need not hesitate to embrace. Material beings, so-called, 
 considered as they really exist and actually set up the changes 
 whose forms and laws science investigates, cannot be ex- 
 plained at all except upon some theory which admits them 
 to a certain share in the characteristics of an Absolute Self. 
 Nor, when the question is raised : " In precisely what of the 
 characteristics of selfhood do things share ? " can the inves- 
 tigator easily discern where the limit is firmly and unmistak- 
 ably to be set. For, if we are to find in "matter" its own 
 explanatory principle, then surely this principle must include 
 those conceptions that are needed to explain individual things 
 and their transactions, as given in our actual experience with 
 things. But this significant conclusion has been growing 
 clearer from the beginning of the present discussion: The 
 
MATTER 421 
 
 existence of each thing and the actuality of every transaction 
 between things, is in need of all the categories for its complete 
 explanation. But all the categories are interconnected, and 
 yet not identical " moments " of man's selfhood projected 
 into things. The warrant for this procedure lies so deep 
 in the very nature of human knowledge that only in this way 
 is knowledge at all possible for man. Its warrant lies so deep 
 in the very nature of the object of knowledge that only in this 
 way does man know anything about so-called external nature. 
 If, then, the term " matter " is used at all as an explana- 
 tory metaphysical principle, one of two admissions must con- 
 stantly accompany its use. Either it must be admitted that 
 the term is simply designed to summarize some of the more 
 non-self-like characteristics and doings of things such, for 
 example, as astronomy, physics, and chemistry make the 
 subjects of investigation ; or else it must be admitted that 
 by the term much more is meant than the merely popular or 
 the customary scientific use of it would seem to justify. In 
 the one case matter becomes an abstraction for certain 
 definite characteristics only of the Absolute Self, as these 
 characteristics are expressed in things, but without recogniz- 
 ing their essentially self-like character. In the other case, 
 the term would much better be dropped entirely, for its use 
 is likely to be deceptive by way of covering much more than 
 is intended or is clearly apparent. In other words, just so 
 long as the recognized characteristics of all material exist- 
 ences are confined to the "crude lumpishness " and mere 
 massive inertia of things, the principle called matter is 
 quite unable to afford a complete explanation of any thing, 
 or of any transaction between things. To give to this prin- 
 ciple any life and efficiency, it is necessary to introduce still 
 other "moments" into our grouping of conceptions under 
 this term. And to make the principle adequate to explain 
 the infinite variety of that system of concrete and actual 
 things with which man's cognitive experience presents him, 
 
422 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 it is necessary so to enlarge this group of conceptions as to 
 comprise within it all those categories, the essential nature and 
 the significance of which are constituents of our theory of 
 reality. That is to say, " matter " must have become some- 
 thing far different from what is ordinarily understood by 
 matter, in order fully to summarize the explanation of any 
 material Thing. 
 
 The compound conception indicated by the word " matter " 
 must always be regarded as an abstraction derived from the 
 study of particular things. This is true whether our atten- 
 tion be confined to those meanings which are empirical and 
 scientific in their genesis and character, or whether our criti- 
 cism be extended to any of its more speculative meanings. 
 As Wundt has well said : 1 "In truth the speculative and the 
 empirico-scientific conception of matter, in spite of the differ- 
 ence of motives that have produced them, form constituents 
 of a single development in so far as, in both cases, the funda- 
 mental relation maintained by the knower to his object, is, 
 in fine, the same." To show this it is scarcely necessary 
 to repeat the familiar statement that there is in reality no 
 matter in general ; in reality, there are only concrete indi- 
 vidual things. By using a term, then, which summarizes 
 our experience with these things, it can only be meant to 
 designate that complex conception which includes the char- 
 acteristics in the possession of which they all agree. But 
 each of their characteristics, in turn (such as " mass," " in- 
 ertia," " impenetrability," etc.) is itself existent only as a 
 conception derived from observing the behavior, under a 
 great variety of circumstances and in varying relations, of 
 these same concrete individual things. Therefore it is proper 
 to speak of the term "Matter" as resulting from the second 
 degree of abstractness, since it stands for a "grouping" of 
 conceptions, a synthesis of many thoughts, each of which is 
 derived from many individual acts of our experience with 
 
 things. 
 
 1 System der Philosophie, p. 447. 
 
MATTER 423 
 
 It is quite too often forgotten that the valid and defen- 
 sible conception of matter, whether empirical and scientific or 
 more purely speculative, is a very modern affair. What it is 
 to be a real thing, is a question which the knowledge of 
 man has always prepared him to answer in a practically satis- 
 factory although very fragmentary way. But, What are the 
 accredited characteristics of matter in general ? is a question 
 for the answer to which the requisite information has been 
 wanting until comparatively recent times. It is, moreover, a 
 question which, in our judgment, only the physical and natural 
 sciences, are competent to answer or even to essay. Purely 
 speculative answers to such an inquiry, or answers which take 
 their point of starting in the interests of philosophy, are 
 worthless. Only from the observation of what concrete 
 things really are, and of what they actually do, can the 
 problem, What is matter? find its valid solution. We ac- 
 cept, then, the guidance of the physico-chemical sciences in 
 the consideration of this problem ; but we reserve here, as 
 everywhere, the rights of criticism and of the metaphysician's 
 point of view. When, then, it is said by a physicist like Sir 
 William Thomson : " We cannot of course give a definition 
 of matter which will satisfy the metaphysician, but the natur- 
 alist may be content to know matter as that which' can be 
 perceived by the senses, or as that which can be acted upon 
 by, or can exert a force," our response is : " The case is not 
 at all so." The metaphysician is in duty bound to be satisfied 
 with any definition which the naturalist affords, if only, this 
 definition satisfies the two principal qualifications of every 
 satisfactory definition. First : it must be comprehensive and 
 internally consistent ; but above all it must be, second, based 
 upon undoubted matter of fact. 
 
 What the would-be constructor of a system of metaphysics 
 will do with the naturalist's conception of matter, when once it 
 has been made satisfactory to all the naturalists themselves, 
 may be described as follows : He will test the conception to see 
 
424 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 if it possesses the characteristics of every satisfactory defini- 
 tion ; he will then accept it, and subject it to the process of 
 further reflective thinking with a view to discern its significance 
 for the truth of reality and its place in a systematic and crit- 
 ical Theory of Reality. But, alas! at the present time the 
 former of these tasks is the more difficult of the two. For it 
 is not so much the discontent of metaphysicians with natural- 
 ists, as the discontent of naturalists with one another, and with 
 their own knowledge of the subject, which furnishes the chief 
 cause of the difficulties experienced by the expert student of 
 the philosophy of nature. 
 
 No one who undertakes to criticise the current conceptions 
 of authorities in physical science can fail to be impressed with 
 their confused and sometimes contradictory character. In 
 spite of this the student of metaphysics must as has been 
 said learn primarily from these authorities his answer to 
 the question, " What is this so-called * Matter,' and what can 
 It alone do ? " We shall now briefly pursue the quest for 
 satisfaction to this same inquiry. We shall do this remem- 
 bering that the speculative conception of matter must be 
 based upon the empirical and the scientific conception ; and 
 also that every conception, whether that of the naturalist or 
 that of the metaphysician, is only a convenient abstraction 
 designed to summarize certain characteristics of the being 
 and behavior of things. On the one hand, then, the con- 
 ception of matter in general must cover all that things in 
 general really are, and can actually do ; but if, on the other 
 hand, this conception requires at any time to be so expanded 
 as to include characteristics which are not properly ascrib- 
 able to particular things, then this, its enlarged significance, 
 must be frankly recognized and taken into account by our 
 theory of reality. 
 
 The characteristic, or aspect, of material beings that seems 
 most foreign to any conclusion which affirms the ultimate 
 spiritual nature of so-called matter is, of course, their " mass " 
 
MATTER 425- 
 
 with the related qualities of extension in three dimensions, 
 of solidity, inertia, weight, momentum, etc. Mass is the one 
 essential and unalterable characteristic of matter; and its 
 expansion or contraction in volume, its increase or diminu- 
 tion of solidity, the overcoming or the persistence of its- 
 inertia, the changing weight of bodies as dependent upon their 
 relations in space, and the alterations in momentum that are 
 connected with changes in velocity all these do not affect,, 
 but rather assume the continuity and unalterableness of mass. 
 Let a given body be compressed so as to reach its utmost 
 limit of density or be dissipated through immeasurable space ;. 
 let it be rendered motionless or shot onward with inconceiv- 
 able rapidity ; let it become a member of a complicated system 
 of bodies or be isolated so as, ex hypotliesi, to stand alone in 
 the universe, and through all these changes its mass remains 
 unchanged. As formally constituted any particular material 
 body can be put out of existence ; the characteristics of its 
 energizing may be profoundly changed ; it may be rendered 
 quite unrecognizable by the senses which were once familiar 
 with it ; or it may be made impossible of recognition by any of 
 the senses. But its mass cannot be annihilated or diminished. 
 Mass is the permanent and essential characteristic of all 
 matter ; or to reverse the statement without changing its 
 meaning : All Matter has mass. Such is the firm conviction 
 of modern physics, however contrary to the immediate evi- 
 dence of the senses such a conviction may seem to be. 
 
 And what is true of each material body is true of that 
 entire collection of such bodies which science recognizes as 
 constituting the material universe. The mass of the matter 
 in this universe is assumed itself to remain, amidst all changes 
 in the bodies over which it is distributed, forever unchanged. 
 
 Now " that which " has for its most fundamental and 
 unalterable characteristic the possession of mere sameness of 
 quantity, and which makes its being in reality known by 
 persistently " bulking " the same, seems most unspiritual and 
 
 
426 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 impersonal, no doubt. For was it not matter, thus con- 
 sidered, which Newton spoke of as " brute and inanimate ? " 
 But all matter is necessarily thus to be considered, with what- 
 ever other changing characteristics it may seem to be 
 endowed. How, then, can its " self -like " character be main- 
 tained ? How can matter, in general, be regarded as a mani- 
 festation, creation, or revelation, or as an emanation, aspect, 
 or phase, of an Absolute Self ? 
 
 The particular choice of words to indicate the permanent 
 and essential relations between Matter and the Absolute Self 
 does not concern us at this point. But the essentially self-like 
 character of matter, even as treated by the physics of " mass," 
 is apparent when we think ourselves through, along these two 
 lines of reflection : first, so as to determine what is meant in 
 reality by ascribing mass, and its allied characteristics, to all 
 matter ; and second, so as to estimate how much (or rather, 
 how little, how absolutely nothing), of our experience with 
 material things can be accounted for in terms of mere 
 mass. 
 
 The experience with things in which originates the phy- 
 sicist's right to regard matter as having the permanent char- 
 acteristic of mass is not difficult to describe or to understand. 
 Things affect his sense-consciousness ; and in his perceptive 
 experience they appear as changing their spatial qualities 
 and spatial relations, in a way that can be directly measured, 
 or indirectly estimated, quantitatively. Now the mass of 
 matter is the quantity, or amount, of the " that-which " 
 whose name is " matter." To say that all matter always 
 has mass is the same thing as to say that the being of all 
 material things can always be known, or imagined, as " so 
 much " of a universal substrate. What is thus quantitatively 
 measured or estimated by the physicist is always primarily 
 considered the intensity, or the extensity of his own sensu- 
 ous experience. And what measures, or estimates, is the 
 physicist's intellect. When, then, it is affirmed that all 
 
MATTER 427 
 
 " matter has mass," it is stated, on the basis of a cognitive 
 experience with all particular things, that quantity and 
 number are not merely the physicist's subjective experiences 
 of sense and intellect but are also categories which belong 
 to things in reality. But what it is to have a being that is 
 measurable and numerable, and what it is actually to possess 
 the categories of quantity and of number, has already been 
 made clear. The importance, the necessity evert, of giving 
 an interpretation in terms of selfhood, to these categories 
 not the less when they are applied to material things has 
 been sufficiently emphasized. All matter has nay, It essen- 
 tially is measurable quantity. Quite contrary, then, to the 
 prevalent impression, if we make serious work of applying 
 these conceptions to the ezfra-mentally real, we do but assert 
 its permanent and unchanging possession of certain funda- 
 mental self-like characteristics. 
 
 Nor is the cogency of the conclusion diminished but rather 
 enhanced by accepting those extensions of it upon which the 
 modern science of physics particularly insists. In affirming 
 that the mass of the matter of the universe is known, or as- 
 sumed, to be unchangeable, the physicist pronounces no valid 
 conclusion as to the finiteness, or infinity, of the World- 
 Ground. He only states his conviction that, so far as man's 
 experience with the system of material things goes, this 
 assumption of its unchanging quantity, is the best in accord- 
 ance with that experience. That is to say, as the data of 
 experience accumulates, science is better able to affirm that, 
 if any relatively large amounts of matter were being added 
 to, or subtracted from the known physical universe, we 
 should probably be able in time to detect the gain or the loss. 
 But that the Absolute Self is not slowly increasing or di- 
 minishing this quantitative sum-total of his immanent mani- 
 festation much less that He never will, or that He cannot 
 physical science has no power to pronounce ! Nor does 
 the physicist make any pretence here to be dealing with the 
 
428 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 metaphysically Infinite. For, as Riehl, 1 following the lead 
 of Diihring, 2 has said : " An unchangeable quantity is finite. 
 So, because matter and force are unchangeable in quantity, 
 they must be finite in quantity ; for the infinite is no quantity, 
 and the indefinite is no unchangeable quantity. The matter is 
 determined by its mass ; therefore, the total sum of mass in 
 the universe is a finite quantity, or in other words the world 
 is finite as to mass." But to all these statements of Riehl 
 must be added the qualification so far as known to our 
 sense-experience and capable of being treated by the empirical 
 science of physics. 
 
 Neither does the physical conception of the unchangeable 
 character of the world's mass of matter affect either the 
 character or the validity of our conceptions of space, time,, 
 and causation. And if under the phrase, " the world as a 
 whole," it is meant to include the existence and development 
 of finite selves, the historical evolution of selves and of things 
 in their mutual relations, and the all-inclusive Reality of the 
 World-Ground, then the following declarations of the author 
 just quoted are undoubtedly also true : " The quantity of 
 mass, and the extent of it in space, plus the sum of all pro- 
 cesses in time, does not exhaust the quantity of the world 
 as a whole ; this whole does not come under a concept which 
 is abstracted from the effect of things on conscious beings." 
 This view of the problem of mass, as physics considers it, 
 enforces rather than contradicts the following important 
 conclusion : Matter, considered as having mere mass, is as 
 yet not an effective, explanatory principle of things ; it is not 
 / matter at all in any meaning of the term which will enable us 
 / to understand the existence and behavior of the totality of 
 particular things. 
 
 Before, however, we pass to the further consideration of 
 this truth it may be noticed in passing, that this steady-going, 
 
 1 Riehl, " Der Philosophische Kriticismns," II. ii. p. 302 f. 
 
 2 Neue Grundmittel und Erfindungen zur Analysis, p. 88 f. 
 
MATTER 429 
 
 and relatively unchangeable character of matter, as respects its 
 mass, is a shrewd device on its part to lay in strong foun- 
 dations the building of an intelligible Cosmos. It would be 
 very inconvenient, to say the least, if the " that-which " whose 
 amounts of being and action we call the mass of matter, 
 were not accustomed to maintain a reliable status toward us, 
 in so fundamental relations as these. 
 
 Modern physics is, in general, agreed further to define 
 " matter " as that being which we know by sense-perception 
 and which comes under the laws of physical dynamics. In 
 this it accords fairly well with such a metaphysical definition 
 as the following : l " Matter is that conception of the Real, as 
 substrate of the objective representation of time, which is 
 deduced from the spatial sensations of pressure and resist- 
 ance, of mobility and extension." A definition which may be 
 declared to afford a relative contentment to the naturalist has 
 been summarized in the following sentence : " Matter is that 
 which can be perceived by the senses, or that which can be 
 acted upon by or can exert force" (Thomson and Tait). 
 
 It is unnecessary to analyze and discuss in detail the con- 
 ception of matter which corresponds to the sentences quoted 
 above. It should be noticed, however, that the conception 
 comprises or rather represents as an alternative two sets 
 of characteristics which do not rest upon precisely the same 
 grounds. These are, first, those characteristics of material 
 things which can be intuitively discerned by sense-perception ; 
 and, second, a primary ability of material things to play a 
 part, so to speak, in a system of interacting agencies whose 
 existence and laws make, for their discovery and understand- 
 ing, higher demands upon the observer's thought. But both 
 these sets of characteristics are referred by the very language 
 of the physicist's definition to a common substrate, or ground. 
 This substrate, or ground, is hinted at by a device which we 
 had occasion to subject to critical examination in an earlier 
 
 1 Riehl, " Der Philosophische Kriticismus," II. i. p. 275. 
 
430 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 part of our work (see p. 116 f.). It is dumbly indicated and 
 mentioned with an air of mysterious agnosticism as though it 
 were too remote from or too high above, ordinary experience 
 to receive a definite name. It is called a " that-which." Mat- 
 ter is " that-which " can be perceived, etc. ; or " that-which " 
 can be acted upon, etc. But the alternative indicated by the 
 word " or " which is introduced into the definition certainly 
 does not mean that one may take one's choice between these 
 as two mutually exclusive forms of conceiving of matter ; for 
 both of the following more particular characterizations must 
 be held as necessary attributes of this, their common sub- 
 strate. Matter is then, by the naturalists of a contented 
 mind, regarded loth as that real being which becomes known 
 to every percipient through the senses, and also as that real 
 being which is known to physical science as the subject of 
 acting and reacting forces. On the one hand, however, the 
 scientific conception rests upon sense-perception as its base ; 
 and, on the other hand, every plain man knows also some- 
 thing about things as capable of being acted upon by, or as 
 exerting, force. 
 
 Now it is at once apparent to the critical student of meta- 
 physics that even this minimum, sun-clear conception of mat- 
 ter, becomes, when you open it, a perfect Pandora's box for 
 the escape of those same categories which have already given 
 us so much trouble. To speak of a " that-which " as the sub- 
 ject of qualities, as the terminal point of issuing and entering 
 forces, as the being that can make every man perceive it when 
 he uses his senses, is, if we insist upon thoroughness in reflec- 
 tive thinking, only to introduce the same obscure ontological 
 problem which metaphysics has long striven with under the 
 concept of " substantiality." Then, too, the physicist's defini- 
 tion insists upon the truth of experience that matter is known 
 as somehow the " cause " of changes in our perceptive con- 
 sciousness; moreover, the different portions of matter must 
 be regarded as interconnected in their modes of behavior, 
 

 MATTER 
 
 because they " exert force " of course, upon one another as 
 parts of a common material system. This aspect of this 
 definition at once introduces us to the conception of regular 
 ways of fc4 being acted upon by," and of " exerting " force ; but 
 these regular ways are nothing less than the " laws " of the 
 physical universe, or of matter. The most ideal of the cate- 
 gories such as finality is now not far ahead, and lying 
 right across our path. 
 
 At this point, however, certain vacillations and confusions 
 of current physical conceptions need to be made the subject 
 of remark. For some physicists have been accustomed to 
 speak as though matter could exist apart from energy ; and, 
 on the other hand, as though energy were a sort of additional 
 entity which could operate " upon " matter from without, or 
 could be distributed " among " different portions of matter in 
 an external fashion. " Matter and energy " are thus treated 
 as a pair of entities whose co-operation is necessary in order 
 to explain the being and the transactions of things. Matter 
 and energy are twins ; even though they are like the Siamese 
 twins, bound together inseparably at their vital parts. On 
 the contrary, the modern dynamic and evolutionary view of 
 the world, in connection with an idealistic metaphysics, has 
 recently progressed so far as to lead some physicists to make 
 the attempt to state the reality of matter in terms of space 
 and of energy only. But still others seem inclined to regard 
 Matter as the wholly unknown Substrate which being exist- 
 ent per se, as it were is revealed to man by being the vehicle 
 and seat of varying amounts of energy. Thus is energy con- 
 ceived of as an entity that is somehow not essential to the 
 very being, to the substantiality, of matter, but is rather 
 regarded as the revealer of the character and state, for the 
 present time, of some particular portion of matter. It is diffi- 
 cult to see how, otherwise, one is to interpret the following pas- 
 sage from Clerk Maxwell : * " All that we know about matter 
 
 1 Matter and Motion, p. 163 f. 
 
432 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 relates to the series of phenomena in which energy is trans- 
 ferred from one portion of matter to another, till in some part 
 of the series our bodies are affected, and we become conscious 
 of sensation. 
 
 "By the mental process which is founded on such sen- 
 sations we come to learn the conditions of these sensations, 
 and to trace them to objects which are not part of our- 
 selves, but in every case the fact that we learn is the mutual 
 action between bodies. . . . Under various aspects it is called 
 Force, Action and Reaction, and Stress, and the evidence of 
 it is the change of the motion of the bodies between which 
 it acts. 
 
 " Hence, as we have said, we are acquainted with matter 
 only as that which may have energy communicated to it from 
 other matter, and which may, in its turn, communicate energy 
 to other matter." 
 
 The current physical conception of matter becomes further 
 oppressed with internal difficulties or contradictions when we 
 consider that, according to accepted tenets of physics, in- 
 ertia is a primary and universal characteristic of matter. 
 This characteristic, as commonly defined, seems difficult of re- 
 conciliation with the characteristic possession of that energy 
 which, being received or being parted with, physics regards 
 as also essential to the very nature of matter. For we are 
 told that by inertia is meant " the essential incapacity of 
 matter of altering the state into which it is put by an external 
 cause, whether that state be rest or motion." l By combining 
 conceptions of inertia and mass, we reach the conclusion that 
 inertia is the " quantity (or mass) of matter considered as 
 resisting the communication of motion." Yet again, on ex- 
 pressing this characteristic of inertia in terms that are better 
 suited to the atomic theory of the constitution of matter, it 
 may be affirmed that " the incapacity of all material points to 
 
 i See Whewell's " Mechanics" (7ed.), where it is declared (p. 9) that "matter 
 is originally apprehended by its resistance to the action of force." 
 
 

 MATTER 433 
 
 put themselves in movement, or to change the movement 
 which has been communicated to them, without the aid 
 of a force, is what is understood by the inertia of matter." * 
 Upon Descartes' notion of the primary property of matter as 
 announced in his " First Law of Nature," namely, that 
 every individual thing so far as in it lies, perseveres in the 
 same state, whether of motion or of rest," - - Clerk Max- 
 well 2 observes : " In the words, ' so far as in it lies/ properly 
 understood, is to be found the true primary definition of 
 matter, and the true measure of quantity." This need of 
 material bodies to have the cause of their changes in space 
 lie outside of themselves, this self-incapacity (quantum in se 
 esf) to move when at rest, or to come to rest when moving, 
 is emphasized in Maxwell's own declaration that we "are 
 acquainted with matter only as that which may have energy 
 communicated to it," etc. 3 
 
 The foregoing and other similar attempts to combine the 
 physical conceptions of inertia and of energy in the same 
 substrate, Matter, are, in expression if not in thought, unsatis- 
 factory and even contradictory. The same reality cannot 
 be both the source of energy as thus defined and also the 
 victim of inertia, at the same time. If by the term " matter " 
 modern physics means to designate the entire system of 
 physical things, considered as operative and yet irrespective 
 of its genesis and its relation to absolute mind, nothing can 
 be further from its own accepted principles than to speak of 
 any portion of matter as wholly dependent for any of its 
 changes (from motion to decreased motion and rest, or from 
 rest to motion) upon forces external to itself. Physics neces- 
 sarily assumes the sum-total of matter as already in motion, 
 and as fully equipped with the completed quantity, and with all 
 the kinds of forces necessary to do its ceaseless work. If, 
 
 1 Compare M. Poisson, " Traite de Mecanique," IL, p. 208 f. 
 
 2 Matter and Motion, p. 26 f. 
 8 Ibid., p. 164 f. 
 
 28 
 
434 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 however, we mean to consider any actual portion of matter, 
 any material thing, no matter how " brute and inanimate " it 
 seems, such portion of matter can never properly be said to 
 be dependent for its changes of position, its acceleration or 
 decrease of motion, or its internal molecular alterations, wholly 
 upon forces communicated to it from without. Indeed, if 
 every material being were thus burdened with inertia, whence 
 could any of the forces that produce the actual changes of 
 things be derived ? A collection of wholly inert bodies, or of 
 bodies that so to speak had no principles of change 
 within themselves, could never constitute, much less build up, 
 a world like that in which we find ourselves existing. This 
 actual world of experience, with which physics as an empirical 
 science deals, contains no beings that are completely at rest ; 
 neither does it show us beings that are moving in mass, or 
 are undergoing internal changes, with a perfectly uniform 
 velocity. Such a world lies only in the theoretical dream- 
 land of "pure " physics. 
 
 And, finally on this point, it is scarcely necessary to remind 
 ourselves again that all the language of scientific physics 
 about the " communication" of forces from one body to another, 
 and about the fct transmission," or the " distribution," or the 
 " conservation and correlation " of energy, is highly figurative. 
 Force, we have decided, is not an entity that can be separated 
 from actual things and made to rule over or dwell within 
 them. (Compare chap. X.) 
 
 However unfortunately he may at times express himself, 
 the thoughtful physicist is not unacquainted with the truths 
 which have just been restated by us. One of the authors 
 already quoted (M. Poisson), in defining the inertia of matter, 
 says : " The word does not signify that matter is incapable of 
 action ; on the contrary every material point (sic) at all times 
 finds the principle of its movement in the action of other 
 points, but never in itself." Now, in the unqualified way in 
 which this statement is left standing by its author, it is 
 
MATTER 435 
 
 untrue, and even absurd. It can be made, however, to express 
 important truths if it is qualified so as to read, " every 
 material body always finds the principle of its movement 
 (or, rather, change in the rate of movement), in part, in the 
 action of other bodies and never in itself alone." Another 
 writer on physics (Clerk Maxwell) comes nearer than is 
 customary with himself or with others to a fortunate state- 
 ment of the complete truth, in the following sentences : 
 Force is " but one aspect of that mutual action between two 
 bodies which is called by Newton Action and Reaction, and 
 which is now more briefly expressed by the single word 
 4 Stress ' ; " and again : " If we confine our attention to one 
 of the portions of matter, we see, as it were, only one side 
 of the transaction, viz., that which affects the portion of 
 matter under our consideration ; and we call this aspect of 
 the phenomenon, with reference to its effect, an External 
 Force acting on that portion of matter, and with reference to 
 its cause we call it the Action of the other portion of matter." L 
 Let now our reflective thinking return to the actual facts of 
 man's cognitive experience with things as real and concrete. 
 For physicists, as truly if not as unprofitably as metaphysicians, 
 are liable to be too much captivated by mere abstractions, and 
 by the prospect of rendering their science " pure " and no 
 longer subject to its proper empirical limitations. These 
 things, which man's daily use of his senses not without 
 thought and instinctive metaphysics contributing to his cogni- 
 tion makes known to him, are manifold, highly differen- 
 tiated qualitatively, ceaselessly active in changes, whether 
 regarded as masses of matter or as constituted of separable 
 molecules and atoms. They all appear in existence, either as 
 bearing more or less specialized forms, or else as rapidly un- 
 dergoing evolution by processes which the chemico-physical 
 sciences can only imperfectly describe and can scarcely at all 
 explain. Even the most " brute and inanimate " portions of 
 
 1 See "Matter and Motion," p. 53 f. 
 
436 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 matter have their specific series or round of changes defined for 
 them under the influence of complicated causes, which we, in 
 our ignorance, consider as belonging to the " nature" of things. 
 Not one " Thing " among them all that is not self-active after 
 its own nature, or kind ; not one of them that is not also de- 
 pendent on many we may even suspect, upon all of the 
 others, for the character of both its actions and its reactions. 
 And this present, vast and incomprehensible complexity of 
 habits, both of suffering from inertia and of showing the pos- 
 session of energy, cannot be reduced to any such simplicity of 
 elementary beings and conditions as does not virtually contain 
 within itself the principles necessary to explain the very pres- 
 ent complexity from which all efforts to explain start out. 
 
 From this present point of view, then, we seem compelled 
 to agree with Du Bois-Reymond in his declaration that " sep- 
 arately " force and matter do not exist ; or, in the words of 
 another writer (Gotta) : " Nothing in the world justifies us in 
 assuming the existence per se of forces, independent of the 
 bodies from which they proceed and upon which they act." 
 Further critical examination shows, however, that both these 
 expressions are framed so as virtually to take back the very 
 truth they are designed to assert. If forces can, in reality, 
 " proceed from " one body and " act upon " another, then 
 forces must be conceived of as somehow existent per se. And 
 strictly speaking, to frame any physical theory in terms of 
 force and matter, is to assume that the two terms employed 
 represent entities which may at least be conceived of as exist- 
 ing " separately." Nor can this difficulty be escaped, or our 
 statement as to the precise terms on which things actually 
 exist and operate be improved, by slurring over the reality of 
 those experiences which lead the mind irresistibly to the em- 
 ployment of both conceptions namely, Matter and Force. 
 For instance, we can neither resolve force into a new relation, 
 into " any circumstance that determines motion," nor can we 
 consider matter as existent, or efficient, if it be not per se pos- 
 
MATTER 437 
 
 sessed of, and in the actual exercise of, what physics is pleased 
 to call energy or force. 
 
 The language of philosophy, although by no means always 
 sufficient to lead us at once into clear sunlight for these physi- 
 cal conceptions, is in general better adapted to tell that truth 
 which physics means to express. Of one important aspect of 
 this truth, the statement of Lotze, l although not altogether 
 fortunate, is suggestive : " Forces " (as taken with the laws, 
 which are said to govern, or express the formulas of the 
 forces) " are conditions which enable one thing to effect an- 
 other and to place itself to that other in different relations." 
 So Professor Watson : 2 " The true definition of Force is to be 
 found in the infinite relations between material things which 
 constitute the world as real" Or, to quote Mr. Spencer's 
 more elaborate conception : " Force, as we know it, can be 
 regarded only as a certain conditioned effect of the uncondi- 
 tioned cause, as the relative reality indicating to us an abso- 
 lute reality by which it is immediately produced." More 
 compact, nervy, and direct is the expression of Mr. Lewes : 3 
 " Force is the dynamic aspect of existence, the correlate of 
 Matter." And Professor Bain 4 goes so far as to assert that 
 matter, force, and inertia, are the three names for substantially 
 the same fact . . . force and matter not two things, but one 
 thing. " Force, inertia, momentum, matter, are all one fact." 6 
 
 If now the facts and truths which are either recognized or 
 implied by such scientific and philosophical tenets as the fore- 
 going are examined in the light of our experience with things, 
 we are forced to this metaphysical conclusion : TJie being of 
 the world of many things has a certain unity of Substrate or 
 Ground ; and this Substrate or Grround is permanent amid all 
 the changes of particular things. While they change in mani- 
 
 1 See his " Metaphysik," II. v. for a discussion of this conception. 
 
 2 Journal of Speculative Philosophy, XII. p. 137. 
 8 Problems of Life and Mind, II., pp. 229 ff. 
 
 * Logic, vol. II., p. 225 f . 
 6 Ibid., II., p. 389. 
 
438 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 fold ways, IT (the so-called " Matter " out of which these things 
 are composed) changes not so far as its essential character- 
 istics are concerned. Among the essential characteristics of 
 matter, most permanent and universal are those which, in 
 abstract terms, are defined by physics as mass, and inertia, 
 and action and interaction caused by force. Thus is recog- 
 nized the capacity of each portion of matter for resistance 
 to unlimited or lawless change ; as well as its ability, in 
 accordance with a variety of principles which admit of more 
 particular determination by experience alone, to put forth of 
 itself, and to induce in other portions of matter, certain 
 limited and " principled " changes. This permanent and uni- 
 versal Being of Things, for which, when considered as the 
 subtrate of all particular physical existences, the abstract term 
 " matter " is employed, will not change unless it has good 
 reason therefor. It asserts its persistence as so-called 
 "inertia." But then, on the other hand, IT is always and 
 everywhere actually in a process of change ; and this ceaseless 
 change is because, taken as a whole, " matter " is an enor- 
 mous and seemingly exhaustless store of energy, which is 
 so to speak constantly being distributed and redistributed 
 among the infinite number of particular things. 
 
 If, then, we are to use the term matter as an abstraction 
 which shall conveniently summarize all those permanent and 
 universal characteristics which man's experience recognizes as 
 belonging to so-called material things, we must recognize this 
 use as covering far more than the term covers in that use of 
 it to which physics is committed. Matter, regarded as a Sub- 
 trate having its essence merely as a measurable quantity, 
 " brute and inanimate " but bulking so much, cannot be the 
 stuff out of which actual, concrete, and infinitely variable 
 things are made. In order to constitute the reality of all 
 things, Matter must not only be acted upon by, and exert 
 force (or rather a great variety of forces under an infinity of 
 changing conditions), but it must also, of itself, possess these 
 
MATTER 439 
 
 forces ; it must be, per se, Force. But this is, as the analysis 
 and application to reality of the conception of force has 
 already shown us, to be a Will. Every will, as each man 
 knows it in his own case and in the cases of other selves, is a 
 self-active being that acts, however, only as conditioned by the 
 relations which it sustains to other beings, and yet toward the 
 end of realizing its own ideas. Such, too, is virtually the com- 
 plex conception which we apply in the effort to understand, as 
 fully as possible, the real being and the actual doings of every 
 particular Thing. No portion of matter can be a material 
 thing, however much we may depreciate or affect to despise 
 its materiality, without having so much of a share in the 
 World's ideal existence and ideal aims as is implied in all 
 this. 
 
 We repeat our view of the problem of material Reality 
 of what is called Matter as seen from the philosophical 
 point of standing. That which physics designates as a total- 
 ity, or rather as a genuine and effective unity including all 
 material things, cannot be poorer and meaner than the con- 
 stitution of the poorest and meanest being which it is meant 
 to include. By " matter," considered as the possessor and 
 user of all the force that distributes and differentiates itself 
 according to the appropriate relations in an infinity of ideal 
 ways, and that thus attains a marvellous variety of ideal ends, 
 which somehow, in spite of their variety, combine into the 
 Unity of a physical Cosmos by this substance thus described 
 and defined, we cannot possibly understand mere mass of 
 dead, unideating, " stuff," moved from without by forces ex- 
 ternal to itself. But what must be covered, either by this or 
 by some other equivalent term ? What less can be under- 
 stood by any such term than the summing-up, in a vital and 
 effective way, of all those categories that characterize the 
 system of so-called material, or physical things ? But these 
 are the categories which have been shown to define our con- 
 ception of an Absolute Self. 
 
440 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Physics, then, is quite at liberty, in the effort for a better 
 handling of its complex and intricate phenomena, to isolate 
 certain aspects of things ; and even to treat the abstractions 
 thus secured as though they, of themselves, stood for some- 
 thing that exists alone, and acts effectively in the world of 
 reality. But when physics substitutes any of these abstrac- 
 tions for the total living Reality, or when it combines all its 
 favorite abstractions into some single conception and makes 
 use of the result to dispense with the recognition of the 
 deeper meaning of yet more fundamental principles, it steps 
 quite out of its safe and proper path. 
 
 Suppose, then, that the student of nature, " abandoning all 
 disguise " and " prolonging the vision backward across the 
 boundary of experimental evidence," discerns in " that matter 
 which we, in our ignorance and notwithstanding our professed 
 reverence for its creator, have hitherto covered with oppro- 
 brium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of 
 life ; " several methods are open to the dissenting philoso- 
 pher. Among them perhaps there is none better than that of 
 responding : " Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him 
 declare I unto you." For this declaration of the physicist is 
 capable of being understood as amounting in substance to the 
 avowal of the philosopher Schelling : l " Matter is the general 
 seed-corn of the universe, wherein everything is involved that 
 is brought forth in subsequent evolutions." And have we not 
 the same physicist's 2 word for it : " If life and thought be the 
 very flower of matter and force, any definition which omits 
 life and thought must be inadequate, if not untrue " ? But 
 to recognize the essential qualifications of selfhood as belong 
 ing to the principle to which the existence and the potency of 
 all things, even of living things, is referred, and then to 
 ascribe its effects to an abstraction which has been already 
 denuded of the most essential, persistent, and illumining of 
 
 1 Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, p. 315. 
 
 2 See Tyndall's "Fragments of Science " : " Musings on the Matterhorn." 
 

 MATTER 441 
 
 these qualifications, is to play fast and loose with language, 
 and with the processes of thinking which make language 
 intelligible. Of course, that can be got out of any group of 
 conceptions which you begin by putting into the same group. 
 But if the particular group which your theory means to have 
 do the work of explaining the being and transactions of all 
 material things is to accomplish its heavy task, IT must 
 possess all the essential characteristics of these things, con- 
 sidered in their genesis, their mutual relations within the 
 unity of an ideal system, and their development. And this 
 is to possess the essential characteristics of an Absolute Self. 1 
 That the conception which physical science includes under 
 the word matter, even when it involves such a wide group- 
 ing of effective characteristics as has already been discussed, 
 does not suffice to account for the constitution, the behavior, 
 and the development of material things, is confessed by the 
 very terms of the current atomic theory. The known world 
 of material things is much too varied and changeable in its 
 forms to be understood without resort to further principles 
 of differentiation. How to account for its infinite variety in 
 terms of unifying conceptions this is the problem for sci- 
 ence and philosophy alike. Space, Time, and Causation, 
 when employed as abstractions by philosophy will not accom- 
 plish this task. But neither will Mass, Energy, Action and 
 Reaction, and other similar abstractions of physics. The 
 real world, try as we may to overlook or confuse the fact, is- 
 based upon an infinity of distinctions. If matter is the one 
 womb from which all material things proceed, still the par- 
 ticular character, the individual preferences and startlingly 
 unique performances of her children are no less observable. 
 Hence the need of some attempt to lay the foundations of our 
 theory of reality in a larger variety of qualitatively different 
 
 1 This curious sentence from Bacon is illustrative of the truth we are enforc- 
 ing : " Atque asserenda materia (qualiscumque en est) ita ornata et apparata et 
 formata, ut oranis virtus, essentia, actus atque motus naturalis ejus consecutio 
 et emanatio esse possit." 
 
442 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 principles than those which the so-called " pure science " of 
 physics affords. 
 
 It is not necessary for the student of metaphysics to 
 attempt in detail to expound the nature, or to trace the his- 
 tory, of modern chemistry. Neither is the student of meta- 
 physics called upon to arbitrate any strife which may arise 
 between chemistry and physics over the question as to which 
 of the two is destined ultimately to absorb the other. For- 
 tunately, too, the chemists themselves may safely be left to 
 investigate further the nature and the relations of those 
 hypothetical entities to whose existence and potencies their 
 science refers the constitution and the behavior of all material 
 things. Only, where there is confusion now philosophy may 
 ask for clearness to be obtained within reasonable time. 
 And where fundamental metaphysical conceptions are at 
 stake, philosophy must assume the part of critic, and even 
 of guide and arbiter, for the students of botli these positive 
 sciences. 
 
 Upon any hypothesis which renders the atomic theory 
 purely dynamical and mathematical, and which regards the 
 atom as merely the unextended centre of forces of attraction 
 and repulsion, metaphysics has something decisive to say. 
 This view, as held by Faraday and stated by Tyndall, 1 endeav- 
 ors to substitute the abstract conception of the infinite divisibil- 
 ity of space for those elemental realities which result from 
 the exceedingly minute but actual subdivisions of material 
 things. And it bases this attempt upon assumed inability of 
 the imagination, as is shown by the following series of ques- 
 tions : " What do we know of the atom apart from its force ? 
 You imagine a nucleus which may be called , and surround 
 it by forces which may be called m ; to my mind the a, or nu- 
 cleus, vanishes and the substance consists of the powers of m. 
 And indeed what notion can we form of the nucleus independ- 
 ent of its powers ? What thought remains on which to hang 
 
 1 See "Faraday as a Discoverer," Am. ed. p. 123. 
 
MATTER 443 
 
 the imagination of an a independent of the acknowledged 
 forces ? " Now, all this is one of the most facile and cheap, 
 as well as most fallacious, forms of the argumentum ab difficul- 
 tate imaginations. It may itself be employed with most 
 destructive effect against any attempt to substitute mere 
 centres of force for exceedingly small subdivisions of material 
 substance. To the questions just quoted one may respond 
 with questions which throw equal doubt upon the reality of 
 the forces that " surround " the atom. How is imagination 
 to depict these forces as independent entities that pull and 
 push from their purely fictitious and unreal seats at calculable 
 points in space. But when both nucleus a and surrounding 
 forces m have vanished because they are equally inconceiv- 
 able by the imagination, what remains of the atom xf Its 
 problem is, indeed, solved for it ; but the solution is the total 
 dissolution of all the atom's claim to a place in reality. In 
 a word, x has lost itself by losing both its a and its m. 
 
 What is the value to our cognitive experience, and what is 
 allowed and confirmed by a critical metaphysics, when we 
 speak of the atom as a constituent of material things has 
 already been made sufficiently clear. For the atom, or 
 element of all material things, its "substantiality" and its 
 "energy," guided by ideal considerations to ideal ends, mean 
 precisely as much as, and no more than, is meant by applying 
 the same metaphysical conceptions to those material things 
 which are said to be composed of atoms. Really to be, and 
 to be a centre of forces, is no more or less difficult or myste- 
 rious for little beings than for big beings. Size has nothing 
 whatever to do with the understanding or the validating of 
 these categories. 
 
 If, then, the science of chemistry wishes to maintain the 
 atomic theory in the presence of a critical metaphysics, it 
 must regard its atoms in somewhat the following way. 
 " Atoms " are those hypothetical elements of material things 
 which it seems fitting, and which it may become necessary to 
 
444 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 assume as originally endowed with all those characteristics 
 that are found indispensable to an explanation of our matter- 
 of-fact experience with such things. In its own language its 
 theory is of the following order: "Atoms are not material 
 points; they possess a sensible" (better, an appreciable) 
 " dimension and doubtless a fixed form ; they differ in their 
 relative weights and in the motions with which they are ani- 
 mated. They are indivisible and indestructible by physical 
 and chemical forces, for which they act in some manner as 
 points of application. The diversity of matter results from 
 primordial differences, perpetually existing in the very essence 
 of these atoms and in the qualities which are the manifesta- 
 tion of them. 
 
 " Atoms attract each other, and this atomic attraction is 
 affinity. It is doubtless a form of universal attraction, but 
 the former differs from the latter in that it is not obedient 
 to the influence of mass ; it depends on the quality of the 
 atoms. Affinity is elective, as has been said for a hundred 
 years." 1 
 
 Further discussions as to the physical qualities and the 
 possible internal constitution of the different species of atoms 
 do not essentially change their metaphysical value or their 
 application to the explanation of human experience with 
 material things. Among such discussions are those, for 
 example, over the following questions: Are the atoms to be 
 conceived of as hard, perfectly incompressible and inelastic 
 bodies, with a quite rigid shape (not necessarily a "fixed 
 form ") ; or are they elastic, of quasi-fluid structure, and 
 capable of assuming a variety of shapes, and of rapidly 
 changing their internal constitution ? Now, nothing can be 
 more " plump " than the contradictions in the statements of 
 different authorities on some of these points. According to 
 one writer, 2 " the concept < elastic atom ' is a contradiction in 
 
 1 From Wurtz, " The Atomic Theory," p. 308. 
 
 2 Prof. Wittwer, in " Schlomilch's Zeitschrift fur Math, und Phys." vol. xv. 
 p. 11 
 
MATTER 445 
 
 terms, because elasticity always presupposes other parts the 
 distances between which can be increased or diminished." 
 " But, on the contrary," says Sir Win. Thomson," we are for- 
 bidden by the modern theory of the conservation of energy 
 to assume inelasticity of the ultimate molecules, whether of 
 ultra-mundane or mundane matter." 1 Thus atoms are really 
 to be conceived of as " the rotating parts of an inert, perfect 
 fluid, which fills all space, but which is, when not rotating, 
 absolutely unperceived by our senses." " A vortex filament, 
 in a perfect fluid, is a true ' atom,' but it is not hard like those 
 of Lucretius ; it cannot be cut, because it necessarily wriggles 
 out from under the knife." 2 
 
 Such a conflict between the geometrical and the dynamical 
 forms of the atomic theory can, as Wundt has declared, be 
 settled only by extending the limits of our experience. Nor 
 is it unlikely that it never can be settled at all. " God only 
 knows," what the true nature of the atom really is ; and 
 perhaps He knows that it is, even in its most elaborate 
 modern form, a lame and inadequate attempt to solve the 
 great problem of our experience with a World which has in 
 it such an infinite variety of differently qualified and yet 
 mutually interacting and rationally connected things ; and 
 which, therefore, we somehow feel ourselves compelled to 
 consider as, after all, only One. 
 
 We must, however, at this point protest in the interests of 
 intellectual honesty and of the principle of sufficient reason, 
 against all attempts to break down the testimony of qualita- 
 tive chemistry ; against that merely physical atomism, which 
 claims to derive the qualitative properties of matter solely 
 from the forms of atomic motion. Should this attempt suc- 
 ceed, it would not simplify our cognitions, or our theory of 
 reality, in the least. An irreducible variety in the modes 
 
 1 Comp. a concluding Article by A. Fresnel, on the law of elasticity as applied 
 to the ultimate particles of the ether, Poggendorffs Annal., vol. xcix. p. 494 ff. 
 
 2 G. P. Tait, " Properties of Matter," pp. 13, 19 f. Comp. Wurtz, "The 
 Atomic Theory," p. 327 f. 
 
446 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of the motion of an atom, that is of one kind so far as 
 its physical characteristics are concerned, would be no easier 
 to comprehend as an explanatory principle, than is a large 
 original variety in the kinds of atoms. Indefinite variety in the 
 so-called " natures " and the performances of things, and a 
 sort of unity to the one " Nature " which they combine to 
 constitute, are both facts of our cognitive experience. And 
 if we combine into one grouping of our conceptions the 
 characteristics which are sufficient to account for both such 
 facts, we have the same iudescribable wealth to the content of 
 the result, whether it be called a physical or a chemical 
 hypothesis of matter. 
 
 Considerations like those just discussed have led a recent 
 writer l to maintain, " Not only do the atoms seem instinct 
 with a desire for life, and the inorganic ever show a tendency 
 to run into the organic, but each atom is a life ; and life in 
 its rudiment is a property of all matter." But the same 
 writer goes on to say : " The life principle, varying only in. 
 degree, is omnipresent. There is but one indivisible and 
 absolute Omniscience and Intelligence, and this thrills through 
 every atom of the whole Cosmos. . . . This may be called the 
 poet's view, but it is forced upon us as the highest general- 
 ization of modern science." Such utterances, however,, 
 whether they come from the poet or from the man of science, 
 have plainly raised the ordinary conception of physics and 
 chemistry to a far higher sphere of application. We shall 
 therefore return to this conception again under the terms 
 Nature and Spirit. 
 
 The properties of so-called matter, whether conceived 
 of in physical terms such as "mass," "energy," "inertia," 
 " action and reaction," etc., or in chemical terms that de- 
 scribe some seventy different kinds of elements, and an 
 indefinite variety of their combinations and separations under 
 
 1 Quoted from an article on "The Joys and Sorrows of the Atom," by Dr. 
 G. E. Bailey. The Humanitarian, London, Oct. 1898. 
 
MATTER 447 
 
 laws of elective affinity, are becoming more mysterious and 
 amazing as man's study of individual things becomes more 
 minute and more profound. Modern science has rendered 
 nature, not less but far more mysterious and incomprehen- 
 sible from the merely physico-chemical point of view. It is 
 not my mind, with its sensation, feeling, thinking, willing, 
 that is for itself most fundamentally mysterious. It is not 
 psychology which is chiefly breaking down with its ancient 
 conceptions and its alleged explanations. It is what we are 
 pleased to call " matter " that constitutes the all-engulfing 
 mystery. It is physics and chemistry and biology which 
 are put to the stretch to make their understandings keep pace 
 with their observations and their discoveries of facts. 
 
 Indeed, it is no longer possible to maintain that the physico- 
 chemical conception of matter in the old-fashioned form 
 of this conception will begin to cover man's enlarging 
 experiences with the system of non-selves, with the world 
 of things. Old-fashioned matter, even when dressed out 
 with newly discovered physical and chemical clothing, is no 
 longer an all-sufficient entity. A new claimant for our 
 astonished devotion has already appeared. An entity called 
 " ether " must also be invoked by the pious devotee of the 
 realism of the modern physical and chemical sciences. 
 And how intoxicating to the brain of the enthusiastic wor- 
 shipper is this new entity ! 
 
 Although the conception of " ordinary matter," formerly 
 regarded as " brute and inanimate," has been enriched and 
 enlivened so as to make it unrecognizable, there still seems 
 need of other properties and potencies to be ascribed to the 
 universal Substrate. Things that is to say are so numer- 
 ous, so variable, so seemingly capricious, so profoundly myste- 
 rious in their origins, qualities, and ways of behavior and of 
 development, that " matter " and " ether " must form a joint 
 stock partnership to own them all. In general the more 
 simple the constitution of your universal substrate becomes, 
 
448 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the more complicated become the explanations, whose entire 
 weight must be thrown upon the forces, motions, and laws 
 of this substrate. But even the boundless imagination de- 
 manded by the discoveries of modern chemistry and modern 
 molecular physics does not appear to suffice, if it be allowed 
 only one subject, or permanent and unchanging base. Ether 
 is introduced as a new Being of things, because matter can- 
 not endure such strain. A single proprietor will no longer 
 do ; a syndicate of Matter, Force, and Ether must control the 
 " output " of the World. 
 
 Now, we have already said that the most fundamental and 
 unchangeable characteristic of " ordinary " matter is its 
 mass. But, perhaps, ether has no appreciable mass, or even 
 no mass at all. Is it then no matter ? or, is ether a new, 
 strange kind of matter which has somehow managed to 
 dispense with the most important characteristic of its com- 
 panion substrate of all physical phenomena ? Shall we then 
 call it entity, or energy, or spirit, if it be not matter ? 
 How does ether manage to unite in itself such wonderful, 
 contrary characteristics as an almost, if not quite imponder- 
 able tenuity and an enormous elasticity ? How does ether 
 manage to correlate itself so completely with matter as to 
 preserve the principle of the conservation of energy between 
 the moving masses or molecules of matter and the ethereal 
 energy of light, electricity, and magnetism ? Is its constitution 
 that of a fluid continuum ; or is ether, too, composed of atoms ? 
 If its atomic structure be denied, we may go on to ask, in the 
 name of Professor Tyndall, whether the " imagination will 
 accept a vibrating multiple proportion a numerical ratio in 
 a state of oscillation." To this question we may give, or not, 
 his answer : " The scientific imagination demands as the ori- 
 gin and cause of a .series of ether waves a particle of vibrat- 
 ing matter quite as definite, though it may be excessively 
 minute, 'as that which gives origin to a musical sound." ] 
 
 1 See "Fragments of Science " (Am. ed.), p. 431. 
 
MATTER 449 
 
 Small wonder, if its most intimate friends should now feel 
 obliged to address it in terms similar to those in which Faust 
 spoke of that Unknowable One whom men ignorantly worship 
 as God. 
 
 " Who dares express him ? 
 
 The All-enf older, T' 
 The All-upholder, 
 Enfolds, upholds He not 
 Thee, me, Himself?" 
 
 With the scientific answers which will be given to these 
 questions by the improved physico-chemical theory of the 
 world, metaphysics is, of course, interested, but not at all 
 vitally concerned. It can only discover under the term 
 " ether," a repetition and new grouping of the same con- 
 ceptions as those with which the discussion of the categories 
 has already made us familiar. Matter and ether, or ethereal 
 matter, or material ether, it matters not which. The Ground 
 of the World of things with which man's growing cognitive 
 experience makes him familiar must include all the neces- 
 sary principles of change, differentiation, and development, 
 as well as of that persistency in bulk and in energy on which 
 scientific physics is wont to build. If science continues 
 to use the term matter to group together all these concep- 
 tions, it must at the worst be intelligently honest in recog- 
 nizing what it has done. It has thus only made the Substrate 
 of material things more and more completely Self-like. It has 
 thus only equipped this common substrate with more and more 
 of spiritual properties. It has thus only indulged to greater 
 lengths, and in higher regions, although in the name of 
 science, the mind's necessary tendency, or rather, its instinc- 
 tive and inevitable necessity to be " anthropomorphic." And 
 finally, we may end by deifying Matter. In this way the 
 intellectual processes pursued and the end attained are 
 largely similar ; the practical and emotional effects may be 
 
 29 
 
450 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 almost identical; but the word which marks the final sta- 
 dium is certainly not so appropriate, or so rational, as the 
 old-fashioned word, God. 
 
 An enthusiastic advocate 1 of the all-sufficient reality of 
 that complex abstraction which has been discussed in this 
 chapter maintains that, in very truth matter is not the 
 " empty thing," the collection of "negative attributes," which 
 it is customarily supposed to be. Instead of being dead, it is 
 " full of most active life ; " instead of being shapeless, form 
 is its " inseparable attribute ; " instead of being crude, it is 
 " infinitely delicate " (not simply, it would seem, in a quanti- 
 tative way, but a3sthetically so) ; instead of being worthless, 
 it is " of the highest importance " (naturally enough, since IT 
 includes everything worthiest as well as most worthless) ; 
 instead of being senseless, spiritless, or thoughtless, it is 
 " capable of the highest evolution of thought," etc. All this 
 is IT. And we will call it " Matter ; " and the song to be 
 sung in its praise shall be : 
 
 " 1st dem nicht, was ihr Materie nennt, 
 Der Welt urkraftig Element, 
 Aus dem, was immer lebt und webt, 
 Empor zu Liclit und Bewegung strebt ? " 
 
 In the Second Book of that strange mystical writing, Pistis 
 Sop.hia, " Andrew questioneth Jesus how men in bodies of 
 matter can inherit the kingdom of light." The reply he 
 obtained is as follows : " Know ye not, and do ye not under- 
 stand that ye are all angels, all archangels, gods and lords, 
 all rulers, all the great invisibles, all those of the midst, 
 those of every region of them that are on the right, all the 
 great ones of the emanations of the light with all their glory ; 
 that ye are all, of yourselves and in yourselves in turn, from 
 one mass, and one matter and one substance ? Ye are all from 
 the same mixture." 
 
 He who understands this mystery, we are assured by Pistis 
 
 1 See Biichner, "Force and Matter" (Eng. trans.), p. 55. 
 
MATTER 451 
 
 Sophia, understands all mysteries. " That mystery knoweth 
 why the twelve immovables rent themselves asunder, and 
 why they were established with all their orders, and why 
 they emanated from the parentless. 
 
 " That mystery knoweth why the super-depths rent them- 
 selves asunder, and why they set themselves in one order, 
 and why they emanated from the parentless. 
 
 " That mystery knoweth why all the indestructibles in their 
 twelve orders rent themselves asunder, and why they were 
 set in a single order, emanating one after the other, and why 
 they were divided and formed separate orders, being also 
 uncontainable impassables, and why they emanated from the 
 parentless." 
 
 Extremes meet ; and, not infrequently we find the expla- 
 nation of the world offered by the theory of a non-spiritual 
 and impersonal Substance differing in its metaphysics in no 
 fundamental way from that offered by the most extravagant 
 declaration of religious Gnosticism. But, as Lotze has well 
 reminded us, it is not the business of philosophy to construct 
 the world but to understand it, as it is given to us in our actual 
 experience. And neither the device of a self-differentiating 
 Matter that has no Spiritual Being, as its very essence, so to 
 speak, nor the abstraction of an unrelated and wholly uncog- 
 nizable Deity will serve either science or philosophy as a 
 satisfactory principle of explanation. But the defects of both 
 will become even more obvious as we pass on to the consider- 
 ations of the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 NATURE AND SPIRIT 
 
 WHEN the attempt is made to explain the totality of man's 
 experience with the world of things, there are two kinds of 
 this experience which make the word " Matter " seem es- 
 pecially inappropriate to summarize the required explanatory 
 principles. These two comprise all that we are accustomed 
 to group together under the terms, Life and History. Both 
 of these terms are somewhat vague in their content ; and they 
 are undoubtedly meant to be comprehensive in respect of the 
 ranges of knowledge and conjecture over which they extend. 
 Nor should it be forgotten that, however much we may capi- 
 talize, emphasize, and personify them, the terms remain, after 
 all, abstractions themselves composed of many less highly 
 abstract conceptions, that serve, each one, to cover a large 
 field of phenomena. 
 
 Neither Life nor History can, strictly speaking, effect or 
 explain anything. In this respect they are like the terms 
 Being, Force, Law, etc. It is only when " Being " is no 
 longer pure, or mere concept of existence, but is recognized 
 as a particular self-active will, sustaining manifold ideal rela- 
 tions of reciprocal dependence to other wills, that we recog- 
 nize the presence, in concrete form, of actual existence. So, 
 too, is it only as Force is an active relationship, whose uni- 
 versal type is the forth-putting of this same being which is 
 consciously known to the Self as its own will, that the differ- 
 ent forms of so-called force accomplish or account for any- 
 thing in reality. Thus the conception of a " unity of forces " 
 
NATURE AND SPIRIT 453 
 
 becomes identical with that of a principle which controls, and 
 makes systematic by directing toward adopted ends, an in- 
 definite number of such active relationships. In like manner, 
 to explain the phenomena of life and of history, we must 
 appeal to realities that have the capacity of entering into all 
 the active relationships which it is intended to cover by these 
 terms. 
 
 There are good reasons, therefore, why there has always 
 been hesitation before the claim that " Matter " of itself, as 
 it were can live and undergo an historical development. 
 The real Being which effects the purposes of a World-Ground, 
 must include an explanation of the phenomena offered to 
 observation by the system of living beings, and by the devel- 
 opment of living beings through a complication of reactions, 
 one upon another and on the basis of their physical environ- 
 ment during countless ages of time. Let it be granted, then, 
 that matter seems to be a good term even mere matter, or 
 " brute, inanimate matter" to summarize the forces and 
 laws needed for the physical composition and behavior of the 
 planets, and for the combination and separation of molecules 
 and atoms under the laws of cohesion and chemical affinity. 
 But the phenomena which men group together under the 
 words, life and history, appear at least at first of too 
 complicated order, and mysterious genesis, and uncertain 
 character, to be assigned to this lower principle alone. And 
 yet these phenomena cannot be separated from their relation 
 to the phenomena with which physics and chemistry deal. 
 The world is one, we are continually reminded, in some valid 
 and suggestive meaning of the conception of unity. Living 
 beings, from those lowest forms which it requires refined 
 instrumentation to distinguish from " brute, inanimate mat- 
 ter," to the highest and most spiritual of human forms, are 
 themselves composed of material elements. Their thermo- 
 dynamics, and the electrical and magnetic doctrines of their 
 behavior, are not essentially different from the physical science 
 
454 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of all material masses and molecules. Physiological chemistry 
 is still, in good faith and in the full meaning of the word, a 
 branch of chemical science. And doubtless the protagon in 
 the brain of Aristotle or of the Apostle Paul would have ana- 
 lyzed into something like C 160 H 308 N 5 P 3 5. 
 
 There is, then, a depth of mystery in the constitution and 
 behavior of living things, and a significance of tendencies, 
 drifts, and strivings toward some far-off goal, in the history 
 of living beings and, especially, of human beings, which makes 
 the boldest advocate of the sufficiency of physical substances 
 and forces inclined to seek another term for his enlarging 
 conceptions. Such search is rewarded, with at least a tem- 
 porary satisfaction, by adopting certain uses of the word 
 " Nature." This word stands better for that which has life in 
 itself. And when the term is endowed with a sufficiency of 
 at least quasi-personal attributes, and spelled with a capital 
 letter, it inflames and elevates the imagination, and soothes 
 the remonstrances which a philosophy that ends in pure ab- 
 stractions, or in merely figurate conceptions, is apt to call 
 forth. Our "dame Nature" beldame, in both the older 
 and the newer meaning of this compound may even be- 
 times be called good ; although she is always in fact " red 
 in tooth and claw." Nature is thus manifestly conceived of 
 as having the constitution of a Self ; but why should the 
 anthropomorphism involved in this conception, which is as 
 obvious as anything of the kind can possibly be, seem less 
 unsatisfactory than that of the conception which religion is 
 accustomed to accept? 
 
 He who knows Nature and her ways, knows all that really is 
 subject of scientific investigation. She is the " uncreated and 
 indestructible, alone, complete, immovable, and without end ; " 
 and to have a full acquaintance with her is to " know the origin 
 of all things on high, and all the signs in the sky, and the 
 resplendent works of the Sun's clear torch, and whence they 
 arose." But not only this : " For she rules over all painful 
 
NATURE AND SPIRIT 455 
 
 birth and all begetting, driving the female to the embrace of 
 the male, and the male to that of the female." ..." Does 
 Parmenides " (in words like the foregoing) " refer to the 
 world of sense or to the world of ideas, to concrete existence or 
 to abstract being ; to matter or to spirit ? " Doubtless the cor- 
 rect historical answer to this inquiry would be somewhat as 
 follows : Parmenides, like his predecessors and contempora- 
 ries, did not make the distinctions involved in the precise 
 answer to questions like these. 1 And yet in all these earlier 
 utterances of philosophy, as in all attempts that have ever 
 been made or that can ever be made by philosophy, the germs 
 of the same fundamental and necessary distinctions appear. 
 For Being in totality and as such is contemplated, de- 
 scribed, and understood from two points of view, the internal 
 and the external. This is true of the work both of science and 
 of philosophy. 
 
 It is only when taken together as an Absolute Whole that 
 Reality can be spoken of as uncreated, indestructible, perfect, 
 and eternal. But in order to be comprehended as thus per- 
 fect and eternal, this Absolute Whole was virtually regarded 
 by Parmenides and the early Greek philosophers, both as Sub- 
 ject and as object, as Maker and system of things made. As 
 itself uncreated, IT creates ; as itself indestructible, IT destroys 
 and brings into being the particular existences. IT is itself 
 perfect ; but things are fragments, or parts, or individual 
 products, of IT ; and its eternity is maintained as a permanent 
 Principle somehow presiding over and controlling the cease- 
 lessly actual flux of particular things and souls. The individ- 
 ual males and females seek each other's embrace ; and so the 
 multiform species of living beings continue in existence. 
 But She, who is the Mother of all, " rules over " and " drives " 
 together these individual children of her own womb. 
 
 The same necessity to which early Greek philosophy 
 responded in so naive and unconscious fashion has shaped 
 
 i See Burnet, " Early Greek Philosophy," p. 178 f. 
 
456 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 into more definite forms the modern scientific and philosophi- 
 cal conceptions. Because matter alone does not seem rich 
 enough in content, or potent and varied enough in its con- 
 cealed resources, or sufficiently capable of apprehending and 
 holding steadily to the required ideals, therefore men have 
 chosen " Nature " as the more genial, plastic, and suitable 
 term. In her, and through her, and by her, and for her ends, 
 all particular things exist, including the lives and the his- 
 tory of the race of " speaking men." Let the hidden but 
 potent reason for this change of words not escape us. It is 
 because the latter term is more easily capable of the necessary 
 personification. 
 
 Immediately, however, the enlargement of the conception 
 which the word "nature" seems to provide, in the special 
 interests of an explanation for the interconnected phenomena 
 of life and of history, requires the old distinctions to be made 
 anew. The Absolute Whole divides itself again into two 
 parts. These parts are not, indeed, separate and distinct 
 halves of a total sphere ; nor can they be kept asunder so as 
 to remain independent of each other for their more complete 
 significance and their more effective action. The rather are 
 they two interdependent aspects of the same totality as seen 
 from two equally necessary points of view. These points 
 of view are the more internal and subjective, and the 
 more external and objective. Nature, as an Absolute Whole, 
 becomes two-fold ; it is no longer simply nature as the 
 common breeding-place of life, but as herself a Universal 
 Life. Her being is no longer looked upon as the undifferen- 
 tiated medium or soil in which all development takes place. 
 She is herself the Ground the inner principle of develop- 
 ment. Nature is no longer a system of things already formed, 
 or considered from the outside as a mere collection of data 
 arranged in a series, in unending time. She is a Force, for- 
 mative and progressive according to ideas. Like the total 
 Being of the Greek philosopher, she is both Subject and 
 

 NATURE AND SPIRIT 45T 
 
 objects, Maker and things made. Nature has become divided 
 in some sort against herself ; her total Being includes natura 
 naturata and natura naturans. 
 
 Such pressure brought, so to speak, upon the fruitful womb 
 of nature in the effort to make her hring forth the Absolute 
 only results in the birth of another pair of conceptions allied 
 to those already discussed. For Nature, when considered as 
 an Absolute Whole, must be the cause, not only of nature 
 considered as the system of material things, but of spirits as 
 well. And now Nature and Spirit serve to summarize two 
 groups of conceptions under which, in their co-operative 
 influence, all scientific and philosophical explanations fall. 
 Nature in the large, as an eternal but uuspiritual force, pro- 
 duces by her supremest effort something spiritual, or rather 
 an indefinite number of spirits ; and these spiritual beings 
 then, in some sort, come to supplement her in her work of 
 evolving life and of driving man along his course in history. 
 For who can deny that man, the most spiritual of all the 
 beings of which we have any immediate and verifiable expe- 
 rience, if not the only species of being entitled to be called 
 " a spirit," is himself a product of nature as soon as the 
 latter is conceived of as an Absolute Whole ? 
 
 When, then, our theory of reality speaks of " nature and 
 spirit," it acknowledges, as belonging to the system of real 
 existences, two species of beings which it is necessary to 
 assume as different and yet somehow co-operative in order to 
 account for the totality of man's cognitive experience. But 
 nature and spirit, in the lower meanings of these two words, 
 are both products of Nature, in the larger and higher mean- 
 ing of the one word. Therefore, natural science proceeds to 
 spell this word with a capital, and to attribute to it all life 
 and all history, including human life and human history. 
 But religion has the surer instinct and the better showing 
 of reason when it seizes upon the other word and, spelling 
 it with a capital, exalts it to the position of the Absolute. 
 
458 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Yet if Spirit itself be conceived of as an abstraction, it is no 
 better fitted than its humbler sister to serve as the explana- 
 tory principle of our experience with ourselves and with 
 things. There are spirits; and there exists a community 
 of spirits. This is the race of men; and history is, in a 
 measure, of their making. But let no one speak of " Spirit," 
 spelling it with a capital as though its mere use in the singu- 
 lar number indicated any corresponding Unity of Reality. 
 To violate this injunction is to talk the language of poetry 
 or of religious myth, and not that of science or philosophy. 1 
 
 The view which to speak truth of it denies the effi- 
 ciency and value of Spirit as a unifying, explanatory prin- 
 ciple, although making use of the term, is quite the opposite 
 of that which we have been advocating. Our view compels 
 us to turn the whole thing " face-about," as it were. For in 
 our view, the one fundamental reality, the actual Being whose 
 
 1 In his chapter discussing the general conception of "collective spirit" 
 (Gesammtgeist) Wundt justly concludes that this conception, in order to gain 
 clearness, must avail itself of one of two auxiliary conceptions ; these are the con- 
 ceptions of " organism " and of " personality." The first of these undergoes essen- 
 tial changes when we attempt to apply it in a collective way ; for the so-called 
 " collective organism " has an unlimited capacity for self-organization and transfor- 
 mation which is unlike anything we find belonging to the individual living body. 
 But the second of these conceptions can have its actualization only in society, or 
 in the State, which is a collection of personalities rather than a collective Per- 
 sonality. The latter, therefore, is not capable of actualization. Hence it would 
 appear that nothing in reality can exist which answers to the term, One Abso- 
 lute or Infinite Spirit, other than the " perhaps unattainable " ideal of a 
 quasi-organic union of humanity, under ethical principles, into the State. But 
 this, it will be seen, is precisely the opposite of that procedure which we have 
 followed, namely, of translating the abstract and otherwise unintelligible 
 terms of philosophy into concrete and indubitable experiences. 
 
 In his " Science and Christian Tradition Essays" (p. 38 f. and note on p. 39), 
 Professor Huxley asserts, in the first place, that the " principle of scientific Nat- 
 uralism does not lead to the denial of the existence of any Supernature ; but 
 simply to the denial of the evidence adduced in favor of this or that extant form 
 of Supernaturalism." He then immediately explains : " I employ the words 
 ' Supernature ' and ' Supernatural ' in their popular senses. For myself, I am 
 bound to say that the term ' Nature ' covers the totality of that which is. The 
 world of psychical phenomena appears to me as much a part of ' Nature ' as the 
 world of physical phenomena; and I am unable to perceive any justification for 
 cutting the Universe into two halves, one natural and one supernatural." 
 
NATURE AND SPIRIT 459 
 
 characteristics are recognized by the categories, whose work 
 is both nature considered as the system of material things 
 and also all the spirits of men considered in their histori- 
 cal development, is the Absolute Self. And the innermost 
 essence of such an Absolute Self is Spirit. From Spirit, 
 then, come nature and all spirits ; and in dependence on this 
 Spirit they live and develop. And the proof of this view lies 
 in the fact that to rely on nature as a unifying principle, it 
 is necessary to include in our conception of nature the char- 
 acteristics of a spiritual life. For a Nature which were not 
 tantamount to Infinite Spirit could not be considered as an 
 Absolute Whole u uncreate, perfect, and eternal." It is 
 this Spirit which 
 
 " Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 
 
 It cannot be too carefully noticed at this point wha,t is the 
 exact claim made for this doctrine of the spiritual nature of all 
 reality. It is not the claim of a proof, or series of inferences, 
 which attempts to make its way along the path of an infinite 
 regressus. Nor is it the mere hope that, starting with .the con- 
 ception of Nature, whether as a collection of brute and in- 
 animate masses and bits of matter, or as a system of living 
 and developing beings, one may legitimately reach backward 
 to the existence of Spirit as their ultimate source and final 
 ground. Our attempt is not directed toward showing 
 the necessity of positing spirit and nature, two beings 
 which divide all space between themselves, and whose priority 
 of residence and jurisdiction must be settled on the basis of 
 considerations somewhat foreign to the character of both. 
 The proof we offer is rather the discovery, reached by reflec- 
 tive thinking upon the categories, that the special grouping of 
 these categories under the term " nature " does not change the 
 real character of the conceptions themselves. These concep- 
 tions are all, when applied to things, the externally projected 
 
460 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 predicates of selfhood as known in the unfolding experience 
 of the individual man and of the race. So that the progress 
 of the argument if the course of such reflection is to be 
 called an " argument " at all is rather inward than backward. 
 And, indeed, the preceding centuries of talk about a 
 regressus as the way in which the plain man's consciousness, 
 or the observations of science, or the speculation of philosophy, 
 reaches from the natural system of things to the spirit that 
 is in them, is in violation both of fact and of sound reason as 
 well. There is not, and there never has been, any " brute 
 inanimate " matter ; there is not now, and there never has 
 been, any system of natural objects bare or devoid of indwell- 
 ing Spirit. Matter, considered as wholly without the charac- 
 teristics of selfhood, is, as yet, not matter ; it is nothing, and 
 can do nothing ; it is nought ; it is not. And when we sup- 
 plant this lower conception by the more vital, effective, and 
 universal term, Nature, we only acknowledge in a not less 
 impressive way the same essential truth. This term, indeed, 
 serves the great purpose better than does matter ; it is a richer 
 and more satisfactory grouping of the necessary conceptions, 
 because it is the more obvious and richly peisonal and 
 spiritual term. To get from Nature to Spirit, then, we 
 have only to get more deeply into nature. For whenever 
 either mythology, or science, or philosophy makes due 
 recognition of the extent and potency of this Absolute Whole, 
 as an explaining principle for what is otherwise particular and 
 isolated, it only expresses the universal insight of man's 
 mind into the real character of the world of things and of 
 spirits. Except in so far as it is known by having additional 
 characteristics of Spirit, Nature is as " brute and inanimate " 
 as was the old-fashioned but now extinct conception of matter. In 
 a word, Nature, too, is nothing, and can do nothing, without 
 Spirit ; and only in so far as it is essentially spiritual, can 
 it be known as the principle which sums-up and embraces 
 all particular realities and all actual events. 
 
NATURE AND SPIRIT 461 
 
 It is customarily supposed that the modern discoveries in 
 the chemistry and physiology of living organisms, in the 
 development of the living individual, and in the evolution of 
 living forms, modify the foregoing metaphysical conclusions. 
 This supposition is to a certain extent true. But the modifi- 
 cation is in the direction of enforcing the essential truth of 
 the same conclusions, while changing somewhat the points of 
 view assumed in establishing them. Modern chemical and 
 biological science does nothing in the direction of contra- 
 dicting or abolishing these fundamental conceptions. The 
 chemical, biological, and evolutionary points of view for the 
 phenomena called " vital " only reveal the spiritual character 
 of natural objects in a new and most impressive way. For 
 they show us under what an amazing variety of interconnected 
 forms this Absolute Whole is ceaselessly displaying its genetic 
 and architectonic energies. But every new display of those 
 forms of force which lay the origins and determine the 
 developments of things raises the same unchanging and fun- 
 damental ontological problems. How can Nature be con- 
 ceived of as capable of accomplishing this ? Only after the 
 analogy of the Self-active Being that puts forth its will in 
 many directions, all of which are controlled by immanent 
 ideas and designed for the realization of ideal ends. 
 
 The controversy which has now raged for some time over 
 the propriety of the term " vital force " is not without its 
 suggestions and its lessons, in this connection. Much of this 
 controversy has done little credit to the clear thinking of 
 either of the contending parties. As though the facts 
 could be interpreted or explained without resort to some such 
 conceptions as are voiced by this now discarded term! As 
 though, on the contrary, to secure the use of the term would, 
 of itself, either assist in scientific explanation or decide men 
 as to their choice between two diverse systems of meta- 
 physics and theology ! God is not dethroned, if this abstract 
 term be discredited and cast out of the catalogue of biologists. 
 
462 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 God is not established and the more truly worshipped, if the 
 ancient phrases and formulas are preserved after they have 
 lost their ancient significance. 
 
 The real progress of biological science has been in the way 
 of attaining clearer and more precise knowledge concerning 
 the characteristics of all so-called living bodies, and of the. 
 conditions under which they arise, develop, and succeed each 
 other in countless generations. On these main points our 
 knowledge, although, like all human knowledge, shading off 
 into conjecture as the outlook into time runs either back- 
 ward or forward, is now in a comparatively satisfactory state. 
 So far as the testimony of our actual experience reaches, those 
 physical existences which we call alive can do certain things 
 which non-living beings cannot do. They can grow, can mul- 
 tiply themselves after their own kind, and can move at 
 least their constituent molecules, if not their entire bodies as 
 from what in our ignorance we are obliged to call an u internal 
 impulse." Matter, when it is " endowed with life" as we 
 figuratively say, becomes metabolic, reproductive, and capable 
 of automatic, or internally originating, movements. As to their 
 origin, furthermore, these so-called living beings are at 
 present never known to us to begin to exist, except in depend- 
 ence upon the reproductive process. Whatever biologists may 
 be pleased to conjecture respecting occurrences in some far-off 
 time, and under greatly changed conditions, so far as we now 
 know, living beings come only from pre-existing living beings. 
 Nature, the Mother of all, when she conceives and brings forth 
 a living child, demands as her present unvarying rule that 
 this production shall be through some other living child of 
 hers. This is as true of the cell, the unit of life, as it is of 
 the most complex and highly developed organism. 
 
 How, then, shall that metaphysical way of speaking which, 
 in spite of all protests to the contrary, the particular sciences 
 are forever compelled by the very constitution of the human 
 mind to employ, describe and explain the phenomena of 
 
NATURE AND SPIRIT 463 
 
 life ? Physics is permitted to speak of the " forces " of gravi- 
 tation, of cohesion, etc., as belonging to all masses of tnatter 
 and as explanatory of the behavior of masses under manifold 
 relations. It also theorizes about forces of light, of electricity, 
 and of magnetism as residing in the ether, and through their 
 residence therein effecting many subtle changes in tangible and 
 visible things. Chemistry, in its turn, deals with a new set of 
 genetic and architectonic forces ; nor does it hesitate to 
 designate these forces by appropriate names. But what do 
 the physical and chemical sciences really mean by this, their 
 permissible mode of speech ? Surely not that there are separate 
 entities, to be called by the names of these different forms of 
 the activity of masses, molecules, and atoms, which entities are, 
 however, also to be thought of as actually coordinated under 
 one general head. All the so-called physico-chemical forces 
 are only the ways of the reciprocally determining, active 
 relationships which the different members of the system of 
 real material things actually maintain. When, then, we come 
 to new ways of this omnipresent, active self-relating of Nature, 
 in the case of living beings, as wholly "new" as any of 
 those which chemistry is compelled to add to the forces known 
 by physics, or as the physics of light and electricity is 
 compelled to add to the physics of material masses, why 
 should we not indulge ourselves in the same helpful figures of 
 speech ? The masses, the molecules, the atoms of the living 
 things, or whatever sizes of the material entity you choose 
 to make the seat of the necessary forces, are certainly 
 behaving in ways quite beyond the known habits and capacities 
 of non-living things. Here, then, is a quite new display of the 
 genetic and architectonic power of Nature. Our good Dame 
 is bringing to pass something rather original in her perpetual 
 economies. She "the uncreate and eternal" is now 
 teeming with products that can, what hitherto her products 
 could not. These new creations of hers can, of themselves, 
 create ; and what they create can grow ; and as they grow, 
 
464 ' A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 they can (like every amoeba) not simply be moved from with- 
 out, but they can move as by a " will of their own." 
 
 Let biological science, then, not be disturbed if it is found 
 convenient to speak of " vital force," as covering that special 
 display of genetic and architectonic energies which Nature 
 makes in the case of all living beings. Or rather, it would 
 seem more fitting to speak of vital forces ; such as, for example, 
 the metabolic, the reproductive, and the automatic. Some 
 theory of " Vitalism," or its equivalent, will always be a 
 necessity for biological science. 1 
 
 But at once it is objected that this manner of speech does 
 violence to, or shows disrespect toward, the dignity of the all- 
 powerful and god-like atoms. For life, we are reminded, is 
 only a peculiar concurrence in the germ followed by a course 
 of peculiar aggregations, segregations, etc., affecting those 
 atoms which constitute the organism. What, however, does 
 such an objection really accomplish ; or, in case the objection 
 be removed or disregarded, what has really been gained ? The 
 facts certainly remain the same. A sufficient explanation must 
 somehow be found for the real unities and for the actual 
 active relationships, attained and maintained. A vast variety 
 of correlated forces, belonging to one substance, called Matter 
 or Nature, comprises the metaphysical outfit of the chemico- 
 physical sciences. Is not, in reality, each one of these forces 
 gravitation, for example only a peculiar way in which the 
 masses, molecules, and atoms of matter behave toward each 
 other, under certain definite circumstances ? But the truth of 
 
 1 Nothing is more significant of the rational necessity for such a metaphysi- 
 cal conception than the present tendency of biology to return from its position of 
 scorn toward all theories of " vital force," or " vital energies," to a new and 
 improved statement of the same conception. For example, a recent writer, after 
 declaring that "the life principle, varying only in degree, is omnipresent" 
 . . . and that " the elixir of life lurks in every mineral, as well as in every flower 
 and animal throughout the universe; it is the ultimate essence of everything 
 on its way to higher evolution," goes on to affirm : " This may be called the 
 poet's view, but it is forced upon us as also the highest generalization of modern 
 -science." 
 
NATURE AND SPIRIT 465 
 
 all such philosophical interpretation as this remains the same 
 throughout all forms of positive science. And why should 
 biology alone be denied its sacred metaphysical rights and 
 privileges ? 
 
 We insist, then, upon the propriety of continuing that con- 
 venient but figurative metaphysics which speaks of " vital 
 forces " as assisting in the accomplishment of the phenomena 
 of living beings. These living beings are, because they are 
 material and have mass, necessarily subject to all the forces 
 which physics recognizes as working in its peculiar domain. 
 Because they are composed of molecules which have a compli- 
 cated chemical constitution, and are built up under conditions 
 which favor or discourage more or less well-known chemical 
 combinations, they are also to be regarded as subject to chemi- 
 cal forces. But because these same living beings do actually 
 achieve new forms of synthesis and architectonic activity, 
 they may also properly be regarded as displaying a new 
 kind of so-called " forces." This is only another way of say- 
 ing that such realities have the active properties summed 
 up under such words as u metabolism," " reproductivity." and 
 automatism." 
 
 If now it is urged that the chemical laboratory can simulate, 
 or even perfectly reproduce, certain of the simpler organic 
 compounds ; and that a few of the most hopeful among the 
 chemists of to-day confidently look forward to the time when 
 the chemical laboratory will be able to reproduce all the 
 organic compounds, or even to manufacture " protoplasm," the 
 reply to such claims and such hopes is not difficult. Very 
 well, but this does not in the least alter the case. Chemical 
 science will thus serve biological science, only as it learns how 
 to avail itself of the so-called forces of Nature as they are 
 displayed, under certain conditions, in a definite way ; but the 
 variety, the wonderful character, the metaphysical implica- 
 tions, of this her display of so-called forces will remain 
 unchanged. And the higher powers of the microscope are 
 
 30 
 
466 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 daily making more wonderful the atomic mechanism of the 
 protoplasmic unit, the living cell. 
 
 Suppose it to be further urged that the phenomena of life 
 may all be regarded as special forms of the chemical ener- 
 gies of the atoms, dependent only upon their being brought 
 together in peculiar quantitative combinations, under definite 
 fixed conditions. Very well ; but this, too, if granted, does 
 not essentially alter the case. For metaphysics does not aim 
 to deprive the sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology, of 
 their Substrate whether they wish to take it in mass, or as 
 divisible into molecules and atoms. Metaphysics aims to in- 
 terpret into the ultimate terms of man's cognitive experience 
 all the conceptions involved in the scientific assumptions of 
 a " substrate," moved by " force," and obeying " law," and 
 entering into manifold forms of mutually determined 
 " relation," etc. 
 
 It will, however, be granted by way of comity between 
 metaphysics and these sciences we suppose that single 
 atoms and molecules cannot produce the phenomena which 
 living beings display. For these phenomena to return to 
 our first point of view show the characteristics of forms of 
 energies that are genetic and architectonic to a high degree. 
 Countless multitudes of atoms and molecules, with a marvel- 
 lously great variety of properties belonging to their various 
 kinds, are somehow, in fact, made to cooperate to the building 
 of a composite substrate whose performances answer to specific 
 ideas. Pack all the forms of chemical energy that are known 
 or can be imagined, into the single atoms, and all the more is 
 the mind finally compelled to make an appeal to some concep- 
 tion that shall actualize itself in terms of force that unites the 
 single atoms in a definite and purposeful result. It is this 
 compulsion which has made the use of the word " Nature " 
 seem so appropriate as a title for the life-giving Mother of all 
 the particular forms of life. 
 
 The demand which seems obvious enough even when we 
 
NATUfcE AND SPIRIT 467 
 
 consider the constitution and behavior of so-called "un- 
 differentiated protoplasm," becomes irresistible under the 
 weight of the facts disclosed to the more extended and recent 
 view of biology. Here our minds are invited to consider re- 
 flectively what is implied in the evolution of the individual and 
 in the development of species. Nature must be writ large 
 and conceived of as somehow presiding over the individual 
 masses, molecules, and atoms, in order to conceive of her as 
 evolving the individual living being and developing the 
 various related forms of life. 
 
 Under what conceptions it is necessary to bring the history 
 of the individual living being has been made the repeated 
 subject of discussion in the previous chapters of this work. 
 Such a history is itself the very type of all human conceptions 
 of a " Becoming," which arises in, and is carried forward by, 
 a fortunate combination of genetic and architectonic forces, 
 and which conforms in reality to human ideas of form, law, 
 and final purpose. Such a history is the very idea of develop- 
 ment realized. This position explains not only the signifi- 
 cance of those naive expressions which fall from the plain 
 man's consciousness as he observes, or listens to, the mar- 
 vellous story ; it also interprets the true meaning however 
 concealed of all the language which biology itself employs. 
 
 " If " says Haeckel, 1 " the formative power of the formless 
 protoplasm calls forth our highest admiration among the re- 
 markable Polythalamia, this is further increased when we 
 turn to the closely allied Radiolaria. In these most interest- 
 ing primal beings we meet with the greatest variety of beauti- 
 ful and strange forms that can be found in the organic 
 world." . . . " We have as yet no conception of the signifi- 
 cance of their varied, strange, and exquisite forms, nor of the 
 way in which they are shaped by the formless protoplasm of 
 the Radiolaria" It is indeed worthy of " highest admiration " 
 to see the "formative power" of that which is itself " form- 
 
 i See his "Realm of the Protista," pp. 38 and 46. 
 
468 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 less," shape those molecules of matter on which it can lav its 
 grasp, into such a variety of " strange and exquisite " forms. 
 And this aesthetical feeling which is aroused in the observer, 
 because displayed in the thing observed, is one of many sure 
 signs of a fundamental kinship between the two. In fact, 
 however, as the results of the previous discussion of the 
 ideas of form, law, and final purpose have clearly shown, the 
 protoplasm out of which Polythalamia and Radiolaria are 
 said to come, is only relatively formless. Their so-called 
 protoplasm, like every other living being, is already both 
 formed and formative ; it is both the product and the possessor 
 of the genetic and architectonic forces which all living beings 
 display. Furthermore, when Haeckel confesses ignorance of 
 the significance, and of the manner of that shaping process 
 which results in the varied and exquisitely formed coming out 
 of the formless, he only emphasizes the universal conviction of 
 every one intelligently acquainted with natural objects. All 
 such forms it is assumed have some significance, however 
 this significance may be hidden from us ; and the manner of 
 nature's shaping of her forms is in accordance with immanent 
 ideas. But to imply this is to give to universal Nature, in so 
 far as she gets expression in the particular nature of individ- 
 uals, or in the variation within limits of the species, the 
 characteristics of self-hood. The relatively formless somehow 
 God knows how, and man may some day know signifi- 
 cantly shapes, of itself, this variety of strange and exquisite 
 forms. 
 
 The entire Life of Nature is a ceaseless repetition of essen- 
 tially the same performances, so far as the science of biology 
 is concerned but so joined together into an historic process 
 that it incontestably appears as a progress toward some far- 
 off goal. Looking backward, indeed, the present indefinite 
 variety of forms seems to withdraw itself into the relatively 
 formless ; but if this retreat of living beings be followed in 
 imagination and thought until they all rest in the arms of the 
 
NATURE AND SPIRIT 469 
 
 formless atoms, our conceptions of the explanatory causes 
 of the natural history of living forms remain unchanged. 
 The atoms are ; and their collective capacity must somehow 
 serve as the u sea of activities " in which all the sources of 
 life and evolution are as yet congealed. 
 
 "Alles Leben der Natur 
 1st ein Meer von Thdtigkeiten ; 
 Ohne Rast auf Hirer Spur 
 Muss Du mil dem Ganzen schreiten." 
 
 The evolution of the organism of the individual from its 
 germinal condition to its completed form, through the peculiar 
 and complicated reactions of the forces seated in its constit- 
 uent elements upon the forces belonging to its environment, 
 may be made the object of present-day observation. But the 
 case is by no means the same with the development of the 
 totality of living species. Precisely how the relatively form- 
 less beginnings proceeded to employ the " formative forces " 
 inherent in them so as to shape such a variety of u strange 
 and exquisite " forms, we know far less about than we know 
 about the method and significance of the procedure of the 
 "formless protoplasm" of Radiolaria. For here biological 
 science is studying the larger work of Nature as, through 
 indefinite stretches of time, she has been using her synthetic 
 and architectonic energies to produce all manner of living 
 things. It is perfectly clear, however, that a wonderful 
 conjoint action of all the natural forces has somehow been 
 secured. For when considered as a totality the living beings 
 of the world, as known to man, constitute an interconnected 
 system the members of which are dependent upon each other 
 in countless subtle ways ; and all of which are dependent for 
 their existence, continuance, and place within the system, 
 upon the cooperation of all the forces known to physics, 
 chemistry, and biology as well. But the metaphysically 
 important characteristics of this picture are not dependent 
 
470 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 for their verification upon any particular form of the current 
 theories of biological evolution. 
 
 " Inheritance " and "variability" are words which cover 
 certain conceptions, based on patent facts, that are necessary 
 to every theory of the development of species. These concep- 
 tions, combined with those which sum up the characteristics 
 of vital forces in relation to the forces provided by the envi- 
 ronment, constitute the equipment of categories which, so to 
 speak, modern biology possesses ; and which it must employ in 
 framing its answer to all demands for an explanation of vital 
 phenomena, as displayed on the scale of Nature at large. 
 These two words (inheritance and variability) summarize 
 experience with the behavior of successive generations of 
 living beings which stand to one another in the morphological 
 and functional relations dependent upon their reproductive 
 activity. " Heredity " emphasizes our knowledge that some- 
 thing connected with the transmitted germs determines a 
 likeness to the organism from which these germs come. 
 " Variability " emphasizes our knowledge that somehow, 
 whether through minute differences in the germs themselves 
 or on account of the different subsequent conditions to 
 which these germs are inevitably subjected, the likeness 
 between the progenitor and the descendant is never complete. 
 But in order that a true and successful development of 
 species may take place, both heredity and variability must 
 harmoniously combine. This is to say that the forces which 
 tend to the conservation of similar forms and similar func- 
 tions, and which are thought of as due to the fact of repro- 
 duction, must cooperate with the forces which tend to 
 differentiation of forms and functions, whether these latter 
 forces are thought of as attached to the act of reproduction 
 or as exercised by the environment. 
 
 It is at once clear to any one accustomed to reflect carefully 
 on the significance for reality of terms current in science or 
 philosophy, that we have here to do with a grouping of con- 
 
NATURE AND SPIRIT 471 
 
 ceptions as comprehensive as they are elastic. But it is the 
 genetic and architectonic power of Nature which is emphasized 
 by all these terms all the more impressively, by splitting 
 this power up into a variety of details. The facts appear, at 
 first, simple enough ; from the parents come, by generation, 
 organisms that are essentially like, and yet are always unlike 
 in a multitude of minute particulars, and are sometimes 
 strikingly unlike in one or more rather important particulars. 
 As this reproductive process goes on through the ages, under 
 a great variety of conditions, the different species of living 
 beings succeed one another in a more or less orderly way. 
 If we accept the standpoint of Darwinism, it is " heredity " 
 which we may feel ourselves entitled to take for granted ; and 
 then the burden of fixing the limits and the direction of 
 variability falls chiefly upon conditions external to the 
 organism. But if we accept the more modern and seemingly 
 more tenable view, it is " variability " whicli should be 
 assumed as " the expression of the fundamental energy of 
 the organism ; " and " heredity is the expression of the 
 acquired adjustment of the organism to the conditions of its 
 existence." l Inheritance then becomes an acquired character- 
 istic ; but variability is the primary genetic phenomenon of all 
 organisms. 
 
 In a word, then, Nature must put forth all her energies in a 
 genetic and architectonic way, coordinating them and yet modi- 
 fying -their particular combinations through countless ages of 
 time, if the development of interdependent but specifically de- 
 termined organisms is to be attained as the result. She must 
 differentiate her own Will in manifold ways ; but she must 
 still employ these differentiations to the attainment of specific 
 ends. She must not only " drive " the males and females 
 to each other's embrace ; but she must shape each relatively 
 formless bit of protoplasm which thus results each impreg- 
 nated germ of a living being so as to conform with the two 
 
 1 See Prof. H. S. Williams, in "Science" for May 27, 1898, p. 730. 
 
472 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 correlated principles of heredity and variability. She must 
 do this through thousands and millions of years, if we are 
 to trust the calendar which modern evolution has prepared in 
 her name. And these same formative forces must shape 
 more and more complicated, more and more highly developed, 
 organisms. The full significance of this, neither the scientific 
 nor the philosophic investigator can understand; for the 
 ways of the natural formative forces are hard to discover, and 
 may never be very fully known. But ignorance cannot dictate 
 to knowledge the conceptions and the language which the 
 scientific observer or the philosophic thinker must employ. 
 All these conceptions, and all the language necessarily used to 
 express them, have meaning and justification only from one 
 point of view. Nature thus regarded and so she is regarded, 
 and only so can she be regarded, by natural science is 
 endowed with the fundamental characteristics of Selfhood. To 
 escape from this conclusion by crying out against " anthro- 
 pomorphism " is to lack the courage of humanity's most 
 unalterable convictions. And when we further know what 
 the inmost reality of such Selfhood is, we see that to speak of 
 Spirit as a possible inference lying outside of, or behind, 
 Nature, is to overlook the plainest features of our case. Not 
 Nature and Spirit, but Spirit as the true and essential Being 
 of so-called Nature, is what the conclusions of science and of 
 philosophy alike confirm. 
 

 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 
 
 IN a natural glow of enthusiasm over the successes of the 
 principle of mechanism, both physicist and philosopher have 
 been known to say : " Give me matter and force and I will 
 construct the world." From long before Descartes until the 
 present time this manner of world-building has seemed most 
 captivating to certain minds ; all the more captivating 
 because it so readily dispenses, on the one hand, with the 
 mystery which the unexplained Cosmos presents, and on the 
 other hand with the need of any Mind to serve as a coordinate 
 principle of explanation, by the side of Matter and Force. 
 But we have already looked a little way into the wealth of 
 this gift which is required in order fully to meet the demands 
 of physics and of a purely physical philosophy. The world can 
 be " constructed " of matter and force, only when these agents 
 are first endowed with all the qualifications necessary for so 
 vast constructive ability. All this the most recent advocates 
 of this mechanical theory of world-building aim to cover up 
 by repeating conceptions whose inadequacy has been exposed 
 over and over again, in the history of reflective thinking. 
 " Force," says a recent writer, " bestows life and motion on 
 matter ; matter is lifeless, without any power to move or alter 
 itself. Force brings about all the changes in matter that our 
 senses seem to tell us of ; it is force alone that causes these, 
 matter remaining ever the same." The same writer then 
 thinks to furnish a lucid and sufficient account of the origin of 
 life by affirming that, as soon as the physical conditions of the 
 
474 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 earth's crust permitted it, millions of smaller masses of 
 molecules established "inner relations;" then some of them 
 increased in size by "an influx of matter and force;" and 
 when later there " occurred opportunities for progress," these 
 bodies " discovered for themselves a sphere of activity," etc., 
 etc. 1 Thus by infinitely varied combinations and variations 
 the present infinitely varied and orderly system of things, 
 including man himself, arose. 
 
 In the modest demand, thus expressed in the now celebrated 
 sentence, there lurks a huge fallacy which is customarily 
 unchallenged and even unperceived. " Give me the matter 
 and the force, and I will build for you the world." Thus 
 matter and force are brought forward as the theoretical 
 cooperating factors, or constituents, of the proposed world- 
 building ; but what is the part left for the " I " in the actual 
 process of world-building ? Now one can scarcely think that 
 any author of such a proposal means to challenge our admira- 
 tion for his own skill as a world-builder, in the following terms : 
 " Put at my disposal the sum-total of ' lifeless matter ' and 
 the gross amount of the world energy ; and then you shall be 
 told precisely how all particular things came to be as they all 
 actually have been and are." For the Ego of this theoretical 
 and purely hypothetical builder of a Cosmos out of matter and 
 force, would certainly need knowledge, in order rightly to set 
 about his monstrous task. His Ego as pure blind Will, or 
 mere Being, could not construct a system of things. Indeed, 
 nothing short of all knowledge, of omniscience, would need 
 to be granted before this Ego could even tell how matter and 
 force have actually built, and are still building, the world. 
 Must, then, so proud a promise be understood to mean only 
 this : the Omnipotent and the Omniscient One knows how 
 the world was built, whether by himself or by some other, 
 
 1 So, e. g., Heir W. Kotzauer in an article in Der Stein der Weisen, which we 
 select as an illustration, not on account of its merit, but on account of the naive, 
 outspoken character of its materialism. 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 475 
 
 out of matter and force. Whatever the sentence means, 
 it is necessary to add a third at least coordinate factor in 
 order to explain not to say, effect the actual construction 
 of the world ? Shall we accordingly say : " Give me matter, 
 force, and ideas that correspond throughout to the reality, 
 and then I will tell you how the world was built ? " Or make 
 me to be an Omniscient Will, and I will build you a World ? 
 
 Throughout the previous metaphysical discussions we have 
 constantly refrained from claiming to know already, or ex- 
 pecting ever to be able to discover, precisely how this actual 
 infinity of things called the " Universe " came to be as it is. 
 Metaphysics surely cannot give to man the valid history of 
 the evolution of things ; it must learn from the sciences what 
 it can about this history. But the searcher after a system of 
 metaphysics is not to be deceived by a purely figurative use 
 much less by a misuse of abstract terms. Matter and 
 force are terms which, when employed in this vague, general 
 way, have only the value of abstractions. They stand for that 
 " crude lumpishness " which may be considered as the sub- 
 stantial basis of all particular things ; and for the additional 
 necessity of somehow getting this otherwise " lifeless " stuff 
 to work, if a system of such things is ever to come out of it. 
 
 In a word, every attempt to construct a world out of Matter 
 and Force however little way, or however far, such an 
 attempt may go virtually recognizes from the start the 
 actuality of ideas of things. For that Being of the World, 
 which is granted out of hand, must somehow come to some- 
 thing definite, must go in some direction rather than another ; 
 the undifferentiated IT must take on a succession of forms, 
 under a variety of laws. But all this means absolutely 
 nothing, unless the actuality of ideas be admitted as belong- 
 ing to the essential nature of things. 
 
 To the student of the human mind in a broad way there 
 are few phenomena more interesting than the sceptical revul- 
 sion, the spasm of agnostic terror, which seizes many thinkers 
 
476 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 as they are brought to try final conclusions with a truth such 
 as has been evinced in every chapter of this treatise. To 
 many of the detailed applications of this central truth all 
 minds readily assent. But from the truth itself the truth, 
 namely, that the world is known to be, only as it is an actuali- 
 zation of the Ideal they strenuously dissent. Let us, then, 
 at this point recall that epistemological assumption which 
 our theory of reality in common with every possible 
 theory of reality, whether partial and unsystematic or aim- 
 ing at complete and systematic form thought it right to 
 accept. The assumption was not that all ideas are true pic- 
 tures of reality ; nor was it that reality is for us, merely our 
 idea. Neither was it that all reality can be known, or re- 
 duced to terms of our ideas. But it was that the fundamen- 
 tal forms of human cognition are the unchanging forms of 
 reality so far as reality is known or is conceivable by man. 
 This assumption was no mere reafnrmation of the stand- 
 point of the Kantian critique. The truth about human knowl- 
 edge is not that the intellect of man constructs realities after 
 its own pattern phenomenal realities, merely; while so- 
 called " things-in-themselves " remain forever unknown and 
 unknowable by man. Neither is it the truth that extra-meutally 
 existent realities somehow make themselves recognized by 
 the mind, without consulting its nature, so to speak, and 
 while remaining themselves quite foreign to the mind. But 
 the truth is that all knowledge of reality is a commerce of 
 beings which have an essentially common nature ; and which 
 have being at all, and enter into manifold relations, only as 
 they have the same Ground. Therefore man could not have 
 ideas of things, unless things were themselves, somehow, 
 actualized ideas. Nor could he frame any justifiable or 
 rational ideal of what actually is, not, in this connection, 
 to speak of what ought to be, unless that whole which we 
 call Nature, or the Universe, were, somehow, to be regarded 
 an actualized Ideal. " Somehow," to be so regarded. For no 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL >*i2<L 
 
 account can be given, either of cognition (which is the epis- 
 temological problem), or of the reality given in cognition 
 (which is the ontological problem), without admitting every- 
 where the actualization of ideas. Neither selves nor things, 
 neither the individual beings nor the Universal Nature which 
 is the Mother of all individual beings, can be conceived of, 
 or can really be, other than as the presence and power of 
 immanent ideas is taken into the account. 
 
 All reality is known, then, only as an actualization of ideas. 
 But now for several reasons, and especially because of the 
 fact that reality and idea are customarily distinguished as 
 contrasted, or even opposed to one another the inquiry after 
 a more definite meaning of this phrase is raised. Such an 
 inquiry is likely to be accompanied by the return in full force 
 of the tide of scepticism and agnosticism which the first at- 
 tempt at a system of metaphysics asks to have, at least 
 temporarily, kept back. What, precisely, is meant by the 
 " actualization of ideas " ? and, How can it be maintained, as 
 a truth on which the theory of knowledge and the theory of 
 reality must unite, that the material things of which the world 
 is made up are all to be known only as " actualized ideas " ? 
 
 Idea and reality are necessarily contrasted, when by idea 
 is meant only an occurrence in the stream of the individual's 
 consciousness. The word is, indeed, vague ; and although 
 much employed in the earlier English works on psychology, 
 logic, and epistemology, it is now more rarely and more cau- 
 tiously used. Let us, however, for the moment, accept it in 
 this vague and most comprehensive meaning. It then at 
 once becomes necessary to make a very important distinction 
 among ideas themselves. Some of them, according to this 
 distinction, remain mere ideas ; but others of them attain a 
 peculiar significance and influence over the perpetual readjust- 
 ments of the self to its environment, because they are held to 
 be something far more than mere ideas. To this class 
 belong such ideas as, by that common consent on which both 
 
 >r" 
 U *XV - ^ 
 
478 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 society and science are based, truly and faithfully represent 
 realities. In a certain meaning of the word " actual," this 
 word may be applied to both classes of ideas ; all ideas actu- 
 ally are whenever they occur in the consciousness of an indi- 
 vidual self as actual events, real momenta, or constituent 
 parts, of the total life of that self. But such ideas as faith- 
 fully represent realities sustain a different relation so it is 
 commonly thought both to the stream of individual con- 
 sciousness and to the world that is conceived of as lying out- 
 side of that stream. 
 
 Further experience with ourselves and with others shows 
 how the principle of continuity applies even to this fundamen- 
 tal and valid distinction in ideas. For there never can exist 
 a mere idea, if by this term be meant a phase of conscious 
 life, that has no roots in reality, that nowhere takes hold on 
 what must itself be considered as lying outside such passing 
 phase. On the other hand, there is no idea not even the 
 clearest idea of the most concrete and indubitable actuality, 
 as it occurs in the consciousness of the most exact and cau- 
 tious scientific observer that is not replete with elements 
 which are the contribution of the peculiar individual mind, 
 whose is the aforesaid idea. " The world is my idea," says 
 Schopenhauer in the opening sentence of his metaphysical 
 treatise, "this is a truth which holds good for everything that 
 lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective 
 and abstract consciousness." But this is " empty idealism," 
 to use Hegel's term. It can do nothing for metaphysical sys- 
 tem but wander over the shifting field of the individual's con- 
 sciousness, and attach its one label for all things to every 
 specimen therein ; it is " mine " and " mine " and " mine," 
 whether it be the pain of toothache, the latest accepted hypoth- 
 esis, or your personality, the realm of Nature, the reality of 
 God. And yet, my world is also a more or less closely woven 
 system of real beings and actual transactions which is the same 
 as the world of other men. Otherwise science and social inter- 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 479 
 
 course of every kind were impossible, and even my own individ- 
 ual stream of conscious ideas could not be. Nature makes her- 
 self known in the current of my ideas, as she is made known 
 to all men ; but she has also her peculiar manner, special 
 dress, distinct and individual voice, in revealing herself to me. 
 
 The ideas which arise in my individual stream of conscious- 
 ness, and thus all ideas arise for me, but which are taken 
 to be faithful representations of concrete, actual existences, 
 are my so-called cognitions. Like the mere ideas, these cog- 
 nitions are really existent only as they are events, actually 
 occurring, in the life of the conscious self. But unlike those 
 ideas which are spoken of as " mere ideas," and are therefore 
 contrasted with, or opposed to, what is actual, all cognitive 
 ideas sustain peculiar and significant relations to Reality. 
 These relations are summed up for popular expression in the 
 phrase " representative." In this their peculiar work of rep- 
 resentation, cognitions show to us what is the true type, the 
 essential characteristic of an actualized idea. Every " actual- 
 ized idea " is, primarily, some phase in the life of a self. But 
 any phase is called a " mere idea," and only the actuality of a 
 passing event in consciousness is allowed to it, unless it pos- 
 sesses something more than simple ideality. This " some- 
 thing more " it gets, so far as the standpoint of psychology is 
 concerned, by somehow raising itself to the position of a cog- 
 nition. Ideas that can say " I know " take hold on a reality 
 which is something other than merely an actual event in the 
 subject, a temporary phase of the individual's stream of 
 consciousness. 
 
 What now is it that ideas faithfully representative of real- 
 ity, or in other words cognitions, are thought to have, which 
 other and mere ideas do not possess ? The answer which 
 psychological analysis suggests is this : Cognitions are not 
 mere ideas, because somehow the whole Self goes into them. 
 In a word, if I wish to know that any phase of my own con- 
 scions life is no mere idea, but that just this phase strikes 
 
480 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 its roots down deep into the reality of my own being, and of 
 the being of the world that is not me, then I somehow manage 
 to convert the idea into a cognition. This I do, in the simplest, 
 most direct and primary way by a deed of will, which is accom- 
 panied or followed by the feelings of various kinds that give the 
 impulse, the guide, the endorsement to a cognitive judgment. 
 That any particular idea is " of " a reality and no longer 
 " mere idea," I know whenever I can impute to the idea the 
 testimony in experience of volitions and feelings of a peculiar 
 kind. In other words, psychological analysis shows that every 
 cognition is a complex of feelings, and a deed of will ; and is not 
 merely an idea, in the narrower meaning of the word " idea." 
 If this analysis be continued into the domain of a critical 
 theory of knowledge, it appears that only as man wills, and 
 feels the effects of inhibited will, and does not merely ideate 
 or merely think, is that commerce with reality gained in which 
 the essential nature of cognition consists. 
 
 Further, the analysis of what it is for any being whether 
 Self or Thing actually to be, and not merely to exist in 
 the ideas of some other being (the answer to the metaphys- 
 ical question as to what Being, in truth, is), brings the mind 
 to a similar conclusion. Every concrete individual reality 
 maintains its claim to the title " actual," only in so far as it 
 is self-active, constantly guiding its own actions in manifold 
 changing relations with other beings, according to immanent 
 ideas. This very phrase, " immanent ideas," is the one which 
 it was found necessary to substitute for the entirely vague and 
 incomprehensible words, " form," " law," " development," etc., 
 as applied to the otherwise " crude lumpishness " of things. 
 For things, too, are known to be real only as they are wills, 
 actively changing relations to one another under the control 
 of common ideas. Actuality, for material beings as well as for 
 ourselves, requires this same complex of essential character- 
 istics, viz. being self-active, in relation to one another, in 
 obedience to ideas, and in pursuit of ideas. 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 481 
 
 We may, then, summarize those demands which we make 
 upon every reality, and which we find fulfilled by every real 
 being, in the following statement : Ideas are actualized when- 
 ever they become consciously recognized as differentiating prin- 
 ciples for deeds of will. Or, to turn about the statement of 
 this fundamental truth of metaphysics : Self-active beings that 
 have cognizable forms, and obey laws, and show adaptations to 
 ends, are " actualized ideas" Without regarding them as 
 actualized ideas we cannot know either things or selves as 
 really existing at all ; and only as things and selves exist 
 by conforming to the group of conceptions which experience 
 attaches to the " actualization of ideas," do they exist at all. 
 
 The Self makes actual its own ideas by deeds of will that 
 are directed by these ideas. This is a plain statement of the 
 truth of fact which enters into all our workaday life, into 
 all handicrafts, and into all art and all social intercourse. 
 So long as I give no expression to my idea by a deed of will, 
 or by a succession of such deeds, it remains a so-called " mere 
 idea." We have repeatedly said that no idea can be con- 
 sidered as severed from all its roots in actuality. Each idea 
 still remains my idea ; and if its particular genesis is care- 
 fully inquired into, this, too, will be found in some kind of 
 being that is not merely my idea. If, however, the mind wishes 
 to impart to any conscious state that peculiar kind of actuality 
 which makes it impossible any longer to consider such state 
 as merely an idea, then the idea must be actualized as a 
 formative principle for the will. I act, as both a willing and 
 an ideating Self ; and now my idea becomes actualized. This 
 actualizing of ideas is illustrated by every simplest daily ex- 
 perience, and by the most complicated forms of planning and 
 of execution whether to a successful or an unsuccessful, 
 to a wise or a foolish, issue. The movement of some bodily 
 member, the drawing of a geometrical figure, the shaping of 
 some external material, the taking of a journey, the contrib- 
 uting of influence to the mental life of some fellow man or to 
 
 31 
 
482 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the political and social fabric, may all exist merely in ideas ; 
 but these all, in order to become actualized ideas, must be 
 set into reality as deeds of will. 
 
 So far as the Self, the actualizer of its own ideas, is con- 
 cerned, each concrete actualization is a single, indivisible 
 unity, as it were. It is true that the description of what we 
 do with ourselves, in every actualization of our own ideas, 
 divides that which in its living actuality is one and undivided,, 
 into subject and object, into faculties of ideation, feeling, and 
 will. But the real unity is the whole Self the conscious, 
 self-active will, whose ideas are not actual occurrences, or 
 entities, apart from its own being, but are immanent in itself. 
 The simplest truth is, at the same time, the most complex, the 
 most abstruse, and the most mysterious of truths : I am myself, 
 in reality, existent as an actualization of ideas. And this is 
 the same thing as saying that I am a will, active according 
 to consciously recognized ideas. 
 
 But no individual human being can be considered apart from 
 those other beings on whose existence and reciprocal influence 
 every such real selfhood is dependent. I cannot actualize 
 a single one of my ideas except in so far as I am dependency 
 related to other real beings, and thus actualize my own ideas, 
 in and through the changes in these other beings. Even in 
 the case where my idea is of the very simplest, and the other 
 being in which it is to be actualized is most nearly related 
 to me, most intimately under my influence, the truth 
 remains essentially the same. I have, for example, the idea 
 of moving my arm upward, downward, to the right or to 
 the left, or in some other definite direction. This is still 
 mere idea. To actualize it, then, consciousness must attain 
 more of reality than to be a mere show-room, or stage, for 
 ideas, whether of its own or of some other being. To actualize 
 the idea, the mind must have the reality of being that belongs 
 to Will ; it must actualize itself as will in a deed of will. But 
 it has already been said that no human mind can give to its 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 483 
 
 idea the simplest and most intimate form of actualization 
 without being dependent upon that which is other than itself. 
 If one's idea is to be actualized in one's own body, this body 
 even must be regarded as other than the ideating and willing 
 self. The will sets into reality the idea, and the volition in 
 accordance with the idea, through some occurrence in a form 
 of reality which has a being other than that of either the idea 
 or the will. But this is to say that my idea becomes actual- 
 ized when this other being acts in accordance with this idea. 
 Thus those bodily movements, which are not mere physiolo- 
 gical reflexes, express the mind's ideas and volitions in pur- 
 suance of these ideas. The product of the workman's tool, 
 the concrete result of the artist's endeavor, the shaping of 
 souls by the influences of oratory, or by education, or by 
 example, are all instances of the actualization of the ideas of 
 one individual being in the changes of a being other than 
 itself. 
 
 All man's actualization of his ideas, in order to be under- 
 stood or, indeed, to be brought about, must therefore take 
 account of the so-called nature of other beings. No ideas of 
 any man, however intense and clear those ideas may be, or 
 however much backed up and pushed out into reality by 
 strenuous deeds of will, can get actualized quite irrespective 
 of the material in which this actualization takes place. This 
 " other " than the individual self which has the ideas must 
 have its say, too, as to what particular ideas shall be actual- 
 ized in it ; and also as to precisely how every such actualiza- 
 tion shall come about. This significant truth the popular 
 language, and science as well, is apt to cover up by speaking 
 of the " nature " of things, of the " laws " which they obey, 
 of the " forces " that reside in them, and of the " causes " 
 that determine the behavior of the things. One cannot make 
 chicory as good for the breakfast table as coffee, no matter 
 how much one may cherish the idea or the will to accomplish 
 this. And not only " if wishes were horses," but also if the 
 
484 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 stones of the highway could be willed to take on the idea of 
 acting like horses, then " beggars might ride." That would 
 be by no means our world, however, whether more nearly 
 like Paradise, or hell, or a fool's dream, than our world is, 
 in which all manner of ideas could get themselves actualized 
 in all manner of real things. All the beings of the world 
 may thus be said to be actualizing their own ideas ; but 
 then they are all also actualizing each other's ideas. Further, 
 most ideas they all refuse either to entertain as actualized by 
 themselves, or to assist each other in actualizing. 
 
 What, however, is the meaning for a true theory of reality 
 of all such language as the foregoing, which although we 
 gave it a figurative turn is substantially that employed by 
 science and by the people at large ? Men talk about things as 
 they do, because their knowledge of things forces them to 
 recognize in things the actualization of ideas. That is to say, 
 the reality of things, like the reality of the self, is intel- 
 ligible only as both are thought to be self-active existences 
 that, in all their changing relations to us and to one another, are 
 controlled by immanent ideas. But the final meaning which 
 the mind is obliged to give to the phrase, " actualized ideas," 
 when this phrase is applied to things, remains essentially 
 unchanged. The displacement of the older physical conception 
 of " brute, inanimate matter," that must somehow have force 
 come on it wholly from without in order to get possessed of 
 the higher forms and potencies that belong to particular 
 things, shows an increased insight into the true nature of 
 things. Like ourselves, all material existences are known 
 in reality to be, and what they are in reality is known to us, 
 only as ideas become " the consciously recognized differentiat- 
 ing principles " of the forces they display ; i. e., of their deeds 
 of will. 
 
 We do not indeed know how far each particular thing 
 man's body, the spinal cord of the decapitated frog, the white 
 blood-corpuscle, the vibrating molecule or atom " electing its 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 485 
 
 affinity" has the power to participate, so to speak, by co- 
 consciousness, in its own different forms of behavior, its own 
 obedience to law, its own adaptation to a variety of ends. 
 We do know that we ourselves, the so-called crowns of in- 
 telligent and self-conscious creation, have this power in only 
 a very partial way. Most of what we do, or seem to do, 
 is actually done for us by One not-ourselves rather than by 
 ourselves, as well as for ourselves. But what we do indubi- 
 tably know is this : Knowledge itself is such, and all objects 
 of knowledge are known to be such, that the conscious 
 recognition of the ideas which differentiate their activities 
 must somehow be assumed in order to explain them. And 
 this fact cannot have its ground solely in our ideas of things ; 
 it must, the rather, have its ground in a reality that is not- 
 ourselves. In a word, we know things only as Some One's 
 " actualized ideas." 
 
 Neither workaday experience, nor science, nor philosophy, 
 can regard things and selves as wholly isolated or separate 
 from one another. Every particular existence, whether it be 
 of some Self or of some Thing, is known only as a part of 
 the total system of selves and things. As what is remote 
 becomes known by spectroscope and telescope, and what is 
 minute by microscope and chemical analysis, this conception 
 of common bonds uniting all particular beings with one vast, 
 mysterious, but interrelated Whole, becomes more clear, more 
 defensible, more exact, more confidently rational. 
 
 But all such progress toward a more perfect knowledge of 
 the world, including man and his historical development, as 
 a Unity of Reality, toward a comprehensive history of the 
 Cosmos in any comprehensible meaning of such words, rests 
 upon the same fundamental assumption. The mind is always 
 dealing with a progressive and interrelated system of actual- 
 ized ideas. And the more it becomes inclined to insist upon 
 the absolute and " uncreate " nature of the totality, the more 
 necessary the assumption becomes. Granted, then, that, 
 
486 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 given matter and force, some " I," some Self, could construct 
 the world. This could never take place unless the Will of 
 such a Self could express itself in the matter and force for the 
 actualization of its own ideas. If the Whole is to be under- 
 stood as self-contained and absolute, this does not exclude, 
 but the rather, of necessity, includes the immanency in that 
 Whole of the requisite formative and differentiating ideas. 
 
 Thus far we have been speaking chiefly of the " actualiza- 
 tion of ideas.' 9 But ideals are somewhat other and more than 
 ideas especially when the ideals are considered as set into 
 reality. Considered as occurrences in some stream of con- 
 sciousness, ideals are essentially like all other ideas. Viewed 
 psychologically, they are products of imagination and thought ; 
 and they may powerfully excite and efficiently guide the will 
 of the man who has them. Thus any man may, in a limited 
 manner at least, actualize his ideals. By an ideal, however, is 
 customarily meant an idea which sustains a different and pe- 
 culiar relation to actuality. Thus understood, an ideal is an 
 idea of what " might be," or " should be," or " ought to be," as 
 distinguished from an idea of what actually is. The peculiar 
 spheres of the ideal are, therefore, supposed to be ethics, art, 
 and religion ; and the actualization of such ideals, so far as 
 they admit of actualization at all, is to be found in conduct, in 
 artistic endeavor, in the religious life. But it does not fall 
 within the scope of this treatise to consider in detail such 
 ideals as these, their nature, origin, or means of realization. 
 
 The student of the theory of knowledge and of systematic 
 metaphysics cannot fail to observe, however, that what men 
 call their surest scientific cognitions, as well as the objects 
 which men esteem most undoubtedly real, are not uninfluenced 
 by human ideals. Indeed, the very conception of Nature, of a 
 Cosmos, of one World of many beings that is constructed out 
 of matter and force, is itself an ideal. It is an idea which, 
 while it rests on a certain solid foundation of knowledge, 
 nevertheless contains not a few thoughts and imaginings as 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 487 
 
 to what " might be," or " ought to be," although it is as yet 
 not known "actually to be." 1 Science cherishes its own 
 ideals. Without these ideals science would not be progres- 
 sive; perhaps it would not exist at all. For human minds 
 would not be spurred or allured on to its conquests; nor 
 would the world of realities seem to meet and to reveal itself 
 to these minds. Science, therefore, no matter how exact in 
 its realism it may aim to be, is always outrunning its own 
 cognitive ideas with the banner of its ideals in its hand. 
 And the strain it thus puts upon imagination and thought, as 
 well as the rewards which it receives from imagination and 
 thought, are little inferior to those which belong to art and 
 to religion. 
 
 Pre-eminently is the modern conception of Nature as an 
 absolute and uncreate Whole, as a Cosmos that has been 
 through countless millions of years in the process of build- 
 ing itself by changing combinations of matter and force, and 
 has thus raised its own fabric to heights of ever greater com- 
 plexity, beauty, and value, a vast and entrancing but un- 
 proved Ideal. Strictly speaking, science does not know, and 
 it never will know, that the Reality corresponds to this con- 
 ception. The conception itself is by no means purely scien- 
 tific ; it is largely the work of the artistic and religious soul 
 of man. Were it not that, as a conception, it so feeds and 
 delights the artistic and the religious aspirations and needs 
 of human nature, we might well enough dismiss it as a mere 
 ideal, a fair fabric of a dreamer's mind. For the concrete 
 realities and the actual occurrences of man's cognitive expe- 
 rience are, in no small number, difficult to harmonize with 
 such an ideal. And science itself discovers more difficulties 
 as its progress marks the solution of some of the older diffi- 
 culties. It is far harder to-day, for example, to accept 
 
 1 Compare the author's " Philosophy of Knowledge," chaps, xri. and xvii. : 
 " The Teleology of Knowledge ; " and " Ethical and ^Esthetical ' Momenta ' of 
 Knowledge." 
 
488 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 unqualifiedly any scheme of evolution than it was when Dar- 
 win first set forth the evidence for his own peculiar scheme. 
 It is far harder to-day to place on sound empirical data a 
 complete theory of the conservation and correlation of energy 
 than it was before the existence of so many mysterious and 
 hitherto occult forms of energy (X-rays, etc.) was demonstrated. 
 
 The constitution and meaning of this community of all 
 particular known existences is at no time wholly clear. 
 We are pleased to call the world a Cosmos, an orderly and 
 rational totality. The older scientific conception was that 
 of a machine, such as physics can understand ; then of a 
 molecular and atomic mechanism ; but the newer scientific 
 conception corresponds rather to the biological ideal of an 
 organism. Innumerable exceptions, which may rightly con- 
 stitute objections, to this view may undoubtedly be noted in 
 every department of scientific knowledge. And perhaps 
 there is much even the far greater part of the World's 
 Being which is never to be understood, or made object of 
 cognition, by mortal man. Nevertheless, the confidence of 
 man in this ideal construction of the totality of selves and 
 things remains undiminished. Nay, it is rather being con- 
 stantly confirmed. That this artistic and religious concep- 
 tion of the world is the true conception, and that the whole 
 vast complex of things and selves, whether now known, or to 
 be known, or forever undiscoverable by man, is a Unity of 
 Reality, the metaphysical system we have been advocating 
 would be the last to deny or contest; for this conception 
 assumes the actuality of the Ideal. 
 
 It is commonly thought that the ethico-religious view of 
 the world its nature, origin, meaning, and destiny makes 
 wholly extraordinary demands on imagination and faith ; it 
 is, therefore, in some peculiar way a piece of anthropomorphic 
 idealizing. This may well enough be emphatically denied. 
 Anthropomorphic such a view certainly is ; but it is not neces- 
 sarily more so than is the current scientific view. Ethics, 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 489 1 
 
 aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion belong to the phi- 
 losophy of the Ideal. But no one of these can be separated 
 from its roots in the concrete realities of man's daily experi- 
 ence, whether with himself or with material things. On the 
 other hand, the so-called scientific ideal of the world as a 
 whole, of nature at large, is by no means wholly based, by 
 strictly valid processes of reasoning, on indubitable cogni- 
 tions of reality. But man, in the unity of his own being, 
 progressively establishes a firmer grasp upon the great truth 
 that this World as a Whole, this Nature written with an 
 impressive capital, is to be understood only as it is the actu- 
 alization, in time, of the Ideal. 
 
 The system of selves and of things, regarded as a total 
 complex of all real existences and of all actual transactions 
 within or between them, is the " actualization of the Ideal." 
 That is to say, the Reality of It as a Whole, as a Unity of 
 some sort, is known and is conceivable only as the actuality 
 of One Will which differentiates its activities according to 
 its own consciously recognized ideas. This system, thus con- 
 sidered as an independent and " uncreate " totality, is cog- 
 nizable, or conceivable, only as an Absolute Self. In saying 
 this we reaffirm the statement which was formerly made as 
 the result of approaching the subject through a detailed criti- 
 cism of the categories. 
 
 Two subordinate problems now require, in conclusion, a 
 more careful consideration. These are, first, the problem 
 involved in the application of the conception of conscious- 
 ness (or of any derived or allied conceptions) to the World 
 as a whole ; and, second, the problem as to the more appro- 
 priate ways of conceiving those relations which exist between 
 this Absolute Self and each one of the particular beings, 
 or between this Absolute Self and the World regarded as a 
 complex of such particular beings. The first of these prob- 
 lems may be briefly despatched in this connection ; both be- 
 cause its answer has already been virtually given or assumed^ 
 
490 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 over and over again, and also because the more important 
 phases of the answer involve the discussion of connected 
 questions in ethics, esthetics, and the philosophy of religion. 
 
 " To be conscious " cannot, as Lotze seems to affirm, be 
 made the equivalent of "to be real;" if, under the concep- 
 tion of consciousness, we include every form and phase of it, 
 -and if we also disregard the different degrees and spheres of 
 reality. Neither is it true, as Hegelism seems to assert, 
 that conceptual thinking (das greifende Denken) is the equiv- 
 alent of all, even of the highest reality. Psychologists need 
 the word " consciousness " for the bare existence of psychic 
 fact, whether such fact be the sensation just arisen above 
 the threshold, or the most obscure form of pleasure-pain, 
 nearly or quite void of cognitive content ; or the forthputting 
 of a simple and uni-motived deed of will. But to realize 
 one's self by one's own cognitive ideas in the pursuit of one's 
 chosen ends, this is precisely what it is for a Self really and 
 truly to be. And reversing this equation, in fidelity to all 
 man's most indubitable experience, it is truth to say: There is 
 no reality knowable or conceivable by man which has not, as 
 its explanation and ground, the reality of a cognitive and 
 self-active Will. 
 
 Let us not deceive ourselves at this point. It is indeed 
 necessary to elevate consciousness above the grade of mere 
 psychic fact in order to find in consciousness the guaranty 
 and necessary characteristic of the presence of reality. There 
 may be many conscious feelings which, considered as mere 
 occurrences, do not signify the reality of existences corre- 
 sponding to them, or even of those " streams of conscious- 
 ness " in which, as psychic facts, the conscious feelings occur. 
 But whatever is not both u of" and " to " some self-active will 
 that is directed by conscious ideas, has no cognizable reality 
 at all ; and to affirm reality of it is to set up the ghost of an 
 abstraction and worship the abstraction as an actualized 
 ideal. 
 
THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 491 
 
 For, here again, the mind of man is not following a doubt- 
 ful chain of argument which by a tedious and endless regressus 
 takes it to seek refuge in the hypothesis of one original infinite, 
 creative Mind. It is, the rather, interpreting, with fuller 
 insight, whatever is about it on every hand, whatever is given 
 to it in every perception of the senses and inference of intel- 
 lect. It is " minding " its own datum. The datum is not a 
 portion of " brute, inanimate matter," or a centre of mere 
 forces, or a mathematical abstraction, or a contentless void. 
 Its datum is a reality, self-active, ceaselessly forming itself in 
 intelligible relations to other beings. Its datum is an actual 
 Thing. 
 
 But every individual thing, as given to man to know, is but 
 a pulse, a temporary throb, in the great life of Nature. In It, 
 this thing and we who observe it " live and move and have 
 our being." And when we give to ourselves and to things 
 these unifying relations to one another and to a common 
 ground, we speak in terms of our own higher self-conscious- 
 ness, as being ourselves self-conscious wills that guide our- 
 selves by consciously accepted ideals. Unless we transfer 
 to nature the meaning which our self-conscious and active, 
 cognitive life imparts to our words, the words themselves 
 are meaningless. Reality that is not grounded in conscious 
 life, or that is not the expression of that life, is no reality, 
 is nought, is not. And there is no trick shabbier, whether 
 employed by science or by philosophy, than to use the terms 
 of such consciousness, apply them to particular things or to 
 the World as a Whole, and then deny the essential import of 
 both terms and their application. 
 
 " Soul is vastly larger than consciousness," says a recent 
 writer l on the " early Sense of Self," and " the highest powers 
 are those that spring from roots that start deepest down in 
 the scale of life. Consciousness is as different from mind as 
 
 1 See a pamphlet on " Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self," by G. 
 Stanley Hall. 
 
492 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 froth is from beer, and the syllabub of some of its exploiters 
 and promoters suggests the mediaeval barber's apprenticeship, 
 which ended when the tyro could make two tierces of foam 
 from two ounces of soap." This is true if it be meant to deny 
 that merely to seem to another to be a sort of centre for the 
 occurrence of psychic facts, bare " consciousness, as such," is 
 not enough to constitute the substance of a real Self. But if 
 it be meant that consciousness in general is to the reality of 
 the Self, or to all Reality, as 4i froth to beer," then nothing 
 further from the profoundest truth of philosophy than this 
 can possibly be said. 
 
 The categories themselves are the essential and unchanging 
 forms of cognitive consciousness ; and they are the necessary 
 forms of all known reality as well. Therefore, we do not 
 have to rise up from reality, or stoop down to reality, in order 
 to find consciousness. Those forms of the actual, without 
 which no Self and no Thing can be, are all forms of Will 
 directed and determined by ideas. So that the progress of 
 human thought is not from the conscious, as a secondary 
 product, or mere advent, to the unconscious as its source or 
 ground. Neither we repeat it once again is the progress 
 of human thought a chain of argument from that which is 
 now unconscious, back to the conscious in some far-off space 
 and remote time. But the movement of reflective thinking 
 is from the phenomenon as it appears, a conscious process in 
 us, to the reality which is our own self-conscious life ; and 
 this same movement of reflective thinking becomes the valid 
 but indirect recognition of that One Reality of whose self- 
 conscious Life both the thing and our self is the manifestation. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 
 
 ANY attempt to specify relations as existing in reality 
 between the world and the Absolute, or (to use the language 
 of religious faith) between the world and God, brings upon 
 the student of systematic metaphysics some of his most diffi- 
 cult problems. But the difficulty which attaches itself to the 
 solution, and even to the discussion, of these problems is not 
 chiefly speculative. If one felt at liberty to argue the case 
 quite irrespective of ethical and religious considerations, one 
 might hope at least to attain a fair amount of consistency in 
 one's opinions, of solidarity in one's system. But to embody 
 in a theory of reality those distinctions which seem to separ- 
 ate the concrete and manifold existences from the Absolute 
 One, is apt to result either in the conception of a world that 
 is devoid of reality, or in the conception of an Absolute that 
 lacks just those characteristics which " absoluteness " necessa- 
 rily requires. While to identify throughout the world and 
 the Absolute too often results in the complete destruction of 
 the most valuable conceptions entertained by men in the inter- 
 ests of morals and religion. 
 
 The history of metaphysical systems shows how often they 
 have divided themselves over the question: What are those 
 relations, in reality, which the world sustains to the Abso- 
 lute ? This same history also shows that the discussion of 
 the question has been accompanied by not a few charges, 
 often acrimonious, against the consequences for conduct and 
 faith which seemed to flow from these different answers. 
 
494 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Pantheism, and a materialistic or an idealistic Monism, has 
 generally been accused by Dualism (whether of the so-called 
 " common-sense " or the philosophic variety) of depreciating 
 the practical interests of mankind. But Dualism has never 
 been able to establish any such conception of the Absolute, or 
 of God as the World-Ground, as would afford a lasting satis- 
 faction to the undeniable speculative interests of human- 
 ity. In general, those systems of metaphysics which have set 
 a high value on consistency of thinking and on a certain solid- 
 arity of speculative conclusions, have espoused a doctrine of 
 the Absolute which appeared to minimize or to destroy the 
 reality of the world of finite selves and finite things. But 
 those systems which have exhibited most tenderness in deal- 
 ing speculatively with particular existences, have been com- 
 paratively lax and unsatisfactory in their doctrine of the 
 Absolute as the alone World-Ground. 
 
 Of late there has arisen an increased insistence on the 
 value, for philosophy, of the permanent emotional and prac- 
 tical considerations. This is, partly, a reaction from the 
 extravagant claims of modern science to furnish all that 
 man needs for the deepest satisfaction of his intellectual 
 curiosity and his practical necessities. It is also, partly, in 
 antagonism to those systems of philosophical Absolutism 
 which satisfied temporarily, but which have already ceased 
 to satisfy. Among them undoubtedly the system of Hegel 
 is most prominent. This attempt at an emotional and prac- 
 tical philosophy is directly born of the agnosticism which 
 followed the Kantian Critique ; although it often expresses 
 scanty respect for as it generally knows little of the 
 meaning of this Critique. Its proposal is thus expressed: 
 " Let us select such few principles of philosophy as best 
 satisfy human feelings and afford the best helps in the life of 
 human conduct ; the others may go, for they are vain logo- 
 machies of mere speculators in metaphysics and theology." 
 To serve as a rallying cry for a new party, as though this 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 495 
 
 metaphysical subterfuge were some nineteenth-century dis- 
 covery, this proposal is called the " philosophy of Pragma- 
 tism," or by some other similar name. To the man of insight 
 it is, however, perfectly clear that this recent attempt is only 
 one among many attempts so to conceive of the relations of 
 finite beings and the Absolute, as to save the ethical and re- 
 ligious concernments involved. So far forth the " philosophy 
 of Pragmatism " is commendable. But inasmuch as this 
 particular proposal lies along the line of getting the largest 
 result from the least amount of reflective thinking, we may 
 well hesitate about calling it philosophy at all. Philosophy 
 yes, even metaphysics is genial and sympathetic; and it 
 may be most tender in its treatment of moral and religious 
 issues. But it seeks the true and the self-consistent. Its 
 method is not that of syncretism. Its issue is not determined 
 when it has pleased men with picturesqueness of imagination 
 and abundance of good feeling; neither does it mistake 
 rhetoric for philosophizing. 
 
 There are certain preliminary considerations drawn from 
 the number of those already discussed, whose bearing upon 
 the problem of this chapter is most important. They are 
 chiefly the following four : First, every stage and every form 
 of human knowledge including that which seems most 
 purely dialectical or philosophic is dependent upon impulses 
 and activities of an emotional and voluntary order. No 
 scientific cognition is free from these impulses ; what is called 
 " science " is never a merely intellectual achievement, never 
 an affair of " pure " reasoning from grounds of unbiased 
 observation by the senses. Knowledge always involves an 
 emotional and active attitude of the entire self toward its 
 object. What the philosopher knows, or thinks he knows, 
 about the Absolute and about its relations to the complex of 
 particular existences, is necessarily and rightly influenced by 
 ethical, aesthetical, and religious feelings and practical neces- 
 sities. This influence, however, does not contribute to the 
 
496 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 exclusion of thinking as thorough, penetrating, and con- 
 sistent as thinking can possibly be made. For if mere think- 
 ing is not knowledge, neither is mere feeling, however noble, 
 nor mere " will to believe," however well intentioned. 
 
 Second : metaphysics is obligated to spend all its construc- 
 tive resources upon the problem of the relations of the world 
 and the Absolute. At this problem it must work diligently 
 and continuously, in the interests of increased clearness, 
 comprehensiveness, and self-consistency. The philosopher 
 -can no more properly relinquish his claim upon this than 
 upon any other important right ; he can no more creditably 
 refuse to discharge this than any other of his most essential 
 obligations. But what is this metaphysics that undertakes to 
 arbitrate a dispute over so difficult problems ? It is only, 
 when finished and at its best, a " theory of reality." Like 
 any other theory it must submit to be tested by the facts of 
 cognitive experience. Now we know that we ourselves do 
 really exist, that other selves really exist, and that non-self- 
 like things exist. All man's knowledge starts from the 
 same roots in his experience with actual selves and actual 
 things. We know also that man is an ethical and religious 
 being (if the words " ethical " and " religious " be defined in 
 accordance with the facts) ; and that some sort of reality, 
 freedom, and scope for hopes, fears, aspiration, etc., toward 
 those ideals with which the philosophy of conduct and of 
 religion deals, must be admitted as belonging among the 
 plainest facts of man's historical development. Metaphysics 
 as a system, as a theory of reality, cannot deny such facts 
 without destroying part of its own foundations in actuality. 
 System is not true, if it leaves these facts out of its ac- 
 count; or if it misrepresents and misinterprets these facts. 
 
 Third : the very use of the words, the world and the 
 Absolute, or the world and God, necessarily implies a duality 
 of conceptions. The World and the Absolute, the World 
 -and God, the very proposal to argue as to the more precise 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 497 
 
 meaning of this terminology, implies some sort of relatedness 
 between two conceptions. Even if the conclusion of the argu- 
 ment be some scheme to identify the two throughout, the 
 affirmation that the world is the Absolute, is God, we do 
 not escape the use of the category of relation. The world = 
 the Absolute ; a+b+c+d . . . oo = X, is an equation ; and 
 the idea of an " equation " is a relation. Or if it be con- 
 cluded that these two are only different aspects of the One 
 Reality, different ways of expressing essentially the same 
 truth, still the mind is obliged to consider how these " as- 
 pects " (these " ways of regarding and expressing ") them- 
 selves stand related. 
 
 And, fourth, under the term Absolute we cannot under- 
 stand, much less conceive of, the absolutely " Unrelated." 
 Neither knowledge, nor imagination, nor thought, nor envis- 
 agement of any kind, can present the mind of man with that 
 which is out of all relations. The path to such being lies 
 neither through mental representation, nor " intellectual in- 
 tuition," nor vague emotion, nor dialectical process, nor infer- 
 ence. Conjecture and logic, fancy and faith, are equally 
 impotent here. Neither is the Absolute to be brought before 
 the mind as the Unrelated, in the form of a so-called " nega- 
 tive conception." For even to negate is to relate, and negation 
 is itself a relation ; nay, it is often a complex of more or less 
 important relating judgments, all of which have a positive 
 content of definite relations. 
 
 If by " the Absolute " it is meant to cover a unity which 
 has no relations outside of its " self," as is sometimes so 
 significantly said ; even then, and all the more emphatically, 
 the mind is dwelling upon certain internal relations that 
 define in terms of experience the absoluteness of the Being to 
 which the word must be applied. Could this conception be 
 so reduced as to make it the equivalent of Nought ; even then 
 the mind would not be conceiving of the Unrelated, in a 
 merely negative fashion. For " nought " is related to any 
 
 32 
 
498 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 particular one, or to the sum-total of particulars, as its oppo- 
 site, as that which is not what the other is. Nought itself is 
 not conceived of as the absolutely unrelated. The swelling 
 of vague feeling, the stirring of inchoate apprehensions, 
 and even the sensuous appreciation of merely physiological 
 changes, which is produced in some minds by this word when 
 writ large and begun with a capital, are all forms of the 
 being in relation to us of that for which the word is made to 
 stand. Mere size has nothing to do with the solution of the 
 problem of the nature and relations of Absolute Being. 
 
 " A sphere is but a sphere ; 
 Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here ; 
 Since to the spirits' absoluteness all 
 Are like." 
 
 Any theory of reality which grasps firmly and holds con- 
 sistently to these four propositions will find the task of out- 
 lining the relations of the world and the Absolute by no 
 means hopeless from the start. It is indeed a task which 
 cannot be accomplished even to the temporary satisfaction of 
 the individual thinker, without invoking the manifold helps 
 of ethics, aesthetics, and religion. For the ethical character, 
 and the artistic skill, and the loving sovereignty of the 
 Absolute, are in the world of particular existences, because of 
 the relations in which the Absolute eternally stands to this 
 world. And when men get the clearer light upon these 
 relations, and so the deeper and finer insight into the nature 
 of the Absolute, they call Him God, and worship and serve 
 Him as their Divine Redeemer and Friend. This is because 
 they then know the Absolute as so related to all selves and to 
 all things that He is the inspirer, the source and the type of 
 all that is really good, in conduct, art, and religion. The 
 relation of the Absolute to the world is then recognized as 
 that of the holy, all-beautiful, and all-worshipful One to the 
 multitude of particular beings who have their life and their 
 reality only as being " in Him." 
 
THE WORLD AND THE^ABSOLUTE 499 
 
 While speculative philosophy cannot fill out, with such 
 richness of content and practical helpfulness, the conception 
 of the Absolute, it can have something to say that does not 
 leave this conception in the "death-kingdom" of mere ab- 
 stractions. The Absolute is, indeed, known to the most pro- 
 found of metaphysicians only as " in " the world and as 
 " related to " the world. For the speculative thinking of the 
 philosopher, as truly as for the " plain man's consciousness," 
 the World-Ground can never be identified with the Unrelated. 
 
 It will be the purpose of this closing chapter of a theory of 
 reality that is not complete in itself but that only lays the 
 foundations upon which ethics, art, and religion, may build 
 their, superstructure, briefly to define its fundamental position 
 respecting the relations of the Absolute and the World. Its 
 position, in a word, is this : all the relations that exist 
 amongst the particular existences of the world have their 
 Ground in the Being of the Absolute ; and all these relations 
 are but concrete and particular instances of that all-embracing 
 relation in which the Absolute stands to the world as being its 
 Ground. There are no relations conceivable, or possible, that 
 do not have their sources and the guaranty of their actuality 
 in the Absolute ; and this eternal and unchangeable relation 
 to the world includes and explains all particular relations. 
 
 In illustrating this view, however, no one of the four truths 
 which have already been stated must be left out of the 
 account. The reality of the world, considered as a complex 
 of actually existing selves and things, must not be denied or 
 minimized. The actuality of the relations, or terms of relating, 
 under which human knowledge brings together this world and 
 its absolute Ground, must also be held in good faith. Never 
 for an instant must the thinker deceive himself by trying 
 mentally to represent the Absolute as the equivalent of the 
 absolutely "Unrelated." And, in the work of elaborating 
 theory, the interests of ethical and religious emotions and 
 practical needs must not be left unsatisfied. 
 
500 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Theoretical views as to the relations of finite beings to the 
 Absolute commonly err in one of two directions. They give 
 meanings to the terms they employ for summarizing these 
 relations which do not agree well with the conclusions of a 
 critical and sympathetic analysis of the categories ; or they 
 assume, by employing some one or more of such terms, to 
 exhaust the entire content of the complete philosophical doc- 
 trine of these relations. Thus, on the one hand, their use of 
 words does not correspond to the true and ultimate values of 
 the words themselves, as these values are determined by 
 metaphysical criticism and as they have their proper place in 
 metaphysical system ; or on the other hand, the conclusions 
 they reach, while true so long as they are held to be incom- 
 plete and partial, become false when considered as complete 
 and all inclusive. 
 
 Suppose, for example, that the relation between the totality 
 of finite existences and the Absolute is resolved into identity, 
 or into some form of emanation. The complex of known and 
 knowable particular beings is made indistinguishable from the 
 Absolute ; the many, regarded collectively as the All, is self- 
 same with the One. The World is the Absolute ; and by the 
 Absolute we mean the All-One. This is what is generally un- 
 derstood by pantheism, in its simplest and crudest form. Or, 
 again, the complex of known and knowable beings emanates, 
 either as a timeless procedure or throughout unending time, 
 from the Absolute, its Ground. The process of becoming 
 which the world exhibits to us is a sort of necessary " drawing 
 forth" of particular beings from the inscrutable but univer- 
 sal source of them all. Being in general, by a mechanical 
 process, becomes particular beings, etc. Now customarily both 
 these, and all similar views, show a complete lack of lucidity 
 and speculative value, while they make sad havoc with 
 practical interests, unless the conceptions fundamental to 
 them have been critically examined and accurately defined. 
 What is meant by " identity," or " emanation," as specifying 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 501 
 
 relations that actually exist between the world and the 
 Absolute ? The answer to this and to all similar questions, 
 can be satisfactory only when the search for it has taken us 
 back to the criticism of the categories. 
 
 To restate the conclusion to which the valid necessities of 
 metaphysical system seem to impel reflective thinking: All 
 the fundamental relations which man's cognitive experience 
 recognizes as existing between the different beings selves 
 and things of the world have their Ground in the Abso- 
 lute ; they only serve the more fully to define and enrich 
 the conception of that manifold of relations in which all 
 beings stand to Him. For He is not the Unrelated, but the 
 source, the guaranty, the actuality of all relations. This 
 general position, with its affirmations and its cautions, we 
 may now illustrate as applied to certain selected instances. 
 These instances will be taken from three main classes of 
 relations. 
 
 The most fundamental and comprehensive of all is that 
 relation or, perhaps, it ought rather to be said, that com- 
 plex of relations which exists between the knowing subject 
 and his object, between the knower and what is known. This 
 relation it is whose fulfilment unites cognition and reality in 
 a living oneness of experience ; or better said this 
 relation is cognition considered as an actual commerce be- 
 tween realities that are u moments " of one Reality. 1 All 
 particular instances of this peculiar relation of subject and 
 object in knowledge have their source and final explanation 
 in the being and activity of the Absolute ; and the relation 
 between the universal complex of things and selves, on the 
 one hand, and the Absolute, on the other hand, is the relation 
 of the knowing subject to his object. To say, God is omni- 
 scient he perfectly knows all things, and all selves, and all 
 transactions within or between them is to affirm that the 
 
 1 Compare the conclusions to which the author comes in the later chapters of 
 the " Philosophy of Knowledge." 
 
502 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 world is actually in relation to the Absolute Subject as his 
 object. 
 
 The truth that all beings, their relations, and their transac- 
 tions, are objects for the Absolute as subject, is not a matter 
 merely of theological speculation or of purely religious faith ; it 
 follows indisputably just so soon as we understand those impli- 
 cates concerning the constitution and regular modes of the 
 behavior of Reality which metaphysical criticism detects and 
 explains. For we have seen that such criticism establishes 
 the conception of the world as self-explanatory, so to speak, 
 only when it affirms the selfhood of the world. No single 
 real thing, and no actual individual self can become an object 
 of knowledge except in so far as it is able to make the knower 
 recognize in it, too, the fundamental characteristics of self- 
 hood. It is as centres of an activity which is self -differentiat- 
 ing in ideal forms and in the pursuit of ideal ends, that 
 things become objects of knowledge for us. If now the dis- 
 tinction is made real between the mere complex of all objects 
 of knowledge and that unifying principle which makes them 
 all something quite other than a mere complex, the world 
 must be regarded as standing in the relation of objects to this 
 principle, the one Subject for them all. Or, in other words, 
 a real unity, embracing all known and knowable objects, 
 can be maintained only in the cognitive consciousness of the 
 Being for whom, as subject, the particular realities are the 
 objects. 
 
 If now one wishes to raise the conception of the relation of 
 object and subject, as really existing between the world and 
 the Absolute, to its highest terms, this result can be achieved 
 in only one way. The perfection of the conception of such a 
 relation is realized in that most complete grasp which the 
 knowing Self has upon the here-and-now being of its own 
 self. "The knowledge of things remains (for us) an analogi- 
 cal interpretation of their apparent behavior into terms of 
 a real nature corresponding, in important characteristics, to 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 503 
 
 But "the knowledge of Self may attain an 
 intuitive penetration to the heart of Reality." Therefore 
 this " immediate knowledge of the Self by itself is, in actual- 
 ity, the realized ideal of knowledge." Nor can the Abso- 
 lute sustain to all finite beings those relations which its 
 own conception demands of it, unless it be conceived of 
 as realizing eternally and perfectly such an ideal of 
 knowledge. 
 
 It is customary for those who take the lower and unphiloso- 
 phical point of view to regard this vast universe, with all its 
 beings and the innumerable transactions and changing relations 
 amongst them, as an " object" indeed, but as an object that is 
 conceivably separable from the reality of any conscious subject, 
 whose object it is. Thus the student of nature transports 
 himself through countless ages of time to some lofty point of 
 view from which to survey the construction of the greater 
 Whole ; or he imagines what an unlimited increase of " inter- 
 iorness " and penetrating insight would show to him concern- 
 ing the hidden constitution of particular things. So and so it 
 all went on, when as yet no conscious mind existed ; when 
 matter was wholly " brute and inanimate ; " when the eternal 
 atoms were just stirring themselves for their everlasting task 
 of building all things as man knows them now to have been 
 evolved in the past. This world is, although in embryo, 
 to be sure ; but it is no object for a subject, because It has not 
 yet given birth to a subject ; the dawn of subjectivity out of the 
 objective chaos is yet to come. Only the bare Being of Matter 
 and Force is assumed to be " on hand ; " only actual crude 
 " stuff " and abstract forms and laws are as yet real. But they 
 are going henceforth, without any assistance from ideas, to 
 make a world in which ideating beings shall finally come to 
 exist. And of these, the observer is one, whose ideas, or 
 purely subjective processes, have arrived at the power to 
 represent in consciousness the true objective procedure of the 
 -self-building World. This, however, is absurd. 
 
504 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Who can deny, however, that the picture which the well- 
 equipped student of nature draws, with most profuse use of the 
 written or spoken word, is itself the object of his own thinking, 
 feeling, willing Self ? This picture, surely, has its only reality 
 in being object for him as its subject ; when it ceases to be as 
 the construct of its particular subject, it ceases from being 
 actual at all. But the world that is not identical in existence 
 with the picture, and of which the picture is assumed to be 
 representative, does not thus come into being and pass away 
 in dependence upon this individual subject. What existence 
 can it have, however, that is knowable or conceivable, in 
 complete independence of a cognitive mind ? The pictures 
 which some other mind, in the present scientific age, draws of 
 this same world, or the pictures which the students of nature 
 will be able to draw in the far-off future when natural science 
 is greatly increased, are in like manner dependent for their 
 existence each one upon some subject-Self. But what is 
 the bond that unites the true factors of all the separate trans- 
 itory pictures of the world, and thus constructs a possible 
 knowledge of the world that is completely and absolutely 
 true ? There can be no such bond except the activity of the 
 Absolute, considered as standing to the world in the relation 
 of a knowing Subject for which all the particular real beings 
 and actual transactions are the object. 
 
 In vain does the mind attempt to escape this conclusion by 
 regarding the world that really was before it became the 
 object of some cognitive subject, as mere Unity of Force or 
 blind Will (after the fashion of Mr. Spencer or of Schopen- 
 hauer). For the entire course of our past argument has 
 shown that Reality can neither be conceived of, nor can act- 
 ually be, mere Force or mere Will, formless and helpless, 
 because possessing no principles of self-differentiating as 
 essential to its own actualizing. Moreover, a Unity of Reality, 
 even when conceived of in the most meagre of terms, is still act- 
 ualized only as object for some subject. A known or con- 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 505 
 
 ceivable world, cannot exist as a total Real, except as the 
 object of an Absolute Subject, an omniscient mind. 
 
 The Absolute, then, is related to all finite beings as the 
 subject is related to the immediate object of its cognitive 
 consciousness. If one chooses to retain terms that are mean- 
 ingless unless translated into conscious experiences one may 
 say : The World, considered as Absolute, stands to the World 
 considered as a mere complex of individual existences, in the 
 relation of an omniscient subject to its total object. But 
 translated into the language of experience this means ; God 
 knows all that is, and is done, in the world, as the Self 
 knows its own being, here and now present to itself. In a 
 word, the doctrine of the Divine omniscience, as applied to 
 the totality of actual existences, follows from the doctrine of 
 the true nature of knowledge and from the valid theory of 
 reality as established by a criticism of the categories. But 
 that class of relations which may be summarized by the 
 terms, subject and object, does not exhaust the conception of 
 relations as actually existing between the world and the 
 Absolute. 
 
 And when the metaphysician limits his ontology to the dis- 
 cussion of the tenet, that the complex of concrete and 
 particular existences has its reality in the cognitive con- 
 sciousness of the World-Ground, no matter how skilfully or 
 comprehensively he frames this tenet, he is sure to controvert 
 important facts and principles which are deeply rooted in man's 
 experience with himself. No reality is fully described or 
 exhaustively defined, as existing solely under the relation of 
 knowing subject to object known. The very terms, subjective 
 and objective, afford only the barest frame work for actualiz- 
 ing those manifold relations in which I stand to myself and 
 to the rest of the world. This framework requires to be 
 filled in with all the concrete conditions of actuality, with 
 which compliance must be had in order to win a just claim 
 to a place in the ranks of the realities. 
 
506 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 The world is related to the Absolute as particular realities 
 are related to the One Reality which is their common Ground. 
 The relation of the phenomenon to the actuality whose 
 phenomenon, or manifestation, it is, furnishes warrant only for 
 so much of truth as there is in the doctrine of M&ya. If the 
 mind dwells on this relation as a truth, it is impressed with 
 the illusory and transitory nature of all things and of all souls. 
 They and we are alike appearances phenomena. To our- 
 selves, we and they seem but as matters of a day. Each 
 individual existence is cloud, smoke, vapor, that " appeareth 
 for a little time and then vanisheth away." So the Self 
 betimes appears to itself ; and this is the manifestation, in one 
 set of its real aspects, of his own being to every thoughtful 
 man. But " of " what is this manifestation ? It is of the 
 Self, as well as to the Self. It is one of my ways of making 
 my reality known to itself. As we have seen (chap, ii.) the 
 actuality of the Self is implied in the appearance as indubitably 
 as is its phenomenal character. Thus, too, the whole complex 
 of selves and things may be regarded as a gross sum of appear- 
 ances ; the world is smoke and vapor and cloud a succes- 
 sion of phantoms in a purely subjective space and time. And 
 " we are moving shadow shapes." Yes, this is one real aspect 
 of the world, to which it pleases thought at times to direct 
 attention. It has its own value and its own truth. But again 
 the question returns : Of what Reality is this world of appear- 
 ances the phenomenon ? To say : " It is mere phenomenon, 
 bare, ungrounded and uncaused succession of appearances," 
 involves the mind in such absurdity that its degree cannot be 
 measured in words, or stated otherwise than in terms which 
 confute it. The world must, then, be considered as the suc- 
 cession of appearances, or of phenomena, whose actuality is 
 the eternal Being of the Absolute. 
 
 It is the actuality of this relation between individual exist- 
 ences, considered as manifestations, and the Absolute considered 
 as their real Ground, which gives to ethics, to art, and to religion 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 507 
 
 much of their appropriate terminology. Conscience is " the 
 voice " of God. The beauties and grandeur of nature evince 
 a Divine beauty and sublimity. Manifestation, revelation, 
 the " appearance " of Deity in some specific form, are concep- 
 tions which grow out of the roots of this genuine and thoroughly 
 philosophic as well as universally human idea. The Absolute 
 is the hidden, the unmanifested One ; and philosophy has made 
 the vain attempt to consider Him as the " Unrelated." But 
 now, on the contrary, all things and all selves, in their mutual 
 relations and historic progress, are significant of that wealth of 
 relations in which the Absolute stands to all the phenomenally 
 real. The world in the most comprehensive possible use 
 of that word is God's appearance, his self-revelation, his 
 " phenomenon." 
 
 And to all particular processes of change, as well as to the 
 specific principles of becoming which, as men figuratively say, 
 " rule over " these processes, the Absolute stands in the rela- 
 tion of the One Principle, or Source, of all Becoming. In dis- 
 cussing the category of change (chap, vi.) it was seen that 
 unprincipled and unregulated change mere change cannot 
 afford any account of the being and development of the system 
 of minds and things. The very claim to reality, made by any 
 particular mind or thing, implies that the changes which it 
 undergoes are under the control of principles of becoming. 
 So that it is impossible to speak of the world as a vast col- 
 lection of unrelated and unsystematized changes, or of its 
 history as a mere succession of changing states that happen 
 without reference to any principles of change. What the 
 mind of man knows as the result of growth in experience, and 
 more specifically and comprehensively as the result of the 
 advance of science, is this : Things change in a mutually 
 determining way. Looked at as a passivity or receptivity in 
 things, they may be said to obey the laws of the various 
 becomings which are induced in them. Looked at as an activ- 
 ity or endeavor of things, they may be said to be always reach- 
 
508 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 ing out after new and perhaps, in most cases, improved 
 forms of manifesting what they are, and what they can do. 
 But looked at as both passive and active, the totality of things 
 constitutes a world of changes, a sort of system of becomings ; 
 so that we may indicate, however imperfectly and dimly, an 
 important truth of fact by saying : " The World is becoming 
 thus and so ; " or " the World is changing in the direction of 
 this or that idea, which sets to its course of changes a sort of 
 goal." 
 
 This idea of a system of changes, or becomings, which falls 
 under a relatively few fundamental laws, or supreme control- 
 ling principles, is the essential factor in the modern doctrine 
 of evolution. It is so, whether that doctrine take the more 
 definitively scientific shape as, for example, in biological 
 evolution or be more speculatively constructed as a com- 
 prehensive philosophical tenet. Darwin and Spencer, Weiss- 
 mann and Schopenhauer, alike aim at the discovery of the 
 unchanging principles of all changes, the absolutes that are in 
 relation to the becomings, as giving to the different forms of 
 becoming their inciting and inhibiting ideas. But when the 
 thought of man has reached the heights of pride and ambition 
 necessary for the attempt to comprehend the Source of all 
 these principles in the Being of the World, then the category 
 of identity can by no means be made to fill the place of the 
 category of relation. Mere processes of becoming, as such, 
 however few in number and widely distributed over the realm 
 of minds and things, do not afford an explanation of them- 
 selves. They are still only descriptive history or romantic 
 story of the order of the phenomena ; they constitute neither 
 a true cognition, nor a defensible theory, of Reality. The 
 principles of becoming must, indeed, belong to the beings that 
 undergo the processes of becoming; for principles are not 
 themselves entities foreign to the realities which recognize 
 and observe the principles. But when all changes are referred 
 in thought to a Unity of Reality, all becomings to some one 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 509 
 
 Principle that determines them all, the conception of this 
 Unity, of this one Principle, is given an absoluteness which 
 does not belong to the changes, as such. 
 
 In other words, all evolutionary theory conceives of the 
 world and the Absolute as standing in the relations of a vast 
 complex of coexistent and successive changes to a Ground 
 that somehow decides what these changes shall be, but does 
 not Itself change. All the becomings, taken in their rela- 
 tions to each other of time, space, and causation = a world 
 that is becoming, a system of minds and things that are 
 connected together in a process of development. The princi- 
 ple of all these becomings, considered as the ideal source of 
 them all, and as giving the laws and forms, and setting the 
 goals, for them all = the unchanging Absolute. This Abso- 
 lute, then, stands to the world in the fixed relation of an ideal 
 Principle of Becoming to all the particular changes which 
 take place, however caused when regarded from the scientific 
 point of view, in all space, and throughout all time. 
 
 What sort of a real being the Absolute must be, in order to 
 constitute the sole, ultimate principle of becoming, has been 
 made clear by all our previous discussion. Only an Absolute 
 Self, whose essential and unchanging characteristics are those 
 of a rational and free Spirit, can fulfil the required conditions. 
 When, then, the evolution of all particular beings, minds and 
 things, is referred to this Spirit as its Ground, it is not meant 
 that the Absolute is either identical throughout with the sum- 
 total of the processes of change, or that the Absolute is itself 
 undergoing a process of becoming. What is most fitly meant 
 cannot be discussed in detail without appeal to the facts and 
 principles of ethics, aesthetics and religion. But the concep- 
 tion afforded by our theory of reality shows how God may be 
 at the same time neither separate from the world, as though 
 he had left it to itself, nor identified with the world consid- 
 ered merely as a system and unending course of changes. 
 
 The advocate of that form of metaphysics which is called 
 
510 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 " common-sense dualism," or " physical realism," is apt at this 
 point to interpose an objection. To regard the Absolute, he 
 says, as " manifested " in all the complex of finite spirits and 
 things, or as standing to this complex in the ideal relation of a 
 " principle " of becoming, tends to render the world ghostly 
 and unreal. On the contrary, as tested by the standards of 
 cognitive experience, the Absolute is to be considered as a 
 " manifestation " of finite spirit, a " phenomenon " of human 
 development, a process of ideation and abstraction within the 
 consciousness of the individual man. There is truth on the 
 side of this objection, so long as these terms " manifesta- 
 tion," " phenomenon," and " revelation," or the like are 
 held, even seemingly, to exhaust the content of the relation* 
 of the totality of finite beings and the Absolute. But the es- 
 sential point in the theory of reality we are maintaining is 
 precisely this : All relations have their Ground in the Unity 
 of Reality, whose name, for religion, is " Almighty God." Just 
 as relation must itself be considered as the " mother " of all 
 the categories, so the Reality which is known under the terms 
 of all these categories is the source and the actualization of all 
 the fundamental relations covered ly the categories. 
 
 It is through terms expressive of " force," " causation," etc., 
 that the actuality which seems lacking to the more obviously 
 ideal forms of relation is given back to the world of finite 
 spirits and finite things. It is as " centres of force," and as 
 being themselves capable of exercising causative influences 
 upon each other and of standing in causal relations, that finite 
 spirits and finite things are considered real. When things 
 are conceived of as only manifestations of an underlying or 
 an over-ruling reality, they appear to have only an ideal ex- 
 istence. Finite spirits and finite things evince their reality by 
 doing something to each other, according to the amount and 
 kind of force which is in them, and under those observed 
 formulas, or laws, which describe the ideal terms on which the 
 doing takes place. 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 511 
 
 So, too, can the Absolute himself vindicate a claim to reality 
 and establish a clear title to be somewhat more than a con- 
 ception, only by an exercise of force, only by being a source 
 and a principle of all causal relations. The relations of the 
 Absolute to the world must be actualized in terms of force \ 
 the One Cause must interpenetrate and make real all so- 
 named " causal " relations. This is what philosophy inter- 
 prets modern science to mean when it regards the various 
 forms of the conservation and correlation of energy as apper- 
 taining to one Force. This is what philosophy understands 
 science to assert when it declares the quantum of this energy 
 to be unchanging. The different, otherwise separate, and 
 otherwise unreal existences are thus bound together into an 
 actual, as distinguished from a merely conceptual, unity ; for 
 they share -together in the bountiful distribution of this one 
 Force. 
 
 Indeed, even the ghostliest and most abstract terms which 
 thought can employ to designate hypothetical relations' 
 amongst things have any significance only as they hint at 
 the realization of man's ideas of force and of causation. No- 
 thing can enter into any relation with anolher thing, or have 
 any relation entered into with itself by other things, except in 
 so far as it is the possessor and the distributor of force, the 
 partner in a causal transaction. In believing this, the mind 
 is not juggling with its own terms. Even the most obscure 
 and evanescent manifestation implies both the energy to- 
 make it, and the energy to react upon it. Only forces can 
 be the responsible sources of phenomena. In truth, the 
 relation between the thing and its manifestation, between the 
 actuality and the phenomenon, is the most original and typical 
 instance of the causal relation. The essence of causation is 
 the relation of appearances to " that-which " is real. In 
 reality, no phenomenon causes, or accounts for, another phe- 
 nomenon, both being considered as mere phenomena ; it is- 
 always reality that energizes to produce its own appropriate 
 
512 
 
 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 phenomenon. The source of the causal relation is in the 
 mutually inciting and reciprocally limiting activity of things. 
 
 But no individual being is possessed of inhibited, unre- 
 lated, or unlimited, force ; neither soul nor thing is a cause 
 of any change, not even of its own most peculiar and dis- 
 tinguishing phenomenon, in a perfect independence of all 
 other souls and things. All manifestations of energy in mind 
 and in matter are relative and dependent. They sustain in- 
 escapable relations to the constitution of the being whose 
 energy they manifest ; and this constitution is itself a child of 
 nature, a derived being, dependent upon relations and 
 activities whose existence and exercise lie beyond any par- 
 ticular being's control. Give and take, act and be acted upon ; 
 this is the law for all concrete and individual existences. 
 Thus they actually are, relatively independent and yet ab- 
 solutely dependent; they are self-centred only so long as 
 they both continue to act from this centre and also to find 
 this centre reacted upon. " Have thy force in thyself, at 
 thy own command ; be really a force " such is the horta- 
 tion which proceeds from the very nature of the Absolute 
 Himself. But this hortation can in no wise abrogate the 
 truth that in the same Absolute, we and all things " live, 
 move, and have our being." 
 
 Considered, then, as relatively independent existences, all 
 selves and things have only a being derived from, and de- 
 pendent upon, the Absolute Being of God. All their reality 
 is related to Him, who is the alone absolute Reality, as to its 
 source or ground. All the forces which they exercise, and of 
 which they seem to be possessed, are dependency related to 
 the one inexhaustible source of energy ; to the Being of the 
 Absolute regarded as omnipotent Will. Every individual 
 display of energy, however originating in that complex of 
 changes which is known as the actual history of the world, 
 has this twofold character : it is at the same time an energy 
 of the things concerned, and so to be classified as JT(heat), 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 513 
 
 or E (electricity) or M (magnetism), as having the quantity 
 x, or ^, and as due to a concurrence of relating circumstances 
 comprised under the formulas m or n ; but it is also the ever- 
 present energy of the Absolute, to which all the forms of 
 energy known by the particular sciences are dependently 
 related, as having in IT alone their source and their ground. 
 When the thing acts, God acts. Where the energies stored 
 in the different portions of matter are, there is the immanent 
 and omnipotent Will of God. 
 
 Nor can the being and self-activity of particular selves be 
 considered as otherwise related to the Being and Will of the 
 Absolute. We, too, have life, motion, and being, " in Him." 
 Even when I will to assert my independence of the compelling 
 power of my physical environment, or if you please to 
 resist and to defy the power of the Almighty, this assertive, 
 resisting, and defiant will of mine is not for an instant able to 
 render itself independent of its source. The source of my will- 
 power is the source of all power ; it is the Will of the Absolute. 
 
 How, then it is asked with commendable eagerness 
 can the freedom and true personality of man be maintained 
 in such a way as to conserve the inseparable and invaluable 
 interests of ethics and of religion ? The question is perti- 
 nent and important. No theory of reality which does not 
 provide positively for its satisfactory answer, or at least 
 refrain from making such an answer impossible, can long 
 stand the test of man's inclusive experience. For the facts 
 on which the interests of ethics and religion repose are as 
 undoubted and as significant as are any of the facts affirmed 
 by experience. In truth, there is no small reason for the 
 belief that knowledge itself reaches the fulfilment of its own 
 highest significance as a means to right conduct and to the 
 life of religious faith and devotion. That knowledge cannot be 
 attained, or critically considered, without emphasizing its own 
 quasi-ethical constituents and implications, we have else- 
 where shown with sufficient detail. 
 
 33 
 
A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 The problem of the relations sustained by the human will, 
 to the will of the Absolute, does, indeed, belong more speci- 
 fically to the philosophy of ethics and of religion. It cannot 
 be satisfactorily discussed by general metaphysics, as apart of 
 the analytic, critical, and systematic treatment of the categories. 
 Metaphysics, however, has a certain preparatory work to 
 accomplish with reference to the later treatment of this prob- 
 lem. Two or three of its principal points of view may properly 
 be emphasized here: And, first, it is the forms, laws, and 
 ideal ends, of any particular existence which define the more 
 precise nature of the relations sustained by each such exis- 
 tence to that Absolute Being in whom they all have their 
 ground. Dependent on Him ceaselessly and without excep- 
 tion, all beings actually are ; but different beings actualize in 
 far different ways their general relation of dependence. The 
 forms, laws and ideal ends realized by the dependence of 
 human selves upon the Absolute Self are, in fact, far different 
 from the forms, laws, and ideal ends of the lower animals, 
 or of material things. Here theory cannot controvert facts ; 
 here it is pre-eminently necessary that theory should be based 
 upon facts. The formal conditions of man's relations to 
 God and to the external world are not the same as those which 
 control the relations of things to one another and to God. The 
 laws of the human psychical life are not a mere repetition of 
 physical laws or of the laws of the psychical life of the lower 
 animals. And men do select for themselves, and do actually 
 follow, ideal ends that never appear in the consciousness of the 
 lower animals, and are never obviously served by the behavior 
 of things. . In the case of man pre-eminently and perhaps 
 also in the case of the lower animals, each individual in the 
 species attains a position in reality which is dependent upon 
 its own will ; and in the case of man, u will " means a more 
 or less highly developed power of choosing his own forms,, 
 laws, and final purposes. Thus man reaches a high degree 
 of relative independence, a sphere or, if you will, an 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 515 
 
 amount, of reality which belongs to him alone among all 
 known finite existences. But this does not take the human 
 species, or the individual man out of the system of finite 
 beings ; nor does it for a moment break the thread which 
 tics him in dependence to the Will of the Absolute. 
 
 Second, there is not necessarily any more contradiction 
 involved in this so-called " double aspect" of the relations of 
 man to God, than is involved in the consideration of all parti- 
 cular existences from both the scientific and the ultimate, or 
 metaphysical, points of view. Two of H unite with one of to 
 form the compound H 2 "because of" the laws of chemical 
 affinity and u because of" the relations into which the H and 
 are brought by the compelling forces of their environment, 
 temperature, pressure, induced molecular activities, etc. 
 But the chemical is not the entire explanation of such a transac- 
 tion in reality. Really, H 2 and come together in this 
 way, because u it is their nature to ; " the ultimate explana- 
 tion takes into the account the mysterious being of these 
 elements as a primary postulate, a precondition of all the 
 forms and laws of their reciprocal behaviors. Now, from 
 philosophy's point of view this is essentially no other than the 
 position : H and behave in this way because it is the Will of 
 the Absolute that they should so behave. Metaphysics cannot 
 consider the " nature of things " as something bestowed upon 
 them, in the lump and once for all as it were. Thus is all 
 scientific cognition forced virtually to acknowledge a mysteri- 
 ous metaphysical aspect of things, a primal and original being 
 which they have, in immediate dependence upon the All-Being 
 whose will they express. Whether any fitting terms can be 
 found to express these two aspects of the activity of human 
 wills without destroying either the truths of fact or the truth 
 of metaphysical theory, remains to be seen. But should wo 
 be forced to accept both aspects, and yet continue to regard the 
 details of a reconciliation as hidden among the mysteries of 
 Absolute Being, the way of God's will with the will of man 
 
516 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 would not be the only ultimate mystery. The way of our 
 own wills we know, within certain limits, most clearly and 
 indubitably. This it is the business of psychology and of the 
 philosophy of ethics to expound. The general relation of the 
 Will of God to this our will follows from the most primary and 
 necessary tenets of systematic metaphysics. But the particu- 
 lar forms, laws, and final purposes, of this relation afford a 
 complex problem which must be approached from many 
 points of view, and the complete solution of which may 
 baffle man's inquiries forever. To regard God as sometimes 
 compelling, sometimes openly persuading or alluring, some- 
 times directing by special revelations, and sometimes " leav- 
 ing man to himself" is to employ figures of speech that are 
 not without much to commend them in all human experience. 
 It is these relations of force and causation sustained by 
 manifold particular existences to absolute and supreme Being, 
 that religion has emphasized in various ways. Thus, in its 
 cruder forms it has regarded the gods as puissant centres of 
 more than ordinary effective and wide-spreading forces, on 
 whose action the well-being of man and the phenomena 
 of nature are dependent ; in its higher forms, it has regarded 
 the alone God as the Almighty, the Omnipotent One. It has 
 employed such terms as " Creator," " Preserver," or " De- 
 stroyer," " El-Shaddai," the " Lord of Hosts," to designate 
 the permanent relations of this class which exist between 
 the world and the Absolute. In the form of pious feeling, 
 it has acknowledged the dependence of the will of the good 
 man, for every good deed, upon the Divine Will ; and grati- 
 tude for the bounties of harvest and vintage, as well as for 
 insight into the truths of nature, of philosophy, and of poli- 
 tics, has characterized the temper of the wise of all ages. 
 Nor have these spontaneous proofs of the absolute depend- 
 ence of all finite existences, forces, and causes, upon the Will 
 of God been allowed wholly to submerge those ethical con- 
 victions of responsibility, and of the rational character of 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 517 
 
 approbation and disapprobation, which emphasize the relative 
 independence of the human will. 
 
 The third main class of relations which experience com- 
 pels us to affirm as actually existent between the world and 
 the Absolute is yet more obviously derived from man's 
 highest ideals. These relations are such as exist between 
 conscious mind and the expression, or manifestation, of its 
 ideas in some form of actuality. More abstractly denned, 
 they are summed up in the general relation of the controlling 
 Idea to the concrete product which it shapes. The Absolute 
 has actualized his ideas in the forms, laws, and final purposes 
 of this vast complex of things and selves ; God has shaped 
 the world "to his mind." 
 
 The validity of all human knowledge is committed to the 
 proposition that the forms, laws, and final purposes of the 
 world are not merely a subjective possession ; they belong 
 also to the things themselves. Unformed existences are not 
 real : it is essential to the very being of everything to have, 
 both actually and potentially, some appropriate form. Nor 
 is there any Nature to be known, any Cosmos to be conceived 
 of, which is not in its constitution obedient to laws in the 
 pursuit of certain ideal ends. By the word " law " we can 
 mean nothing actual but to indicate that things are all 
 known to behave themselves under the control of immanent 
 ideas, just as, in fact, we know ourselves to do. 
 
 Forms, laws, and ideal ends, weave themselves together in a 
 bewildering complexity, and with an activity so ceaseless and 
 so intricate that it is always quite impossible fully to trace 
 it. Yet somehow the known World is one ; a marvellous 
 unity belonging to the pattern woven by this vast machine 
 albeit, we cannot discover much as to what precisely that 
 pattern may be. But the Being whose oneness of will is the 
 source of all actual existences, and of their equipment of forces, 
 and of their reciprocal causal activities, is also the source of 
 the ideas and purposes which they all display. The Absolute 
 
518 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 is not bare, blind Will, or mere Unity of Force. The Absolute 
 is also the fountain of all that science regards as the forms, 
 laws, and final purposes of the existences which, taken 
 together, constitute the world. To affirm this is only to give 
 the ultimate metaphysical explanation of the actual state of 
 the case ; to deny this is to make all such explanation for- 
 ever impossible. 
 
 Looked at from the point of view which is interior and has 
 regard to its so-called " nature" and its natural behavior, 
 everything forms itself as though endowed with the requi- 
 site ideas, as well as with the forces required to actualize 
 those ideas. Its very being consists in its se(f-activity that 
 is, in its activity according to those ideas which define its 
 own " self " ; it is only such behavior that can impart the 
 " relative independency " which particular realities possess. 
 Looked at from the point of view which is exterior, and 
 which discerns the dependence of every existence upon the 
 action, upon it, of other related existences, every individual 
 thing must be regarded as formed by other things, as having 
 its own activity not determined by itself alone, but also by 
 the other selves to which it stands related. 
 
 Looked at from the interior point of view, every thing ap- 
 pears to be willingly obedient to the laws which control the 
 part allotted to it in the World of things. Indeed, these 
 laws are themselves nothing other than the formulated ex- 
 pressions of the ideas which define the very nature of the 
 thing ; they are only its natural ways of behaving itself 
 under a greater or less variety of changes in occasion and 
 circumstance. But looked at from the external point of 
 view, every thing appears to be forced to obey laws which 
 originate outside of itself, and which are dictated to it by its 
 environment, in accordance with the natures of those other 
 things that constitute this environment. 
 
 Looked at again from the one point of view, every thing is 
 seen to be seeking and, more or less successfully, winning its 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 519 
 
 own ends. It is a " will to live ; " and it gets its will by using 
 what it can of the " stuff " of its surrounding world as means 
 to its own ideal ends. And according as it stands, of itself 
 or in its own nature, high or low in the so-called scale of 
 existences, it becomes the actual locus, as it were, of these 
 same ideal ends. It has its own ideas of what it wants to be, 
 and to do, of the ends it wills to attain ; and it uses, and 
 adapts as it uses, the means to these ends. But looked at 
 from the other point of view, no existence is an end to itself ; 
 the rather is every existence only means to something other, 
 which may be either higher or lower, nobler or more ignoble, 
 worthier or seemingly more worthless, than itself. The worm 
 serves the fish's " will to live " as its means ; and the fish, 
 having eaten of the worm, becomes means to the final purposes 
 conceived by some man. Yet that same man may in turn be 
 himself means to the final purpose of the worm ; and this may 
 enable the fish to make some portion of that same man a 
 means toward the accomplishment of its own ideal ends. 
 Only as we bring in " ideas of value," which are chiefly de- 
 rived from the spheres of ethics, aesthetics, and religion, can 
 we discern any correspondence with our own highest ideals in 
 all this. But that the World, as man knows it, is in reality a 
 vast complex of inter-related means and ends, a veritable 
 maze of curious and often (from the point of view of our 
 ethical, assthetical, and religious ideals) unintelligible adapta- 
 tions, we have the facts abundantly to prove. 
 
 All things, then, as looked at from both, and indeed from 
 all possible, points of view, are both self-forming and formed 
 by others, are behaving in accordance with law, whether 
 voluntarily adopted or forced, and are following their own 
 ends and also serving as means to the attainment of the ends 
 of others. Such is u the world," as known by man. And the 
 pertinent truth about it all is this : With the growth of 
 knowledge in the individual and in the race, such a picture of 
 the world gains increasing breadth, and depth, and richness 
 
520 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of color and of meaning. At least this is so for the soul 
 which allows itself to be influenced by those ethical, gestheti- 
 cal, and religious considerations, which lie somewhat above 
 and beyond the fields of general metaphysics, although they 
 are not in nature altogether foreign or hostile to these fields. 
 And the human race is made up it is our faith of an 
 increasing number of such souls. Meanwhile, all the progress 
 of science, with its gathering of new insights into the nature 
 of the World, consists chiefly in endowing IT with newly dis- 
 covered complications of form, law, and final purpose. For it 
 is only as science weaves the pattern, in which form, law, and 
 final purpose are ever-present, interlacing threads, that science 
 presents us with the knowledge of a Cosmos, a genuine sys- 
 tem of things, and not a mere jumble of mutually disregard- 
 ing existences and of unconnected events. 
 
 When, now, the question is raised, What is the ontological 
 relation of such a World to the Absolute ? the answer need 
 not long be delayed. For this answer does not come as the 
 result of an endless chain of reasoning which carries the mind 
 away from actual finite beings to infinite distances of space or 
 time ; or which requires a speculative insight that can dis- 
 pense with all that falls under the conditions of space and 
 time. This answer is, the rather, a true apprehension of what 
 is implicated in these very conditions of what is the nature of 
 the ever-present Reality. 
 
 Philosophy, since Kant, has denied the right of the onto- 
 logical argument for the Being of God in its leap from a mere 
 conception, however grand and aesthetically captivating, to 
 the conclusion of a corresponding Reality. It has also objected 
 to the cosmological argument that its reasoning, when con- 
 ducted in accordance with the strictest obligations to its own 
 logical character, involves it in the hopeless attempt at an 
 infinite regressus. Backward and still backward must the 
 mind go, from the conditioned to the conditioned, from one 
 set or system of conditions to a pre-existent set or system of 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 521 
 
 conditions ; but nowhere can this flight of thought come to its- 
 resting-place in the Unconditioned ; nowhere does the mind 
 discover a logical ground that is at once legitimate and final. 
 But while the pre-Kantian theology misused these so-called 
 arguments, the post-Kantian agnosticism has not done credit 
 to the truth that is in them. Strictly speaking, they are not 
 separable lines of argument at all ; neither are they deduc- 
 tions that need, in order to validate them, the assistance of 
 detailed presentation in syllogistic form. And, certainly, 
 they are not correct specimens of scientific induction. They 
 describe in faulty manner the inevitable, because the constitu- 
 tional, legitimate, and rational, way which the mind of man 
 takes in dealing with the complex realities of his complete 
 experience. Human reason seeks a Theory of Reality. As- 
 it knows more of itself, of other minds, and of things, in their 
 vastly complex and ever-shifting particular relations, it cease- 
 lessly reaches after the unity of an explanatory Ground. It 
 cannot possibly regard forms, and laws, and adaptations or 
 uses of means to the realizing of ends, otherwise than as the 
 products of mind. If the world is progressively better known 
 as a vast complex of forms, laws, and final purposes, it cannot 
 be known otherwise than as the expression, the manifestation, 
 the realization, of Absolute Mind. This conclusion, we repeat, 
 lies not at the end of a chain that can have no end ; neither 
 is it buried, as a pot of gold, at the foot of a rainbow painted 
 by fancy in a painted sky. It is simply the mind's recognition 
 of the inner and ultimate truth of the world, as the world is 
 known by man namely, as an experienced complex of forms,, 
 laws, and final purposes. 
 
 These, then, are the relations sustained by the world to the 
 Absolute, which the mind of man finds implicate in all its 
 cognitive experience. The world is the realization of the ideas 
 of the Absolute. This is the assumption as to the Being of 
 the Absolute that can be the Ground of such a world : It is 
 Mind. Therefore, the relations of the world to the Absolute 
 
522 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 must be conceived of as those sustained by the varied and 
 interrelated realizations of ideas to their Ideal Source, to the 
 Idea, to the absolute Mind. 
 
 Thus far we have been emphasizing the positive and univer- 
 sal aspects of the problem, as they reveal themselves in the 
 lights shed by a theory of reality which bases itself in confi- 
 dence upon the cognitive experience of man. All the actual 
 relations of things and selves have their ground, and so their 
 explanation, in the One Being. All those fundamental rela- 
 tions, whose application to real existences is implicated in the 
 criticism of the categories, are always sustained by the 
 world to the Absolute, as to its Ground. These affirmative 
 positions represent the conceptions which a systematic and 
 critical metaphysics has to contribute to the solution of this 
 problem. But ethics and religion are accustomed greatly to 
 concern themselves with negations and exceptions. This they 
 aim to do in the interests of the practical life of man. For 
 the will of man they require an exception to be made ; it must 
 not be conceived of as absolutely dependent upon the will of 
 the Absolute, as are the wills of the lower animals, or those 
 centres of a relative self-activity which we call things. Con- 
 cerning his relation to nature, too, religion and ethics demand 
 a denial that man is a part of nature, or is subject to its laws, 
 as are all the particular portions of " brute and inanimate 
 matter." Religion wishes even to make man's existence as a 
 self-conscious and ideating Self an exception to the common 
 horde of existences which last only as the resultants of tem- 
 porary combinations amongst physical or psychical elements. 
 While all things pass away, man must be non-mortal. 
 
 No thoughtful student of metaphysics not to say, the 
 man who is wisely sensitive to those interests of life which 
 have the highest value can regard unsympathetically this 
 demand which ethics and religion make for exceptions and 
 negations. Theory of Reality can no more properly than can 
 any other form of thought, tramp steadily onward with the iron 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 523 
 
 heel of logic over the quivering and bleeding souls of human 
 beings. They, too, with all their pains and pleasures, their 
 hopes, fears, faiths, and aspirations, are facts which concern 
 our theory of reality. Knowledge itself is not independent of 
 the emotional and voluntary activities of the knower. 
 Knowledge has largely, if not chiefly, its own end to serve in 
 the promotion of right conduct and the development of praise- 
 worthy character. But philosophy does not serve ethics and 
 religion in the best possible way by accepting the assumption 
 of Kant, that knowledge has to be removed in order to " make 
 room for faith ; " or by divorcing utterly the principles of con- 
 duct, and of religious belief and worship, from the principles 
 of " common sense " and of science. 
 
 So, then, whatever seeming exceptions or negations are 
 demanded by the facts of ethics, a3sthetics, and the philosophy 
 of religion, in our theoretical way of conceiving the relations of 
 the world to the Absolute, may wait until a critical testing 
 of those facts can be made. But it is an important thought 
 borrowed from metaphysics, that the mode of the Divine Will 
 with finite wills is infinitely various ; and that the manner of 
 the dependency of these wills upon the Absolute is as manifold 
 as is the number of these wills. Yet always this relation is, 
 essentially considered, the same ; for human wills have no force 
 that is not drawn from the reservoir of infinite Force : they have 
 no existence which is not a being-dependent upon the Being 
 of the Absolute. It is also an important conclusion from our 
 systematic study of metaphysics, that all the valid negations 
 and denials, made necessary by the facts to which ethics and 
 the philosophy of religion appeal, are virtually brought about 
 by an interpretation of the categories upon a basis of our 
 total and common experience. This position may be briefly 
 illustrated in the case of those two theoretical statements to 
 which the developed moral and religious consciousness of man- 
 kind is accustomed most emphatically to object. These may 
 be summed up as follows : " The World is, or is identical with, 
 
524 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the Absolute ; " and '.' the World is the emanation, or necessi- 
 tated evolution of the Absolute." 
 
 " The World is, or is identical with, the Absolute." Let 
 us briefly consider what can be the meaning of this. If it be 
 intended by such a statement to affirm for these two con- 
 ceptions an exact logical equivalence, or a complete sameness 
 of significance, then the proposal is either of no particular 
 value in a system of metaphysics, or else a judgment is laid 
 down, in the form of the most assured, a priori, conclu- 
 siveness, which contradicts some of the particular conclusions 
 reached by the critical attempt to frame such a system. If 
 any thinker chooses, indeed, to say, " I employ these two con- 
 ceptions World and Absolute in precisely the same way," 
 then no other thinker can gainsay the right, even though the 
 impropriety soon be made most obvious. But it has been 
 shown in detail (p. 456 f.) that the attempt to conceive of the 
 World, or Nature, as " absolute," inevitably results in the 
 introduction of considerations which force upon the mind 
 anew a most important division of these conceptions. The 
 world considered as a vast complex of interdependent beings, 
 becomes related to the World as absolute, somewhat as mani- 
 fold phenomena are related to the one Actuality, or as many 
 finite existences and occurrences are related to their One 
 Ground. Nature, considered as an absolute unity, inevitably 
 becomes split again into two parts, to which names must be 
 given that indicate a return of the same fundamental distinc- 
 tions : Natura is both natura naturata and Natura naturans. 
 But this introduces over again, with no advantage from any 
 higher point of view, the same old problem of the relations of 
 the world considered as a known or conceivable complex of 
 existences and events, to the Absolute. 
 
 If, however, it is affirmed that the world is known by all 
 men, on account of the very nature of human knowledge, to 
 be in reality absolute, the affirmation is either most obviously 
 false or most profoundly true, according to the meaning given 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 525 
 
 to the relations expressed by such terras. To say that the 
 terms on which men generally know the interconnected 
 things and selves of their experience the world that is 
 each man's world compel them to assert its equivalence 
 throughout, in reality, to Absolute Being, is to say what 
 neither comparative psychology nor philosophy can substan- 
 tiate or even credit. On the other hand, that all human 
 knowledge virtually discerns the presence of an absolute as 
 the " support " and " realistic core " (to use figures of speech 
 whose meaning has already been made plain) of every phe- 
 nomenon, is a conclusion enforced by all critical epistemol- 
 ogy. Something is real; this is the implicate of all cognitive 
 experience. What is the real nature of this everywhere 
 immanent Absolute, every attempt at a systematic and crit- 
 ical metaphysics wishes to expound more clearly. But when 
 this attempt leads to the barren assertion of a merely logical 
 equivalence between the World and the Absolute, it ends in 
 empty abstractions. 
 
 The burden and the affliction of most forms of philosophi- 
 cal Monism has been a certain levity in the use of the con- 
 ception of identity. The effort of the advocates of monistic 
 tenets has been to establish this conception, with all the 
 invincible force of a strictly logical demonstration, in exclu- 
 sive command over the sphere of all relations between the 
 world and God. The effort of objectors lias been to show 
 that this conception of identity, when applied to these rela- 
 tions, weakens, or disregards, or destroys certain ethical and 
 religious facts and truths of great value. In most cases of 
 dispute over this form of Monism, there has been need of a 
 prior critical discussion of the conception itself, on the part 
 both of advocates and of objectors. Now, in matters of real- 
 ity, whether of physical fact and law or of mental life, 
 " identity " never applies as a strictly logical equivalence, 
 whether between existences or between events. 1 Employed 
 
 1 See the discussion in the "Philosophy of Knowledge," chap. ix. 
 
526 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 upon this subject, the principle only exhorts the disputants : 
 " Stick to the same meanings for your terms, the World and 
 the Absolute." But the very effort to do this introduces 
 inevitably the same fundamental distinctions, and so brings 
 on anew a discussion of relations, as though the mind could 
 not possibly indicate precisely the same conceptions by the 
 two phrases. 
 
 On the other hand, a critical estimate of the principle of 
 identity, as this principle applies to all knowledge and to all 
 theory, shows that these two assumptions enter into its appli- 
 cability : " The Self is a life comf ormable to law, and main- 
 taining its identity by this conformity;" and, " The principles 
 of Reality not-my-self and the principles of my thinking 
 must be the same." The principle of identity only secures 
 self -consistency ; it can never be converted into the form 
 of a synthetic judgment applicable to a complex of actual 
 known objects. 
 
 Whenever, then, any form of philosophical Monism attempts 
 to express the relations of the world to the Absolute in 
 terms of the principle of identity, its attempt must always 
 move in the sphere of barren abstractions. On the contrary, 
 the problem offered by the attempt to conceive of the rela- 
 tions between the world and the Absolute must always have 
 its answer based upon actual knowledge of what known reali- 
 ties are, and of what they implicate. It can, therefore, never 
 become a problem whose solution, or even whose discussion, 
 is purely a priori; its answer cannot be set forth in strictly 
 logical fashion, after the pattern of Spinoza or even of Hegel. 
 
 But the arguments urged against philosophical Monism are 
 too often not well taken or judiciously expressed on this 
 point. If God is not to be conceived of as the Absolute, 
 then there is some part of the world which does not belong 
 to Him, which is not God's world though what sort of 
 things or selves they are that are not in and of God's world, 
 human thought cannot even conjecture. Moreover, if we deny 
 
THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 527 
 
 that the principle of identity applies to these two conceptions^ 
 in such manner as to separate by our denial the Absolute from 
 the world, as to remove God whether in respect of space, 
 or time, or power, or co-conscious cognition from any par- 
 ticular existence or actual event, we so far forth destroy 
 the rational grounds of ethics and religion. For the " imma- 
 nence " of the Absolute in the world is the one central tenet> 
 as it were, of all systematic metaphysics. It is virtually this 
 truth which all the critical discussion of the categories sus- 
 tains and unfolds. It is virtually this truth which the analy- 
 sis of this chapter justifies and expands. It is virtually this 
 truth which all the theory of reality maintains. This theory 
 itself is the form of monistic philosophy which is summarized 
 in the following statements : all the objects of the world have 
 for their Subject the Absolute ; all the relatively independent 
 centres of self-activity, of the forthputting and reception of 
 forces, of causal action and influence, have their Ground in 
 the Will of the Absolute ; and all the forms, laws, and ideal 
 ends of the world are realizations of the Ideas of the 
 Absolute. 
 
 The development of the positive sciences involves the 
 increasing conviction that the unification of the complex 
 results of man's accumulating experience with things is possi- 
 ble. This is man's growing knowledge of the world. Philos- 
 ophy, in its branch of metaphysics, shows that this possibility 
 implies that Unity of Reality which the mind of man con- 
 ceives of as an Absolute Self, whose most essential character- 
 istics entitle us to call it Spirit. It belongs to the philosophy 
 of the Ideal, to the reflective study of Ethics, ^Esthetics, 
 and Religion to expand and to defend the doctrine as to 
 the nature of Infinite Spirit, and as to the more ideal 
 relations which man sustains to this Spirit. 
 
 It is not necessary to follow in detail the truths, half- 
 truths, and erroneous confusion which accompany every 
 attempt to regard the Absolute as merely an unconscious, 
 
528 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 wow-mental, mechanical process, to be identified throughout 
 with the descriptive history of the world's evolution in time 
 and space. This is the form of the emanation theory which 
 has been assumed, on the basis of scientific discoveries, in 
 modern times. It is enough at present to say that this 
 attempt inevitably brings on the same contest over ambigu- 
 ous conceptions, the same necessity for making unalterable 
 distinctions, the same demand for a thorough criticism of 
 the categories, as prerequisites of any defensible theory of 
 reality. Can the world emanate, or evolve, from its Self, 
 unless this Being of the World be construed in such manner 
 as to relate IT to its own processes of Becoming as the one, 
 sufficient Ground of them all? And what is the real nature 
 of a being that can sustain such relations ? But the answer 
 to these questions is precisely that which has been framing 
 itself from the beginning to the end of this book. The valid 
 conceptions of selfhood and of evolution, or an orderly and 
 rational process of becoming, as applied to the sum-total of 
 man's cognitive experience, have been chiefly influential in 
 all its discussions. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 
 
 THE last Chapter brought to its close the discussion of 
 certain psychological and philosophical problems which has 
 been prolonged during a number of years. These problems 
 all concern themselves in a general way with the following 
 question : " What, in reliance upon the cognitive experience 
 of all men and upon the assured results of the positive 
 sciences, can we be said to know about the Nature of Reality ? 
 A brief statement of the opinions reached by so prolonged 
 and varied a study seems 'appropriate at this point. It also 
 seems not inappropriate that the impersonal attitude which 
 has characterized the discussion hitherto should give way to 
 that more familiar mode of intercourse which, in philo- 
 sophical writings, is ordinarily confined to the Preface. In 
 a word, I ask that the following Summary of Conclusions 
 may be received as a privileged communication ; that through 
 it I may enter into those friendly personal relations with my 
 readers, under which, without incurring the suspicion of 
 egotism, thoughtful men like to submit to one another their 
 most cherished reflections. 
 
 Some fifteen or twenty years ago there appeared to me to 
 be much greater likelihood than now appears, that the move- 
 ment to establish a study of the psychical life of man from 
 the experimental, chemico-physical, and physiological points 
 of view would result in a profound modification of the views 
 hitherto current. This modification seemed likely to extend 
 not only to the doctrine of the soul's nature, but also to all of 
 
 those philosophical tenets which are naturally and necessarily 
 
 34 
 
530 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 dependent upon the general conclusions of psychology. It 
 was after a considerable period of time, fully occupied with 
 experimental research, with reading of many books, and with 
 painstaking reflection, that I published (in 1887) a work 
 entitled "Elements of Physiological Psychology." During 
 the period of its preparation, and at the date of its publica- 
 tion, the situation may be briefly described in the following 
 sentences quoted from its Preface: "There can be no doubt 
 that an important movement has arisen in recent times 
 through the effort to approach the phenomena of mind from 
 the experimental and physiological point of view. . . . Some 
 writers have certainly indulged in extravagant claims as to 
 the past triumphs of so-called Physiological Psychology, and 
 in equally extravagant expectations as to its future discoveries. 
 On the other hand, a larger number, perhaps, have been 
 inclined either to fear or to depreciate every attempt to 
 mingle the methods, laws, and speculations of the physical 
 sciences with the study of the human soul. These latter 
 apparently anticipate that some discovery in the localization 
 of cerebral function, or in psychometry, may jeopard the 
 birthright of man as a spiritual and rational being." Not 
 sympathizing with either of these extremes of expectation and 
 of fear, yet having upon my mind both the philosophical and 
 the ethical and religious interests involved, I undertook the 
 requisite course of investigation. On entering upon the task 
 I freed myself, as far as possible, from prejudice ; and I 
 summoned to its execution all the industry, judgment, and 
 resources at my command. 
 
 The conclusions to which a study of man's mental life from 
 the physiological and experimental point of view led me 
 were summarized in the Third Part of my book, under the 
 heading, "The Nature of the Mind." Briefly expressed, 
 these conclusions left the popular dualism standing unshaken 
 in its fundamental positions, although with a greatly altered 
 scientific exactness of statement and with an added evalu- 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 531 
 
 ation. The reality of the human body, considered as a molec- 
 ular mechanism, connected by a great variety of chemico- 
 physical laws and forces with the world of Nature, and yet 
 standing in peculiar, and even unique, relations to the Mind, 
 remained unimpaired. But the unity, the reality, and the 
 causal efficiency of the mind remained even more clearly 
 manifest, both as an original assumption of all psycho- 
 physical researches and also as a conclusion progressively 
 established by those researches. 
 
 Moreover, it then seemed, and it has always seemed, to 
 me that these two realities, so intimately and wonderfully 
 related, positively will not submit to having the truth about 
 their relations told in terms of a theory of psycho-physical 
 parallelism. I have, therefore, remained from the first a 
 determined and consistent opponent of this theory. I still 
 regard its downfall as its inevitable doom at the hands of 
 psycho-physical science. The rather did the body and mind 
 of man appear to be at the end of all purely scientific investi- 
 gation, in fact, just what, antecedent to any investigation, 
 "common-sense" supposes them to be. To science, as to 
 common-sense, body and mind appear to be real and variously 
 interrelated existences, which, by their combined causal 
 efficiency somehow build up the unity of a manifold Self. 
 Or, to quote again from the same work, " The subject of 
 all the states of consciousness is a real unit-being, called 
 Mind ; which is of non-material nature, and acts and develops 
 according to laws of its own, but is specially correlated with 
 certain material molecules and masses forming the substance 
 of the brain." To say essentially the same thing from the 
 evolutionary point of view : u The development of Mind can 
 only be regarded as the progressive manifestation in con- 
 sciousness of the life of a real being which, although taking 
 its start and direction from the action of the physical elements 
 of the body, proceeds to unfold powers that are sui generis^ 
 according to laws of its own." 
 
532 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 As to the, more particular nature of that real connection 
 which both the popular impressions and the postulates of 
 psycho-physical research assume to exist between brain and 
 mind, I showed in the treatise just mentioned, that modern 
 scientific studies and discoveries do not essentially alter these 
 impressions and these postulates. " The assumption that the 
 mind is a real being, which can be acted upon by the brain, 
 and which can act on the body through the brain, is the only 
 one compatible with all the facts of experience." This is 
 true, however the facts of experience are garnered ; whether 
 from the behavior of the general mental life under the most 
 ordinary conditions, or from the more guarded and artificial 
 activities of the subjects of laboratory experimentation. The 
 theories of materialism, of psychological idealism, of occasion- 
 alism, of pre-established harmony, " and all similar theories, 
 do not in the least assist us to escape the difficulties which 
 attach themselves to every conception of causation," when 
 applied to the relations of brain and mind. On the other 
 hand, there is nothing which science knows " about the 
 nature of material beings and the laws of their relation to 
 each other, or about the nature of spiritual beings and their 
 possible relation to material beings, or about the nature of 
 causal efficiency, whether in the form of so-called physical 
 energy or in that of activity in consciousness, which forbids 
 the use of the causal conception in this connection." 
 
 In a word, so far as the metaphysical conceptions of 
 " reality," " unity," " interaction," " causal efficiency," etc., 
 are concerned, whether taken into his work as assumptions, 
 or derived from his work as conclusions, the student of 
 physiological and experimental psychology has nothing es- 
 sential to change, and little to learn. Psychology, pursued 
 by experimental methods, does bestow much valuable inform- 
 ation as to what sort of realities and unities both body and 
 mind are ; and as to what are the more precise formulas for 
 the almost infinite variety of interactions, or causal relations, 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 533 
 
 which constantly take place between the two. But a scientific 
 empirical psychology ends where it begins; namely, with 
 the use of those uncriticised but valid conceptions which all 
 men employ with more or less of intelligent meaning when 
 speaking upon the same subjects. Neither a materialistic nor 
 a spiritualistic monism, and even less a theory of psycho- 
 physical parallelism, derives any sufficient support or comfort 
 from a scientific study of the phenomena of human conscious- 
 ness when undertaken from the physiological and experi- 
 mental points of view. Such a psychological investigation, if 
 true to what it finds, remains upon the basis of a common- 
 sense dualism to the very last. And such a naive dualism 
 understands the terms, " body," " mind," and " relation of the 
 two," in the metaphysical meaning which, without subjecting 
 it to a thorough criticism, I elaborated, in the concluding 
 chapters of the " Elements of Physiological Psychology." 
 
 By no means all the processes of the mental life, however, 
 and not even all the elements of any of the developed mental 
 processes, admit of treatment from the physiological and 
 experimental point of view. How true this is at present, 
 any one can understand who will compare with the depth and 
 breadth and wealth of content which actuality presents, the 
 thin and meagre description of the nature and development 
 of the mind which a strict adherence to this point of view per- 
 mits. He is a poor and pitiful soul, indeed, who has no more in 
 real experience than the use of laboratory methods can detect 
 and depict. This statement tends, not toward the deprecia- 
 tion of the workman in experimental psychology, but rather to 
 the fuller appreciation of any work, pursued by any method, 
 which will advance the details of so complex and difficult a 
 science as is the psychology of man. 
 
 It was with such convictions in mind that the investigations 
 were pursued (both contemporaneously with, and subsequently 
 to, those whose results were published in the " Elements," 
 etc.) which I embodied in a work issued in 1894. This work 
 
534 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 was entitled, " Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory." It 
 aimed to give a fairly complete picture of the activities and 
 the development of man's mental life, together with such ex- 
 planations derived from all sources as the present state of the 
 science makes possible. In this book, therefore, I treated 
 not only the sensations and the more primary intellectual 
 processes, but also the development of memory and imagina- 
 tion, of thought and language, of reasoning, of the emotions 
 and passions, the ethical and sesthetical sentiments, as well as 
 the impulses, instincts, and desires, and the unfolding of 
 character. Nor did it seem to me that psychology thus pur- 
 sued, if faithful to its task of describing all the activities and 
 laws of development belonging to mental life, could escape 
 having something to say upon such universal conceptions as 
 space, time, and causation ; and upon the cognition of Things 
 and of Self. Chapters upon these topics, therefore, carried 
 psychological discussion up to the very limits where philos- 
 ophy receives it from the hands of psychology. 
 
 In the concluding pages of the " Descriptive Psychology " 
 I gathered together those more general statements concerning 
 the nature and laws of the mind which the detailed study of 
 its descriptive history seemed to make good. In presenting 
 these conclusions it was admitted that an original nature, or 
 derived potentiality, for the human soul is, after all, the 
 assumption which underlies all our attempts at the particulars 
 of a true story of its actual development. " In the beginning 
 was Mind, already equipped to see and hear and remember 
 and imagine and think." Yet " there are, it would seem, 
 certain principles which belong to all development of the men- 
 tal life of man ; and every stage of consciousness, and every 
 form of so-called faculty, in every stage of its formation, 
 appears to conform to these principles." Among such prin- 
 ciples I recognized the following four : The principle of Con- 
 tinuity, the principle of Relativity, the principle of Solidarity, 
 and the principle of Teleological Import, By the first of 
 

 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 535 
 
 these it was intended to emphasize the truth that the real 
 life of every mind is a connected and interdependent process 
 of becoming. " The very nature of the mind, so far as science 
 can observe it, is seen in this unbroken vital flow. Its being 
 is in being just such an uninterrupted stream of psychic life." 
 With this principle is closely connected the principle of rela- 
 tivity. " Every individual element, or state, or form of 
 mental life, is what it is only as relative to other elements, 
 states, and forms of the same mental life." Or combining the 
 two principles we are compelled to regard the true picture of 
 mental life as that of " a continuance of interdependent psy- 
 choses." Thus " descriptive psychology ends in adopting the 
 conception of a being with a unique unity of nature and an 
 equally unique history of development." 
 
 In spite of the elasticity and changeable quality which the 
 mind of the individual man possesses, when regarded as a 
 series of interconnected processes of becoming, the whole of 
 mental life has a certain solidarity and unity of character and 
 aim, and not simply a unity in the successions of a comparable 
 time-series. For "the effect of every partial or complete 
 working of the psychic mechanism is felt upon the weal or 
 the woe of the whole mental development ; and this develop- 
 ment necessarily tends toward some kind of unification of 
 result. Such is a brief statement of the principle of solidarity 
 as applied to the life of the mind. It is under the action of 
 this principle that the original vague and relatively plastic 
 unity of disposition, instincts, impulses, etc., becomes the 
 more clearly crystallized and definitively shaped unity of a 
 " character." But throughout the descriptive history of the 
 mind we notice traces of the teleological principle. " Activity 
 to some end is the ruling principle of mental development. 
 The self-conscious, intelligent adoption of a plan, and selec- 
 tion of means for its pursuit, is distinctive of the acme of 
 man's development. The more comprehensive this plan, and 
 the wiser the selection of means, the higher is the standing 
 
536 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 of the individual in the scale that measures the development 
 of Mind." 
 
 " In fine, a combination of all these principles, as they appear 
 in their actual operation, secures for every so-called stream of 
 consciousness that continuity, related action, solidarity of 
 character, and that intelligible import as judged by the light 
 of ends and ideals, which are necessary to the history of what 
 we call a Soul, or a Mind." 
 
 But all psychological treatises, even when they advance 
 into the field of metaphysics somewhat further than the 
 modern conceptions of psychological science seem to warrant, 
 leave many of their most important conceptions and principles 
 in a quite unsatisfactory condition. This was admittedly and 
 designedly true of those treatises to which reference has just 
 been made. The conclusion had, indeed, been reached, that 
 the science of mental phenomena and the development of 
 mental life both assumes and also confirms, expands, and 
 clarifies a certain metaphysical conception of Mind. This 
 conception regards every mind as an active, real, and unitary 
 being, which stands in a variety of reciprocal causal rela- 
 tions to a material body ; and which, together with this body, 
 constitutes a complex and looser unity called the Self, that 
 through the body, sustains all its relations to a Nature which 
 is known as " not-itself." But herein is involved a number 
 of conceptions that demand further reflective treatment, and 
 a more thorough criticism. 
 
 What is it for the mind to be " real," to be " unitary," to 
 stand in " causal " or other " relations " with the body ? And 
 what, if anything, follows from the answer to these questions 
 which has an important bearing on inquiries as to the origin, 
 destiny, and place in nature of man's mind ? It was to the 
 solution of such problems as these that I attempted to make 
 some slight contribution in a book entitled, " Philosophy of 
 Mind" (or, " An Essay in the Metaphysics of Psychology "), 
 1895. With reference to the relations always existing 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 537 
 
 between the science of psychology and the metaphysics of 
 mental life and mental development, 1 showed in the open- 
 ing chapters of this book that only two positions are tenable. 
 The first of these positions assumes and maintains through- 
 out that common-sense dualism which, as had already been 
 shown, is unimpaired by the facts of psychological science. 
 The second approaches the science with a frankly avowed 
 metaphysical standpoint, and then either modifies or strength- 
 ens this standpoint by the measure of success which the 
 theory displays in its treatment of the phenomena. In 
 these opening chapters I strove to make it clear, by a thorough 
 criticism of selected examples, that neither the theory of 
 naturalism (or materialism), nor that of asolipsistic idealism, 
 nor that of psycho-physical parallelism, succeeds in remain- 
 ing honestly and frankly consistent with itself, while at the 
 same time dealing in a scientific way with the phenomena of 
 Mind. 
 
 Now the " final aim of psychology is to understand -the 
 nature and development, in its relations to other beings, of that 
 unique kind of being which we call the Soul or Mind." But 
 " philosophy seeks a unitary conception of the real world that 
 shall be freed, as far as possible, from internal contradictions 
 and based upon all the facts of nature and of human life." 
 So, then, psychology, although, when considered as the science 
 of mental phenomena and of mental development, it is not 
 co-extensive either in range, method, or conclusiveness, with 
 philosophy, is, nevertheless, the proper propaedeutic to all 
 philosophy, and especially to the doctrine of the Self. "In 
 particular, the problems of philosophy all emerge and force 
 themselves upon the mind in the attempt thoroughly to com- 
 prehend and satisfactorily to solve the problems of a scientific 
 psychology ; and the attempts along the different main lines 
 of research in psychology to deal scientifically with its prob- 
 lems all lead up to the place where this science hands these 
 same problems over to philosophy.'* 
 
538 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Starting with that "Concept of Mind" which man's most 
 incontestable cognitive experience validates, I showed that 
 it is totally misrepresented by those psychologists who re- 
 gard the mind merely " content-wise," as a temporary aggre- 
 gate of sensations, images, etc., in an ever-flowing stream of 
 consciousness. For " every state of consciousness is not only 
 capable of being regarded on the side of passive content of 
 consciousness, it must also be regarded on the side of active 
 discriminating consciousness ; " and, indeed, " consciousness 
 regarded as objectively discriminated, and consciousness 
 regarded as discriminating activity, are only two sides, as it 
 were, of one and the same consciousness." In fine, " all 
 psychic life manifests itself to the subject of that life as 
 being, in one of its fundamental aspects, its own spontaneous 
 activity." It is this cognitive experience of being a " Self-alive" 
 from which we take all our startings, and to which we con- 
 stantly return again, in every process of conceiving a " human 
 mind." 
 
 When, now, philosophy proceeds to inquire concerning that 
 reality and unity of being which the mind has, it can only 
 discover and accept as final the answer which lies not afar 
 off, but is before us in every act of the life of self-con- 
 sciousness. " The reality of mental life consists in actual 
 mentality ; it is the really being self-conscious, self-active, 
 knowing, remembering, and thinking, as Mind." Its realest 
 being is its " Being-for-itself." When, however, the philoso- 
 phy of mind attempts to understand the reality of mind in 
 accordance with an intelligible conception of identity for the 
 Self, and a real permanence in time, it encounters the un- 
 doubted fact of change. The conception of self-identity can- 
 not, therefore, be held in a form contradictory to the fact of 
 change. On the contrary, " changes heighten rather than 
 diminish the reality and validity of the consciousness of 
 identity properly described and understood." Indeed, " actu- 
 ally to be self-conscious and to remember recognitively is to 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 539 
 
 be conscious of being identical and self-same." But what is 
 required for the highest kind of real identity of the mind, and 
 for an actual mental development, is to remain true to some 
 chosen ideal. For of that unitary being we call a mind, this 
 is emphatically true ; " its reality is, under all circumstances 
 and forever, a reality which must be realized in its own 
 peculiar way, in order to maintain itself at all." 
 
 In brief, the reality, self-identity, and unity, of man's mind 
 consists in its actually being a self-conscious Will, recogni- 
 tively remembering its own past, actively thinking itself into 
 a unitary Life, and pursuing by intelligently chosen ends its 
 own ideal aims. Of such actual being of a soul, different 
 men partake in far different degrees, according as they more 
 or less perfectly realize the conception of a Soul. 
 
 It is not necessary even to summarize the conclusions of 
 the detailed discussion which followed, concerning the rela- 
 tions, in actuality, between mind and body. This discussion 
 occupied the later chapters of the " Philosophy of Mind." 
 Its conclusions all tended toward the vindication anew of the 
 " principle of causation " as applying to these relations. But 
 the discussion also showed that this principle itself has its 
 own birth, and its own most ultimate explanation, in the 
 undoubted knowledge which the Self has of itself in its chang- 
 ing relations to things. The ultimate and mysterious fact 
 of interaction, which has its primary source in our experience 
 as a total complex of actively and passively moulded phases 
 of consciousness, neither of itself abrogates the reality of the 
 interacting existences nor impairs the unity of man's experi- 
 ence of the World. " For partially, and often chiefly or even 
 almost exclusively, the explanation of the interaction of every 
 two beings is to be found in the so-called < nature ' of the 
 beings which interact ; that is, the interaction itself is recog- 
 nized as a mode of behavior which admits of no further expla- 
 nation than the self-activity of the beings which interact." 
 
 When, however, we come to consider the " Place of Man's 
 
540 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 Mind in Nature," this duality of body and mind in the unity of 
 one Self, and this multiplicity constituted by every individual 
 self in all its known or conceivable relations with other selves 
 and with things, and the infinite multiplicity of things thus 
 more or less intimately related to each self, must be harmon- 
 ized in some way. The need arises for an explanation of 
 the totality of our cognitive experience in some higher 
 and more Ultimate Unity. Such a unity certainly is not 
 furnished by the vague or purely negative conception of a third 
 something which is neither body nor mind. For all modern 
 science agrees that the body, considered as a part of nature, 
 must be held to come under the chemico-physical principles 
 which define the being, and control the changes, of other 
 material things. Man's body is of the earth, earthy. This 
 is not said to its despite or depreciation. For nature is 
 somehow, when rightly understood, seen to be expressive of 
 a yet larger and more mysterious selfhood than that which 
 any man can claim to possess or fully to comprehend. Man 
 as placed in Nature, both body and mind, one Self, belongs, 
 together with all other selves and things, to the Being of the 
 World. And the " Being of the World, of which all particu- 
 lar beings are but parts (not in any spatial significance of 
 this word), must then be so conceived of as that in IT can be 
 found the one Ground of all interrelated existences and 
 activities. Thus does the philosophy of Mind open before us 
 the larger problems of the philosophy of all existences, of the 
 6 Being of the World.' " 
 
 At this point in the serious reflective study of man's cogni- 
 tive experience it customarily is that our confidence in our 
 conclusions begins to be disturbed. That man may attain 
 something approaching a descriptive science of the phenomena 
 of his own mental life and mental development as an individ- 
 ual mind, it is not easy to doubt. If one will avoid the phil- 
 osophical mysticism which uses language legitimately derived 
 from, and interpretable into, terms of experience, in the ille- 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 541 
 
 gitimate and vain effort to set forth what lies outside of all 
 possible experience, then one may attain some sort of a Phil- 
 osophy of Mind. If one seeks, not the reality, the unity, the 
 self-identity, and the relations to other realities of an unap- 
 proachable Ding-an-Sich of a soul, but the actuality, unity, 
 self-identity, and actual relationships of the self-knowing 
 man, then one may find valid answers to one's questions. 
 But what invincible opposition, what wholly insurmountable 
 obstacles, may not a reasonable agnosticism offer to even the 
 first attempts at a metaphysical inquiry into the " Being of 
 the World"! 
 
 Doubtless, different students of the profounder problems 
 which are proposed by the experience of man with himself 
 and with things come to the sceptical halting, or to the en- 
 trenched position of agnosticism, at quite different points 
 along their faltering. Probably, in fact, most men become 
 fixedly agnostic at the point where they get tired of reflective 
 thinking. And the history of philosophy seems to show that 
 somewhat of the same experience characterizes the reflective 
 thinking of the race. But consider sympathetically the posi- 
 tion in which I found myself as an apparently logical conclu- 
 sion, a definitively scientific resultant, of all my preceding 
 investigations in psychology and philosophy. I had studied 
 the life of the Mind, originally approaching it from the physi- 
 ological and experimental points of view. But this study had 
 left the problems of its reality and unity, and of its actual 
 causal correlations with the body, unchanged in their essential 
 character and unimpaired in their validity. In attempting 
 further the solution of these metaphysical problems, I had 
 found myself irresistibly carried along into all the larger 
 problems of a cosmical metaphysics. After all, this is only 
 saying that the scientific investigation of man's mental life 
 had issued just where every scientific investigation issues, in 
 the great and deep ocean of the World's Universal Life. In 
 trying to understand my own mental being, I had found this 
 
542 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 being intelligible to itself, only as causally related to the physi- 
 cal changes of the body, and through them to the Being of 
 the World. In a word, I had found my selfhood inextricably 
 interwoven with this Being of the World ; and yet, in just 
 that way and in no other, did I have all the reality, unity, 
 self-identity, and power for good or evil, which I actually 
 possessed. But when such an all-inclusive ontological prob- 
 lem is thus definitely presented to the mind of the reflective 
 thinker of to-day, he cannot easily so far escape from the 
 Zeitgeist as not to raise the previous question. And the 
 previous question is the epistemological problem. 
 
 Can man know Reality ? the reality that is objective, in 
 the sense of being extra-mental and not to be identified with 
 a passing phase of the knower's mind. For let it not be for- 
 gotten that the existence and the characteristics of such real- 
 ity are implicated in the fundamental duality of self and 
 not-self, causally related. And this duality had been found 
 to constitute both the underlying assumption and the final 
 conclusion of a scientific psychology. But this duality itself 
 could be accounted for only as a part of the problem of a 
 higher and more comprehensive Unity of Reality. 
 
 The answer to the problem of the " Being of the World," 
 on its epistemological side the question, namely, as to the 
 possibility, nature, and limits of man's knowledge as bearing 
 on the problem of reality took the final form of a book pub- 
 lished in 1897 on the " Philosophy of Knowledge." In its 
 Preface I ventured to speak of my work as that of a " pioneer " 
 among recent writers in English on psychology and philos- 
 ophy. The word was, of course, not intended to embody the 
 claims of a discoverer, but rather the embarrassments and 
 difficulties of one who has for his task the clearing away of 
 obstacles, and this, in the wish and the hope that his suc- 
 cessors may thereby find easier paths made ready for them. 
 It still seems to me, as it did then, that while English psy- 
 chology and philosophy has been very fruitful in works on 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 543 
 
 Logic, and fairly so in works on Metaphysics, it has for a long 
 time neither accomplished nor attempted the problem of a true 
 Urkenntnisstheorie. It was the effort to examine the experi- 
 ence of the common life of man as a knower, from the stand- 
 point of a modern science of psychology and with a view to 
 disclose and to test its fundamental assumptions, which I 
 desired to make. 
 
 In the " Philosophy of Knowledge " I stated the problem 
 before me in the following terms : "a philosophical criti- 
 cism of knowledge, with a view to point out its origin and 
 nature as implicating reality ; to validate it by reducing to 
 their simplest terms and arranging in a harmonious whole its 
 necessary forms, its assumptions, and its postulates ; and to 
 mark out its limits by further criticism and especially by dis- 
 tinguishing the sources and kinds of error and of half-truth." 
 The inquiry into the nature of knowledge was introduced by 
 a brief critical survey of the history of opinion and of the 
 results of psychological analysis. This history seemed to me 
 to evince the impossibility of discrediting the cognitive facul- 
 ties of man, and then saving to knowledge, or to faith, or to 
 practical postulates, some specially favored kind of cognition. 
 Neither do I believe that the foundations of the " plain man's 
 consciousness " can be undermined by showing its objects to 
 be " appearances," and confidence still be reserved in the 
 " reality " set forth by some towering superstructure of spec- 
 ulative thought. The principle of self-consistency is of the 
 last importance to reason. It is, in fact, only one form of 
 stating the undying self-confidence of reason itself. 
 
 I intended to show by psychological analysis that cognition 
 is not mere intellection ; and that the activity of something 
 more than the logical processes is indispensable to the origin 
 and growth of man's cognitive experience. On the one hand, 
 there is no knowledge without thought ; knowledge is born of 
 thinking, which has arrived at the pausing place of a judgment, 
 a finished product of the mind's synthetic activity. On the 
 
544 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 other hand, the result can be called " knowledge " only upon 
 the supposition that the judgments which enter into the pro- 
 cesses of reasoning have something far other than mere cor- 
 rectness of form. Every judgment of the cognitive order 
 whether true or false implicates the assumption : "What is 
 subjectively united in my act of judging belongs together in 
 the unity of a really existent world." Moreover, any search- 
 ing analysis shows that feeling and willing enter into every 
 cognition, as essential " moments " of it, of whatever sort 
 the cognition analyzed may be. Feeling is not external to cog- 
 nition ; nor is it mere impulse or influence to cognition ; it is 
 also an inseparable factor of every cognitive act. The cogni- 
 tive judgment is reached under the influence of subtle forms 
 of affective consciousness ; and it is distinguished as cognitive 
 only as it is more or less tinged with emotional content. 
 
 But especially true is it of man's experience as a knower, 
 that it comes to him only as ceaselessly active, as a restless, 
 striving, and achieving Will. In a word, man's whole self is 
 concerned in all his cognitive experience ; knowledge is an atti- 
 tude of the whole self toward reality ; growth in knowledge is 
 dependent, for every man, upon the characteristic development 
 taken by his entire self. So that, in no unmeaning use of the 
 words, cognition must be considered as a quasi-ethical achieve- 
 ment involving all the so-called faculties of man. 
 
 In the later chapters of this book I went on to show that 
 ethical and sesthetical momenta enter even into , the so- 
 called " scientific " knowledge of mankind. So that the 
 schism between the ethical and the cognitive man, which 
 Kant attempted in the interests of morals and religion, can 
 no more be perpetuated or justified than can the schism which 
 Mr. Bradley has set forth, in the interests of metaphysical 
 theory, amidst and between the " plain man's " cognitive con- 
 sciousness of so-called " appearances " and his own specula- 
 tive construction of " Reality." 
 
 If, however, we proceed to divide human cognitions accord- 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 545 
 
 ing to the most fundamental differences in their objects, there 
 are two main classes to be considered. These two are the 
 " Knowledge of Things and the Knowledge of Self." As to 
 the character and amounts of the ontological implicates in both, 
 they differ in very important respects. Out of the same roots 
 of man's total experience there emerges, by the active processes 
 of knowledge, the most fundamental of all our distinctions in 
 the kinds of Being. This distinction itself has its origin in the 
 nature of the mind as related to other realities ; and yet the 
 distinction can never be realized except as the mind itself, by 
 its own discriminating, segregating, and unifying activities, 
 brings it to pass. It is born in knowledge ; it is inseparable 
 from knowledge ; and it is both the assumption of every cog- 
 nition and also the conclusion to which every cognition returns. 
 For the reality of the subject and the reality of the object, and 
 the actuality of that relation between subject and object which 
 is essential to knowledge, are an indubitable cognitive experi- 
 ence. That I, the knower, really am, and that my object really 
 is, and that subject and object actually stand in this unique 
 relation all this is only to enumerate the implicates of every 
 particular act of knowledge. 
 
 When, however, the object of my cognition is some Thing 
 and not simply some state of the Self, what I know or know 
 about the object is of a different order, evaluation, and accepted 
 validity. Perception of things by the senses the envisage- 
 ment of the not-self believes, indeed, and must believe, in 
 itself as an indubitable experience of the trans-subjective. 
 But "while the knowledge of Self may attain an intuitive 
 penetration to the heart of Reality, the knowledge of Things 
 remains an analogical interpretation of their apparent behavior 
 into terms of a real nature corresponding, in important char- 
 acteristics, to our own." Thus does the self -like nature of 
 things, as known to man, seem to be an integral part of the 
 assumptions necessary to all the self's knowledge of things. 
 
 Further light is thrown upon this contention by an examina- 
 
 35 
 
546 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 tion of the degrees and limits of knowledge. For I went on 
 to show that there are degrees of that realized attitude of 
 men toward what is actual, which we are accustomed to call 
 " knowledge ; " and that these degrees are to be measured by 
 a certain ideal standard of perfection. "The immediate 
 knowledge of the Self by itself is, in actuality, the realized 
 ideal of knowledge." And as the different kinds and branches 
 of the experience of man as a knower draw nearer to, or re- 
 cede farther away from, this central light, they gain or lose in 
 the certainty of knowledge. For it is with myself, as in active 
 changing relations, to my Self and to that which I can only 
 recognize as " the Other," that actuality abides. Transcend- 
 ent entities and principles, made use of in the interests of ex- 
 plaining experience in general, must therefore be derived from 
 a basis of concrete experiences with acknowledged actualities. 
 
 The figurative words " derived from a basis of concrete ex- 
 periences," and all similar phrases, suggest the part which 
 reasoning plays in the growth of human knowledge. A phil- 
 osophy of knowledge must, therefore, examine critically the 
 postulates of all reasoning, with a view to see what they tell 
 us as to the validity of all our mediate knowledge. Science, 
 in all its branches, is a matter of mediate and derived cogni- 
 tions. These logical postulates of all mediate knowledge are 
 the so-called " Principle of Identity and Difference " and the 
 " Principle of Sufficient Reason," as considered from the 
 epistemological points of view. By a realistic criticism of 
 these postulates I showed that, according to their very nature 
 and universal application, they amount to this conviction : 
 " The principles of all Reality including reality not-my-Self 
 and the principles of my thinking must be the same." 
 
 As for the Principle of Identity, it appeared to me signifi- 
 cant of the self's recognition of its own presuppositionless 
 form of mental life, when in the act of judging cognitively. 
 In this meaning of the words, at least a momentary self- 
 identity is the predicate which knowledge assigns to all that is 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 547 
 
 judged really to exist. But this principle, when taken into 
 connection with the universal fact of change, guarantees the 
 continued existence of every concrete reality as a series of 
 " se(f-produced " but " o^er-related " changes, which are con- 
 formable to law, and which maintain the identity of the par- 
 ticular reality only by such conformity. This, it seems to me, 
 is to conceive of every Thing as being real by virtue of its self- 
 consistency after the pattern of the self-identical Self. 
 
 The practical efficiency of that law of mental life which, 
 subjectively regarded, is called the " Principle of Sufficient 
 Reason, " depends upon the mind's rational determination to 
 reach the goal of knowledge namely, the establishment of 
 causal relations that have truth in reality. But " causality " 
 is itself no invincible bond that, in a quasi-external way, seizes 
 hold of things and forces them into a Unity. It is, the 
 rather, a way of conceiving the " Being of the World " after the 
 analogy of the Life of a Self, as a striving toward a completer 
 self-realization under the consciously accepted motif of imma- 
 nent Ideas. The principle, as a postulate of all reasoning, 
 and so of all science, implies, (1) some sort of unitary Being 
 for the really existent ; (2) that this Being is Will ; (3) that 
 the differentiation of the activity of this Will, and the connec- 
 tion of the differentiated " momenta," the separate beings of 
 the world, is teleological and rational, like that of our own 
 Self. 
 
 Thus, in all its work of generalization and inference, I 
 saw that the mind of man carries over to its concepts the 
 potencies of feeling and will with which the Self knows itself 
 to be endowed, and which it analogically feels obliged to rec- 
 ognize as essential to the being of Things. 
 
 When we bring ourselves frankly and courageously to face 
 the difficulties which the current agnosticism opposes to our 
 confidence in human knowledge, we find them to be quite 
 other than those with which it is customary to conjure. As 
 to the possibility of transcending experience and so reaching 
 
548 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 the Real, I showed that in the meaning of the words as 
 employed by the agnostic argument experience is always and 
 necessarily transcended by knowledge. Indeed, the very 
 question whicli agnosticism too often neglects to consider, 
 and which it must always fail to answer, is precisely this: 
 " Why does experience, in order to explain itself, need to tran- 
 scend itself as mere fact ? " For without actually reaching and 
 grasping, by all those potencies .of the soul which the act of 
 cognition involves, the real conditions, universal laws, and re- 
 lated entities of the Self and of Things, we cannot even form 
 the conception of human (cognitive} " experience." Some criti- 
 cal estimate of the ontological implicates of knowledge is, in- 
 deed, a necessary part of every critical theory of knowledge. 
 But this very estimate shows us a transcendent Real, present in 
 experience, whenever the life of consciousness becomes a com- 
 pleted act of knowledge. If we inquire as to how this can be, 
 we find that the entire complex condition of the subject, in the 
 act of cognition, involves and guarantees the Being of the trans- 
 subjective existent. Inasmuch, however, as all knowledge of 
 the nature and transactions of the non-self is analogical, a 
 true and full knowledge of Self is the prime condition of a 
 valid and ever larger knowledge of the ultimate nature and 
 actual transactions of all Reality. 
 
 I then went on to show in detail that neither scepticism, 
 nor agnosticism, nor criticism, ought to shake man's confi- 
 dence in the validity of his knowledge as involving this 
 general ontological postulate: The Being of the World is 
 some kind of a Unity, like that of the Self, because known to 
 be self-differentiating in accordance with immanent Ideas. 
 Alleged " antinomies," and alleged or genuine distinctions 
 between truth and error, do not penetrate the heart of man's 
 cognitive experience so as to let the life-blood out of this 
 central source of all his potency as a knower of the truth of 
 things. All the derived and subordinate " criteria of knowl- 
 edge," so-called, are included in the persistent effort of the 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 549 
 
 individual and of the race to arrive at an harmonious and 
 satisfactory experience that is based on this fundamental 
 postulate. Every correct view of the nature, origin, limits, 
 and implicates of man's cognitive powers has thus an 
 undoubtedly important teleology. As we rise into the higher 
 regions and dig down deeper about the foundations of human 
 knowledge, the epistemological problem is answered by refer- 
 ence to the aims of the Being that realizes the highest and 
 best conception of Life. u Cognition is part of the very life 
 of the Self ; but it is not the whole of that life ; it serves that 
 life in its striving after the realization of ideals. Thus are we 
 prepared to contemplate the objects of man's cognition, not 
 merely as interconnected beings and transactions obedient to 
 law in bare fact, but also as moments in the Life of a Being 
 that is actually realizing its own immanent ideas." 
 
 Finally, if one elects to pursue his agnostic doubtings with 
 a complete sincerity of feeling and with strict logical con- 
 sistency, they lead him into that black gulf which has no 
 light, no bottom, no discernible sides, no outlook upward ; in 
 it, all forms of science and all practical cognitions, as well as- 
 ethical and religious faiths, are totally lost. This is for the 
 rational mind to perish utterly, through a seeming devotion to 
 the exigencies of logic ; while at the same time being guilty 
 of the irrational from -the epistemological point of view, and 
 from the practical point of view, of coquetting and dissipating 
 one's virility in companionship with the absurd. " Whereas, 
 if we will once admit with hopeful intelligence and reasonable 
 cheerfulness what we are bound to admit in some manner and 
 to an indefinitely large extent, namely, the correspondence 
 or systematic relationship of the cognitive Self with that all- 
 inclusive Reality which encompasses it, when conceived of as 
 an Absolute Self, then all the separate and subordinate 
 forms of relation are taken up into and merged in a relation 
 between the individual and the Universal both cognized in 
 terms of Self." For, essentially considered, knowledge is 
 
550 A THEORY OF REALITY 
 
 a species of intercourse between selves. And if human cog- 
 nitive experience is all relative to the knower, and of related 
 things, it is none the less "the establishment of a relation 
 between the Revealer, the Absolute Self, and the Self to whom 
 the revelation comes." 
 
 And now, in the discussions just closing, I have tried to 
 show that the epistemological principles of my earlier book 
 are confirmed by a critical examination of all those charac- 
 teristics of Reality which all men, whether in the exercise 
 of their naive cognitive powers or as acute and penetrat- 
 ing students of the positive sciences, actually accept. My 
 " Theory of Reality " is, in fact, the detailed ontological 
 doctrine of that very assumption with which the philosophy 
 of knowledge found all human experience, both ordinary and 
 scientific, to be penetrated. All things and all selves are vir- 
 tually understood by the knower, man, to belong to, to be man- 
 ifestations of, dependencies upon, this Absolute Self. And 
 developing self-consciousness, as well as the progressive seiz- 
 ure of the truth of the reality of things, leads the mind of 
 man to recognize that the ultimate Being of the World is its 
 own indwelling and absolute spiritual Life, the Life of a 
 self-conscious Will and Mind which stands related to that 
 complex of objects which are made known in all human 
 experience, as their One and Ultimate Ground. 
 
 Throughout these prolonged investigations into the nature 
 of the Real I have steadily Maintained my confidence in the 
 unity of man's being, and in the Unity of Reality which phil- 
 osophy aims to find and to expound. I cannot allow that 
 there is a schism between the philosophy of the Real and the 
 philosophy of the Ideal, between general metaphysics, with 
 its two branches of the Philosophy of Nature and the Phil- 
 osophy of Mind, and the metaphysics of Ethics, ^Esthetics, 
 and of Religion. For man, as fitted for knowledge and for 
 conduct, is one ; and the World, in which he thinks and acts 
 and hopes and fears and dreams and prays and worships, is 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 551 
 
 One. But the phenomena and principles of ethics, aesthetics, 
 and religion have much more to tell us as to that Being of 
 the World which is known to science in terms of the Absolute 
 Self. Its higher spiritual characteristics, if such are to be 
 found, must be discerned and harmonized by a critical reflec- 
 tion which deals chiefly with the ideals of man. Not as 
 though realities could either be, or be known, in separation 
 from ideas ; or as though the Real were not ideal, or the Ideal 
 had no place in reality. Yet the whole being of man must 
 tell its story, and find itself satisfied, if possible, in the phil- 
 osophical conception of the Absolute. This conception, there- 
 fore, must get its more spiritual content of truth and beauty 
 from the study of Ethics, ^Esthetics, and the Philosophy of 
 Religion. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABSOLUTE, the, mystical conception of, 
 160 f., 450 f . ; not the unrelated, 170 f ., 
 493 f., 497, 499 ; but the source of rela- 
 tions, 170 f . ; and a system of relations, 
 173 f., 333: as a life in time, 208 f., 
 212 f.; and a Unity, 335 f., 415 f.; con- 
 ceived of, as a Self, 397 f., 413 f., 415 f., 
 418, 489 f. ; or as a material whole, 
 456 f ., 460 f ., 509 f. ; relations of, to the 
 World, 493 f., 501 f., 507, 509 f., 520 f., 
 524 f. ; as source of relations, 499 f., 
 507, 512 f . ; as omniscient, 501 f . 
 
 Activity, as "core" of Being, 123 f., 
 257 f . ; as essential to substance, 125 f. ; 
 self-felt, the origin of the category of 
 force, 257 f., 260 f. 
 
 Actuality, as distinguished from phenom- 
 ena, 34 f., 37 f., 42 f., 46, 54 ; as applied 
 to the Self, 39 f., 42 f., 481 f.; of the 
 Ideal, 473 f., 479 f. 
 
 "Affinity," meaning of the chemical, 286. 
 
 Anthropomorphism, as respects the cate- 
 gory of force, 261 f.; and of forms and 
 laws. 352 f., 354 f. ; and final purpose, 
 372 f. 
 
 Appearance (see "Phenomenon"). 
 
 Aristotle, the title, "metaphysics," 16 f.; 
 on motion, 226. 
 
 Atomic Theory, metaphysics of, 442 f., 
 444 f., 446. 
 
 Axiom, nature of the, 307 f ., 311 f. 314 f . 
 
 BAIN, on force and matter, 437. 
 
 Balfour, Mr., on the aesthetical element in 
 metaphysics, 60. 
 
 Becoming, Principle of (see Change). 
 
 Being, of the particular, 111 f., 123 f., 
 132 f.; conception of the "pure," 112, 
 122 f.; of "Things," 116 f. 
 
 Berkeley, ontology of his idealism, 8, 97. 
 
 Bernoulli, on acfio in distans, 275. 
 
 Boyle, on relation of experience to meta- 
 physics, 28. 
 
 Bradley, Mr., on reality and appearance, 
 9 ; his doctrine of the categories, 104 f . ; 
 
 and of the ground of cognition, 114; his 
 doctrine of "self-consistency," 121 f., 
 158, 323; on the concept of space, 229. 
 
 CATEGORIES, the, as subject matter of 
 metaphysics, 25 f.; Things as the har- 
 mony of, 64 f., 84 f.; enumeration of, 
 67, 84 f., 162 f.; inseparable in reality, 
 87 f., 395 f. ; but connected in cogni- 
 tion, 88 f., 492 f.; yet independent in 
 characteristics, 94 f. ; and interrelated 
 and united, 98 f . ; proofs of the unity of, 
 106 f.; as products of evolution, 222 f. 
 
 Causality, conception of, 261 f ., 266, 360 f . ; 
 as applied to body and mind, 411 f.; 
 the totality of Being as a Cause, 412 f., 
 506 f., 509, 510 f. 
 
 Cell, behavior of the, 287. 
 
 Challis, Prof., on actio in distans, 275, 276. 
 
 Change, as a category, 140; as a principle 
 of Becoming, 141 f., 151 f., 154 f., 158; 
 is actual, 141 f ., 148 f. ; and matter of 
 cognitive experience, 143 f., 148 f.; as 
 applied to Self, 143, 145 f.; and to 
 Things, 143, 145 f . ; limitation of, 149 f . ; 
 as in a system, 150 f. 
 
 Clerk Maxwell, on the conception of 
 energy, 272 f ., 282 f. ; and of matter, 
 431 f., 433, 435. 
 
 Criticism, its relations to metaphysics, 
 ft. 
 
 Cognition (see Knowledge). 
 
 Cotta, on union of force and matter, 436. 
 
 DESCARTES, his "First Law of Nature," 
 
 433 f. 
 
 Ding-an-Sich, conception of, 112 f ., 122 f . 
 Du Bois-Reymond, on actio in distans, 
 
 275; and union of force and matter, 
 
 436 f. 
 Duhring, on quantity of the World-mass, 
 
 429. 
 
 ENERGY, physical conception of, 269 f., 
 278, 431 f.; as "kinetic and potential," 
 
554 
 
 INDEX 
 
 278 f. : conservation and correlation of, 
 280 f ., 283 f. ; the chemical, 285 f . 
 
 Eucken, on hatred of metaphysics, 11. 
 
 Evolution, conception of, requires "time," 
 200 f. ; as applied to the categories, 
 222 f . ; biological doctrine of, 377 f., 
 379 f., 467 f., 470 f . 
 
 Experience, the cognitive, of Reality, 19 f . ? 
 57 f., 61 f., 63 f., 68 f., 84 f., 114 f., 
 143 f., 260 f.; unity of, 21 f.; relation 
 of, to metaphysics, 28 f. 
 
 FARADAY, his conception of the atom, 
 442 f. 
 
 Final Purpose, conception of, in meta- 
 physics, 363 f ., 384 f. ; differences of po- 
 sition regarding, 363 f . ; in the World's 
 course, 366 f., 380 f., 390 f. ; psycholog- 
 ical genesis of, 369 f . ; application of, to 
 the Self, 370 f. ; and to external Nature, 
 374 f., 376 f., 386 f., relation of biology 
 to, 377 f . ; objections to, 381 f . ; relation 
 to mechanism, 384 f. 
 
 Force, as a category, 94 f., 253 f.,263 f., 
 269 f., 407 f.; implied in the "occu- 
 pancy" of space, 251 f.; and in all the 
 categories, 253 f ., 270 f. ; origin of con- 
 ception of, 255 f., 260 f., 273 f . ; as " sub- 
 stantial causality," 261 f., 266; physical 
 conception of, 264 f., 269 f., 280 f. ; as 
 implying unity, 270 f., 288 f., 407 ; 
 distribution of, 272 f., 284 f . ; as act io in 
 distans, 274 f., 276 f. 
 
 Form, a category, 337 f.; genesis of con- 
 ception of, 340; reality of, 346 f. ; as 
 applied to the Self, 347 f . ; and to Things, 
 348 f . ; as ideal, 350 f . 
 
 Freedom, in relation to the Absolute, 513 f. 
 
 GEOMETRY, the Euclidean, 304 f., 308 f., 
 311 f . ; the modern. 315 f.; dependence 
 of, on number, 318 f. 
 
 Goethe, on the mystery of nature, 45. 
 
 Gravity, the conception of, 277 f. 
 
 H.ECKEL, on protoplasm, 467 f. 
 
 Hegel, his theory of the categories, 85, 
 
 88, 94. 
 
 Heraclitus, his principle of Becoming, 140. 
 Hodgson, on conception of metaphysics, 17. 
 Hume, his view of metaphysics, 2, 12 f. 
 Huygens, on conservation of energy. 280. 
 
 IDEA, as immanent in reality, 155 f ., 340 f., 
 350 f., 354 f., 356 f . ; forms and laws 
 imply the category of, 341 f., 351 f.; the 
 moral, 391 f.; actuality of the, 473 f., 
 477 f., 483 f. 
 
 Idealism, ontology of, 245 f., 473 f., 477 f., 
 
 483 f., 488 f. 
 Identity, of things, 155 f.; and of Self, 
 
 156 f . ; as applied to the Absolute, 500 f ., 
 
 524 f. 
 
 Inertia, physical conception of, 432 f. 
 Infinite, idea of, as applied to time, 202 f. 
 
 KANT, his views on metaphysics, 4 f., 26 ; 
 and its method, 26 ; his conception of 
 Ding-an-Sich, 44 f., 103 f. ; on the mys- 
 tery of Nature, 45; metaphysics of his 
 "categorical imperative," 59 f. ; his doc- 
 trine of the categories, 84 f., 98 f., 102, 
 163 f . ; and of the unity of the world, 
 102 f . ; his treatment of relation, 163 f. ; 
 of space and time, 181 f., 203 f., 219 f.; 
 and the mathematical conceptions, 299, 
 310, 312, 331; on the laws of nature, 
 346, 361 ; his treatment of final purpose, 
 373 f., 376 f., 386 f., 389 f. 
 
 Knowledge, always ontological, 10 f ., 19 f., 
 57 f ., 58, 68 f ., 84 f., 124 f . ; as interpre- 
 tative, 22 f. ; and involving all the cate- 
 gories, 86 f., 99 f . ; of the related, 165 f ., 
 172 f. 
 
 LAW, a category, 337 f., 359 f.; so-called 
 "reign" of, 339 f. 359 f., 361; genesis 
 of conception of. 340 f . ; as applied to 
 Self, 347 f. ; and to Things, 349 f., 361. 
 
 Leibnitz, on conservation of energy, 280. 
 
 Lewes, on conception of force, 437. 
 
 Life, metaphysical conception of, 460 f. ; 
 biological view of, 462 f., 464 f. 
 
 Lotze, his definition of the actual, 62 f . ; on 
 the ground of cognition, 114; his con- 
 ception of time, 186, 206; and of space, 
 221; and of force, 288, 437 ; on the recon- 
 ciliation of mechanism and Idea, 388 f. 
 
 MASS, physical conception of, 424 f . ; psy- 
 chological genesis of, 426 f . ; as measur- 
 able quantity, 427 f . 
 
 Materialism, 420 f., 448 f., 453 f. 
 
 Matter, conception of, in metaphysics, 419 
 f., 422, 423 f., 429 f., 437, 439 f . ; mate- 
 rialistic view of, 420 f ., 448 f . ; physicist's 
 conception of, 423 f., 432 f., 446 f. ; es- 
 sential properties of, 424 f., 446 f.; in- 
 volves energy, 431 f., 438 f.; yet is inert, 
 432 f., 438; origin of, in experience, 435 
 f. ; as a substrate, 438 f., 446 f., 449, 
 460 f., 466 f.; with qualitatively differ- 
 ent elements, 442 f., 444 f.; not mere 
 centres of force, 442 f . ; insufficiency of 
 the conception, 453 f. 
 
 Measure (see Quantity). 
 
INDEX 
 
 555 
 
 Metaphysics, the justification of, 1 f., 6 f., 
 10 f., 19 f., 108 f.; Hume's view of, 2; 
 Kant's view of, 4 f . ; Hegel's view of, 6 ; 
 the, of ordinary consciousness, 7 f. ; ob- 
 jections to, 9 f., 13 f. ; the conception of, 
 16 f., 19 f.; its functions, 21 f. ; the 
 method of, 24 f., 28 f. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, on the conception of 
 substance, 120 f., 128 f. 
 
 Mohr, on actio in distans, 275. 
 
 Motion, as actual, 226 f., 233 f., 240 f., 
 251 f.; Trendelenburg's theory of, 226; 
 universality of, 233 f., 242 f. ; sensation- 
 complexes of, 234 f. ; as absolute and 
 relative, 240 f.; as ultimate fact, 251 f. 
 
 NATURE, conception of, 45, 359 f., 452 f., as 
 a mechanism, 386 f., 468 f . ; as personi- 
 fied, 453 f., 456 f ., 486 f. ; and an Ab- 
 solute Whole, 456 f ., 471 f. ; or Infinite 
 Spirit, 458 f., 468 f., 486 f . ; an Ideal, 
 487 f. 
 
 Newcomb, Prof. S., his conception of 
 "Force," 268; of energy, 269; and of 
 space, 304. 
 
 Newton, on the definition of "Force," 268; 
 and actio in distans, 274; his conception 
 of gravity, 277 f., and of " Matter," 277, 
 282. 
 
 Number, conception of, as related to Quan- 
 tity, 298 f., 324; science of, 318 f., 330 
 f. ; its essence is in counting, 319 f., 322 
 f .. 325 f. ; psychological origin of, 319 f., 
 321 f . ; as applied to reality, 325 f . 
 
 PARMEXIDES, his conception of Nature, 
 
 454 f . 
 Paulsen, his conception of the categories, 
 
 222 f., 228. 
 Phenomenon, in contrast with the actual, 
 
 34 f., 42 f., 46, 54; origin of conception 
 
 of, 35 f., 37 f., 48 ; as applied to the Self, 
 
 39 f., 42 f., 48; and to Things, 50 f. 
 Philosophy, nature of, 3 f., 108. 
 Physics, the metaphysics of, 264 f. ; as 
 
 science of dynamics, 265 f. 
 Poisson, M., definition of inertia, 434 f. 
 Property, conception of, as applied to 
 
 Things, 72 f. 
 
 QUALITY, of things, 111 f., 133 f., not sepa- 
 rable from things, 133 f. ; implies rela- 
 tion, 135 f. 
 
 Quantity, conception of. as applied to 
 Reality, 285 f., 297 f., 317; scientific use 
 of, 294, 301 f., 307 f., 316 f. ; origin of 
 conception of, 299 f . ; as relative, 305 f . 
 
 REALITY, as involved in experience, 8 f., 
 49 f., 61 f., 67 f., 84 f., 88 f., 91 f., 124 
 f., 170 f., 201 f., 260 f., 408 f., 413 f., 475 
 f.; not an abstraction, 18 f., 170 f.; as 
 cause of phenomena, 49 f., 254 f. ; con- 
 ception of, analyzed, 57 f., 60 f., 68 f., 
 76 f., 84 f., 394 f. ; not mere process, 76; 
 nor mere law, 76 f. ; nor mere content 
 of consciousness, 77 f. ; nor inscrutable 
 essence, 78 ; nor merely negative, 79 f . ; 
 as fact, 81 ; as agent, 81 f . ; as agree- 
 ment with law, 82; as harmony of the 
 categories, 84 f., 91 f., 99 f ., 107 f. ; not 
 the Unrelated, 105 f., 164 f., 170 f., 201 
 f., 307, 497 f.; as "in space and 
 time," 178 f., 207 f., 235, 237 f., 408 f. ; 
 necessarily dynamical, 254 f . ; and im- 
 plying force, 260 f., 289 f., 293, 367; and 
 forms and laws, 343 f., 347 f. ; and final 
 purpose, 367 f. ; doctrine of spheres of, 
 394 f., 401 f ., 408 f . ; as a Spiritual Life, 
 408 f., 417 f., 449 f.; and a Unity, 413, 
 414 f . ; and an Idea, 475 f . 
 
 Relation as " mother " of the categories, 160 
 f. ; general nature of, 162 f . ; Kant's treat- 
 ment of, 163 f. ; meaning of, in reality, 
 164 f., 170 f., 174 f. ; knowledge of, 165 
 f . ; as applied to the Absolute, 170 f . ; 
 to the Self, 172 f. ; applied to things in 
 space and time, 201 f. 
 
 Ribot, view of metaphysics, 17. 
 
 Riehl, on sources of metaphysics, 29; con- 
 ception of reality, 74; and of quantity, 
 428. 
 
 Rosmini, his conception of philosophy, 17. 
 
 Royce, Prof., the basis of metaphysics, 20. 
 
 ScHELLiNG.on final purpose in nature, 374; 
 his conception of matter, 440. 
 
 Schopenhauer, on the principles of " indi- 
 viduation," 132, 214 f.; on space, 214 f.; 
 on the world as Idea, 346; his " Will-to- 
 live," 377 f. 
 
 Science, objections of, to metaphysics, 9 f. 
 
 Segner, as quoted by Kant, 45. 
 
 Self, conception of, in metaphysics, 31 f., 
 121 f ., 143 f., 209 f., 231, 395 f", 409 f ., 412 
 (and passim ) ; development of conception 
 of, 36 f ., 41 f ., 404, 406 f . : as a " phenome- 
 non," 39 f. ; and subject of change, 143 
 f., 145 f., 215 f. ; but self-relating, 172 f . ; 
 as existent in time, 201 f., 212 f.; yet 
 "absolute," 209 f., 397 f.; as existent in 
 space, 216 f ., 219 f . ; and an active prin- 
 ciple, 231; the Absolute Self, 397 f., 405 
 f.. 489 f.; and as Spirit, 400 f., 408 f., 
 458 f. ; varying conceptions of, 408 f . ; 
 the actuality of, 481 f. 
 
556 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Space, reality as " being in," 88 f., 178 f., 
 214 f., 249 f . ; occupation of, by things, 
 90 f., 251 f.; considered as a "medium," 
 178 f., 215; Kantian conception of, 181 
 f., 214 f. ; as principle of differentia- 
 tion, 214 f., 218 f., 225 f., 2-38, 245 f . ; 
 real nature of, 216 f., 227 f., 233 f . ; 
 ethical and social bearings of the cate- 
 gory of, 216 f. ; as applied to the Self, 
 216"f., 219 f., 222 f ,224 f. ; development 
 of concept of, 229 f. ; reality of 234 f., 
 
 242 f., 311; as assumed in chemistry, 
 
 243 f . ; divisibility of, 247 f.; dimen- 
 sions of, 248 f . 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, his philosophy ontolog- 
 ical, 6 ; conception of reality, 73 f . ; and 
 of force, 437. 
 
 Spirit, as the "essence" of the Self, 400 
 f ., 407 f., 457 f. ; and of the Being of the 
 World, 414 f., 418, 457, 460 f . ; the In- 
 finite, 458 f. 
 
 Substantiality, metaphysical use of, 73, 
 
 111 f., 128 f . ; conception of, as applied 
 to things, 117 f., 128 f . ; as applied to 
 Self, 136. 
 
 TEICHMUL.LER, on relations of metaphysics 
 to experience, 28 ; on problem of reality, 
 74; and concept of substance, 127 f. ; and 
 of space, 231 ; on meaning of interaction, 
 358. 
 
 Teleology (see " Final Purpose "). 
 
 Theory of Reality, the goal of metaphys- 
 ical system, 29 f., 75, 109 f., 522 f.; 
 practical benefits of, 32 f. ; limitations 
 of, 522 f. 
 
 Thing, development of conception of, 36 f., 
 
 112 f.; as a reality, 50 f., 64 f., 68 f., 
 130 f. ; involves the harmony of the 
 categories, 64 f., 84 f.,232; knowledge 
 of, and of Self, 69 f ., 401 f . ; properties 
 of a, 72 f., 113 f., 401 f., 447 f.; as sub- 
 stance and qualities, 113 f., 117 f., 123 f., 
 130 f.; and subject to change, 143 f.; 
 an existence in space, 225 f., 232 f., 234 
 f. ; implies forms and laws, 343 f., 347 f . ; 
 and final purpose, 368 f., 375 f . ; essen- 
 tial self-hood of, 401 f.; although of in- 
 ferior order, 403 f., 414 f., 447 f. 
 
 Thomson, Sir Wm., his conception of Force, 
 267 ; and of Matter, 423, 445. 
 
 Time, considered as a "medium," 178 f., 
 209 f. ; origin of consciousness of, 184 f., 
 187 f.; actuality of, 186 f., 189 f., 191 f., 
 209 f. ; assumptions involved in cate- 
 gory of, 195 f., 203 f., 207 f.; infinity of, 
 202 f. 
 
 Trendelenburg, on the category of motion, 
 226. 
 
 Truth, its implicate of reality, 58 f. 
 
 Tyndall, on conservation of energy, 281; 
 and nature of the atom, 448. 
 
 UNITY, the, which Reality has, 100 f., 133 
 f., 176 f., 329 f., 333 f., 359 f., 413 f . ; of 
 the categories, 105 f., 132 f. ; as a system 
 of relations, 176 f., 335 f . ; nature of the 
 conception of, 333 f. 
 
 Uplines, on nature of a Thing, 95 f. 
 
 VOLKMANN, on development of space-con- 
 sciousness, 231 f. ; and conception of 
 quantity, 301 ; on genesis of the idea of 
 end, 369. 
 
 WARD, on the concept of space, 231 ; and 
 of unity, 323. 
 
 Watson, Prof., on conception of Force, 
 437. 
 
 Will, as the reality of things. 70 f., 123 f., 
 132 f ., 289 f , 439 f., 506 f.,' 513 f. 
 
 Williams, Prof. H. S., on heredity, 471. 
 
 World, the, as existent in time, 195 f., 198 
 f., 204 f., 207 f . ; conception of, space- 
 wise, 249 f.; as a unity of force, 254 f., 
 293, 413 f., 517; as Absolute Self, 405 f., 
 411 f., 493 f., 501 f., 517 f., 527; as a 
 Subject, 501 f., 506 f. 
 
 World-Ground, conception of Life ap- 
 plied to the, 204 f., 250 f, 408 f.; the 
 Absolute as the, 493 f., 506 f., 512 f.,523 
 f., 527 f. 
 
 Wundt, his analysis of an object-thing, 117 
 f. ; on category of relation, 167 f., 291.; 
 and of force, 261 f. ; on the conception 
 of matter, 422, 445; and of Infinite 
 Spirit, 458. 
 
. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY 
 
 GENERAL 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 METAPHYSICAL 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Outlines of Descriptive Psychology 
 
 Svo. Si. 50 net 
 
 Psychology: Descriptive and Explanatory 
 
 Svo. $4.50 
 
 Primer of Psychology 
 
 i2mo. fti.oo #/ 
 
 Elements of Physiological Psychology 
 
 With Numerous Illustrations. Svo. $4.50 
 
 Outlines of Physiological Psychology 
 
 Illustrated. Svo. $2.00 
 
 Philosophy of Mind 
 
 Svo. $3.00 
 
 Philosophy of Knowledge 
 
 Svo. $4.00 
 
 NOTE. The philosophic writings of Dr. Ladd have now become so numerous and 
 are so widely known in a general way, that the publishers take pleasure in giving them 
 some special notice, with the object that the adaptation and purpose of each volume may 
 be better understood. It is believed that this author's "Primer of Psychology," "Out- 
 lines of Descriptive Psychology," "Psychology: Descriptive and Explanatory," " Ele- 
 ments of Physiological Psychology," and " Philosophy of Mind " form a continuous course 
 in the subject which surpasses any similar course that has appeared. Naturally, where 
 several books by one author treat of the same subject, some confusion in ordering results, 
 and it is to prevent this, as well as in the hope of leading to a wider interest in the 
 books, that the following description has been prepared. 
 
GENERAL DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY: DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANATORY 
 
 A Treatise of the Phenomena, Laws and Development oi Human Mental Life 
 8vo. 676 pages. $4.50 
 
 As indicated in the sub-title, this work has for its object the study of 
 human mental life, and is perhaps better denned by the term introspective 
 psychology than by any other in common use. It is a general treatise 
 for those who wish to gain a thorough knowledge of the subject, not de- 
 signed merely for use as a text-book, while at the same time the product 
 of one who has taught a large number of pupils, and embodying much 
 experience gained through the work of the class-room. The size and 
 scope, the amount and kind of material, and the style of its presentation 
 unite in making it a suitable book for mature students, as those usually 
 are who begin the subject in colleges. It is therefore a college text-book, 
 and is recommended without qualification for such use. 
 
 " Professor Ladd has presented in this work a great body of facts on all the important 
 points in psychology, and has subjected them to a keen and illuminating criticism. I know 
 of no other work that gives so good a critical survey of the whole field as this." 
 
 Prof. B. P. BOWNE, Boston University. 
 
 " It is rich in material, admirably clear and well arranged, and a thoroughly satisfac- 
 tory introductory book for the student in this rapidly developing field of study. I shall 
 at once recommend its use by my classes." 
 
 Prof. J. W. STEARNS, University of Wisconsin. 
 
 " My impression of it is that it is Professor Ladd's best work, that it contains the 
 maturest and most independent expression of his views on all the principal topics in 
 psychology. It is a distinct honor to American scholarship to have produced it." 
 
 Prof. H. N. GARDNER, Smith College. 
 
 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 226 pages. $1.00 net 
 
 As its title indicates, this is a text-book for elementary students, and 
 was written by this eminent author because no book in America had been 
 found satisfactory for academies and high schools, and for a large class 
 of general readers who might find some pleasure and perhaps more 
 profit in reading a very brief and very simple treatise on psychology. 
 The author's success in his undertaking may be measured by the fact 
 that within eighteen months of its publication six editions were ex- 
 hausted. The book will be used the coming year in more than sixty 
 high schools and academies, as well as in many colleges and normal 
 schools. 
 
 CONTENTS: 
 
 I. THE MIND AND ITS ACTIVITIES. VII. HEARING AND SIGHT. 
 
 II. CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION. VIII. MEMORY AND IMAGINATION. 
 
 m. SENSATIONS. IX. THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 
 
 IV. FEELING. X. REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 V. MENTAL IMAGES Ano IDEAS. XI. EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS AND DESIRES. 
 
 VI. SMELL, TASTE AND TOUCH. XII. WILL AND CHARACTER. 
 XIII. TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT. 
 
GENERAL DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 OUTLINES OF DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 In spite of the fact that the last few years have witnessed the ap- 
 pearance of numerous works on Psychology, there still exists a need for 
 a clear, concise, elementary, yet scholarly volume, adapted to class-room 
 use in colleges and normal Schools. Dr. Ladd, who has won an inter- 
 national reputation by his many-sided ability as author and teacher, at 
 the request of many friends, has written a brief but thorough text-book 
 of Psychology to meet the demands of the present situation. The 
 unprecedented success of Professor Ladd's more advanced books, and 
 of his " Primer of Psychology," insure widespread popularity for this 
 opportune addition to the apparatus of psychological study. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY: DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANATORY 
 
 A Treatise of the Phenomena, Laws and Development of Human 
 Mental Life. 8vo. 676 pages. $4.50 
 
 This work has for its object the study of human mental life, and is 
 perhaps better defined by the term introspective psychology than by any 
 other in common use. It is a general treatise for those who wish to gain 
 a thorough knowledge of the subject, not designed merely for use as a 
 text-book, while at the same time embodying much practical experience 
 gained through the work of the class-room. The size and scope, the 
 amount and kind of material, and the style of its presentation unite in 
 making it a suitable book for mature students. 
 
 My impression of it is that it is Professor Ladd's best work, that it contains the maturest 
 and most independent expression of his views on all the principal topics in psychology. It is a 
 distinct honor to American scholarship to have produced it. Prof. H. N. GARDNER, Smith 
 College. 
 
 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 12mo. 226 pages. $1.00 net 
 
 As its title indicates, this is a text-book for elementary students, and 
 was written by this eminent author because no book in America had been 
 found satisfactory for academies and high schools, and for a large class 
 of general readers who might find some pleasure and perhaps more 
 profit in reading a very brief and simple treatise on psychology. The 
 author's success in his undertaking may be measured by the fact that 
 within eighteen months of its publication- six editions were exhausted. 
 The book will be used the coming year in more than sixty high schools 
 and academies, as well as in many colleges and normal schools. 
 
METAPHYSICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 
 
 An Essay in the Metaphysics of Psychology. 8vo. 412 pages. $3.00 
 
 This is a. speculative treatment of certain problems suggested, but 
 not discussed, in the study of psychology, and therefore appropriately 
 follows the author's earlier works on that subject. The subjects treated 
 are : Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind, The Concept of Mind, 
 The Reality of Mind, The Consciousness of Identity and the so-called 
 Double Consciousness, The Unity of Mind, Mind and Body, Materialism 
 and Spiritualism, Monism and Dualism, Origin and Permanence of Mind, 
 Place of Man's Mind in Nature. 
 
 JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE, London." We may say of this book that it 
 is written in the author's best style. The destructive criticism is in places markedly 
 effective, and the book ought to be widely read as one of the most able and suggestive 
 contributions of recent years to the literature of the philosophy of mind." 
 
 THE DIAL." Its raking attack upon over-hasty monism is particularly well timed. 
 Although the border-land which divides Psychology from Metaphysics is partially sur- 
 veyed in many philosophical and psychological works, Professor Ladd has for the first , 
 time brought the more important questions within the limits of a single volume." 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 8vo. 614 pages. $4.00 
 
 This is the first adequate discussion of the subject by any American 
 author, and naturally will attract special attention aside from the fact that 
 it is the work of Dr. Ladd, whose name is so familiar to students of 
 philosophy both in this country and abroad. The book appeals to the 
 general reader by reason of the relation this subject bears to questions 
 now so prominently before the philosophical and religious world, as well 
 as through the broad sympathy of the author with different phases of 
 thought. It will also find a place waiting for it as a text-book for 
 advanced and postgraduate students in the study of logic and the laws 
 of thought. Ministers, too, will get from it much material for which 
 they find a constant use. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. "It would ill becomeone to take leave of awork 
 which must lay many under obligation without noting its broad basis in a knowledge 
 carefully garnered from many sources during long years, its candor, its striking variety of 
 content, and its suggestiveness." 
 
 Copies of these books will be supplied to teachers for examination or intro- 
 duction at Special Net Rates, regarding which correspondence is solicited. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 PUBLISHERS - - NEW YORK CITY 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 RECTD LP 
 
 DEC 1 7 1957 
 
 LD 21A-50m-8,'57 
 (C8481slO)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
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