Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/89

THE DISTINCTION OF INNER AND OUTER EXPERIENCE. 75 ment must always have a reality beyond the predicate. Ta reduce the two sides to a fundamental identity as aspects of one thought-content is to destroy the possibility of predica- tion. 1 And this must apply to the judgment of self-con- sciousDess as well as to that of perception. Thus, when we predicate thought of the self, the judgment is made possible by the fact that the self is also a centre of feeling and will, and cannot be dissolved in the pure unity of thought. This distinction makes the 'judgment significant ; and self-con- sciousness is an illustration of the principle that the object of thought is more than thought. On the other hand, all three elements are embraced in the self as subject of experi- ence, and so the self is not a reality beyond experience in this wider sense. We are not, therefore, entitled to argue that the subject of experience is equivalent to thinking-subject, and on this ground to claim that the object is thought and nothing more. The reality to which I refer my states of consciousness must always be more than these states. We have already tried to show in what way we think this reality is to be conceived. It would be futile, however, to deny that those who believe the hypothesis of individual reals to be justifiable and even necessary are not in a position of great difficulty when they try to explain their place and meaning in the ultimate system of things. Dr. Ward, for example, in his Lectures on Naturalism and Agnosticism accepts the principle of individual selves or centres of experience, but it is some- what difficult to understand the relations in which he con- ceives these centres to stand to the Absolute. God, we are told, is " the living Unity of all," and behind the development of experience there can only be "the connecting conserving acts of the one Supreme ". 2 Moreover Dr. Ward admits real contingency in the divine working, but it is the contingency "not of chance but of freedom". In his view the divine Unity which comprehends all is evidently not that of a system where all the elements are determined in relation to one another and to the whole. A view like the foregoing requires a good deal of explanation, and if it obviates certain diffi- culties, it also exposes itself to certain criticisms. In any case it would have been interesting and valuable to have had a more explicit statement on this point from so able a thinker. For it is just on this question of the relation of individuals which are real to the Absolute that opponents press home their arguments most strongly. Thus it is urged, " those who cling to the idea that there is an absolute 1 Appearance and Reality, p. 170. 2 Op. cit. vol. ii., pp. 280-281.