Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/160

146 F. H. BRADLEY : which are neither. But in this article it is not my object to pursue such inquiries. I shall take the theoretical and the practical relation of the self to the not-self as facts of ex- perience, and shall try to point out some aspects which are contained in both, attending specially of course to the practical side. Facts of experience the reader must under- stand to be experienced facts, and he must not include in these anything so far as remaining outside it appears in or acts on the experienced. If in this way we examine the practical relation of the self to its world, we at once discover the features which were set out in our definition. 1 There is an existing not-self together with the idea of its change, and there is my self felt as one with this idea and in opposition to existence. And there follows normally the realisation of the idea, and so of my self, in the actual change of the not-self ; and this process must arise from the idea itself. And the process, at least to some extent, must be experienced by my self. In volition, if I attempt to find less than all this, I find that volition has disappeared. And, taking this for granted, I will go on to consider the practical relation in its distinction from mere theory, and I will try to indicate that special sense in which the self is practically made one with the idea. (i.) The not-self, we have seen, is an existence, and this existence is for me. It comes before me or comes to me as a perceived other or as an object. Now in the practical relation it is important to observe that this ' other ' has two senses, and that only one of these senses is found in mere theory. It is in the sense common to theory and practice alike that I am going first of all to consider the object. The perceived object, we may say, on the one hand comes as something which is independently, and on the other hand it is felt as something which is for me. I am not attempting here, the reader will understand, to explain or to justify the apparent facts, but am endeavouring merely to describe them. The object is in a sense which is not applicable to the whole felt moment, for, while the object is felt, it is also experienced as other than the felt self. It is therefore for me as some- thing which is not myself. But to say that its relation to me is an object, or that my passivity towards it is an object, would certainly be false. How far these aspects may be- come objects at a later time and for reflexion, I do not here inquire; but at first and in their essence, while we J MiND, N.S., No. 44. The reader must also be referred here to the article on Conation in No. 40.