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342 F. C. S. SCHILLER : venture to assert with the utmost trepidation, and at the risk of being crushed, like the rest of Mr. Bradley's critics, by a sarcastic footnote to his next article, 1 that in putting forward his fundamental assumption that " ultimate Reality " is such that it does not contradict itself, and in erecting this into an absolute criterion, he builds in part on an unsound foundation which has not reached the bottom rock, in part on an airy pinnacle, a sort of what in Alpine parlance is called a gendarme, which will not bear the weight of the mountains of paradox which are subsequently heaped upon it. (1) By the first charge what I mean to convey is that the ultimateness of Mr. Bradley's absolute criterion has been taken for granted far too easily. But before adducing reasons for this contention, I must disavow every intention of im- pugning the validity of the Principle of Contradiction as such. I accept it fully and without reserve ; nay more, I use it every day of my life. But my intellectual conscience im- pels me to ask As what must I accept it? And in what sense ? To these questions Mr. Bradley's criterion of non- contradiction appears to supply no obvious answer. It is enunciated quite abstractly and it is not clear to me that, as stated, it has a sense adequate to bear the metaphysical structure put upon it, or indeed any sense at all. The meaning of Mr. Bradley's " absolute criterion " (as of everything else) must therefore be sought in its applications. But Mr. Bradley's applications seem to me to warrant the utmost suspicion, if not of the principle in the abstract, yet of the sense in which it is actually used. A principle which asserts itself alone contra mundum, and convicts the whole universe of self-contradiction may surely give pause to the most reckless. There is no need, therefore, to question the principle in the abstract : in the abstract it may mean any- thing or nothing. But in the particular way in which Mr. Bradley proceeds to use it, it is open to much exception, and I find myself unable to admit its claim to ultimateness, while it is obvious that Mr. Bradley has for once simply taken over his allegation from the classical (and intellectualist) tradition of Herbart and Hegel. I shall discuss however only the 1 Since this was written the anticipated footnote has actually arrived (see MIND, N.S., No. 46, p. 167). It is characteristic, but comparatively mild. Mr. Bradley merely desiderates in me " any serious attempt to- realise the meaning and result " of my doctrine. Unfortunately he abstains from enlightening me as to what he takes it to be. In re- ciprocating his compliment I might perhaps confess that at all events / feel quite clear about what might antecedently have seemed more difficult to grasp, viz., the meaning and result of his doctrine.