Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/24

10 BERNARD BOSANQUET : absolutely found. The other in question can only be finite experience, and it is in and because of this, and qualified by it, that the Divine nature maintains its infinity. And there- fore it "may be said that the general form of self-sacrifice the fundamental logical structure of Reality is to be found here also, as it is everywhere. Not, of course, that the infinite Being can lose and regain its perfection, but that the burden of the finite is inherently a part or rather an in- strument of the self-completion of the infinite. The view is familiar. I only plead that it loses all point if it is not taken in bitter earnest. I have had much in mind Nettleship's fragment on the Atonement. I have used remorselessly phrases which imply time " activity," " going out of oneself," " seeking and finding ". The objection to predicating time of the supreme experience lies in the nature of self-completeness, and if on the one hand succession seems incompatible with this, on the other hand the idea of instantaneousness, which is a temporal idea, must not here be introduced to embarrass our thoughts. I must not dwell upon the matter at this last moment, but I think we must distinguish the conception of changing or progressing as a whole, from the conception of uniting, in a self-complete being, characteristics which for us demand succession. I may refer again to one of Nettleship's frag- ments, that on Immortality. If we were to be barred from ascribing content to the Supreme Being, because for us all content is developed in time, the end must be that for us the Supreme Being will be nothing. 7. Finally, the point of view is hostile to the form in which questions of optimism and pessimism are usually raised, as to the surplus of pleasure over pain in the universe. Even Mr. Bradley has discussed this question with reference to the Absolute, but I cannot help thinking that it is improperly stated. What we as factors of Reality demand is not, if I am right, essentially pleasure, but satisfaction ; that is, the sense that by help of the negative we have attained our- selves. This no doubt implies some pleasure ; but the point is, if I am not altogether wrong, that in satisfaction the pain or difficulty as a moment i.e., a phase which remains an element contributes actively to the positive attainment, while in comparing pleasure and pain as experienced facts of feeling I suppose they must retain their first positions as plus and minus quantities. This is one point, and another follows from it. The comparison of pleasure and pain in respect of quantity even if we disregard the difficulties pointed out in anti-Hedonist controversy betrays an in-