universe contains an element which cannot be rational: in other words that Thought finds itself confronted by an irrational "Other" (θάτερον). So that we seem thrown back on the Platonic dualism. And, if this argument be combined with the feeling which lurks even in the mind of the convinced idealist—that thought and things are not ultimately identical—does not this dualism seem to have good grounds?
It must be admitted that, unless thought had an other over against it, we never could call anything in our experience imperfect or evil—nay more, we could have no knowledge of the kind we now have. The problem of knowledge seems to leave us with this dilemma:—If thought has ultimately an alien something to confront it, there can be knowledge; but if thought merely thinks itself, there can be no knowledge. Of this dilemma I can see only one solution—and it is one which I know many persons will consider nonsensical—the metaphysical hypothesis that thought makes its own other, i.e. that the distinction falls within the identity. I have called this a metaphysical hypothesis, but I believe it to be much more, and to be the ultimate fact to which every avenue in philosophy leads. In Logic, abstract identity brings us to a deadlock: so would abstract difference. Identity cannot exclude difference, nor difference identity. In the evolution of the physical universe, the rationality of the process can only be manifested in the chaotic multiplicity and variability of nature. We cannot know anything except by thought getting its material from sensation and feeling. Good has no meaning to us save in reference to imperfection and evil. But all these distinctions fall within thought—in its widest sense. In theological language, God is both transcendent and immanent: nothing in the world is outside God and yet God is not simply the sum of particular existences. This idea of Thought realizing itself in nature, its own "other," in order to return into itself seems the only way out of the difficulties of these philosophical problems. If it is asked "Why should the Absolute be this self-differentiating unity?"[1] I cannot answer that question, because to explain
- ↑ I do not say "Why should the absolute differentiate itself?" because that might imply that the Absolute could be a unity without difference.
