ences this whole is at once their how and their why, their
being, substance, and system, their reason, ground, and
principle of diversity and unity” (id). Here, Mr. Bradley insists,
the Law of Contradiction “has nothing to condemn.” Such an
union or “identity of opposites” would not conflict with the
Law of Contradiction, but would rather fulfil the law. If
“all that we find were in the end such a self-evident and
complete whole,” the end of the intellect, and so of philosophy,
would have been won. But Mr. Bradley is (p. 569) “unable
to verify a solution of this kind.” Hence, as he says,
“Against my intellectual world the Law of Contradiction has
claims nowhere satisfied in full.” Therefore “they are met
in and by a whole beyond the mere intellect.” It is, however,
no “abstract identity” that thus satisfies the demands of the
intellect. “On the other hand, I cannot say that to me any
principle or principles of diversity in unity are self-evident.”
In consequence, while “self-existence and self-identity are to
be found,” they are to be looked for neither in “bare identity,”
nor in a relapse into a “stage before thinking begins,” but in
“a whole beyond thought, a whole to which thought points
and in which it is included.” Diversities exist. Therefore
(p. 570) “they must somehow be true and real.” “Hence,
they must be true and real in such a way that from A or B
the intellect can pass to its further qualification without an
external denomination of either. But this means that A and
B are united, each from its own nature, in a whole which is
the nature of both alike.” It is the failure of the intellect to
define this whole positively and in detail, which is expressed
in all the contradictions of the theory of appearance.
Section II. The One and the Many within the Realm of Thought or of Internal Meanings
So far, then, for a summary of Mr. Bradley’s general view regarding the mystery of unity in variety, and so much for the reasons which have led him, on the one hand, to maintain that real identity is never “simple,” or abstract, but involves
