6 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY 



this belief, rather than any particular tenets resulting from 

 it, that I regard as the distinguishing characteristic of the 

 classical tradition, and as hitherto the main obstacle to a 

 scientific attitude in philosophy. 



The nature of the philosophy embodied in the classical 

 tradition may be made clearer by taking a particular 

 exponent as an illustration. For this purpose, let us 

 consider for a moment the doctrines of Mr Bradley, who 

 is probably the most distinguished living representative 

 of this school. Mr Bradley's Appearance and Reality is a 

 book consisting of two parts, the first called Appearance^ 

 the second Reality. The first part examines and condemns 

 almost all that makes up our everyday world : things 

 and qualities, relations, space and time, change, causation, 

 activity, the self. All these, though in some sense facts 

 which qualify reality, are not^real as they appear. What 

 is real is one single, indivisible, timeless whole, called the 

 Absolute, which is in some sense spiritual, but does not 

 consist of souls, or of thought and will as we know them. 

 And all this is established by abstract logical reasoning 

 professing to find self-contradictions in the categories 

 condemned as mere appearance, and to leave no tenable 

 alternative to the kind of Absolute which is finally 

 affirmed to be real. 



One brief example may suffice to illustrate Mr Bradley's 

 method. The world appears to be full of many things 

 with various relations to each other right and left, 

 before and after, father and son, and so on. But rela- 

 tions, according to Mr Bradley, are found on examination 

 to be self-contradictory and therefore impossible. He 

 first argues that, if there are relations, there must be 

 qualities between which they hold. This part of his 

 argument need not detain us. He then proceeds : 



" But how the relation can stand to the qualities is, 



