CURRENT TENDENCIES 7 



on the other side, unintelligible. If it is nothing to the 

 qualities, then they are not related at all ; and, if so, as 

 we saw, they have ceased to be qualities, and their relation 

 is a nonentity. But if it is to be something to them, 

 then clearly we shall require a new connecting relation. 

 For the relation hardly can be the mere adjective of one 

 or both of its terms ; or, at least, as such it seems 

 indefensible. And, being something itself, if it does not 

 itself bear a relation to the terms, in what intelligible way 

 will it succeed in being anything to them ? But here 

 again we are hurried off into the eddy of a hopeless 

 process, since we are forced to go on rinding new relations 

 without end. The links are united by a link, and this 

 bond of union is a link which also has two ends ; and 

 these require each a fresh link to connect them with 

 the old. The problem is to find how the relation can 

 stand to its qualities, and this problem is insoluble." l 



I do not propose to examine this argument in detail, 

 or to show the exact points where, in my opinion, it 

 is fallacious. I have quoted it only as an example of 

 method. Most people will admit, I think, that it is 

 calculated to produce bewilderment rather than convic- 

 tion, because there is more likelihood of error in a very 

 subtle, abstract, and difficult argument than in so patent 

 a fact as the interrelatedness of the things in the world. 

 To the early Greeks, to whom geometry was practically 

 the only known science, it was possible to follow reasoning 

 with assent even when it led to the strangest conclusions. 

 But to us, with our methods of experiment and observa- 

 tion, our knowledge of the long history of a priori errors 

 refuted by empirical science, it has become natural to 

 suspect a fallacy in any deduction of which the conclusion 

 appears to contradict patent facts. It is easy to carry 



1 Appearance and Reality, pp. 32-33. 



