vi METAPHYSICS OF TIME-PROCESS 99 



of the very characteristics of Reality that have been 

 excluded. 



The true reason, then, why Hegelism can give no 

 reason for the Time -process, i.e. for the fact that the 

 world is in time, and changes continuously, is that it was 

 constructed to give an account of the world irrespective 

 of Time and Change. If you insist on having a system 

 of eternal and immutable truth, you can get it only by 

 abstracting from those characteristics of Reality, which 

 we try to express by the terms individuality, time, and 

 change. But you must pay the price for a formula that 

 will enable you to make assertions that hold good far 

 beyond the limits of your experience. And part of the 

 price is that you will in the end be unable to give a 

 rational explanation of those very characteristics, which 

 had been dismissed at the outset as irrelevant to a 

 rational explanation. Thus the whole contradiction 

 arises from a desperate attempt to eat one s cake and 

 yet have it, to secure the eternal possession of absolute 

 truth and yet to profit by its development in time ! 

 Surely this is not a fitting occasion for invoking that 

 supreme faculty of Faith to which philosophy, perhaps 

 as much as theology, must ultimately appeal ! 



If these considerations are valid, the idea of accounting 

 for the time -process of the world on any system of 

 abstract metaphysics is a conceptual jugglery foredoomed 

 to failure, and must be declared mistaken in principle. 

 But there remain two questions of great importance : 

 (i) Do such systems of abstract metaphysics lose all 

 value ? (2) Is there any other way of manipulating the 

 time-process so as to fit it into a coherent systematic 

 account of the world ? 



In answering the first question it will be necessary to 

 supplement the negative criticism of the claims of abstract 

 metaphysics by tracing the consequences of their utter 

 rejection. I have so far contended that no abstract 

 metaphysic could say the last word about the world, on 

 the ground that it was ex vi definitionis forced to reject 

 some of the chief characteristics of that world. But if it 



