186 HUMANISM 



XI 



the abstract : in the abstract it may mean anything or 

 nothing. But in the particular way in which Mr. Bradley 

 proceeds to use it, it is open to much exception, and I 

 find myself unable to admit its claim to ultimateness, 

 while it is obvious that Mr. Bradley has for once simply 

 taken over his allegation from the classical (and intel- 

 lectualist) tradition of Herbart and Hegel. I shall 

 discuss however only the former point, as it is clear that 

 if the Principle of the impossibility of self-contradiction 

 in the Real can be shown not to be ultimate, it will 

 follow that Mr. Bradley was wrong in taking it to be such. 



My first question must be to inquire what shall be 

 held to constitute such self-contradiction as will render a 

 supposed reality amenable to the jurisdiction of the 

 absolute criterion ? Mr. Bradley appears to hold that 

 any quibble will suffice to bring an aspirant to reality 

 before the revolutionary tribunal of his incorruptible 

 philosophy, and that an unguarded phrase, such as 

 ordinary language can scarcely abstain from, is evidence 

 enough for ordering off to instant execution the wretched 

 appearance which had dared to simulate reality. But 

 surely justice should require some more decisive proof of 

 iniquity than the fact that something which claims to be 

 real can be formulated in what appear to be contradictory 

 terms ? For may it not be the contradiction rather than 

 the reality which is appearance ? Yet such apparent 

 contradiction is all that Mr. Bradley s negative dialectics 

 seem in the great majority of instances to prove. It is a 

 result which does not astonish me, but seems to be of 

 little value. In words everything can be made to look 

 contradictory, and Mr. Bradley has but completed the 

 work of Gorgias and Zeno, with his own peculiar brilliance 

 and incisiveness. But I do not see that this necessarily 

 proves more than that language has not yet been rendered 

 wholly adequate to the description of reality. 



And it ought not to be necessary to remind serious 

 thinkers that to dazzle the spectators by a display of 

 dialectical fireworks is not to explain the universe. The 

 most illusory of seeming realities is worthy, not merely of 



