THE INTELLECTUALIST CRITERION 125 



upon and made explicit, our axiom and our in 

 tellectual standard &quot; (p. 152 ; italics mine). 



The retort is obvious: if the intellectual cri 

 terion, the principle of non-contradiction on which 

 his whole Absolute Reality rests, is itself a prac 

 tical principle, then surely the ultimate criterion 

 for regulating intellectual undertakings is prac 

 tical. To this obvious answer Mr. Bradley makes 

 reply as follows : &quot; You may call the intellect, if 

 you like, a mere tendency to a movement, but you 

 must remember that it is a movement of a very 

 special kind. . . . Thinking is the attempt 

 to satisfy a special impulse, and the attempt im 

 plies an assumption about reality. . . . But 

 why, it may be objected, is this assumption better 

 than what holds for practice? Why is the theo 

 retical to be superior to the practical end ? I have 

 never said that this is so, only here, that is, in meta 

 physics, I must be allowed to reply, we are acting 

 theoretically. . . . The theoretical standard 

 within theory must surely be absolute &quot; (p. 153. 

 The italics again are mine; compare with the quo 

 tation this, from p. 485 : &quot; Our attitude, however, 

 in metaphysics must be theoretical.&quot; So, also, p. 

 154, &quot; Since metaphysics is mere theory and since 

 theory from its nature must be made by the intel 

 lect, it is here the intellect alone which is to be 

 satisfied &quot;). 



Grant that intellect is a special movement or 



