128 THE INTELLECTUALIST CRITERION 



the result. It is quite true, as Mr. Bradley says 

 (p. 153), that if a man sits down to play the meta 

 physical game, he must abide by the rules of think 

 ing; but if thinking be already, with respect to 

 reality, an idle and futile game, simply abiding 

 by the rules does not give additional value to its 

 stakes. Grant the premises as to the character 

 of thought, and the assertion of the final character 

 of the theoretical standard within metaphysics 

 since metaphysics is a form of theory is a warn 

 ing against metaphysics. If the intellect involves 

 self-contradiction, it is either impossible that it 

 should be satisfied, or else self-contradiction is its 

 satisfaction. 



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Let us, however, turn from Mr. Bradley s formal 

 proof that the criterion of philosophic truth must 

 be exclusively a canon of formal thought. Let 

 us ignore the contradiction involved in first making 

 the work of thought to be the producing of 

 appearance and then making the law of this 

 thought the law of an Absolute Reality. What 

 about the intellectualist criterion ? The intellectu- 

 alism of Mr. Bradley s philosophy is represented 

 in the statement that it is &quot; the theoretical stand 

 ard which guarantees that reality is a self-consist 

 ent system &quot; (p. 148). But how can the fact that 



