72 THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS- 



actual, or even possible." 1 ' ' Being and reality are, in brief, 

 one thing with sentience ; they can neither be opposed to, 

 nor even in the end, distinguished from it." 2 



I do not think that any comment or paraphrase of mine 

 could add either clearness or emphasis to Mr. Bradley's 

 language. I take it that he asks us to believe that time, 

 space, matter, spirit, sticks, stones, selves, human society, 

 any object whatsoever which we can feel, think, or will, is 

 itself just feeling, or thought, or volition, or some combi- 

 nation of them ; that the objects of consciousness are 

 themselves consciousness. Ordinarily, feelings are viewed 

 as the result of feeling ; thoughts as the products of think- 

 ing ; volitions as the consequences of willing. On Mr. 

 Bradley's view they are the ready-furnished material of 

 these operations ; and there are no operators save them- 

 selves. 



What proof does Mr. Bradley offer of a doctrine which 

 is apparently so incongruous with the opinion not only of 

 ordinary and scientific men, but of most philosophers ? It 

 consists in challenging us to produce or point out anything 

 besides feelings, thoughts, or volitions, or whatever else 

 constitutes psychical phenomena. ' ' Find any piece of 

 existence, take up anything that anyone could possibly call 

 a fact, or could in any sense assert to have being, and then 

 judge if it does not consist in sentient experience. Try 

 to discover any sense in which you can still continue to 

 speak of it, when all perception and feeling have been 

 removed." 3 



This argument is unanswerable, and yet it proves noth- 

 ing. The demand which Mr. Bradley makes is a self- 



1 Bradley's Appearance and Reality, p. 144^ 2 Ibid., p. 146. 



p. 145. 



