76 THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS- 



He takes the dictum that " Reality is Experience " literally 

 and earnestly : he interprets experience as psychical exist- 

 ence, and psychical existence as thought, feeling, volition ; 

 he will spare no remnant of dualism, no division, no 

 difference, no distinction, no relation ; he will " overcome," 

 "surmount," "rise above" even the distinction of ideal 

 and real, although the thought, volition, and feeling with 

 which he began must contradict themselves, and disappear 

 in an Absolute which transmutes them, and defeats itself 

 in doing so. For if it transmutes them so as to leave the 

 difference standing, the object of the transmutation is lost, 

 and their hurt is not healed ; and if it transmutes them 

 so as not to leave their difference standing, it itself collapses 

 into nothingness. 



By his more stringent logic he makes it more evident 

 than even Dr. Ward has done that Idealism has yet its 

 greater task before it. Without abating its enthusiasm for 

 the ideal nature of reality, it must, somehow, do better 

 justice to the real aspect of ideality. It must restore the 

 differences it has sought to expunge. 



Let me illustrate my meaning. If we accept Mr. Brad- 

 ley's result, the only science that will ultimately remain is 

 the science of feeling, thought, and volition, that is, the 

 science of Psychology. Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, 

 Biology, and so on, must be shown to be not only incom- 

 plete, but false. They must be convicted not only of 

 omitting to consider the relation of their object to mind 

 which they do ; but of having no vocation left to them 

 once they admit that relation. For it is assumed that the 

 relation of object to object, namely, the relation of extern- 

 ality, ceases to exist when objects are known in their truth, 

 that is, in their relation to self-consciousness. 



