OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 733 



there are two realities, the outer world and the inner 

 world ; if we absorb, as it were, tlie outer world in the 

 inner world, and make it a portion of our inner 

 experience ; we do not, in doing so, destroy the irremov- 

 able conviction that these two worlds present to us a 

 different sort of reality. For things in the outer world 

 are more obtrusive, those of the inner world perhaps 

 more important. The former are better defined, the 

 latter more identified with our individual interests ; 

 the former seem to have more tangible reality, the latter 

 more value. Thus, whilst getting rid of the opposition 

 of internal and external, we do not explain the difference 

 of greater and less reality or of appearance and reality. 



Almost simultaneously with the new psychology, of 

 which James Ward is the leading exponent in this 

 country, another thinker, starting from quite different 

 beginnings, took up the problem just referred to. 

 This is Mr F. H. Bradley, who, in his ' Appearance 

 and Eeality ' (1893), fixed the attention of British 

 thought upon a metaphysical question in a way which 

 no other thinker has done before or since. His object 

 was " to stimulate enquiry and doubt." This work 

 may be looked upon as a treatise of " First principles," 

 and is, as such, an introduction to the idealistic school 

 of thought in the same way as Herbert Spencer's 

 ' First Principles ' aimed at laying the foundations of 

 a consistent naturalistic system. The method adopted 

 by Mr Bradley, a peculiar kind of reflection, was 

 original in the history of British philosophy, but is 

 more or less familiar to students of Lotze in Germany, 

 who himself had adopted it under the influence 



