OF REALITY. 541 



completely real. 1 And again : 2 " The positive relation 

 of every appearance as an adjective to Eeality and 

 the presence of Eeality among its appearances in 

 different degrees and with diverse values this double 

 truth we have found to be the centre of philosophy. 

 . . . This conclusion the necessity on one side for a 

 standard, and the impossibility of reaching it without 

 a positive knowledge of the Absolute, I would ven- 

 ture to press upon any intelligent worshipper of the 

 Unknown." 



I have selected the last passage not only as containing 

 a summary of Mr Bradley's teaching, but also as forming 

 a fitting conclusion to this chapter which deals with the 

 problem of Eeality, and as an indication of the latest 

 phase into which this problem has entered at the end 

 of our period. We have certainly left far behind us 

 any confidence in the capacities of the human mind 

 permanently to solve this problem, a confidence which 

 characterised the preface to Hegel's ' Phenomenology,' 

 and we have lost quite as much the security which 

 characterised the appeal to common-sense and traditional 

 beliefs prevalent in the school of contemporary Scottish 

 philosophy at the beginning of the century. In fact 

 the problem of Eeality is at the moment more of a 

 problem than it ever has been : it has come to be 

 a world-problem. 



At the end of the century we can divide the foremost 

 thinkers into two classes according to the position they 

 take up to this problem. This position can be put quite 

 clearly by asking : Does an answer to the question, 



1 'Appearance and Reality,' p. 382. 2 Ibid., p. 551. 



