234 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



We suspect that pure experience, like a good many other 

 philosophical 'realities/ is an arbitrary construct, devised to stop 

 up the loop-holes of a theory. It is everything and nothing at 

 once ; and as it cannot be brought into evidence who shall say its 

 author nay? It is as like observed sensations as you please; 

 and why not, since they contain the largest proportion of it? 

 And it is as unlike them as you please; and why not, since, 

 after all, they are mere 1 y conceptualized products? It is "not 

 yet any definite what" perhaps because to be definite is to be 

 brought under a concept ; but it is "ready to be all sorts of whats," 

 for if reality were not what would be? It is "full both of oneness 

 and manyness," to the eternal confusion of all rationalistic dia- 

 lectic; but the "respects" in which it is one and many "don't 

 appear." It is "changing throughout," so that change is as 

 little mysterious as the one and the many; but it changes "so 

 confusedly that its phases interpenetrate and no points, either 

 of distinction or of identity, can be caught." 1 This is all very con- 

 venient, but hardly convincing. Mr. James does not like historical 

 parallels; but we cannot help thinking of the much abused sub- 

 stance of Spinoza, which while being one and indivisible contains 

 an endless multiplicity, and while incapable of change or of the 

 emotional perception of change, loves itself with an infinite intel- 

 lectual love. 



I 0p. cit., p. 348. 



