536 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



61. 

 Bradley's 

 opposition 

 to both 

 atomistic 

 and trans- 

 cendental 

 view of 

 Reality. 



I repudiate is the separatioH of feeling from the felt, or 

 of the desired from desire, or of what is thought from 

 thinking, or the division — I might add — of anything 

 from anything else." 



In this characteristic passage from Mr Bradley my 

 readers may possibly divine much of that v^rhich unites 

 him with — or separates him from — Lotze. But this is 

 hardly the object which I have in view in transcribing 

 it. What I desire to convey is the impression how com- 

 pletely English philosophical thought has, in this thinker, 

 overcome the atomistic view of reality on the one side 

 and the transcendental on the other. For it is here 

 clearly indicated that no analysis which starts, with 

 Hume, from separate ideas or, with Herbart and natural 

 philosophers, with independent Keals or separate atoms, 

 can satisfy onr conception of underlying reality. And, 

 on the other side, no noumenal " Thing in itself " — still 

 less, " Things in themselves " as opposed to their appear- 

 ance or phenomenal existence — can be considered to be a 

 fitting title for the Absolute. Mr Bradley objects to all 

 separation into independent detail, to all division of the 

 world into that which is Unreal and that which is truly 

 Eeal. He always looks to the whole, which is har- 

 monious, comprehensive, and individual, and which in 

 this its nature absorbs also that which is merely 

 apparent. 



There is indeed one great truth regarding reality 

 which Mr Bradley urges and defends in an original 

 manner. It is a truth which took greater hold of 

 thinkers as the century progressed. It indeed under- 

 lies or consciously governs nineteenth century thought 



