J. M. E. McTaggart

“ How can we account for the delusion that the world is partially irrational, if, as a matter of fact, it is completely rational? How, in particular, can we regard such a delusion as compatible with our own complete rationality? ”

“ The infinite end is really accomplished eternally. It is only a delusion on our part which makes us suppose otherwise. And the only real process is the removal of the delusion. The universe is eternally the same, and eternally perfect. The movement is only in our minds. They trace one after another in succession the different categories of the Logic, which in reality have no time order, but continually coexist as elements of the Absolute Idea which transcends and unites them. ”

“ But if we try to find the reason inside the nature of the eternal reality, we shall find it to be incompatible with the complete rationality which, according to Hegel’s theory, that reality must possess. For the process in time is, by the hypothesis, the root of all irrationality, and how can it spring from anything which is quite free of irrationality? Why should a concrete and perfect whole proceed to make itself imperfect, for the sake of gradually getting rid of the imperfection again? ”

“ In the first place, can there be really two independent powers in the universe? Surely not. As Mr. Bradley remarks (Appearance and Reality, p. 141) , “Plurality must contradict independence. If the beings are not in relation, they cannot be many; but if they are in relation they cease forthwith to be absolute. For, on the one hand, plurality has no meaning, unless the units are somehow taken together. If you abolish and remove all relations, there seems no sense left in which you can speak of plurality. But, on the other hand, relations destroy the real’s self-dependence. ”

“ The conclusion cannot be fairly drawn from the eternity of the dialectic process. For if we are entitled to hold the universe perfect, the same arguments lead us to consider it also timeless and changeless. Imperfection and progress then may claim to share whatever reality is to be allowed to time and change, and no conclusion can be drawn, such as Hegel appears at times inclined to suggest, against attempting to make the future an improvement on the past. ”

“ The dialectic itself teaches us that it is only the concrete whole which is completely rational, and that any abstraction from it, by the very fact that it is an abstraction, must be to some degree false and contradictory. An attempt to take reality, moment by moment, element by element, must make it appear imperfect. The complete rationality is only in the whole which transcends all these elements, and any one of them, considered as more or less independent, must be false. ”

“ To say that the world consists of reconciled contradictions would produce no difficulty, for it means nothing more than that it consists of things which appear contradictory when not thoroughly understood. But to say that a contradiction can exist as such would plunge us in utter confusion. All reasoning, Hegel’s as much as anybody else’s, rests on the law that two contradictory propositions cannot both be true. ”

“ As we do not know the entire universe in detail, it is quite impossible for us to refute this. But this will not remove the difficulty. We have two principles whose relations to one another are constant. Yet the facts around us, which are manifestations of these two principles, and of these two principles only, are constantly changing. If we are to take time and change as ultimate facts, such a contradiction seems insuperable. On the other hand, to deny the ultimate validity of time and change, commits us to the series of arguments, the failure of which first led us to doubt Hegel’s position. ”

“ Now the conclusion from the Hegelian dialectic was that whatever was real was rational. We are, therefore, compelled to assert that every thought, and every thinking being, are completely rational — can be explained in a way which gives entire rest and satisfaction to reason. But, it may be said, this is not -in the least interfered with by the fact that many real thoughts are defective symbols of the other reality which they profess to represent. The false can be real — indeed, must be — for a thought cannot misrepresent reality unless it is itself real. Till it is real it can do nothing. ”

“ And in so far as events in time are taken to be, as such, real, it must follow that reality does not appear rational. If an organic whole — and such we have taken the universe to be — is perfect, then any one of its parts, taken separately from the whole, cannot possibly be perfect. For in such a whole all the parts presuppose one another, and any one, taken by itself, must bear the traces of its isolation and incompleteness. And not only each event, but the whole universe taken as a series of events, would thus appear imperfect. ”

“ We must then refer the universe to two independent and opposed forces. Nor will it make any important difference if we make the second force to be, not irrationality, but some blind force not in itself hostile to reason. For in order to account for the thwarted rationality which meets us everywhere in the universe, we shall have to suppose that the result of the force is, as a fact, opposed to reason, even if opposition to reason is not its essential nature. ”

“ But it must be remembered that the rationality which Hegel requires of the universe is much more than complete determination under the category of cause and effect — a category which the dialectic maintains to be quite insufficient, unless transcended by a higher one. He requires, among other things, the validity of the idea of final cause. And if this is brought in, it is difficult to see how delusions can exist in a rational world. For a delusion involves a thwarted purpose. If a man makes a mistake, it means that he wishes to know the truth, and that he does not know it. ”

“ For every word and every action implies some theory of metaphysics. Every assertion or denial of fact — including the denial that there is any certain knowledge at all — asserts that something is certain. And to assert this, and yet to reject all ultimate explanations of the universe, is a contradiction at least as serious as any of those into which we were led by our attempt to explain away imperfection in obedience to the demands of Hegel’s system. ”

“ It is perhaps not impossible that our minds should form the conception of something on which other things depend, while it depends itself on nothing. But an event in time could never hold such a place. For an event in time has always before it a time when it was not, and this coming into existence deprives it of the possibility of being self-subsistent. ”

“ Is there any other method which might be more successful? Can the denial of the ultimate reality of time, which caused the difficulty, by rendering it necessary to take the dialectic as eternally realised, be made to cure the wound which it has itself made? ”

“ Indeed we often, in every-day life, and in science, do find the false to be more or less rational. It is as possible to account, psychologically, for the course of thought which brings out an erroneous conclusion as for the course of thought which brings out a correct one. We can explain our failures to arrive at the truth as well as our successes. It would seem then that there is nothing to prevent ourselves and our thoughts being part of a completely rational universe, although our thoughts are in some respects incorrect symbols. ”

“ We may, as I have tried to show, be sure that, if Hegel’s dialectic is true, then such a synthesis must be possible, because it is the only way of harmonising all the facts. At the same time, the fact that the dialectic cannot be true, unless some synthesis which we do not know, and whose nature we cannot even conceive, relieves it from an obstacle which would otherwise be fatal, certainly lessens the chance that it is true, even if no error in it has yet been discovered. For our only right to accept such an extreme hypothesis. ”

“ So far as a thing is timeless, it cannot change, for with change time comes necessarily. But how can a thing which does not change produce an effect in time? That the effect was produced in time implies that it had a beginning. And if the effect begins, while no beginning can be assigned to the cause, we are left to choose between two alternatives. Either there is something in the effect — that is, the quality of coming about as a change — which is altogether uncaused. Or the timeless reality is only a partial cause, and is determined to act by something which is not timeless. ”

“ If the irrational is absolutely unreal now, it can never become less real in the future. Thus our ascription of complete rationality to the universe leads us to a belief that one factor in experience, as it presents itself to us, is fundamentally and permanently irrational — a somewhat singular conclusion from such a premise.
To put the difficulty from a more practical point of view, either the imperfection in experience leaves a stain on perfection, or it does not. ”

“ If we accept the objections to taking finite time as part of our ultimate explanation, it can only be because we are bound to an infinite regress. An infinite regress involves infinite time. But infinite time is impossible — an unreal abstraction, based on the impossibility of limiting the regress in thought. Any argument which involves its real existence is thereby reduced to an absurdity. And since the objections to finite time as part of our ultimate explanation do involve its real existence, we may, it is asserted, safely ignore the objections and accept the principle. ”

“ If we endeavour to treat evil as absolutely unreal, we have to reject the one basis of all knowledge. But in so far as we accept it as a manifestation of reality, we find it impossible to avoid qualifying the cause by the nature of the effect which it produces, and so contradicting the main result of the dialectic — the harmony and perfection of the Absolute. ”

“ Categories are forms of thought which we apply to reality, and which have no meaning except as so applied. And all reality embodies, as it must do to be self-consistent and free from contradictions, the Absolute Idea, although in many cases when we experience reality much of this is only implicit. In all our consciousness, therefore, we have implicit the whole process and result of the dialectic, although in many cases only few categories are explicitly acknowledged to be valid. ”